Tetherd Cow Ahead

Picture and gag by Anne Arkham. Thanks babe.

Boy some people can come up with daft ideas.

Violet Towne has just started back at work for the year and in her work-supplied stationery package she found the above-pictured ‘Write Aroma’ pen*. Of course she thoughtfully passed it on to me (because she knew how much I’d love it), and I in turn pass it on to you (because I know how much you’ll love it too). In case it’s not immediately obvious from the packaging, it’s a car air-freshener that comes breathtakingly bundled with a pen. Or, conversely, a pen that comes bundled with a car air-freshener. Brilliant!

Because you know how often you’ve been in a car and simultaneously wished:

A: That it smelled artificially of apples

and

B: That you had a pen to write a sonnet.

I can’t begin to enumerate the times that’s happened to me. Now, thanks to Pentel, should I be in such a situation ever again, I am completely prepared. Truly a Wonder of the Modern Age. I’m so glad that natural resources are being squandered for the manufacture of this this must-have item. This is how Pentel pitches it on their website:

The convenient Write Aroma Car Kit features the new Pentel Energel dulex retractable rollerball pen. The pen (RRP $3.95) conveniently clip onto the airfreshener(RRP $6.00) so you will not loose $5.00 & never be lost for a pen in the car again.

Crikey. For people who make their business out of selling writing implements you’d think that Pentel might take some trouble to get some actual writers† to work on their advertising. I’m not at all sure why the Write Aroma is ‘convenient’ (it seems to me that for something to be convenient, it has to have some kind of actual utility to begin with – a gewgaw that does nothing useful in the first place can hardly aspire to make a grab for the added status of ‘convenience’…), and I’m completely baffled as to how it stops me loosing $5.00. Or losing it either.

You may be forgiven for making the mistake of thinking, as I did at first, that the pen writes with a perfumed ink as well. Now that would be a truly stupid idea.

So stupid in fact that there are abundant puveyors of such items. At Aroma Writes, for instance, you can buy pens that scribble in little trails of lavender, patchouli, rosemary, Pina Colada and cappuccino.

Why is this desirable, I hear you ask? Obvious: you choose a scent for the type of letter you’re writing! Let me elaborate:

Lavender: Dear Mum & Dad, I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time why I am so fond of musical theatre…

Patchouli: …and then we found these awesome mushrooms and spent the whole evening talking to the pixies…

Rosemary: Of course, for Sunday dinner I cooked up a roast leg of lamb which the whole family enjoyed…

Pina Colada: I also just love getting caught in the rain, the feel of the ocean and the taste of champagne…

Cappuccino: Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets! Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the middle class!

…and so forth.

But here at Tetherd Cow Ahead, we feel that a real sense of vision from these perfumed pen peddlers is tragically absent. To this end, the clever boffins at TCA Enterprisesâ„¢ are hard at work improving on the Scented Pen concept in an effort to bring you a whole new world of olfactory calligraphic delights. So far we have perfected pens that will scent your correspondence with: bacon; ozone; asparagus-tinctured urine‡; mildew; Roquefort; whiskey; anchovies; pond water, formaldehyde and bratwurst. And we make a car kit too! Just think of the possibilities! Now, when you run into someone’s Merc in the parking lot you can leave them a bacon-scented apology note! Who could fail to be mollified by that?

And that’s not all! TCA Labs have even discovered a way to bring this concept into the digital age! Yes, that’s right, using the very same technology behind the TCA Virtual Glass of Water (VGW)â„¢, TCA Enterprisesâ„¢ in association with Hello From Hell Inc. brings you iSmellâ„¢. With iSmellâ„¢ you can now send aromatized** emails to your friends and families! I bet you didn’t see that coming Steve Jobs!

And should you think that concept has a fishy bouquet about it, just remember the folks at Pentel who managed to convince someone that bundling a pen with a car air-freshener was an idea worth bank-rolling.

