high

This is silly. Red Sox management is pissed about a TV ad airing in Japan and featuring their new star, Daisuke Matsuzaka, drinking a beer. From the article:

“The ad is consistent with what’s acceptable in the Japanese marketplace,” a spokesperson from MLB International said in the report. “We did approve it with him drinking the beer outside of his uniform. It’s a type of commercial that is really commonplace in Japan. It is not really that farfetched.”
Though the ad may adhere to the law, the Red Sox are concerned with how it will look to have shots of their hot acquisition drinking beer juxtaposed with images of him in uniform.
“It is a perception,” Blake said in the report, “and we certainly want our players to be perceived in the right light.”

Oh, really? The “right light?” This is transparent bullshit. What an exquisitely sensitive bunch of milquetoast slack wits we’ve become. Here’s my proof that Sox management is demonstrating their unprincipled perfidy.
As may be obvious, I take no issue with Daisuke’s ad, or the uptick in beer sales at Fenway. I only wish we collectively had the stomach to tell the handwringing, Calvinistic, moral scolds where to stick it.

The mystique that used to exist around creating great ads is fading away. More and more tools are becoming available that allow companies and individuals to do things that only the agencies could have done a few years ago. Now there are web based editing tools that can be used to make, edit and even customize ads. Here is a New York Times article about just that.
The leading advertising agencies will be the ones who stay on top of these changes and find ways to leverage them through innovative approaches, thus maintaining their value. Agencies have to focus on great concepts that can be leveraged in multiple Medias, often playing off other.

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Most people with an email address have no choice but to be inundated with spam for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I can’t imagine anyone enjoys the drug offers, the insults to their manhood (hello, I don’t even HAVE manhood so please target your message better), and the latest “stock tips.”
Thankfully, according to a recent article, a Dutch man was fined $97,000 for spamming. However, the most shocking news of the article was not that justice was finally served – it was that he made $52,000 in 2004. So apparently some people do respond to those stupid emails. Luckily, $52,000 wasn’t enticement enough for the guy to keep emailing; he stopped spamming because “he simply wasn’t earning enough money by sending the messages.”
The thing is, $52,000 is a decent salary in some people’s eyes. So if this had been a different spammer, perhaps he would have felt it was worth it to continue with his pathetic career choice. While I feel all senders of unsolicited emails should have a flaming pile of dog shit delivered to their door step, we can only direct so much anger toward them. They’re making loads of dough off pervy dudes who actually buy Cialis online. Here’s a tip, Mr. Buys Sexual Performance Enhancements Drugs Online – probably the main reason your sex life sucks is that you’re online all the time. So do the world a favor and STOP responding to spam and take your life offline for a while. Then let us people who actually want to impact the online world in a meaningful way step in.