Ontario Empoblog

The Ontario Empoblog is shutting down, at least temporarily. In fact I'm ceasing activity on all of my existing Blogger blogs, and redirecting people to mrontemp , my new Blogger blog. One of the reasons for this is a change in style. My blog posts (in this blog especially) have become long posts that morph from one subject to another in a non-toadlike wild ride of whatevers. As you can see from my first few posts in mrontemp, I'm trying a more succinct style. We'll see how it goes. Catch you at mrontemp . Favorite U.S. president - Third favorite Finnish figure skater

mrontemp stands for Mister Ontario Emperor, natch. Favorite U.S. president - Third favorite Finnish figure skater

It was over a month ago that I wrote about the Miss Club Paris USA contest, which was coming soon. Real Soon Now , I guess. You'll recall that Paris Hilton reached an agreement with Fred Khalilian to promote Club Paris in Orlando and Jacksonville , but wasn't all that committed to the promoting duties. So Khalilian dumped Hilton, and announced a contest to name someone as Miss Club Paris USA. Supposedly a network deal was in the works, and all sorts of wonderful things were going to happen. As far as I can tell, nothing has happened yet. I guess Fox isn't ready to pull 24 off its schedule to insert "The Replacement." Meanwhile, another beauty contest has kicked off : Meet Miss Atomic Bomb 1957! Why should nuclear bombs have spokespersons and not Hoax Devices ? We'd like to keep the tradition alive and present to the world MISS HOAX DEVICE 2007 . Please submit casting applications to us at: hoaxdevices@gmail.com With subject: MISS HOAX DEVICE 2007 APPLICA

With a brief nod to Cartoon Network and Peter Berdovsky , Sean Carton of idfive has published his list of five rules of viral marketing (or guerilla marketing ). Here is the expurgated version : If you want to generate word-of-mouth, don't try to be hip. Destruction of property or intruding into people's comfort zones will only backfire. You can't fake authenticity. Know your audience. Love your customers. Carton cites a number of examples in his article , but it may be fun to apply the general concepts to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force promotion. Once you do, you run into the "this promotion has multiple audiences " problem. By their positioning, the electronic devices could be seen by Adult Swim fans...and they could be seen by Thomas Menino . This is not good. Not necessarily that you can only advertise in places where Adult Swim fans will congregate, but just bear in mind that the vast majority of people on your average street corner won't know Adult Sw

Radio station KLAC played a commercial for Dinovite . This product claims to do wonderful things for dogs: I'm Ed Lukacevic, developer, manufacturer and distributer of Dinovite® Dog Supplement. Let me explain a little about why I developed this all natural dog supplement and what it can do to help make your dog the healthy, happy canine he was meant to be!... Over the years, while raising and training my own dogs on our farm in Kentucky, I struggled to keep them in top-notch condition. Like you, I've seen dogs plagued with bad skin, allergies and other canine maladies. I tried almost everything on the market and spent tons of money on the vet with no real results. It became clear to me that many dog health problems have their root in some sort of nutrient deficiency. Unfortunately, even with the best dog food, dog nutritional requirements are usually not being met.... Considering my history with dogs and other animals, finding a solution to these dog health problems was a nat

Ran across this quote while reading a review of the Douglas Brinkley book on Gerald Ford : Ford — nearly 90 when Brinkley interviewed him — was still smarting over Reagan having challenged him for the Republican nomination in 1976, saying it was "a low-down stunt" that "really burned the hell out of me." Had Reagan earnestly campaigned for the incumbent instead of giving him a lukewarm endorsement after losing the GOP nomination, Ford said he could have beaten Carter .... Carter and Ford developed a warm working relationship that Brinkley describes in some detail. (Carter also has harbored bitter feelings toward Reagan, whose administration broke with the custom of giving national security briefings to former presidents. Several years after losing his 1980 bid for a second term, Carter told me, "I don't know who hates him more, me or Jerry Ford.") Favorite U.S. president - Third favorite Finnish figure skater

