Naming Just Got Easy

Wouldn't it be nice if there were an easy button for naming companies and products? Just Push The Easy Button. (Noooooo, don't click that link, just push the easy button. Yeah, that's it.) Kudos to Staples for the easy button.

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Riot as rain

The San Francisco Bay Area, where Snark lives and breeds, yesterday broke its all-time record for number of rainy days in March. The old record of 23 days was set in 1904. And when it starts raining today -- any minute now, as rainbows are sprouting from the ground like weeds and the air is growing moss -- we'll end the month with a new record: 25 of 31 March days it has rained. Everyone here keeps saying, none too enthuastically, that we're turning into Seattle, but I'm thinking it's more like Garcia Marquez country.

Meanwhile, over in France, where Quark is in exile for daring to eat French fries during the run-up to the Iraq war, they are having a regular riot of a time.

Any connection between the two events? Only in the wordoshpere. Punderstand?

Because nature hates a vacuum…

…and we hate it back, we’ve created 25,000 puns, slogans, Zen koans, acronyms, names for fictitious companies, products, movies, race horses, etc, and shoved them down the throat of the web here.

Keep in mind, these were all created sans vagus.

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What’s the iBuzz?

Have you heard the latest buzz about the iPod?

If you've been following the news lately, you know that the Beatles' record label Apple Corps Ltd. is suing Apple Computer Inc. over the use of Apple as a trademark associated with music distribution. The ubiquitous Apple iPod is the portable music player of choice for consumers of Apple iTunes.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you might have heard that Apple has sold over one billion iTunes, which pretty much puts Apple in the music distribution business, and possibly in breach of a settlement agreement with the Beatles' Apple Corps in this ongoing trademark battle. The courts are hearing the case right now, in England, and the judge has offered to recuse himself because even he owns an iPod. Many court observers and technology pundits expect the case might be settled for money.

The best things in life are free
But you can keep them for the birds and bees
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want

But John Dvorak thinks there's another solution.

In an effort to save the money, though, I would suggest that the company change its name for good. Offer a million dollars to the public-at-large in a competition to rename the company. That would do the job and get the publicity needed for it to be promotional. Why not?

That's another story. If you've been reading more than the mainstream media, and have dipped into the cesspool of love that is our new blogroll, and read a few weblogs like Gizmodo, Engadget and Strange New Products, you might have caught the iBuzz.

Your lovin' gives me a thrill
But your lovin' don't pay my bills
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want

Words and music by Barry Gordy Jr. and Janie Bradford, performed by the Beatles, and available everywhere music is sold—except iTunes.

Cervix with a smile

Few products inspire the level of passion and affection that iPod lovers lavish upon their Podis. But the tango between man and music machine has been a frustrating dance of unrequited love, until now. Yes, the great day has arrived. For the girl that just wants to have fun, the relationship can now be consummated, thanks to those randy Brits at iBuzz.

But where would one store an iPod equipped with iBuzz? In in its natural habitat, of course.

Insert your own innuendo here, we are up to are ears in it as it is. Via Strange New Products.

Abnu discovered, trailed, then lost

While ostensibly on a trip to meet a client in the city of T- recently, I managed to uncover the elusive and mysterious Abnu in his native habitat.


I surprised the unsuspecting Wordbeast in a bar, and then chased him down the street until he ducked into a massage parlor and I lost him among countless barrels of Vaseline in the back room. Most unfortunately, when I returned home and processed the pictures, a strange digital artifact seems to have blotted out the face I had trekked half-way around the world to capure in pixels.

So I need your help. If anybody out there has their own photographs of the Great and Powerful Oz Abnu, send 'em in and I'll post them here. It's only a matter of time until we smoke you out, Abnu, so consider yourself warned.

His Master’s Voice

One of the most famous of all advertising images is the painting of the dog looking at and listening to the gramophone that has become associated with the words His Master's Voice. But not many people these days know the name of the dog, or can tell you the story of this painting and the slogan.

Nipper the dog was born in Bristol in Gloucester, England in 1884 and so named because of his tendency to nip the backs of visitors' legs. When his first master Mark Barraud died destitute in Bristol in 1887, Nipper was taken to Liverpool in Lancashire, England by Mark's younger brother Francis, a painter.

In Liverpool Nipper discovered the Phonograph, a cylinder recording and playing machine and Francis Barraud "often noticed how puzzled he was to make out where the voice came from". This scene must have been indelibly printed in Barraud's brain, for it was three years after Nipper died that he committed it to canvas.

Nipper died in September 1895, having returned from Liverpool to live with Mark Barraud's widow in Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey, England. Though not a thoroughbred, Nipper had plenty of bull terrier in him; he never hesitated to take on another dog in a fight, loved chasing rats and had a fondness for the pheasants in Richmond Park!

In 1898 Barraud completed the painting and registered it on 11 February 1899 as "Dog looking at and listening to a Phonograph".

The story continues that, after many unsuccessful attempts to sell the painting, Barraud managed to get the interest of The Gramophone Company (from which product name we get today's music award, The Grammy Awards) and was paid a total of 100 pounds for the painting and the copyright—but only after agreeing to overpaint the original black phonograph horn gold to match the buyer's disc gramophone.

The painting made its first public appearance on The Gramophone Company's advertising literature in January 1900, and later on some novelty promotional items. However, "His Master's Voice" didn't appear on the Company's letterhead until 1907. The painting and title were finally registered as a trademark in 1910, and remains among the most widely recognized intellectual properties of the twentieth century.

This tale ends with a number of Nipper Facts, of which we find this most curious:

Did you know that...in 2006 it is said by Heather Readman, Surrey, B.C., Canada that it wasn't the painter who wanted to change the name of the painting to "His Master's Voice". It was in fact Heather Readman's great grandfather, William Graham, who was living in Scotland at the time the Gramophone was being marketed. He entered a contest to put a slogan to the picture and he came up with "His Master's Voice". He was to win a "prize" which Heather Readman can only assume was possibly a gramophone, and in order to claim his prize, he had to purchase a specific quantity of merchandise from RCA. He had no money, so he couldn't ever claim his prize, but the claim to fame in Heather Readman's family is that it was, in fact, Billy Graham, of the Kingdom of Fife, Scotland, who named the picture "His Master's Voice", which was later shortened to "HMV".

And to that incredible story we'd add that, coincidentally, Nipper is also the name of a famous American patent attorney, who is well-known on the worldwide web for writing The Invent Blog.

Pit Bull Lawyers Muzzled

Motorcycle Injury Lawyers Pape & Chandler have come to the end of a very short leash. Today, legal arguments advocating their rights to use the image of a pit bull in law firm advertising were refused to be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States, or SCOTUS as legal beagles like to call the alpha dogs of the federal judiciary.

f/k/a EthicalEsq has the poop, including this sound bite.

I'm afraid the professional Dignity Police have too many allies on the Supreme Court bench -- or maybe, consumers and the First Amendment have too few. Treating the public like fools and acting pompously self-important (and above mere commerce) is not the way to win respect for the legal profession.

It's really too bad that lawyers who know how to communicate effectively with their customers are muzzled by a self-regulated profession that is so out of touch with reality.

Onion Radio News

This just in. NBC To Add Dateline: Flursday

The Maguffin’s are coming!

Maguffin, the ultimate object of desire, is the name of the new webstore / catalog from Igor. It’s a collection of the most interesting objects from around the world. Send an email to ” join at igorinternational dot com ” to be the first dork on your block to get the catalog!