Don't Tease Me, Bro!

Pretty much everyone I know from the East Coast loves Dunkin Donuts coffee better than any other chain's coffee. I don't drink coffee, but I do love hot chocolate, and have found that the hot chocolate taste test aligns quite nicely with the coffee test. There is not one Dunkin Donuts in California. (By the way, I've found that Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf & Names of Coffee Shops That Are Too Long has hot chocolate most like Dunkin Donuts, so their coffee may also be most similar.)

Anyway. There's been a grassroots effort to bring Dunkin Donuts to California. Ben Affleck even started a Facebook page all about it. It hasn't happened yet, which makes me sad. However. Dunkin Donuts is now selling their packaged coffee in West Coast supermarkets. Of course this does not help me, the hot chocolate drinker, but I'm still supportive of the overall cause.

Lately, because of this supermarket thing I suppose, when watching tv Dunkin Donuts commercials appear. Since I don't drink coffee I forget all about the coffee-in-supermarkets thing, and stupidly get all excited, thinking surely Dunkin Donuts wouldn't advertise here if they weren't here! Then I remember about the coffee-in-supermarkets thing and my heart sinks. I hate being teased. I don't even like to window shop unless I can afford to pop into the store to buy whatever catches my eye.

So Dunkin Donuts, please come to CA. You could start small - set up shop at LAX and SFO to see how it goes (it'll go great, I assure you!) before branching out to shops all around town. It would be great on multiple levels. Fabulous, inexpensive coffee and hot chocolate, but also, we'd always know where to find a cop when we needed one! You'd be providing a community service, when you think about it. Okay then, so I'll look forward to seeing you soon. Glad we had this little talk.

Props to the Smelly Stuff

That lotion I used yesterday that smelled too flowery and overpowering? May smell bad, but gotta be honest here - it kept my hands pretty soft throughout the day. I only put it on that one time in the morning, and it lasted through half a dozen handwashings and past dinner time.

In case you were considering it.

Daddy, Buy Me Something!

In high school a girl I was friendly with actually said this to her father at an art sale the school was having to raise money. Art made by students. Ceramic shit. Paint-by-numbers. I turned to her, "Do you really want one of these?" Stephanie smiled at me. "No, I just want him to buy me something so I feel loved."

Well! If that doesn't outline what a year of therapy will be spent discussing I don't know what does.

It's not that I am against buying or consuming. I'm not. I buy shit. I consume. It's just that I don't want to have things I don't use or don't need. Growing up, I was raised to keep all my book reports. I never questioned it, and in middle school I had every book report I'd ever done since second grade. There are iPods out that apparently show tv programs. Fascinating! I'll stick with my green iPod nano though, thanks. It's little and cute and makes me happy and inspires warm thoughts towards Golden Boy and Crazy Girl. I still maintain it's the best present (and best delivery of a present) I've ever gotten.

I don't want the best. I want good enough combined with best for me. What's best for me is not always the best of what exists. I want things to be simple. Life already seems hard enough to me. I want less buttons to press, manuals to read, things to figure out, less to navigate around.

All this stuff? It just creates more waste in the long-term. In the short-term, it creates pressure. You have that? I need that! You're getting what? I need to get the one that's bigger than that. Just in 2008, three different people have asked if I want a bigger tv. No, I don't. I don't know how many inches mine is, but it's average sized, and fine. It works, so I don't need a new one. It's that simple to me.

Part of why I've never had advertising on this blog is because I don't know how to put it on here. The other, bigger part is that I read blogs that have advertising. I read lots of blogs (you guys are interesting, keep writing because I'm fascinated). I hate the blogs that have so much advertising that I feel like I have to search to find the actual blog content.

I know that I don't necessarily see things the way most people do, but I don't SEE advertisements online. In 15 or so years of using the internet, I have clicked on an advertised link less than half a dozen times. All I notice is that it's not what I'm trying to read, and that's all. It's something that's in my way.

A couple of days ago, I got an email from a marketing firm saying a company would like to advertise on my blog. But before they could pay me for that, they'd like to first advertise on my blog for free for a little while, to see what kind of traffic I get. Then, I was to tell them how much I wanted to be paid. It was not signed by a person.

After consulting with some blog-marketing savvy folks (okay, one folk) and thinking about it, I wrote back:

Dear [name of Ad Agency] Representative Who Is Nameless,

You may have noticed that there is currently no advertising on my blog. In order for me to lift the advertising ban, I would need to be compensated as opposed to letting you advertise for free (for any amount of time). Since you are coming to me, it's up to you to make an initial offer as to what compensation you'd offer for advertising on my blog. At that time I would be happy to engage in a discussion with you.

Sincerely,
Blogger who does not cavalierly advertise on her blog

I received a return email less than 24 hours later:

Greetings Anti-Cavalier,

Thanks for getting back to us. While we appreciate your dedication to your blog, we are unable to place unverified advertisements for this client's particular campaign. Best of luck with all your future endeavors.

All the best,
Masked Girl

You know what I've learned from this experience? I should TOTALLY sign all my emails with something more funky than "love" or "sincerely" because it completely makes my day when the person I'm corresponding with does it back!

For now, I'm staying advertising free. In the paid sense, at least. If a company that I actually use approaches me and would like to pay me for reviewing and blogging about their product and/or service, I'm open to it. But I won't be cluttering up my blog with ad banners for you to deal with. There's enough shit here already.

Signed,
She who has convictions but can also be bought

Mind the Gap

In the late 90's I used to take a dance class at the local Y with a teacher named Jennifer. She was bitchy and funny and I liked her. She once told us some story about when she'd been in London, and by the time class ended the only thing I remembered about it was that there are recordings saying, "Mind the gap" all around the Tube stations. Even then, when I was 20, I thought the Gap should take that phrase and market the hell out of it. It seemed brilliant to me, and to be perfectly honest, it still does.

My last apartment in San Francisco was a close to Gap headquarters and on walks past the building I'd look up at the windows and wonder if the marketing department had already considered and rejected the "Mind the gap" idea - maybe the phrase is taken or there was some negative connotation I wasn't thinking of. But really, if Calvin Klein can do an ad campaign with Brooke Shields saying "Nothing comes between me and my Calvin's" I hardly think it's too risqué to say "Mind the Gap."

Anyway, here's what made me think of all this gap talk. Good looking out stepping onto those trains, people. Mind the gap, indeed.