Open Letter to Verizon

Hey Verizon!
We're glad you're reading this, as you likely have (one would hope) in place mechanisms to scan for stories with the name "Verizon", to monitor your online reputation? Yes? Good.

Moving on, we wanted to bring to your attention the fact that we, Mystery Dinner Guest and Claude, are rather surprised... a little bit of 'shock and awe' feeling actually with your seemingly lack of environmental concerns. We put forth for exhibit A, your recent advertising mailing for "$19.99 per month unlimited calling for 12 months". Now, we are no English Professor or expert, but were just wondering. Doesn't the second part of that sentence negate the "unlimited" part? But, I guess that's mincing words. Anyway, we found it beyond peculiar you chose to use a a very large and heavy weight "Priority Delivery" envelope to mail your single piece of paper in. *** Are you serious??? ***

Here are our questions on this campaign, in no particular order:

Why the big ass, unwarranted envelope?

Why not think about being green?

Why not think about the freakin' environment?

Why not start using recyclable materials for your advertisement mailings?

We'd like a response, you can post it to our blog here. Thanks.
Mystery Dinner Guest and Claude

What to do for Scrabulous Addiction?

MDG is strangely afflicted with a new found addiction in Facebook, Scrabulous, which we heard rumors of getting slapped with a big-ass lawsuit by Hasbro for infringing upon their trademarked game. Those poor brothers Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, these gonna need to hire some big guns to fight this battle. But... on the other hand, we haven't really heard much on this news since recently. Is it just caught up in the legal system, or are we gonna get our games pulled from our facebooks?

It is a tad bit addicting to play Scrabble online, though being an off-line avid Scrabbler, maybe this should come as no surprise?

And what makes Scrabulous so fantastic? Well, for starters if you like to entertain the idea of cheating it couldn't be any easier to do so. Built right into the game is a "Look it up" search field where you can instantly check whether a word is legit or not. Yah, they have that in the real game, right? Second, there's this news flash concept of tabbed browser windows, which make it real easy to surf and query sources like Google when in doubt on two letter Scrabble words.

I'm not quite certain whether Scrabulous is going by the Scrabble dictionary, or using some random third party online dictionary. If I had to guess, I'd go with the latter.

And just to poll everyone who's reading this... everyone who is sick of hearing about twenty something billionaires raise your right hand.

Thought so.
Peace out.
MDG & Claude

Facebook : Thems Some Pretty Racy Ads...:

In keeping with the Facebook theme we seem to have goin' on, Claude decided to review and share some findings on advertisements displayed prominently in Facebook. Yes, that same Facebook application Mark Zuckerberg founded at Harvard and which Microsoft purchased for $246 million. Riiiggght. Just so we are on the same page here.

Advertising, hmmm yes. It is an interesting and amazing industry, that advertising, that. And it looks like the online medium isn't all that different from print or late night television advertising. Just wondering though, is it really appropriate advertising like this for teens and tweens hooked on Facebook like a bunch of crack monkeys? Ok, maybe crack isn't the best analogy to be using here, but you get the picture. Anyways, Claude's findings are that advertising on Facebook is surprisingly racy, and even makes Claude blush.

Some examples for your consideration...


I don't know, maybe we are just downright dumb with our concept of what appropriate online advertising is. Plus, as you can read in the Preppy Ass ad, this ad is Ok'd to run by Google, so it must be OK for the tweens. I mean, afterall, isn't the driving force of Google to do no evil?

Things that make you go hmmmm.
Peace Out,
Claude

Happy Father's Day!!!

Too all you father's out there, just want to wish you a very HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!! Hope you have a wonderful and enjoyable day!
XOXO
MDG & Claude

Joe's Beach Road Bar & Grille Rocks the House

If you haven't been there recently, the updates at Joe's Beach Road Bar & Grille in Orleans are worth the trip! Some very happy changes indeed... Christian (formerly of Christian's in Chatham) is cooking there now and the menu has some fantastic updates. The haddock with lobster served with jasmine rice and asparagus is out of this world delicious. The tuna sashimi appetizer is yummy and great for sharing.

They extended the bar wrap around style, opening up some nice new seating configurations. The drinks are still rock solid, with a nice wine selection. We dig it. Rated "One of the ten best restaurants on Cape Cod" by Yankee Traveler. If you're on Cape Cod, check it out!!!

MGD & Claude

Know of any good gardening websites?

Mystery Dinner Guest is:

a) hoping for a sunny & warm weekend here on the Cape

b) hoping to get some gardening in

c) trying to get some tips for the gardening

d) feeling like lazy way out of blogging right now and this seems to fit the bill... oh, wait. was that part out loud?

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not the greenest thumb out there I know. While I like to pride myself on my multifarious other ways of being green, I have been known to kill a plant or two. So, we were hoping that someone might be kind enough to share their knowledge on any good online gardening web sites. Preferably ones that give you good ideas, with a good balance of pictures and instructions. Actually, lots of good pictures would be preferable. Nothing overly scientific, I get lost and confused in the academia angle. 

So, yah. that's pretty much my lame ass post for the day here... looking for ideas on gardening sites? Anyone? Buueeelller?!

Peace Out, 

MDG

If Facebook were real life...

So Claude's been testing the Facebook waters, and he reports back from the trenches that it might not be all it's cracked up to be. In fact, he recently came across the following YouTube video which pretty much captures what being on Facebook can feel like at times. It's kind of mashup between part email, part Snapfish, part reconnecting with people you'd otherwise never see or hear from again, part selling your personal information to the devil... But otherwise, it is very fun to chat with good friends on, and play fabulous games like Scrabulous! So, Facebook's got that going for it, which is good. And that's Nice!

Let us know what you think about Facebook. Is it good or evil?

Enjoy! MDG + Claude

FaceBook In Reality - idiotsofants dot com