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*You have to consider the concept that these useless tchotchkes are so unappealing and worthless that the only way that Pentel can get rid of them is to throw them in with other actually-useful stuff.

†Instead of out-of-work spammers.

‡Note: this scent undetectable by around 40% of people.

**It’s a real word. Ugly, I know, but somehow… apt.

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As we stumble flat-footed but indisputably well-endowed into 2008, China tries frantically to get Beijing ready for the 2008 Olympic Games. It is by now becoming apparent that it has a mighty long way to go before it can face up to the ongoing criticism of the West and make a dent in its massive pollution problem. A lot has been written already about the country’s choking air quality, eclipsing, perhaps, some less obvious concerns.

Here at Cow Central, we have it on good authority that the Chinese Government has taken cunning measures to deal with other kinds of contamination, and our TCA Special Correspondent, operating deep behind enemy lines, wandering around the shops at Christmas, has uncovered a fiendish Chinese scheme to offload solid toxic waste onto an unsuspecting West; worse than that, even: a Machiavellian plot to deliver their atramentous filth into the hands of innocent children!

Allow me to elaborate. Inevitably, at this time of year, a shopper finds him/herself dawdling into the precincts of the now-ubiquitous ‘Two Dollar Shop’.* All manner of zany gadgets and trinkets seem to find their way into these places, and a Christmas visit here is almost mandatory for the acquisition of that kooky little ‘something’ to give to the special someone in your life.

This year, TCA’s Man On The Street brought our attention to the Two Dollar Shop item (masquerading as a ‘toy’) pictured above: a small plastic drum with the word ‘Caution’ stencilled on it. Or, more accurately, a whole box full of the damn things! A check at ‘Price World’ in my own neck of the woods uncovers a similar trove. Given the pervasive nature of the Two Dollar Shop, we may conclude that there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of these little black barrels arriving on our shores every week! There is no doubt at all where they originate:

The fiends are so brazen that they don’t make even the slightest attempt to cover their tracks! Now, as I cautiously open the lid and allow you to examine the contents, I will understand completely if you tremble with fear as the full understanding of this dastardly plot dawns upon you!

Yes, my friends, not only are they very effectively getting rid of their foul effluvium, but they’ve concocted a racket where we actually buy it from them! And then pass it on to our kids, in the guise of a carefree play item, so that they may absorb it through their skin, thereby creating a new generation of hideous yet feeble mutants addicted to glitzy flashing lights and the smell of rarified hydrocarbons…

Sure, China gives the appearance of a massively uncoordinated country bravely attempting to shake off the stigma of the Third World and march proudly into a Shiny Capitalist Future, but I say BEWARE! Remember these people invented the word inscrutable!†

Today the Olympic Games, tomorrow The World!

(If I mysteriously disappear anytime soon, I ask only that name be recorded on a monument on Manhattan Island in the future world capital New Shanghai, along with the words ‘I told you so’).

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*I am speculating that there is an equivalent to this phenomenon in other countries; pokey little shops packed densely with shelving that offers all manner of cheap, usually Chinese-made, junk. In Australia, the shops go by such monikers as ‘Buy Rite’, ‘Price World’, ‘Bargain Zone’ or ‘Reject Shop’ but are universally known here as ‘Two Dollar Shops’. I actually really love the Two Dollar Shops because they are a reminder of the kind of corner-store I grew up with as a kid. I am fully aware that their cheap flashy plastic gew-gaws probably represent the exploitation of poor Chinese peasants and the plundering of fragile ecosystems.

†Well, OK, it’s an English word so they probably didn’t invent it. But I bet they have a Chinese word that means pretty much the same thing. And I bet they use it often, followed by a sinister laugh.

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The people at RadioShack have been running a rather clever advertising concept illuminating their ‘Do Stuffâ„¢’‡ slogan. Briefly, it involves demonstrating how to accomplish some task, such as shooting candid nature shots of wild animals, by buying off-the-shelf RadioShack items and repurposing them.

