Google Has a New Logo!

And New Zealand is getting a new flag.

Google. Always fixing what isn't broken and making it worse.

Take Maps for instance. Worked great before. Until they updated it, slowed it down and made it stupid. They give you the option to revert to old maps, but before they'll take you there, they want to know WHY you're reverting to the old maps. Because the new maps sucks and slows everything down and is stupid?

Maybe I'm not the guy to ask, since I use XP Pro at home (and Photoshop 7). Why? Because they work just fine.

Lately, I can't access the templates of some of my blogs hosted on Google's Blogger platform because...well...because THEY UPDATED IT AND NOW IT DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE.

"Refresh the page," they tell me. Good god, man! Is that your solution? "Turn it off and turn it back on again," is what techs tell end-users when they don't want to figure it out.

Here, Google: I refreshed. And I get a whole new error code every time! You guys are starting to suck.

You know, Google, I've been loyal to your stuff from WAY back, but I might be about done.

I'm Going to Blog Again...Again

I kinda don't care if anyone notices. I don't need the attention.

But I need to write.

I write for a living, but what I write is often watered down by the time it makes it out into the world, diluted by people who think they know what the market will respond to. So I spend a lot of time copying and pasting things that have already been watered down.

That's fine. Sometimes, it's not art.

I may migrate this blog over to Random Scratch, once the Google Blogger team fixes whatever is ailing my new template.

In the past, this place was advertising-industry-focused. There will probably be a lot of that again, as I both work in advertising and am a student of the....I can't say "craft," can I? In the sense that it is a dark art, maybe I can say "craft." After all, we're all about tricking, deception, sleight of hand, misdirection, and often lying with the help of an asterisk. Fine...craft.

I'm off to practice my craft.

 

Let's Ask Google About Google+

Long-time fan of the Goog, my search engine of choice since the late 90s. They build some cool things and some fun toys.

Take Blogger for instance. Works great, lasts a long time. Here for me after a long absence, somewhat refined since the last time I used it, but still pretty intuitive and easy to handle. I also love iGoogle, the homepage that contains my reader, weather, email and other gadgetry. They're killing that fine service in November. 

Google+? It's not going to happen. It serves a small, devoted few, and apparently well, if you listen to them. For everyone else, it is a cumbersome and confusing failure.

Am I blogging again? Guess so.

Randomly Scratching Away

As I mentioned when I started to write this book, blogging might take a back seat. I thought I would write about 80,000 words, but I just passed 82K and the story isn't over yet. I have one final climactic scene to finish and then the wind down. Probably come in just shy of 100K when it's done. So, that's why I have been a negligent blogger lately.

If anyone knows a literary agent or is in the publishing world, here's a synopsis:

A newcomer to town, a stranger living in an Airstream at the local campground, visits a megachurch in America’s Midwest. His arrival portends the rapid meltdown of a prominent and fast-growing ministry under the leadership of Dan Jackson, the gifted pastor of Oak Canyon Church. Beginning with the murder/suicide of the music minister at the weekly staff meeting by her naked and disturbed husband, the church’s slide has only started, an empire falling.

When you’re the biggest and the boldest, the loudest and the proudest, people want to take you down.

“Why do they love to see us fall?” Dan asked God.

“Because you set yourself up so high,” he replied.

The church as a business, a military operation, a fortress under siege. A picture of America. An American parallel.

Let's see if there's anything to this social media stuff I keep hearing about.

The main character has a Twitter account, which he uses periodically in the book. Starting in July, when the book takes place, he will be tweeting the book in real time.

And the website is here.

Should be back to a normal, non-obsessed blogger soon.

Been A Lame Blogger Lately

I started writing a book on Sunday, and I'm trying to keep up a pace of about 2,000 words a day. I hope to be done in a month or so. In the meantime, blogging may take a backseat. I'll still be posting, though not likely with the frequency at which I'm used to. I have no idea where the book is going, which is half the fun and half the challenge. But I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

I got to thinking about how much I blog, and while I enjoy it a great deal, it all just goes away. "Ephemera," as my friends at Public School Intelligentsia call it. So I decided to write something that might last a little longer; longer than some old blog post that gets buried in the archives, to be pulled up at random when someone searches for Land O Lakes Butter Trick or Amtrak Sucks, two of my most trafficked posts here. Longer-lasting also than the throwaway ads, brochures or web copy I write for a living.I've always advised creatives to keep something on the side that no one has a say in. Paint, write, take pictures, draw, sculpt or play music. If all your creativity is spent working for your clients, you can learn to hate your gifts. That's why I started blogging. Now I'm going to take my own advice a little further. The best part about writing this book (aside from the freedom to create with no other goal than to entertain) is that there's no one telling me it's wrong or that the call to action isn't strong enough.

