Thinking Chaos, Thinking Fences

Monday, May 12, 2003

Come to Ontario and Let Your Children Touch Fish For reasons which may never become apparent, I was scanning some stuff out of the March 1962 edition of McCall's, an American womens' magazine. I was looking at the ads in particular, and came across this fantastic ad from the Ontario tourist board. 2:24:01 PM

Smack of the Day These folks kindly provide a smackdown of the day for your insulting pleasure. They've been doing so for about eight months, so that's like 250 smacks. Some are kind of obscure, which is kind of counter-productive. I'd say that the key element of a good smack is that the target (and surrounding audience) actually get it. How many people under, say, twenty-five, are going to get this reference? smack: Mr. Furley definition: landlord or apartment building manager; reference to the building manager in the 1970's hit TV show Three's Company. The lesson: pick your smacks carefully. 2:14:05 PM

A Harley Davidson Cross on Highway 99 So I was driving back from White Rock yesterday afternoon, and coming onto Highway 99, when I spotted a conspicuous shrine at the side of the road. It was a combination cross and Harley Davidson logo. I may be misinterpreting things here (I only glimpsed while zipping by), but apparently some motorcycle enthusiast had died here, and their friends and/or family had erected this in their honour. While their death is obviously tragic, it's peculiar that a logo was chosen to honour them. I don't know about you, but (despite my massive consumption), I don't want a big Coke logo above my grave. I said something to this effect to Julie, and she actually pointed out that there were actually two brands in the shrine. A good point. Regardless, it reminded me of all those roadside shrines on Crete. 2:07:33 PM