Being a bit of a techno-geek, I respond very well to this kind of idea, so I’ve been checking in with the RadioShack site now and then to see what else they’re coming up with. Amusingly, the current (December) offering sees the RadioShack Geek Department comprehensively out-clevering itself in an enthusiastic bid to ratchet up the Christmas shopping turnover.

The concept is outlined in easy-to-follow steps under the uber-tekky, up-to-the-minute-geeky* title Caroling 2.0 and this pitch:

When the weather outside is frightful, and the fire is so delightful, it can be pretty hard to get excited about caroling. Luckily, all it takes is technology and a little know-how to sing to the neighbourhood, without dashing through the snow.

To synopsize the idea: you video yourself singing Christmas carols, edit the results and transfer them to your iPod. You attach your pod and a little speaker to a radio-controlled toy truck and then, from the cosy comfort of your living room, drive it off to your neighbours’ houses to infuse them with jolly musical holiday cheer (and all of the aforementioned tech-toys are purchased from RadioShack, of course). Easy peasy, eh?

Or, as the RadioShack Geek Department rates it:

Difficulty: Easy
Time: About an hour
Result: A new holiday tradition

Here at the Tetherd Cow Geek Department, we think it would go slightly differently:

Difficulty: Somewhat easier than assembling an IKEA bookshelf. But not much.
Time: How good is your singing and how competent are your editing skills?
Result: One stolen iPod & RC toy

Aside from anything, isn’t the whole point of Christmas caroling that you get together with a bunch of friends and trudge through the snow in order to spread the neighbourly Christmas spirit? And so you can trudge back again and enjoy brandy and eggnog and chestnuts roasting on an open fire?†

Sigh. Obviously I have, once gain, been left behind by the latest trends.

These days, it would appear, with a RadioShack purchased Wireless AV Sender, a RadioShack purchased camcorder and some RadioShack purchased AV cables, not only will your kids get see mommy kissing Santa Claus, they’ll be able to project the whole sordid affair as it happens, for all the world to see, using a RadioShack purchased video projector pointed at a convenient neighbourhood snow drift.

So with that thought in mind, a Special Tetherd Cow Christmas Competition!

Your task: re-imagine a Christmas tradition using a combination of products from the RadioShack catalogue. Keep it realistic (ie, feasible), make it purposeless (points will be deducted for anything deemed useful), make it inspired, and make it funny. If possible, refer to the lyrics of your favourite Christmas song.

There will be a prize for the cleverest invention. And it will be a special one.

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‡Is it just me, or is all this trademarking starting to get A Bit Out Of Handâ„¢?

*Sarcasm (in case you think I was being serious).

†Well, I dunno. We don’t have anything like snow or icicles or Frosty the Snowman here of course, but from watching all the American films, I certainly got the impression that that’s what it was all about.

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You know the kind of thing. You get a phone call from your telco saying that they’ve been ‘reviewing’ your plan and they want to help you save money by putting you on a ‘more efficient’ one. Usually this involves re-bundling your mobile phone and your landline services and your internet and your espresso machine in some unfathomable manner. I’ve had two of these calls this week alone and it drives me nuts.

First of all, if it’s true, and you really are spending more money with them than you should be, what the hell kind of logic is there in them telling you that? Could it be that they’re thinking… ‘oooh, we’re making billions of dollars profit but, gosh, we’re so big-hearted that we simply couldn’t sleep at night if we were to rip a few extra cents off our poor customers…’

Yeah, right. Paradoxically, my most recent bill had a whole lot of mysterious SMS ‘status request’ charges that they were quite unwilling to help me ‘be more efficient’ with, even though I didn’t incur them and they couldn’t tell me why they were there.

Following the reasoning that they ‘want to help you save money’ to its logical outcome, let’s say a lot of customers are operating inefficiently, and the company magics those poor suckers’ plans to help them all to spend less. What’s going to happen when it works and the customers put fewer dollars in the telco’s coffers and the company shareholders see a sudden plunge in profits? Right! They’ll put the charges up!!

