As of June 22 US law changed and cigarette makers could no longer use terms like light, ultra light, medium, low, or mild. For most non-(cigarette)-smokers this change means little and might have been nothing more than an "Oh, that's interesting" article. For smokers, it has lead to some confusion, depending on preference. And even some non- ( Read more... )

In the last day or two I have received two pieces of mail from Capitol One - the folks that advertise[1] the "No Hassle" card - with one declaring "Action Required" and both proclaiming a 0% introductory rate. And upon closer inspection, both eventually jumping to 22.9% variable. Alright, I know that credit cards get to play fast and loose with ( Read more... )

Back in March 2006 I received a postcard thing from K-Designers and posted a bit about it. A bit later in July 2006 someone tried to defend the advertising practice and I posted a response pointing out why it was scammy. Another card showed up in August and I posted scans of it to point out problems. And then, other then the odd reply to those ( Read more... )

Over two years ago, on August 5, 2006 I posted a couple scans of an advertising come on as well as a transcript of the text. That post shows up on web searches and has received a few comments from other folks curious about who was behind the card. One or two claim to have been salesm...er, Marketing Directors, for the company. Of course there ( Read more... )

The new Pepsi logo is drawing some attention. I'm even writing about it and I don't care for Pepsi. No, I don't believe that it's a stylized version of the Obama "O" thing. Pepsi has used variations on the theme of red, white, and blue in a circle for some time. Those who really track these things noticed that the new logo isn't all that new ( Read more... )

When I first watched Doctor Who I did so on Wisconsin Public Television where there was no commercial interruption during the program. After I moved, I sometimes watched Doctor Who on Iowa Public Television, also without commercial interruption during the program. Lately I've been watching the new seasons on Doctor on DVD, where of course there ( Read more... )

This weekend jmaynard spent a couple days at the Des Moines renaissance faire. One of the vendors there was Summerset Winery. Neither of us had any wine, but some of their wares caught my attention and I asked for a business card. Alas, they had no cards or none with them. I was given their URL.

I was told www.summersetwinery.com (and I double ( Read more... )

I mentioned the MG2 sleazeballs before. In the followups, it was revealed that these jokers are also Tri-Star and push Tri Star Home Care Products (vacuum cleaners).

Well, another Bingo card arrived in the mail. It's from Orion Systems in Loveland CO with a postmark from Advanced Direct Marketing, Inc. also in Loveland, CO.

This time I scanned ( Read more... )

This time it's an "Important Delivery" letter. A designation that USPS does not use. It's pink. It's a 'carbonless' envelope with black obscuring over much of it, so it looks like something that has personal information or a check. But countering that is the text "SECOND NOTICE" which is a lie. For it to be a second of anything there'd have to ( Read more... )

This past February borderpilot mentioned he had "Larry, Dell Customer advocate" stalking his LiveJournal. I don't have Larry (though that might change with this post, who knows?) but I have someone else.

Almost a year ago I posted about a couple sleazy advertising gimmicks. Since then, that has been the top Google result for people researching some of ( Read more... )