And Crown Thy Good With Brotherhood

Here in Central Florida, we get people from everywhere. They come on vacation to see the Mouse, and they say, "Nice weather. We should live here." When they arrive, they never quite let go of the places they came from. New Yorkers will tell you all day long what a shithole Florida is while extolling the virtues of Brooklyn or Queens. Puerto Ricans, Britons and Russians display their national flags on their cars. On my street during college football season, I can find the flags of Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State and Boston College flying on porches. At the local park on any given weekend, I can watch a Dominican soccer team play a bunch of pink-faced Germans in a friendly match of national pride. Even in that loose, pick-up, amateur league, you will find the players shaking hands at game's end.

This is a transient area, a microcosm of the Great Melting Pot, where every color, country and 49 others states are represented in a simmering stew. And just like every other area that boasts a Chinatown or a Little Italy or a Spanish Harlem, we manage to get along. We're Americans first, but we're not about to let go of the places we truly think of as "home."

That said, this is my 619th blog post. 619 is an area code in San Diego. Go Chargers.

Attention United Kingdom Visitors to Mickey Mouse

I was just up at the Orlando Sanford International Airport, where many UKers (who are easily identifiable by their footwear) seem a bit perplexed that they've flown into an airport that's still a good 50 miles and an hour away from the "wonderful attractions of the Central Florida region."

Naming this airport the Orlando Sanford International Airport is what they refer to in the travel and tourism industries as "a bald-faced lie designed to create traffic at a second-rate airport in a struggling suburb."

Use the other airport. Much easier. Then again, if crumbling rural sites, long rental car journeys and toll roads are part of your vacation plans, go wild.

Orlando: Where the Unimaginative Set up Shop

Those trusty Windy City ad bloggers at AdFreak took note of my locale's lame attempts at driving tourism. Let's start with the "magical" city logo. Looks like something from a stage set for a 1970s Tony Orlando and Dawn (TOAD) variety show. Neon. Beveled. With stars! Neat-o! Someone please take the pirated Photoshop off that computer. Or was that the freeware "Disney-Starry" font?

But the real kicker is the city slogan the Orlando Travel and Vistors Bureau just decided on. Get ready....here it is...“Orlando: Built for families. Made for memories.”

Arrrgh. So I sent them a too late note this morning, basically offering them free use of a much better slogan. They replied promptly with this:

Thank you for your interest in the Orlando area. Sorry we are unable to accept any advertising slogans or marketing concepts from outside companies or individuals. We are under contract with an advertising agency that manages our marketing campaigns and slogans.

Seems to me the agency is getting the better deal with that contract. "We can give them anything and they have to use it."

Contracts like that one were made to be broken, and don't give me that "unable to accept any advertising slogans or marketing concepts from outside companies or individuals" crap when I know your agency was behind this free and ill-advised study.

Everyone's an advertiser.