What happened to Jamster?

Maybe I just haven't watched enough TV lately, but it's been a long time since I've seen a Jamster commercial.

Jamster commercials made me feel very very sad. They were just so obviously the work of people who had absolutely no idea how to market to young people or what kind of products young people would want. Who could get excited by the Bling Bling Rims? Who sees this lame Sh*t Happens (censored no less!) and says "I must have it!" And then the ringtones. Sad. Loud black men shouting about how you should pick up the phone. Who wants to hear that every time somebody calls them?

I can't imagine a single person has ever called Jamster and purchased one of their services. Who would? To tell you the truth, I almost feel so bad for them I want to call them and buy something myself and give them some empty words of encouragement so they don't completely lose their spirits. This almost makes me think that Jamster is using some kind of brilliant antimarketing dependent on sympathy...but no. Their products are far too useless for them to try a risky scheme like that.

The Jamster people are obviously good people. I'm sure of this. There are only really two options for the kind of people who would start a company like Jamster: good people who truly believe they can provide someone with a service they will appreciate and cynical bastards trying to suck money off of spoiled teenagers consumed with their image. So how do I know the Jamster people aren't just cynical profit seekers?

Have you seen the commercials?

Cynical profit seekers do their research. They pour thousands, even millions of dollars into test markets and consumer research to try and exploit our weaknesses so we feel we have no choice but to by their product. The Jamster people have obviously done no research. They set up their company, bought a shitload of advertising time on MTV, and waited for the calls to start.

I can see the Jamster offices in my mind. It's sad. I see a huge expansive room filled with cubicles. Every cubicle is full with a worker sitting in front of their computer and their phone just looking at the clock. The guys who started the company, good-hearted I know, stand outside their offices everyday waiting for someone to call. Occasionally someone's phone will ring and there will be a buzz of excitement in the air, but more often than not, it's just a wrong number. "Tomorrow people will call," one investor will say to his partner. "Have you seen the new ads that are going out tomorrow? They're great. We got Sir Mix-A-Lot. We can't lose." The partners will look at each other, both forcing a smile, but both knowing that tomorrow won't be any different.

I know how Jamster was founded too. It was some wealthy businessman whose family resents him. He has a fifteen or sixteen year old daughter that he's trying to make a connection with. Jamster was his attempt to try and forge an unlikely bond and reclaim the love of his family. It didn't work of course. At dinner, he'll make tentative attempts at reconciliation. "So did you see any of our commercials today honey?" he'll ask. She'll roll her eyes and continue eating silently as his wife looks up nervously and his ten year old son (too young to know exactly what's going on, God bless him) keeps eating obliviously. "That frog is something else, huh? You should meet the guy who does the voice. He's great. Of course we sped the voice up on tape, but he's still hilarious. I could set up a meeting if you're interested. Or an autograph--"

"No thanks, Dad," she grunts. Her father sighs and sadly looks back down at his dinner, praying that the new Jamster commercial with the P.I.M.P. wallpaper to be what it takes for his business to take off so his daughter can respect him.

I ruined it

In the course of my daily NGW message board browsing, I found that Scottywood linked to this blog. I don't know if any NGWers stumbled on this place in that time, but if they had, they would have found at the top a post on Fyodor Dostoevsky, another one sortakinda about Immanuel Kant, and another one making fun of HHH. I just thought that was worth pointing out.

Best of Balderdash: It's Been a While Edition

"Feelin’ Screwy"
A Major League pitcher falls into the La Brea tarpits and discovers an alternate universe full of dinosaurs and ballerinas.
Me

Carl Wickman
A Kentucky man who stunned crowds by riding a chariot pulled by ducks.
The Fork

Paul A. Regnault
First rabbi to assassinate President Lincoln on a chariot pulled by ducks.
Me

Carl Wickman
Cleared the Mississippi River by catapault.
Dan

Paul A. Regnault
Traveled the entire length of Route 66 in a homemade automobile.
Kevin

Fyodor Dostoevsky's life was so bad

See for yourself

And now, a line by line analysis of his life.

Born to parents Mikhail and Maria, Fyodor was the second of seven children.

No problems yet. Even nice. Not a middle child, right up near the top.

Fyodor's mother died of an illness in 1837.

Whoops. All right, these things happen.

It was not long before his father, a retired military surgeon who served as a doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor in Moscow, also died in 1839.

Within three sentences, we have two dead parents.

While not known for certain, it is believed that Mikhail Dostoevsky was murdered by his own serfs, who reportedly became enraged during one of Mikhail's drunken fits of violence, restrained him, and poured vodka into his mouth until he drowned.

Oof. If you've got to go some way, I don't think having so much vodka forced down your throat so quickly is the way you want to go.

Another story was that Mikhail died of natural causes, and a neighboring landowner cooked up this story of a peasant rebellion so he could buy the estate cheaply.

Not bad, I guess. No suffering, but you get screwed over by the guy next door when you sell your property.

Regardless of what may have actually happened, Sigmund Freud focused on this tale in his famous article, Dostoevsky and Parricide (1928).

Not terrible I guess, though I don't know if I'd want Freud analyzing me in famous essays.

Dostoyevsky was arrested and imprisoned in 1849 for engaging in revolutionary
activity against Tsar Nikolai I.