So, if anyone comes across this post by accident, likes my writing style and is also a literary agent (or knows one) hit me up and we'll talk about my forthcoming novel. It has very little to do with advertising and marketing, though they play minor roles. It is rated R for occasional adult language, sparse graphic violence and a little nudity. It's a good story. The first of many. (And yes, I got ahead of myself and created the jacket image above.)

Eventually, I want to live on an island like Graham Greene and write a mere 350 words a day after I've gone swimming in the Mediterranean and drank a few cocktails. Then I'll look them over in the evening, edit them a little before dinner and then go to a show. When my publisher calls once a week, I'll say, "You need to stop pressuring me, man. This shit doesn't write itself, you know. And I'm almost out of Elijah Craig, so why don't you get on that and gimme a break. And by the way, I want a clause in the next contract stating that under no circumstances will Keanu Reeves play a character from any of my books if they are optioned for film."

And no, my name is not Jack, but my middle name is John, and I understand that Jack is often a nickname for John, (though that never made sense to me) so that's my pen name this time around.

The Internet Gods are Trying to Tell Me Something

And by Internet Gods, I mean, of course, The Overlords of Mountain View, who of late have been making the word verifications on Blogger pronounceable non-words that would make ideal names for useless apps and social media widgets.

Message received, Google Masters. Sciono^TM. Dot com.

The Internet Makes People Think They're More Important Than They Are

It gets bigger

Title and accompanying pop-up inspired by zoneviii's Twitter feed.

Geeky Blogger Minutiae

If you use Google's Blogger service, you may have noticed that your favicon has been replaced by the Blogger orange "B" icon in the address bar.


To get your icon back, just take the code that points to your favicon (in my case, the image is hosted at photobucket) and move it down under the close of the script tag
and it will be returned to the way you like it.

Blogging In CubeWorld™

New OS installed overnight. Everything shiny and new. Firefox not a priority to the Web Blocking Police of IT. Blog window of opportunity may shut at any moment. If I lose contact, send MREs, cigarettes and whiskey. Jetpacks out.

Not Another Dead Ad Blog!

One of my favorite (in this case: favourite) ad bloggers, Fish & Chimps, has apparently called it quits. I'm hoping he goes the Copyranter route and rises from the grave.

Said the author behind UK-based Chimp Media Monitoring,

Advertising's not funny any more. Or I've had a cooliostomy and lost my sense of humour. My mojo has gone. Don't get upset. It's only a fucking blog. Out.

Not so fast, Chimp. You need this space. It needs you. Cooliostomy? C'mon! Who comes up with that kinda stuff?

Image stolen from Dead Monkey Theatre.

I'm a Bad Blogger

Apologies to my blogging buds, whom I've neglected by not commenting on their blogs regularly as I used to. Reason is the Evil Corporate Masters, who prevent me from seeing anything with the suffix of .blogspot, .typepad or .wordpress. I can see you in my reader and always read your stuff, but that's it. Unless I get to you at home after work or on the weekends, I'm a negligent blogger.

Apologies to AdRants, AdScam, Agency Tart, American Copywriter, Catch Up Lady, Brand DNA, Chimp Media Monitoring, Copyranter, Every Sandwich, Hespos, Heybeus, Life in the Garden, Married to the Sea, Make The Logo Bigger, Mental Hygiene, MultiCult Classics, New York Punk, RayTube, Renegade Agency Confessional, Scamp, Texan in Hippieland, The AdHole, The Daily (Ad) Biz, The Assimilated Negro, Thinking in Vain, Toadstool, Why Advertising Sucks, Yes But No But Yes, Yonder Ponder.

Some of you have also been very negligent, not posting to your own blogs in months. Blogging is tough work, I know, but if you remain dormant, I've got to pull you from the "Linkers and Lurkers" list and replace you with something new. No offense, but if you've quit, I'm not keeping you around out of respect for your blog's memory. Not that I don't respect your blog's memory...but you know what I mean.

On the plus side, Evil Corporate Masters today announced a permanent switch from Business Casual to Totally Casual all the time, not just on Fridays. So maybe not so Evil after all.

ISSKT - from Denmark

Hey, Typepad. I have excellent vision, but you're hurting my eyes with your comment verification puzzles. Like the 4th character here. Is it a "g," or a "9?"





I always get them wrong and then they give me an easier one.

Blogger's word verification jumbles are much easier, and sometimes they can even be pronounced, like this one.





Isskt. (Pronounced like "biscuit" without the "b.") Sounds like a new widget for bloggers, or maybe a photo and video sharing site. I just checked at GoDaddy and isskt.com is available. Somebody grab it quick! Do you know how hard it is to find available 5-letter domains with a .com suffix? Why do you think so many of the new media emerging companies have such silly, made-up names? Hell, that image above could even be your logo. Just add the word "beta" to the bottom, throw on some Web 2.0ish shiny sheen and maybe make the second "s" face the other "s" backwards, like two snakes kissing.

Pretend you're from a Scandinavian country when you launch the thing and the bloggerati/technorati will love you and jump on board. You'll be all the rage for a month and then Google will buy you.