Viral Marketing

^ I generally don't like viral marketing, at least not the 'let's trick the public into liking our product' type. 'Amateur' websites promoting a product, fake blogs, seemingly meaningful catchphrases attached to a url that leads to something not even remotely related all seems rather underhanded and wasteful to me. If your product is actually that good, then you shouldn't need to trick me into finding out about it. It should be obvious. You should be able to put up a picture of your product, maybe with some text extolling it's virtues (why it is better than the competition, not why I need it now even if I had never wanted it before), and that should convince me that your product is worth buying. Creating a 'sensation' to sell your product suggests that your product isn't worth the bubble wrap it is packaged in. (I may be overly generous in this sense - bubble wrap has given me numerous hours of entertainment, and I doubt some of the things advertised through viral marketing campaigns would do the same thing.)

^ The method that bugs me the most is having something that seems meaningful or interesting attached to a url that then links to the companies website. The reason it bugs me so much is the waste of the sentence. Often, I look at the phrase and I think "that would make a good inspiration of a poem or a painting, a song, a sonnet, or a sculpture". There's depth, meaning, or purpose that could be behind the phrase. And then... and then it is thrown away, used simply to prop up a lousy gaming console or a pair of shoes. It's a waste.

^ This is why, when a certain webcomic decided to hijack a viral marketing campaign, I decided to join in, even if I was a little late. The following text was apparently put up, with no explanation, on billboards in New York. The webcomic they lead to is one of the best out there, and also happens to be one of the first links you'll get if you search for any of these terms in Google (due to people doing exactly what I'm doing - linking to the comment page with this text as the link text).

THE ALGORITHM CONSTANTLY FINDS JESUS
THE ALGORITHM KILLED JEEVES
THE ALGORITHM IS BANNED IN CHINA
THE ALGORITHM IS FROM JERSEY

^If you're curious who the actual marketing campaign was for, I suggest you follow one of those links, click on 'News/Blag' at the top left of the page, and then go to the first (bottom) post from April 19th. Oh, I think you might also have to read the comments to get the full story. Alternatively, you could just 'ask' me. I might even give you the answer.^

CirKus.

The Miscellaneous, Slightly Worrisome, Post of Doom

% The title of this post is somewhat misleading. It erroneously implies that other posts have not been one of the following: miscellaneous, slightly worrisome, or posts of doom. As far as I know, all posts to this blog have, in some way or another, fit into all of the preceding categories quite nicely.

% That being said, on the the actual content of the post.

% When I was younger there was a considerable amount of time and energy devoted to teaching my fellow classmates and me about fire safety. Various teachers spent hours teaching their impressionable students to be panic stricken by the mere thought that a fire might someday occur in their vicinity by calming reiterating what to do and what not to do in case of a fire using the same tone of voice that a doctor uses when ey say "This will only hurt a bit". I know I, for one, started to refuse to sleep with my door open because a) the smoke detector light that I could see from my room glowed red and made me think that something was wrong and b) smoke would find it more difficult to get through doors, and we all learned that smoke is what killed people who were in fires. Anyone who knows my habits around fire now are free to take a moment to speculate about what made those habits change..... OK, moment's up, speculation is over. Though feel welcome to post a comment about it.

% One of the situations they never seemed to go over in those classes, however, was what to do if something caught fire in the oven. Or maybe they did go over it, and I just knew that I would never be let close enough to an oven for it to be a worry. At any rate, I was given cause to wonder about this. If something catches fire in the oven, what do you do? After turning off the oven, I mean - I figure that is a pretty self evident first step. What's the next step?

% On the one hand, can you think of a better place in the kitchen to have a fire? There is limited air flow, the only fuel available is what is in the oven, and the fire is surrounded by a metal box that is built to contain heat. I realize that it might not be built for a fire, but unless you have something fairly large that can start a good blaze, an oil fire (which, come to think of it, is likely to be the case), or you were cooking from the Anarchist's Cookbook, it shouldn't get too much hotter than the maximum rating for the oven, and it shouldn't stay hot for a significant period of time. (To all of the National and International Security people who found this blog due to the mention of the Anarchist's Cookbook: Welcome. Relax, stay awhile, browse around. I'll make it easy on you - I have not read the book, though if I didn't have a backlog of reading material to go through first, I would probably consider doing so.) So my thinking is, it might be best to just let it burn itself out.

% On the other hand, there are different fingers.

% The problems with leaving the fire in the oven is that, while the oven might be rated to withstand heat, there is no assurance that the pan you were using is rated for the same amount of heat, and it is probably in much closer contact with the source of heat than the actual oven is. Burning your backing sheet is bad, especially if it is the type of backing sheet that is likely to hold flavours. And that's the other thing - will all future food you put in the oven end up tasting charred, because of the fire that was in there? That would be rather unfortunate, to say the least. Not to mention, if you leave the fire in the oven, your food is a write-off. OK, so maybe it would be anyway, but it's a write-off and you didn't even try to stop it. Wouldn't that make you feel helpless?

% But the moment you open the oven door, there's going to be this influx of nice, oxygen rich air into the oven. The flame will likely get higher, and hotter, which just increases the damage it will do. And if you happen to be unlucky / dumb enough to open the door and lean in just as some of the liquid in there boils and splatters, you could end up with scalding liquid on your face, which I can tell you is not a pleasant experience (it really isn't). And what are you going to do when you open the door? Throw water in? I don't know how many of you have tried throwing water into an oven door (or any enclosed area at about that height, with a small opening). It is surprisingly difficult, cause you don't want to get the area around it wet, and the water will actually tend to fly higher than the door opening. Then there's avoiding the steam burns when the water hits the hot elements, etc., plus the fact that I don't know if I have ready access to a bucket (suppose I could use a mixing bowl), and it's really a tricky proposition.

