Product review you won't be reading on The Velvet Blog

This pitch was in my in-box this morning:

Hello,

I'm the webmaster of [redacted].

I wanted to know if by any chance you would be interested in doing an unbiased review of our site [redacted] on your blog.

If you agree you can choose between receiving a product sample or receiving a payment.

Cool! I can take this blog in a whole different direction! Reports on products that wise consumers need to know about!

If you choose the product sample instead of the payment the sample is yours to keep and you don't need to send it back.

Oh, I'm sure anything you send will be just fine. I love to get free stuff!

The product sample that you can get is [redacted] - a penis enhancer and you can see it there:[redacted]

Please let me know if you are interested.

Thank you

Well, at least they're polite.

Overheard in my eye doctor's office, 11:30 a.m.: A one-act documentary play

Characters:

The office manager -- Male, 50s.

The 20-something office assistant -- Female, 20-something.

Me -- Me.


The play:

Office manager: Did you hear? Paul Newman died.

20-something office assistant: Paul Newman ... was he in the Beatles?

Me: [Stunned silence]

THE END.


(P.S.: I need new glasses.)

(P.P.S: I should point out that we walked her through some of Newman's biggest titles, and none of them rang a bell -- or, at least, she hadn't seen them. She was, however, familiar with his salad dressing.)

An arsenal of flavor, if you will

A concerned TVB reader passes along this disturbing promotional copy for Wrigley gum:

Bite into a Strawberry Gush Glop and a sudden burst of liquid strawberry flavor gushes into your mouth from all directions. Drench your mouth with butt-loads of intense strawberry flavor.

That can't be hygienic, can it? (Wait ... could this just be a really dumb mistake for "boatloads"??? I did, in fact, know someone who thought that the phrase "nip it in the bud" was "nip it in the butt." Really.)

Guess the real Yahoo headline

--Lions offer advice to antelope
--Bill Clinton offers advice to Todd Palin
--Cheddar cheese offers advice to mice

Boy, this bailout thing is really getting out of hand

Now I'm hearing the federal goverment is taking over Morgan Freeman.

Thank you! I'll be appearing nightly through the weekend. Drive home safely, and don't forget to tip your waitress.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money

It's a few months old, but the This American Life episode "The Giant Pool of Money" is still well worth listening to. It explains how the housing/mortgage crisis came about, and how that caused the turbulence on Wall Street we're now weathering. And puts it all in understandable, if mind-boggling, terms. The free podcast download is long gone, but you can either stream it or read a transcript for free, or download it for around a buck.

Photos of the day

I love peaches.
But something about peach skin makes my skin crawl.

Photo of the day

The color here doesn't quite do justice to the electric shade of blue that shines down when making coffee on my office's single-cup machine.

I feel like I'm making the coffee ... of the future!!

Like a good game, a good conversation can be pleasant for everyone

Hey, it's been ages since we've enjoyed an educational film together at The Velvet Blog.

Here's "Ways To Better Conversation," starring Meryl Streep and Dakota Fanning.



Online Videos by Veoh.com


Sorry, did I say Meryl Streep and Dakota Fanning? I meant, "Starring nobody."

(From the AV Geeks collection.)

A unicorn? A Laz-E-Boy made entirely of quarks? An entire field-dressed moose? A monkey (finally)?

I see via the Blogger interface that yesterday's post was The Velvet Blog's 1,300th. I'm really not sure what the traditional gift is for that, but I'm sure it will be very special. You'll think of something.

Oh, and the rest of SNL sucked

I know this is posted in a gazillion places, but, hey, it made me laugh.



We already knew Tina Fey looked like Sarah Palin, but, wow, she really has the vocal inflections down. (Amy Poehler ... eh, not so much.)

Still, the cafeteria is supposed to be outstanding

From a story I just edited:

The Google model involves having employees use 20% of their time for innovation. They test and grow projects. Some are nurtured and provide the company with revenue. Others are killed off.

"Do no evil" my ass.

You can can give an Earl Scheib paint job to a '76 Gremlin, but it's still a '76 Gremlin

On behalf of the magazine where I am copy chief, I'd like to retroactively apologize for this cover image, which ran in July 2006. Obviously, if we had known that two years into the future the Republican party would trademark the concept of lipstick, we would not have used it.

(Yes, it's a tech magazine. ERP = enterprise resource planning. It's ... it's ... um ... software that helps you plan resources for your enterprise.)

(Punkinsmom has some lipstick info here.)

I'm disappointed that the super-dupercollider hasn't ripped a hole in the space-time continuum, thereby turning the Earth into a puddle of gray goo

Is that wrong?

Alternative folksy sayings that The Velvet Blog offers up to the Obama campaign

--You can smear mayo on a poop sandwich, but ...
--You can can give an Earl Scheib paint job to a '76 Gremlin, but ...
--You can have Meryl Streep guest star on According to Jim, but ...

Northern exposure

Boy, it's like a banana republic with polar bears up there.


(h/t)

It's enough to make you plotz

Quotation of the day, regarding Asif Ali Zardari's controversial run for the presidency in Pakistan:

It's very common in Pakistani court systems that to avoid appearances in courts you produce medical certificates that are not really kosher. --Pakistani political analyst Shepcap Mahmoud on NPR's Morning Edition, Sept. 5

That's just meshuggeneh.

Drinking game for the Republican National Convention for those who prefer to remain completely sober

Whenever you're able to spot an African American in crowd shots, take a shot.

Worse than Manos, the Hands of Fate?

Entry in an occasional series in which we try to soften the sting of vituperative movie reviews by the addition of the phrase "Garnish with Fluffernutter." Why? Because.

Today's entry is the dire Disaster Movie, which has a 0% approval rating, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

Let's string together a few of the reviews and see what happens.

This carpet-fouling mongrel of a movie no more deserves release than do anthrax spores. ... Embarrassment. It's a feeling you should get used to, [writers] Freidberg and Seltzer. May you never befoul another cinema with your grotesque comic abortions. ... It's quite frankly stultifying that Friedberg are Seltzer are ever let anywhere near a studio boardroom after having defecated out their previous movies, much less this one. ... None of it is amusing, so there's probably enough suicide-inducing material here to make a send-up of The Happening redundant. ... No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! ... As depressing and empty a cinematic experience as any other picture this year or last (or maybe the whole decade). To label it as simply unfunny or vacuous or ugly or boring would be a compliment. ... I'm not sure if Disaster is the worst movie the boys have churned out, but, at this point, that's like asking if a bullet hurts more than a knife. ... Garnish with Fluffernutter.

See? Much better.