Chance Bliss

If you have ever worked with a marketing department, rarely does the word “genius” come to mind. However, I would like to tip my hat to the people who came up with the concept of coffee cake. Coffee cake is one example where just simply changing the name of something creates a completely new avenue.

I think this is how the that historical conversation went:

Marketer 1: “Dude, we are not selling enough cake!”

Marketer 2: “I know. I saw the numbers. My bonus is going to suck this year” [big sigh]

Marketer 1: “I don’t get it. Cake is awesome. So why aren’t people eating more of it?”

Marketer 2: “Maybe because there’s only a limited number of birthday parties in a year?”

Marketer 1: “Yeah. It’s not like people are going to eat cake for breakfast everyday. [big laugh]”

Marketer 2: “Wait just a minute! Said that again?” [light bulb appears]

Marketer 1: “People aren’t going to eat cake for breakfast.” [slowly]

Marketer 2: “Who says people can’t eat cake for breakfast?” [defiant tone]

Marketing 1: “That just might be crazy enough to work!” [fist pounding on the desk]

Marketer 2: “But we can’t call it just “Cake”. It needs something else. Something more breakfasty.” [scans room for some clue]

Marketer 1: “What about just “Breakfast Cake?” [raises finger in air as if it was a great idea]

Marketer 2: “Too generic.” [rolls eyes in contempt of co-worker]

Marketer 1: “Morning Loaf?…” [meek tone]

Marketer 2: “I leave one of those every morning after my first cup of coffee.” [big laugh]

Marketer 1: “Coffee Cake?” [grasping at straws]

Marketer 2: “That’s it! People love coffee, but they need something to stuff their fat faces with in the morning. Why can’t that be cake?” [the 2 marketers hi-five and the scene fades to black]

And the rest is goes down in delicious pastry history…

I heard on the radio about how Christmas is celebrated in Norway. Two gnomes show up. One with presents and one to eat your porridge. I decided to investigate some other countries to see what they are up to these days. Freakin’ nutty holiday.

• Norway has two gnomes or elfs. Nisse guards farm animals and plays tricks on childern if they don’t leave him a bowl of porridge. Julebukk is a goat-like creature who brings the gifts (Goat eyes creep me out).
• Germany has a guy called Weihnachtsmann (Christmas man) who is similar to Santa Claus.
• Holland has the traditional Saint Nicholas but he journeys in a boat with a guy named Black Peter who dresses in Spanish clothes (Nice. Get the Mexican guy to drive you).
• The Swiss have Christkindli, the Christ child, who brings gift in a sleigh pulled by reindeer (How the heck does a baby carry all those presents?)
• The Czech Republic has Svaty Mikalas who climbs down on a golden rope from heaven with an angel and a devil carrying a whip (The pleasure and the pain).
• In Italy, the childern wait for Befana, an ugly witch on a boomstick, to bring presents. Supposedly she missed going with the 3 kings to see baby Jesus so she is forever flying around lost (Women cannot read maps).
• The Austrians have Heiliger Nikolaus who give the kids candy, nuts and fruit (What? No Wii Fit! I got ripped off)
  

Found on Santa.net

My new favorite site: Sexy People. Here’s a sample and the answer to your first question: “Yes, he beats her.”

Someone requested that I do a search on my own name. Pretty much sums up my life.

1. Love
2. Life
3. Heart
4. Happy
5. Ignorance
6. Kiss
7. Friend
8. Ask
9. Berry
10. Music

I just read an interesting post from Go Big Always where they used IBM’s Many Eyes software to visualize the top 10 words used on a particular person’s blog. The only problem is that they only looked at blogs of complete social media geeks so I decided to my own research.

I have a blog mining tool at my disposal called RelevantNoise which captures posts from millions of blogs. I can search against a person’s name then cluster the results and find out the most common words or phrases used in conjunction with the name. Some of them read like a Haiku.