butterfly fiasco

Went to see Tuck Everlasting last night with Jeff, Kristen, Christine and Christine's sister Jen. I thought the film was okay but not great, more like a made-for-tv movie or an after-school special, not nearly as good as the book. Had some nice music, and I liked Sissy Spacek.

The photo at the top of today's Blatherings was taken last week. The cocoon appeared one day on the corner, with no explanation. A few days later, it "turned" into a butterfly:





Note the lurking feet behind the Roy Thompson Hall sign. As soon as anyone got near the butterfly, one of two marketing people ran out and gave them MSN fridge magnets. I took one out of curiosity.

"It's better with the butterfly," the guy told me with a grin as he handed me my magnet.

Dear lord.

Is that what marketing/PR has come to? Who CARES what the product is actually for? What happened to the days when companies tried to lure in customers by promising them (gasp) a good quality product and reliable service instead of relying on gimmicky (and IMHO, somewhat arrogant) promotion of the marketing logo itself?

Links/News:

See 20 minutes' worth of clips from the Harry Potter movie here (15 scenes).

While doing my daily surf for publishing news, I came across this story entitled "Microsoft butterfly promotion doesn't fly in New York. It was only after reading the story that I realized that MSN is promoting a new Internet service.

Yay, the Internet Registry of Canada is being charged for fraud. The company had been mailing out official-looking "renewal" notices to anyone whose domain notices had been about to expire.

One year ago, I was going home from OVFF. Lots of photos in this entry, including one of a United Airlines security guy wearing plastic gloves while going through my carry-on luggage post 9/11, including checking the lining.

Two years ago, I posted that year's OVFF report with photos.

Five years ago, I was being interviewed by the Winnipeg Free Press about Inkspot as well as looking forward to Scott Snyder's CD release party.