Pretty self-explanatory.

On November 16 that year he was sentenced to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group, the Petrashevsky Circle.

Yup.

After a mock execution in which he faced a staged firing squad, Dostoevsky's sentence was commuted to a number of years of exile performing hard labor at a katorga prison camp in Omsk, Siberia.

Is there anything worse than being killed? I don't. I suppose that depends on your views on life, death, the soul, consciousness, etc. But this is pretty bad. Note the mountains of misery contained in that one puny little sentence. That was like ten minutes in this guy's life. "Pow! Ah, just kidding, we're not going to kill you. Have fun with the hard labor in Siberia!"

The incidence of epileptic seizures, to which he was predisposed, increased during this period.

For fuck's sake, someone just hit this guy with a comet already.

He was released from prison in 1854, and was required to serve in the Siberian Regiment.

Half full or half empty? This guy must be a pessimist by this point in his life, so I'm guessing half empty.

Dostoevsky spent the following five years as a corporal (and latterly lieutenant) in the Regiment's Seventh Line Battalion stationed at the fortress of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.

Moving up in the world. Not bad. Give this guy a point.

This was a turning point in the author's life.

Doesn't really say anything, but it sounds good.

Dostoevsky abandoned his earlier radical sentiments and became deeply conservative and extremely religious.

Depends on your perspective I guess.

He later formed a peculiar friendship with another archconservative, Konstantin Pobedonostsev.

Friendships are good I guess, even when they're "peculiar" and with "archconservatives."

He began an affair with, and later married, Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva, the widow of an acquaintance in Siberia.

Well it looks like things are finally turning around for old Fyodor!

In 1860, he returned to St. Petersburg, where he ran a series of unsuccessful literary journals with his older brother Mikhail.

Well trying is the important thing, I guess.

Dostoevsky was devastated by his wife's death in 1864, followed shortly thereafter by his brother's death.

Devastated, huh?

He was financially crippled by business debts and the need to provide for his brother's widow and children.

Cripped, eh?

Dostoevsky sank into a deep depression, frequenting gambling parlors and accumulating massive losses at the tables.

It's one thing to be depressed and a successful gambler...

To escape creditors in Petersburg, Dostoevsky traveled to Western Europe.

Escapes are rarely good.

There, he attempted to rekindle a love affair with Apollinaria (Polina) Suslova, a young university student with whom he had had an affair several years prior, but she refused his marriage proposal.

Nor are rejections.

Dostoevsky was heartbroken, but soon met Anna Snitkina, a nineteen-year-old stenographer whom he married in 1867.

There you go! Pick yourself right up off the ground and get yourself back on your feet. And only nineteen, you sly dog you! And from here, he finally seems to live a decent life.

From 1873 to 1881 he vindicated his earlier journalistic failures by publishing a monthly journal full of short stories, sketches, and articles on current events — the Writer's Diary. The journal was an enormous success.

In 1877 Dostoevsky gave the keynote eulogy at the funeral of his friend, the poet Nekrasov, to much controversy. In 1880, shortly before he died, he gave his famous Pushkin speech at the unveiling of the Pushkin monument in Moscow.

In his later years, Fyodor Dostoevsky lived for a long time at the resort of Staraya Russa which was closer to St Petersburg and less expensive than German resorts. He died on January 28 (O.S.), 1881 and was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, St. Petersburg, Russia.

So there you go. Fyodor Dostoevsky: dead parents, epilepsy, mock executions and all.

What I wrote instead of "ultimate maxim" in my paper on Kant

MAXIMUM INSULT

(not in all caps, but I like the added effect)

WWE Superstar Triple H, using a near-perfect analogy to explain the aim of his new book

"Simon & Schuster [the book's publisher] had been wanting me to do a book for a long time, and they asked me to do something different," he said. "I thought it was weird to write an autobiography during my career - the president doesn't write his memoirs when he's in office - so I wanted to do something more."

Connecticut pride

Connecticut is the eighth best state in the country for babies!

Go Connecticut!

The Jamaican man who had been in a car accident to Chris

I'm not okay, mon.

No I will not tell you why there's a bottle of vinegar sitting on my fridge

What's that? Oh, yes. That is a bottle of vinegar sitting on top of my fridge. I'm glad you noticed. Why? Oh, I'm not going to tell you why.

Why do you need to know? It's nothing important. It's just vinegar. It's not like there's a picture of you or a bomb on top of my fridge. It's just a bottle of vinegar.

Vinegar's fairly common, you know. They sell it everywhere. In fact, I'll tell you where I got it. I got it at City Convenience. That's how common vinegar is. You can pick up a bottle at your local convenience store.

It's killing you, isn't it? I can see it in your eyes. No matter what we're talking about, your eyes keep slipping away from my face back to that damn bottle of vinegar. You can't focus on the conversation. All you can do is nod and give subtle affirmative responses to whatever I'm saying, because your mind is racing. "Vinegar? Why vinegar? What would he need vinegar for? And why would he keep it out, like he would need it at any second?"

No, I won't move the vinegar. The vinegar is going to stay right where it is. Does that bother you? Well, I've got to tell you, it doesn't bother me in the least. I like it there. The vinegar stays. Leave if you have to, but--

Oh, OK. Uh, see you later.