Category Archives: Crossing Madison Avenue

Inspiration Index 10: Time to Get Ugly!

My wardrobe–outside work, anyway–consists mostly of blue jeans and black t-shirts. If I’m feeling particularly flashy (the nights I want to go out and paint the town beige), I might wear a shade of dark grey. The closest I’ll ever … Continue reading

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Rant in Aisle Two! (Part Two)

Emails have circulated over the past couple of years warning that certain retailers were going out of business, resulting in gift cards purchased at these stores having roughly the same worth as a pile of stale pizza crusts. Retailers, of … Continue reading

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Rant in Aisle Two! (Part 1)

Signs of the times: passed by a shopping plaza yesterday, and in the same plaza saw a shuttered Linens-N-Things a couple of doors down a soon-to-be-closed Circuit City. Both were scarcely a mile from a Fortunoff, another chain  that’s soon destined … Continue reading

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Iceland: Aluminum, ELF, and Elves

Paging Mr. Tolkien: I have to admit that before the total collapse of Iceland’s banking industry–and with it, very nearly, the collapse of the country itself–I thought that their principle export was Björk. How wrong I turned out to be. … Continue reading

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Who Wants My MTV?

Here’s a quick way to date yourself: do you remember when MTV actually played music? Like, all day? And from different genres? Boy, are you old. I was flipping through the channels last night looking for something to watch, and … Continue reading

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New, But Not Improved.

I panic when I see the words “New and Improved!” or “Great New Taste!” on my foodstuffs. And it’s not just because I find the exclamation mark vaguely offensive, as if some guy from Marketing is screaming at me. It’s … Continue reading

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Blog Review: Torn Paige

Torn Paige is the website of Paige Finkelman, who routinely blogs about technology, marketing, web communities, and the like. On the surface, that’s nothing special. The twist, though, is that unlike many of the blogs I’ve seen on these subjects–and … Continue reading

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Something in the Water?

I’m generally pretty neutral on Starbucks. Sure, I cringe at the thought of paying $24.75 for a tall soy mocha latte. On the other hand, I don’t think they’re the root of all evil (a distinction that clearly belongs to … Continue reading

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What Secret?

One thing life should teach everyone, sooner rather than later, is never to say, “Now I’ve seen everything.” I was reminded of this when I made the mistake of answering a question posed to me during an everyday conversation. I … Continue reading

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At Your (Self-) Service

A recent article on MSN.com tells of the rise of self-service checkouts and kiosks. If you listen to the marketing people–and somebody’s got to be listening to them, given that everything from gas stations to doctors’ offices now offers self-service–this … Continue reading

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