A Year in Pictures – Squirrel in Action

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This is another lucky shot: the squirrel happened to stay still long enough for me to catch him in this great pose. Every time I look at him, I hear Eddie Izzard in my head, going on about the difference between “Executive Transvestite” and “Action Transvestite.” This, my friends, is distinctly an Action Squirrel.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

world’s worst ad

I play solitaire a lot on my tablet, and there’s a banner add that has been popping up on it lately which is, I think, the worst ad I’ve ever seen.

It flashes between a white bar with black text and a black bar with white text. And I do mean flashes — very nearly at the level of “isn’t there something about this kind of stimulus causing epileptic seizures?” It is phenomenally distracting. Good ad, right? Nope — because it is so. bloody. annoying. that I might light my hair on fire before voluntarily tapping it. (Nor is it in a location where I’m likely to tap it by accident.) And if you’re thinking that even annoyance-publicity is still publicity, and they’re at least getting their product into my head . . .

. . . the text of the banner is “(1) Free Game.”

That’s it. No brand name. No hint of what type of game it is. No image I might recognize if I see it again later in a less annoying context. Just a seizure-inducing, content-less banner which is so obnoxious, it’s giving me a strong inclination to stop playing solitaire entirely, so I’ll never have to see it again. Which is about as profound of an advertising failure as I can imagine.

What were they thinking?

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.