Haven't had a chance to write about these, but here are some other del.icio.us tags that I've recently created: global+warming ice+age interglacial+period ozone+layer urban+heat+island+effect And it all started here : Would New Orleans and the nearby Gulf Coast [had suffered] so terribly...if President Carter beat back Reagan in 1980? I am wondering if those voters in Louisiana and Mississippi who helped polluter-allied Reagan win in 1980 would have found themselves fated differently under a second Carter term. If Carter came in, we could have had an alternative fuels program and tighter auto emission standards in effect by now. Sparked by his prodding, we might have had decades of global warming controls in place. Whose to say if those steps might not have rendered the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf even 1/100th of a degree cooler than they are now?... Since hurricanes need warm water to feed, what if that temperature difference- however slight- might have caused Katrina

I previously raised the question about whether Interference Inc. was prompt in letting the authorities know that the so-called bombs in Boston weren't bombs. Now a new question has been raised - was Peter Berdovsky prompt in letting Interference Inc. know that the guerilla marketing campaign had gone sour? And should he have informed the on-scene officers that there was nothing to worry about? The issue was raised because Berdovsky videotaped police at a (supposed) bomb site. This is what the Associated Press said : One of the men criminally charged after placing blinking cartoon advertisements around the city videotaped a police bomb squad removing one of the electronic devices, but did not tell the officers the object was harmless. Surveillance cameras caught 27-year-old Peter Berdovsky videotaping officers removing what they thought was a possible bomb. But Walter Prince , Berdovsky's new layer (replacing semi-guardian Michael Rich ), puts a different spin on the whol

[TALK ABOUT CLINTONESQUE. I MANAGED TO MISSPELL THE WORD "IS" IN THE LAST PARAGRAPH. OOPS.] Followup . Take a gander at this sentence, which appeared in an Ambos Medios ad for Hippie Chick Twang : This is a guerilla marketing organization that works outside the box to creatively get the message out about books, art, and music to the industry and the consumer market where their work will be loved! If the ad had only mentioned empowerment of the individual, it would have been a perfect example of New Thinking and the End of Corporate Domination. It would inspire you to use this guerilla marketing organization, in which response is fast, hierarchies are non-existent, and - Wait a minute. While guerilla marketing organizations have the veneer of New Whatevers, the January 31 (never forget) episode in Boston reveals that there are definite hierarchies in the guerilla marketing world. Let's start at the top of well-known guerilla marketer Interference Inc. with Sam Ewen .

Guess who said the following? I have always believed the purpose of government is to help improve people's lives, and I'm thrilled about leading Boston forward in the years to come. I'm equally dedicated to utilizing the latest technology to create helpful resources that benefit Bostonians. Turns out it was Thomas Menino , Mayor of the City of Boston , Massachusetts. Let's see what else Menino said : 1/31/2007 - Released by Mayor's Office Statement on Today’s Suspicious Packages First, I want to congratulate the Boston Police Department and all the public safety agencies for responding in a coordinated effort today. As most of you know, there were reports of nine suspicious packages found throughout the city and area earlier today. At this time there is no reason to be alarmed. In fact, a few hours later, it would have been good if Menino had noted that this was a non-issue. He didn't. These devices have all been secured and are under investigation to see if t

So the officials in Boston hate Peter Berdovsky (a/k/a Zebbler ) and want to throw him in the slammer. One would think that this is the worst thing that ever happened to Berdovsky in his life. It isn't : A native of Belarus , [Berdovsky] was finishing up the academic year as an exchange student at Arlington High School when he approached a fellow classmate about a growing concern. “I had been reading articles on the brutality and increasing dictatorial behavior in Belarus,” he said. “Tears came to my eyes, and I had a choice … to live my life or stay subdued. I had already been detained for political activity, and I felt a lot freer here.” Before his visit to Arlington, his democratic beliefs landed him against a wall, staring at the wrong end of a soldier’s gun. “A swat team came out of nowhere as my friends and I were leaving a local coffee shop,” he said. “They jumped out of their Jeeps, lined us up against the wall while reloading their automatic weapons pointed to our heads