Visual Feedback

I finally got around to uploading some pictures to Flickr.

Costa Rica set

I was going to post a set from the Rubik's Cube Party only to be foiled by Flickr. Flickr yells at me, "No! You aren't paying us, so you only get to have 200 pictures here." I was shocked, disappointed, and deeply hurt. Flickr was supposed to be the Google to my Yahoo [and yes, I know Flickr got bought up by Yahoo.] The Gmail to my Hotmail. The Blogger to my Live Journal. It was supposed to be the service the blew away the competition and didn't ask anything in return. With a rude awakening, I find that's no longer the case. Flickr wants something in return.

Okay, Flickr. You win. Here you go. A big payment in the form of my middle finger. Howdya like them apples? sigh... I guess I'll just have to wait until Google releases their own image hosting site. Until then, I'll look for an alternative. And don't you dare suggest SnapFish or EasyShare.

UPDATE 4/16/07: What do you know? Picasa has merged with Google and has a decent service now. I tried Picasa in its pre-Google infancy, and while it was a decent program, it didn't impress me enough to use it again. When I signed up with Flickr, I was a happy camper... until the above happenned. Google/Picasa now offers 1 GB of free storage (or about 4000 pics) up from some negligible amount earlier. Compare that to Flickr's 200 pics. While Picasa's interface is not as slick or comprehensive as Flickr's, it's adequate. The amount of free storage and the fact that it's all connected to my Google Account have made me a convert. Bye Flickr...

Pop-(t)art

So I was eating a pop-tart earlier this morning. I don't particularly like pop-tarts, but my company provides breakfast for the traders (in the form of cereal, granola bars, and pop-tarts,) and sometimes I'll raid their supply for a sugar dose when I start passing out at my desk in the afternoon. Now, in the cast of that imaginary, wholesome "complete breakfast" always mentioned towards the end of the cereal commercials I watched as a kid, pop-tarts must play a very minor role. They're not good for much beyond the 34 grams of sugar, but like most products at that end of the spectrum, they're specifically targeting kids. Of course, my mom wouldn't let me have much of anything of that sort when I was growing up... no sugary cereal, no soda (unless we were having pizza), a carefully rationed amount of dessert, and juice only after I'd had a glass of milk at meals (and then only 100% juice, no Hawaiian Punch or Hi-C for me.) So maybe this is a form of quiet rebellion. Although now my mom complains that I'm too skinny, so who's to blame for that? And I still got cavities as a kid, though the dentist blamed structural anomalies in my teeth, and not my diet or brushing habits, perhaps just to placate my mom.

I just realized all that rambling was completely off-topic to the post I'd intended to write. So anyway, I was eating a pop-tart earlier this morning, and I took a look at the package, which bears this logo:
I could not, for the life of me, understand why there was a goofy sketched figure emerging from the "o". Not only that , but a figure who appears to be in some sort of ecstatic altered state of mind. Is this an image of a child being born, emerging from the birth canal, pop-tart in hand, ready to conquer his childhood? Is this a sly reference to the closing of Looney Tunes where Poky Pig pops out of those concentric circles, arm raised, and says "That's all folks"? It could even be the image of a saint, who is experiencing the throes of spiritual ecstatsy acheived via a modern day toaster pastry, and is ascending to heaven, brandishing his holy relic. Hard to say really, giving how roughly-hewn the drawing is. In any case, the figure is clearly not in a normal state; he might be on acid, he might have severe mental disabilities. My best guess is that we're looking at the self-portrait of a child, drawn while eating a pop-tart, hence the sugar-fueled euphoria overdoese. A meta-self-portrait if you will, like an artist who paints a self-protrait of himself painting a self-portrait. Damn, this shit is deep.

But what kind of message does this end to kids, and their parents, for that matter? Apparently Kellog's encourages pumping kids up so full of sugar that they can no longer see straight. Instead of the picture, the package may as well come with a sugeron general's warning that reads, "CAUTION: consumption of this product may lead to epileptic seizures." These are the kids that are going to flunk art class unless they spark their creative vision with a hit of some illicit drug. What I'm trying to say, is that I have no idea what Kellog's intentions are with this addition to their logo, but it has absolutely no place on their product's packaging. Further, the dimtwit who spoke up during the weekly toaster pastry marketing meeting, displayed a picture his 4-year-old son drew, and suggested that they modify their product's logo to include the budding artist's rendition of a crack baby, ought to be flogged. And why did everyone else think this was a good idea? Honestly. They must have forgotten that they're supposed to wait 2-4 hours after sampling their prodcut to hold any meetings during which important decisions might be made.

And that, my friends, is how you write a blog post about absolutley nothing of importance or interest to anyone. The only thing it succeeds in doing, is wasting time at work. But it did so quite well, so I'm posting with pride.