Corrections, Retractions...
An anonymous reader with an uncanny sense of how to write out derisive laughter on the Internet so it really hits home sent this comment in regards to my guerilla theatre action:
hahahahahaha, you even got the cell company wrong. it was US Cellular!
Thanks for that. Actually, I noticed my mistake a couple of days ago when I read the CTA Tattler's post on the whole phenomenon. I briefly considered editing my post for accuracy, but ultimately decided to leave it for two reasons. The first is that the quote I provided from the CTA Tattler accurately identified the cellphone company in question for me. The second reason is that I didn't really care which giant corporation was paying people to annoy me on my ride into work, just that a giant corporation was paying people to annoy me on my ride into work.
But I'd like to point out that my inability to recognize that it was U.S. Cellular on the train doesn't really demonstrate any failing on my part. It seems to me the whole purpose of advertising is to get people to easily recognize your company's product over that of your competitors and to make them think "Hmmm...I sure would like to find out more about that product." Which this "ad" failed to do on both counts. That's not my fault. That's U.S. Cellular's fault.
I send my apologies to Cingular Wireless. If any of the top brass who read my blog over at corporate headquarters felt slandered, please let me know and I will send you a cookie in recompense. And to my secretive commenter, thank you. If I were an actual reporter of some kind, that mistake would have been disastrous to my career. You are my hero, as I can only assume you are the hero to the many blogs you patrol for mistakes.
"Who was that snide masked man?"
"We may never know, son..."
Friday, October 28, 2005
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
A Few Things Neither Here Nor There
Ian sent me this today:
Power to the people.
After informing CTA brass about U.S. Cellular's annoying and ultimately illegal guerrilla marketing campaign on CTA trains and other property, the CTA "spoke with a US Cellular representative today and also with someone from the ad agency to let them know that we don't allow this type of solicitation. The US Cellular rep said they would stop immediately. "
Which is good news on the not-letting-corporations-advertise-intrusively front, but is bad news on the army-of-people-in-cat-eye-glasses front. I had so been looking forward to my army. Still, it's good to know CTA responds to people when they call and complain. We should have thought of that a while ago:
"Hi, CTA?"
"Yes?"
"Stop righteously sucking."
"Oh! Sorry...we'll get on that."
"Thanks."
But the guerilla theatre keeps flying forward, surprisingly for a project I had more or less abandoned back in September (abandoned isn't the right word for it...we just ended our run). Yesterday while at "The Monday Show", my friend Chris introduced me to the man in charge of the Halloween parade and festivities on Halsted street. We talked briefly about guerilla theatre action (which it turns out is how he originally became the man in charge of the Halloween parade and festivites on Halsted street...by ganking control through guerilla action) and about his plans for this year's parade. And then he invited me to take part and perform something guerilla of my own. So I guess I'm going to be in a parade.
I have a few ideas of what to do based on what he told me about their theme this year, but nothing set in stone. Nothing definite. Mostly, it depends on who I can get to participate with us. But oh...it's gonna be fun.
Power to the people.
After informing CTA brass about U.S. Cellular's annoying and ultimately illegal guerrilla marketing campaign on CTA trains and other property, the CTA "spoke with a US Cellular representative today and also with someone from the ad agency to let them know that we don't allow this type of solicitation. The US Cellular rep said they would stop immediately. "
Which is good news on the not-letting-corporations-advertise-intrusively front, but is bad news on the army-of-people-in-cat-eye-glasses front. I had so been looking forward to my army. Still, it's good to know CTA responds to people when they call and complain. We should have thought of that a while ago:
"Hi, CTA?"
"Yes?"
"Stop righteously sucking."
"Oh! Sorry...we'll get on that."
"Thanks."
But the guerilla theatre keeps flying forward, surprisingly for a project I had more or less abandoned back in September (abandoned isn't the right word for it...we just ended our run). Yesterday while at "The Monday Show", my friend Chris introduced me to the man in charge of the Halloween parade and festivities on Halsted street. We talked briefly about guerilla theatre action (which it turns out is how he originally became the man in charge of the Halloween parade and festivites on Halsted street...by ganking control through guerilla action) and about his plans for this year's parade. And then he invited me to take part and perform something guerilla of my own. So I guess I'm going to be in a parade.