% The conclusion that I've come to so far is that the very next step, after turning off the stove, is to turn on the range hood to get rid of the smoke, and then start looking for a long stick and some marshmallows. If I'm going to have a fire in the stove, I might as well cook something with it.%

Sabius.
Finished the 22 day of April, Year of Our Lord 2007.

(The fact that this will appear quite far down the page, due to it having been started significantly before it was posted, is purely happy coincidence. Thank you for scrolling down the page to read it.)

Moving Again

Sorry guys. Things have come up, and in all good conscience I had to move my site again. I couldn't continue living this double life anymore. The new blog is here.

The wonders known as 'my job'

Once again Legion is keeping to his normal update schedule of 'if and when I get around to it, (read- usually when I really need to do something else but I'm going to procrastinate so I'm doing this instead)'
So I decided to share my most recent amusement with the wonderful world known as the people who should really be doing something yet choose to read this instead. (Am I the only one that has noticed that I have spent far too much time on the wrong jobs recently? Oh well, for now you have my attention and my hands at the very least.)
This is not what the entry was about... CirKus and JuggLer are finally getting to my head... Might have been FooL... have to track down the prankster. Will do so after finishing this entry.

Now, as I'm sure at least some of you are aware, I tend to only be 'present' in Legion's consciousness in the evenings. So I found, to my great amusement, a story through sources which shall remain nameless (Legion is a bit manic about confidentiality). As it turns out, this story is an account of events which have happened in my absence.
While I admit (generally quite quietly) to having been 'present' during the morning hours approximately 5 times, this has not allowed for a great level of acclimatization to "Morning Legion" so it is greatly amusing to hear of the "stumbling... not awake... [requiring] remind[ing]" jumble of thoughts which accumulates from the depths of sleep to form the Legion we all know and love.
While I cannot give away the entirety of the story due to certain confidentiality policies, the moral of the story is this; it has once again been proven that Legion and their memory do not connect until after they awaken* (Which tends to involve the only voluntary use for large amounts of water).

Though I realise that not all of you will realise the great potential for humour in this story, I am hoping that at least one of you will share in the amusement of a half buried translator.
Rune

*Now to truly realise the context of this story you must remember that Legion's version of 'awaken' does not translate to 'opening eyes'. No, that would be far too simple. Instead Legion's version of 'awaken' (also known as the time at which they finally connect with their memory) involves a much longer process.
Out of preference and a copious number of hours spent perfecting the process, 'awakening' involves multiple alarm clocks, sun, the all important shower and breakfast.
This story took place before both the shower and breakfast. I do not believe that this requires my skills as a translator but for the sake of my job I will put this in; during the story Legion was essentially a walking zombie.

God Likes Shinies - the worded version

And one again it falls to me to translate from a dialect of Legionilic into English... so sad...

For a group of such refined minds you would think that they would remember that while dialects tend to be compatible, entirely separate languages are difficult to translate if you aren't familiar with both. Thankfully there's this wonderful thing known as 'common'.

The point of this entry, however, was not to reveal the trials of working within such a dynamically challenging environment. It was to do my job; translate. (well... my official job at least...)

The first diagram is Christians reflecting God into the world so that the world, as well as themselves, might know Jesus. If the connection is working as it's supposed to, everyone is happy.

The second diagram is Christians praising God, yet concentrating only on praising God. Because of their single-mindedness, their light is not reflected to the world. The people are saddened by being left out.

In the third diagram the Christians have, in an effort to be relevant to the world, turned away from God and no longer reflect his light. Instead they reflect the darkness of the world back at the people of the world. As the people look into the Christian 'mirrors' they are horrified to see darkness instead of the light of salvation.

God Likes Shinies

   |
 --+--
   |
   |

  ^ |
  | |
  | v


\                0
 \    <----     ---
  \   ---->      |
   \            / \

Good.

   |
 --+--
   |
   |

  ^ |
  | |
  | v

               0,
______        ---
               |
              / \

Bad. (This guy ^ is crying, see?)

   |
 --+--
   |
   |






|                0!
|     <----     ---
|     ---->      |
|               / \

Also bad. (This ^ guy is horrified, see?)

Just a little reminder to myself.
(This took far too long - html coding and text art don't mix well together.)

On another note: Is the Bible God's blog?

Happy Holy Days!

It's a bit late to be doing this, but we thought it should be done. We'd like to wish everyone happy holy days, and if there are any that we missed that we should have included, please let us know. (Also, due to ignorance on our part, we will generally mess up the traditional greeting for most of these. If you know what the proper greeting is for any of them, please let us know so that we won't make the same mistake out of ignorance next year.)

Eid Mubarak

Hopeful Advent

Joyful Solstice

Happy Kwanzaa

Happy Agnositca

Merry Christmas

Happy Chanukah

Wonderful Feast of Stephen (also known as Boxing Day)

Happy New Years

Atheistic Well wishes of the Season

May you experience much joy and happiness in this season and in the coming year.

Legion

(This post may be randomly updated throughout the coming year as we remember other Holy Days that we meant to include but didn't.)