How *not* to make a sale

Wow.

A telemarketer just started off with "Hello gorgeous". I'm...in awe? Surprised? Not really shocked, because I've seen or heard nearly every tactic there is now to get through, but...

See, the thing is...the head honcho's friends would do that. They would call me gorgeous or sweet pea or darlin'. They're older, they're slightly chauvenistic and they're hopelessly MEN (not to be confused with men, who are far more decent and courteous and don't buy into the men/women differential the same way - MEN are a slightly different, bombastic breed).

But this *telemarketer* tried the "gorgeous" routine. Which just...well, I smirked and he ended up in voicemail. He can try, but it doesn't work.

(no subject)

Research Shows Dogs Understand Language

Well, duh.

I found this part particularly interesting.

The researchers found that Rico (a smart Border collie) knows the names of dozens of play toys and can find the one called for by his owner. That is a vocabulary size about the same as apes, dolphins and parrots trained to understand words, the researchers say.

You know what? My dog can differentiate between toys with similar names. He even *remembers* what his Squeaker is (it's a squeaky doll), even though he hasn't played with it in ages (he started tearing out the stuffing, so I trashed that sucker). And if I tell him "get your squeaky toy", he goes for the squeaky bone. And he knows what the "ball" is. He understands "want" (because it's usually followed with "to go outside" or "a puppy snack"). He understands "outside" and "puppy snack", "crate", "couch", "sit" when I have food. He also knows "it's a bug!" because bugs are good for chewing on.

Of course, like a small child, he has selective hearing and ignores his name and "no". *snort*

But the wildest part? I never trained him. He picked up those on his own. The times I've tried to train him to do anything, he's bombed. The closest he's come to actually learning anything is "sit", but he only does that willingly without prompting (other than the command) if I have food in my hand.

Top 100

CMT has a list of the top 100 country love songs. I know some of them. Some I don't. The list follows, from 100 to 1, with comments from me on songs that I felt I could or should comment on.

( CMT Top 100 Love Songs )

Who's your Superman

I have a proposal for this summer for Smallville fandom, one that's sort of a profiling if you will.

How about we all take our superhero and profile what, to us, is Superman.

I'm probably going to do this next week, but it would include such things as the physical (because I know some people differ as to what's important...or even the square jaw thing), personality traits, little quirks, who is the predominant personality (Clark or Supes), what his flaws are, etc.

Like...for me, Clark is the predominant personality. Clark also can't dance or sing. He's tone deaf and has no rhythm. These are just little things that MY Clark/Superman has going on.

Edited to add: This could be fandom-wide fun, but it's not compiling *one* profile of Clark/Superman. This would be each person's mental image of what he is. You could post it in your journal. I think it would be a fascinating way of showing what each of us think of the Man of Steel. It's sort of like each person's thumbprint on who he is.

A sign

You know, it's one of those things that tells you of his popularity.

I just saw in musesfool's journal "RIP Ray".

I immediately thought "did Ray Charles die?" Isn't it interesting (because yes, Ray Charles did die) that he was the *first* person I thought of. He was the logical Ray.

And from me too...RIP Ray.

(no subject)

This story about Libya's planned assassination attempt last year on the Saudi prince is interesting. Interesting in a way that slightly disturbs the minute conspiracy theorist hiding out in the corner of my brain (damn you X-Files!).

So in October the U.S. got a guy trying to enter Libya by illegal means. In November, in a separate incident, the Saudi's got a guy. Both claimed to be involved in a plot that could be directly traced to Qadafi that was to kill the Saudi prince through assassination or a coup.

Libya just gets out from being ostracized for years because of Lockerbie.

Now, I'm not saying that Qadafi didn't plot it. I have every reason to believe he would. The man is evil evil evil. Turning your back on him would be like turning your back on a mad cobra. Deadly.

But isn't it interesting who the parties are that found out about the conspiracy? Do you know what this does for the U.S. and it's role in the Middle East? The U.S. is a "friend" for helping to "protect". Libya is a believable bad guy.

Jeez. I sound really suspicious. But it's damn good PR.