I have a few ideas of what to do based on what he told me about their theme this year, but nothing set in stone. Nothing definite. Mostly, it depends on who I can get to participate with us. But oh...it's gonna be fun.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Guerilla Me
A story:
It started on Wednesday on my ride to work. A pair of guys with their faces painted blue got on the train talking loudly on their cellphones. At first, I thought it had something to do with the White Sox making it to the World Series, that these were some rabid fans who decided to paint themselves blue for some silly reason. Then I thought they were with Blue Man Group or some kind of performance art piece. I thought all of that until the guy standing in front of me said, "Oooooh...they're selling something for Cingular Wireless."
He was right. Their shirts said it, their bags said it. Logos on all of them and signs attached to their bags that said "Talk Until You're Blue in the Face." They were part of a "creative" advertising campaign for a Cingular Wireless calling plan. They left a stop later, and I spent the rest of the ride cursing them, if for no other reason than because they had ganked the basic form of the Pizza Box project to hock cellphone plans.
Yesterday it happened again and I decided to do something about it. I decided that the next time I saw them, I was going to yank the phone out of their hands and smash it on the ground. Or wait a stop and run off the train with it.
Then I decided, instead, to do something that wouldn't get me arrested. I decided to Pizza Box the advertisers.
Today, I met Joanna at the Fullerton stop before work. We pinned signs on our bags that said "Invasive Ads Make Me See Red" and kept them hidden until one of the blue-faced Cingular guys got on the train. Then she and I turned our bags around and put on red-framed glasses. I was wearing a red shirt. And we stood next to the guy with our signs facing the rest of the train and talked loudly on our cellphones about how much we hated invasive advertising and why.
It wasn't quite the army of guerilla theatre I had hoped for (I really hoped we could have guerillas in every car of the train, and I really hoped there would be more of the blue-faced guys today), but it was very effective. The best response was from the guy himself, who leaned over and said "bravo" just as he left the car.
If the ad campaign continues, I'm going to keep doing this and provide a PDF of the sign we used to anyone who wants to lay in wait for them for as long as they keep this up. If I have my way, the trains will be full of people ready to take out their cat-eye red glasses and let the rest of the car know how shitty invasive advertising is. Until Cingular pulls the ad.
It started on Wednesday on my ride to work. A pair of guys with their faces painted blue got on the train talking loudly on their cellphones. At first, I thought it had something to do with the White Sox making it to the World Series, that these were some rabid fans who decided to paint themselves blue for some silly reason. Then I thought they were with Blue Man Group or some kind of performance art piece. I thought all of that until the guy standing in front of me said, "Oooooh...they're selling something for Cingular Wireless."
He was right. Their shirts said it, their bags said it. Logos on all of them and signs attached to their bags that said "Talk Until You're Blue in the Face." They were part of a "creative" advertising campaign for a Cingular Wireless calling plan. They left a stop later, and I spent the rest of the ride cursing them, if for no other reason than because they had ganked the basic form of the Pizza Box project to hock cellphone plans.
Yesterday it happened again and I decided to do something about it. I decided that the next time I saw them, I was going to yank the phone out of their hands and smash it on the ground. Or wait a stop and run off the train with it.
Then I decided, instead, to do something that wouldn't get me arrested. I decided to Pizza Box the advertisers.
Today, I met Joanna at the Fullerton stop before work. We pinned signs on our bags that said "Invasive Ads Make Me See Red" and kept them hidden until one of the blue-faced Cingular guys got on the train. Then she and I turned our bags around and put on red-framed glasses. I was wearing a red shirt. And we stood next to the guy with our signs facing the rest of the train and talked loudly on our cellphones about how much we hated invasive advertising and why.
It wasn't quite the army of guerilla theatre I had hoped for (I really hoped we could have guerillas in every car of the train, and I really hoped there would be more of the blue-faced guys today), but it was very effective. The best response was from the guy himself, who leaned over and said "bravo" just as he left the car.
If the ad campaign continues, I'm going to keep doing this and provide a PDF of the sign we used to anyone who wants to lay in wait for them for as long as they keep this up. If I have my way, the trains will be full of people ready to take out their cat-eye red glasses and let the rest of the car know how shitty invasive advertising is. Until Cingular pulls the ad.
Friday, October 14, 2005
In My Defense
Let's get a couple of things straight. I really didn't mean to take today off. Honest. I didn't lie about the gas company having to come by to check my meter so that they could change my address. What I meant to do today was get up, go to work, sit at my desk like a good employee, and then go to rehearsal tonight. It was not my plan to sit around my apartment playing computer games and peeling pomegranates for liqueur all morning, just so that I could run downstairs when I heard my doorbell ring at two, only to find that my landlord could have let the nice man from the gas company in to read the meter all along. Swear to God, this is true. And yet...here I am at The Grind. My day is mildly wasted. No productivity for me. Woe.
