risk-free questions! now! join the millions who...

"Try Smarmy absolutely risk-free."

"And now FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY you too can try Smarmy at no risk."

1. Risk, to whom? You? Or me?
2. What kind of risk? Medical? Financial? Moral?
3. What is "risk"?
4. Why should I believe your "risk-free" claim?
5. Doesn't everything have some risk potential, including reading THIS?
6. Isn't all time "limited"?
7. What is the limit of your time?
8. What is the limit of your space?
9. Is poetry risk-free?
10. Would you mind if I dehyphenate risk free?
11. If you concede risk is not "absolutely free," then what is its cost?
12. What is the best currency to use when paying for the cost of risk?
13. Do you get irritated and sore with me when I drivel on like this?
14. Do my interrogatives put you at the risk of losing your composure?
15. Are you one of the millions, or one of the few, the proud?
16. Am I the only one whose ears prick upward, like a dog's, at the sound of "risk-free"?
17. Are any of our politicians risk-free?
18. Is that what got us into this pickle, expecting our so-called leaders to guide through so-called risk-free times?
19. Who is doing the calling when something is "so-called"?
20. Who is doing the answering to these twenty questions?
    

swatch

I enjoy -- yes, enjoy -- the word "swatch." I like its sound and meaning.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary:

swatch
1510s, "the countercheck of a tally" (Northumberland dialect), later "a tally attached to cloth sent to be dyed" (1610s, in Yorkshire), of unknown origin. Meaning "a sample piece of cloth" is from 1640s.

As James Joyce or Edmund Lear might say:

"You better swatch out; you better not spout..."

Instead of Marketingspeak saying, "Our suite of services includes..." or "Our portfolio consists of Ex Why and Zee," I'm all for swapping out tired old "suite" and portly and lazy "portfolio" with "swatch." I hereby declare 2011 as The Year of Swatch! In fact, let's make it the year of swagger and swatch!

"Click on the tab to experience a swatch of our products."

"Swatch here to feel the texture of our designs." [Why not morph "swatch" into a verb?]

"Swatch me with your proposal by COB."

"We'll be sending you a swatch of our candidate's qualifications."

"Obama offered a swatch of this year's agenda."

Swatch.

It all started here.

laughorism dot com

Buy now!

(Bye now.)

Limited time only!

(Isn't all time limited?)

Buy now at Laughorism.com.

(Shameless self-promotion.)

creative. . .

collaboration I spearheaded.

I trust you like it.

12 Steps of Marketing 101

1. Last November while awaiting to get my rental car from Enterprise I struck up a casual and commiserating conversation with a customer more disgruntled than I.

2. I recognized the name of her business advertised on her baseball cap; I told her I knew of the firm, that I had once inquired about working there.

3. I offered to exchange business cards. She did not have her cards with her. I gave her my card and wrote down her name and email.

4. Days later, I sent her an email reminding her of our brief chat and introducing her to my website, etc.

5. Days after that, I sent her my linecard or brochure or handout or whatever we want to call it, with a handwritten note.

6. Time passed.

7. A little more time passed.

8. Then I sent a brief follow-up email, suggesting lunch or a cup of coffee. She was on vacation, the quick reply stated.

9. Some time passed.

10. I received an email from her not only agreeing to lunch but outlining possible areas of need and professional common interest and opportunities. She offered to bring a colleague to lunch.

11. All three of us had a brilliant lunch today reviewing specific needs and potential scenarios for collaborating. Their firm graciously paid the tab for lunch (in my neighborhood incidentally).

12. It is virtually certain that we will work together in 2010. It works if you work it.

shameless promotion

Come on in!

www.laughorism.com

Brand X (or Y) (or maybe ZZZZZZZ)

The makers of OxyContin just got fined for "misbranding" a narcotic. Sheeesh, can you imagine getting addicted to a legally available narcotic? Aren't you shocked? The company is being fined $600 million, and three executives are getting punished to the tune of $34.5 million, for misrepresenting the potential for addiction.

Frankly, I'm worried. (Ever notice when someone, especially at work, says "frankly," he or she is following with a lie?)

Am I next? Will the Feds come after me for misbranding The Laughorist? In my banner at the top of my web log, I proclaim ex cathedra:

A venue for solipsistic eavesdroppers, verbal voyeurs, and hoarse whisperers.

Well, let's do a little examen of conscience:

Is The Laughorist a venue? True enough.

Is The Laughorist for "solipsistic eavesdroppers"? I'll go along with the "eavesdroppers" part, but I confess I'm the one all too typically solipsistic. (Eavesdropper? What the heck is the origin of that word? See preceding link.)

"Verbal voyeurs"? I'm all for voyeurism, verbal or otherwise, but are you? Yes, you viewers are playing peek-a-boo under the eaves of my inner brain, or loins, such as it is; such as they are (or was; were).

"Hoarse whisperers"? Fair enough. One can get hoarse and easily lose one's voice amid the flood and flotsam of miasmic hordes of words, words, words.

But the biggest question of branding vs. misbranding is this:

Does The Laughorist live up to his self-anointed, self-appointed name, namely: blend laughs with aphorisms? Is he one who is a humorist + aphorist?

Alas, only part of the time. Just as often The Laughorist is simply only one paltry, plebeian, morose, or raunchy voice amid the many thongs (oops, I mean, throngs) out in Cyberville. He might even more accurately be sporting one of these monikers: The Grammaticist, or The Solipsist, or The Redactorist.

Remember "We, The Ephemerists"?

So sue me.

Sue me for misbranding.

But don't fine me.

I'm no narcotic misbrander. I might put you to sleep sometime, but addictively narcotic?

I hope I am at least a mild stimulant at least some of the time, if not laughoristically laxative most of the time.

Ever Yours, etc.

Pawlie Kokonuts, Esq.

p.s. Why doesn't the firm that got fined come out with a new product, call it Acci-InContinent? What a pisser!