So it’s plainly illogical that their motive is altruistic. What the hell, then, are they doing.

I stumbled across an article in Choice Magazine recently that may just hold a clue. Here’s the kernel of what it had to say:

The problem is that comparing these bundled packages is next to impossible, even for the pros. Comparison website PhoneChoice says telcos’ pricing structures for bundles are too complex even for quantitative analysis and modelling — there have been several failed attempts to develop systems to compare the offers… Recently, it took a Federal Court judge to adjudicate over which of two mobile phone plans was cheaper.

‘… too complex even for quantitative analysis and modelling…’ Did you get that? We can now make a good fist of modelling the weather on computers, but we can’t simulate competing phone plans.

So here’s my theory: these plans are so complex that not even the people who come up with them can tell what they’re doing! This poses a problem – how, then, do they know which plan is making them more money? Right! They don’t! As a result they have now come to the realization that they must keep swapping their customers from plan to plan in order to have any chance of avoiding diminishing earnings.

They have clevered themselves into confusion.

Let this be a warning to all those with the hubris to challenge complex mathematics.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting pretty tired of the standard vague, equivocal horoscope in the daily paper astrology section.

Here’s what it says for me today:

Libra ~

Change your thinking and you can change the way you see the world. You cannot change others; but by planting positive thoughts instead of focussing on the negatives you will soon find that you view things very differently. You have the power within you to make this sweeping change, so don’t wait, do it now.

Talk about lame. It couldn’t be much more wishy washy if it said:

Libra ~

Today, some things might happen and some other things might not.

It’s pretty obvious to me that horoscopes are lagging behind the times. While the rest of the world surges forward on the digital wave of the 21st century, astrology seems stuck in a Medieval morass of mediocre mumblings. We’re watching The Present in high definiton widescreen with 5.1 surround sound but Athena Starwoman is still drawing our Future in stick figures with charcoal on a piece of vellum!

The time for the crystal ball gazers to ditch the goat’s blood and tea-leaves is long past due! Someone needs to turn the mighty power of modern technology toward Astrological ends, and far be it from me to shirk such a worthy duty! Yes folks, I’m announcing a New Age in Astrological Augury here on The Cow: The TCA Horoscope of Infinite Detail™. Starting today our specially appointed Tetherd Cow seer, Iotas Scrivener, will periodically bring you a horoscope that says it like it means it. None of this ambivalent pettifogging and indecisive hedging-of-bets for Iotas. Using only the latest Beyond-The-Veil connectivity and our lightning fast Psychomantic data loggers, Iotas plugs into the Ethereal Ethernet and brings back your weekly prediction in crisp clear digital detail.

Iotas fired up the mainframe for a special preview this morning and is overjoyed to hand down the current forecast for Libra:

Libra ~

This week brings two suprises. The first will come tomorrow, as you stick a fork into your toaster to dislodge a piece of burning cinnamon loaf that you unwisely cut too thick for the slot. The second surprise will occur on Wednesday after you have been discharged from the hospital, when a man in a green felt hat gives you five dollars in the mistaken belief that you are a pan-handler. On Friday you will buy a lottery ticket with the money which will have a number only two digits different to the eventual million dollar prize-winner. On Saturday you will see a duck eat a snail. Friends will buy you a beer on Sunday night but it will have a slight taste of mould. Beware of a woman with a lisp – she wants to sell you an expensive insurance plan.

Iotas claims that not only is the detail enhanced in these predictions, but that the accuracy is better than 99.72%*

I’ve had a special preview of some of the other Star Signs for this week, and all I can say is Aries, you are one lucky son-of-a-gun!

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*The state-of-the-art quantum processors that Iotas uses compute simultaneous outcomes in an infinite number of parallel universes. Whilst the accuracy of the results is guaranteed, the TCA Horoscope of Infinite Detail cannot be held responsible if the outcome of the prediction is not applicable in the universe in which you reside.

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