I'm reminded of back when I used to take sick days in school. The general rule in my house was that if you were sick enough to stay home from school, you were sick enough to spend the day in bed, and you certainly weren't going out that night. I feel a bit guilty sitting in The Grind writing this. But only mildly so.
Down to business...
There's not much news on this end. Shiny and I are beginning work on the structure and writing of The Strange Dreams of Nobody in Particular, which is my serial/mosaic theatre project to be performed this spring. For the first time since I first proposed the project a year ago, I'm really excited about it. More on that when more develops.
Also, In the next few weeks I'm going to be retooling my Web site a bit to make it easier for me to use, to tie this blog to it a bit better, and to just make it a little less of a waste of space.
Right now, I have a couple of stories up, but nothing new, an outdated film script of mine that was something I slapped together in a week, and a page promising excerpts from my novel, which I haven't finished and really should (the novel and the page). I kind of get the feeling like I could have a blog, sans homepage, and that'd work just as well. And that's not what we want. So.
Anyone who wants to make suggestions regarding this, I'm all ears. Ears and typing fingers.
I'm reminded of back when I used to take sick days in school. The general rule in my house was that if you were sick enough to stay home from school, you were sick enough to spend the day in bed, and you certainly weren't going out that night. I feel a bit guilty sitting in The Grind writing this. But only mildly so.
Down to business...
There's not much news on this end. Shiny and I are beginning work on the structure and writing of The Strange Dreams of Nobody in Particular, which is my serial/mosaic theatre project to be performed this spring. For the first time since I first proposed the project a year ago, I'm really excited about it. More on that when more develops.
Also, In the next few weeks I'm going to be retooling my Web site a bit to make it easier for me to use, to tie this blog to it a bit better, and to just make it a little less of a waste of space.
Right now, I have a couple of stories up, but nothing new, an outdated film script of mine that was something I slapped together in a week, and a page promising excerpts from my novel, which I haven't finished and really should (the novel and the page). I kind of get the feeling like I could have a blog, sans homepage, and that'd work just as well. And that's not what we want. So.
Anyone who wants to make suggestions regarding this, I'm all ears. Ears and typing fingers.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
A Goldmine of Distractions
While checking up on the progress on AGDI's Quest for Glory 2 remake, as well as the inevitable, if somewhate doomed Hero 6 project, I discovered, I do not know how, Acid Play, a repository for freeware games. There are hundreds of them, many of them Sierra-style AGS games. Spent a little while today downloading the most interesting sounding titles ("Ozzie and the Quantum Playwright" sounded fun, if for no other reason than because it might be the first game ever about a college theatre major).
In my search for games, I also discovered Reality on the Norm, a sort of project in online role-playing-game story telling, in which each game is basically a new chapter in the continuing, semicoherent life of the town Reality. Game designers reuse each other's characters as leads and secondary characters in their own projects and in this way, they sort of tell the story of a peculiar, adventure-ridden town. It's a neat idea.
One thing I always liked about Sierra's role-playing games, and didn't much like about the shoot-em-up games that eventually took their place, is the way in which they told stories. Game series really created interactive stories for people to be told, thick with plots and twists, and in the best cases, these stories were really satisfying and moving. More than the books I was forced to read in school, these games were responsible for me reading in my early adolescence, and in some ways, they're responsible for shaping my first efforts in writing (which says whatever it does about my writing...).
What these sites say to me is that I wasn't alone, and even though the tides of digital tastes have changed, there are still people out there who want games that are stories and not just bloodbaths. And there's a new generation of people willing to tell new stories. Or recycled versions of old stories. And that gives me a warm fuzzy.
In my search for games, I also discovered Reality on the Norm, a sort of project in online role-playing-game story telling, in which each game is basically a new chapter in the continuing, semicoherent life of the town Reality. Game designers reuse each other's characters as leads and secondary characters in their own projects and in this way, they sort of tell the story of a peculiar, adventure-ridden town. It's a neat idea.
One thing I always liked about Sierra's role-playing games, and didn't much like about the shoot-em-up games that eventually took their place, is the way in which they told stories. Game series really created interactive stories for people to be told, thick with plots and twists, and in the best cases, these stories were really satisfying and moving. More than the books I was forced to read in school, these games were responsible for me reading in my early adolescence, and in some ways, they're responsible for shaping my first efforts in writing (which says whatever it does about my writing...).
