Also, stop posting so much awesome. Won't someone please think of my productivity? That Skeletor link was astounding.

I ask because http://twitter.com/dansdata/statuses/1247579833 linked to a picture of "Dominique the Cat Man" from Mallory Square in Key West, Fl, USA. I used to go down there every year in my youth during the winter, and I remember quite fondly all of the street performers. You can actually find the cat man on the web: http://www.catmankeywest.com/

Those street performers are fantastic, really, and great with audience participation. I believe I still have a dollar bill I was given for being an underwire in one of Will Soto's performances there.

There are a whole host of very interesting folks who used to do the rounds there but have since moved on, or passed on, including "Love 22" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_22) who used to hand out 22 dollar bills and teach you how to fold them into a ring.

That picture just helped to bring back a good number of memories, thanks! Sadly, most of Key West has gone way south since those days, and those days are well after the heyday of Navy Sailors and Shrimp Fishermen in the Keys...

They also organised competitions, which is what companies do to get marketing research for free. That's what competitions are. You fill in all your demographic details and personal info, then mail it off to - MARKETING people. Even worse is if the ad agency is running it, they're like the coke dealers to marketing types, and usually literally are, too.

All that 'we won't use your details' fine print? BS, baby, those demographics are worth a LOT of money, and your data gets passed around quicker than the blow does.

All that was back in the 80's, pre-internet, back when a fax was a novelty and you had to have the boss' permission to use it. These days it must be something like hard-core personal-data rape by comparison.

My dad now designs Air-defense Frigates, a much more wholesome career if you ask me.

No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself.

Seriously though, if you are, do.

Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.

Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi... Whatever, you know what I mean.

I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."

Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags!

"Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing."

Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!

"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that."

God, I'm just caught in a fucking web.

"Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..."

How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?

"What didya do today honey?"

"Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight." [snores] "Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?" [snores] "Yeah, you know the mums will love it." [snores]

Sleep like fucking children, don't ya, this is your world isn't it?

Oh Dan, say it ain't so!

(I've just come out of a 3 hour Marketing lecture and have decided that marketing is, in fact, entirely evil. And teachers of it are, to a first approximation, wankers.)

I don't have a Facebook or MySpace account and don't intend to. To each their own.

I agree...I just can't get into it, too much information is becoming a chore. If I spent even a small amount of time with every forum/feed/email list that I'm subscribed to I'd never have any time left in my day to actually, you know, do something useful. (...and both Face Space and MyBook are just plain annoying...)

Probably an indication I need to do some agressive trimming to limit my online activities.

Power Twitter adds features to the Twitter Web interface including:

-search
-search scoped to a specific user
-status history peeking on mouseover
-Facebook status updates
-inline YouTube, Flickr, and TwitPic
-url expansion
-url translation to page titles
-open web update (news feed) mapping