Friday, February 6, 2009

Cute Viral Ad Campaign

I heard an ad on the radio where the supposed owner of a web site was complaining that his site was being confused with the site 'comparethemarket.com'. Wondering if the ad agency was smart enough to carry this all the way out I decided to check...

Sunday, February 1, 2009

At The Corner of Memory and Forgotten Lanes...

A few months ago I mentioned a roll of film that I'd found while moving into the new house. I had it developed at Wal-Mart a few months ago, but since my scanner has been busted, I was just today able to scan a few.

First of all, I guess real film development is something Wal-Mart isn't used to dealing with anymore; they wanted to charge me 50% more than the posted price for my roll of 24 exposures. I had to walk a manager over to the sign to show the discrepancy before he discounted my tab to the appropriate rate.

As best as I can tell, the first pictures are from a ski trip to Colorado I took in December 1998.

Here's a picture of Brian that--honestly--is one of the few things that confirm to me that I did, in fact, make this trip. I don't remember much else of what took place.


I have no idea who these people are, nor why I could take their photos:


The final pics are from an IEEE International Test Conference in Spring of 1999. I'm traveling with two other graduate students and my two faculty advisers--Dr. Marty Emmert and Dr. Charles Stroud--who did all the work.
Part of the trip was a meeting with our research counterparts from Bell Labs. The second gentleman on the back row is Dr. Miron Abramovici, author if what is lovingly referred to as the Testing Bible. I have an autographed copy (no joke).
The conference was in Atlantic City, and if you've never been to Atlantic City...don't bother; it's a pretty depressing place with opulent casinos surrounded by "gentleman's clubs", pawn shops, and lots of homelessness...
I do remember that I learned how to play Paigow poker especially for the trip...

It's somewhat depressing that I don't remember the context of all the photos so few short years after they were taken, but it was fun to relive the parts I do remember. I really did enjoy college and my graduate years, and I don't often take the time to be thankful and appreciate what a really great time it was.