What these sites say to me is that I wasn't alone, and even though the tides of digital tastes have changed, there are still people out there who want games that are stories and not just bloodbaths. And there's a new generation of people willing to tell new stories. Or recycled versions of old stories. And that gives me a warm fuzzy.
Friday, October 07, 2005
Comments
I've been hit with a barrage of comment spam over the past week or so. Most of it from automated bots. Since I can't protect from comment spam, or at least, since I don't know how I can protect from comment spam using Blogger, I'm turning off comments for a while. Which sucks, because I really like to get comments.
If anyone knows how to protect Blogger blogs from comment spam, let me know. In the mean time, if anyone has a comment that absolutely must be made, feel free to e-mail me with it. If it's outstanding, I'll even post it.
Update:
Within less than an hour of posting, I received this:
Hello,
I don't know if anybody has already answered your plea for a solution to Blogger comment spam, but I've found the word verification option to work well so far. Just go to the settings page, then the comments page, scroll down a bit, and toggle the button that says something like "enable word verification for comments". Then when somebody wants to post a comment, they have to type the letters they see. I think the letters are an image file, which prevents spambots from being able to do it (so far). Good luck!
Matt Cheney
Thanks, Matt. I'll try it and see how that works.
Which fairly well invalidates this entire entry, but you know. Saga of my life and all.
If anyone knows how to protect Blogger blogs from comment spam, let me know. In the mean time, if anyone has a comment that absolutely must be made, feel free to e-mail me with it. If it's outstanding, I'll even post it.
Update:
Within less than an hour of posting, I received this:
Hello,
I don't know if anybody has already answered your plea for a solution to Blogger comment spam, but I've found the word verification option to work well so far. Just go to the settings page, then the comments page, scroll down a bit, and toggle the button that says something like "enable word verification for comments". Then when somebody wants to post a comment, they have to type the letters they see. I think the letters are an image file, which prevents spambots from being able to do it (so far). Good luck!
Matt Cheney
Thanks, Matt. I'll try it and see how that works.
Which fairly well invalidates this entire entry, but you know. Saga of my life and all.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Done!
Blogger just ate the blog entry I spent the past hour or so crafting out of blood and sweat (and pixels). I don't know why Blogger chooses to do this from time to time, but I can only assume it has good reasons. And that one day I will be wise enough to understand them.
I don't think I have it in me to re-create the entire entry over again, so I'll just summarize the major points in list form.
1) I'm done moving. It was harrowing, but I'm done and ready to get started making my apartment look like a place someone lives.
2) Bonnie and Darcy moved off to New York. I'll miss them immensely, but at the same time this is sort of a changing of the guard for me. It's like getting a friendship haircut.
3) Something dealing with the Jurassic era and the Paleocene Epoch. Also mentioned was the Jurassic-Tertiary Extinction Event.
4) Saw Serenity on Saturday. It's wonderful and very satisfying. Go see it.
5) Also saw Mirrormask this weekend. It's slightly less wonderful and satisfying, but it's beautiful to look at and worthwhile. Go see that, too.
6) (an addendum added for the purposes of this list) Went and bought books before seeing Mirrormask. Among them was Anansi Boys, which is good, but the real excitement is Glass Soup. I burped a little bit in excitement when I saw that on the shelf. Can't wait to read it.
I don't think I have it in me to re-create the entire entry over again, so I'll just summarize the major points in list form.
1) I'm done moving. It was harrowing, but I'm done and ready to get started making my apartment look like a place someone lives.
2) Bonnie and Darcy moved off to New York. I'll miss them immensely, but at the same time this is sort of a changing of the guard for me. It's like getting a friendship haircut.
3) Something dealing with the Jurassic era and the Paleocene Epoch. Also mentioned was the Jurassic-Tertiary Extinction Event.
4) Saw Serenity on Saturday. It's wonderful and very satisfying. Go see it.
5) Also saw Mirrormask this weekend. It's slightly less wonderful and satisfying, but it's beautiful to look at and worthwhile. Go see that, too.
6) (an addendum added for the purposes of this list) Went and bought books before seeing Mirrormask. Among them was Anansi Boys, which is good, but the real excitement is Glass Soup. I burped a little bit in excitement when I saw that on the shelf. Can't wait to read it.
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