The Hurler On The Ditch

Play with their minds. If you're doing all this positive, good stuff, then it's okay to have some fun with your competition--that is, to intentionally play with their minds. Here are some examples to inspire you:

* During the Korean War, the U. S. Army Office of Strategic Services left a supply of condoms for the Communist Chinese to find. The condoms were specially manufactured in an extra-large size. The label on the boxes, however, said, “Made in the USA Size Medium.”

* Hannibal once had his soldiers tie bundles of brush to the horns of cattle. At night, his soldiers lit the brushwood on fire, and Hannibal's Roman enemies thought that thousands of soldiers were marching towards them.

* A pizza company that was entering the Denver market for the first time ran a promotion offering two pizzas for the price of one if customers brought in the torn-out yellow pages ad of its competition.

* A national hardware store chain opened up right next to a longtime community hardware store. After a period of depression and panic, the store owner came up with a very clever ploy. He put up a sign on the front of his store that said, “Main Entrance.”

The Web site reads like an advertisement for a holiday home.

"Is Bastoy the place for you?" it asks next to photographs of a sunset sparkling off the tranquil waters of the Oslo fjord and horses pulling sleighs over packed snow.

This wooded island could be -- if you are a rapist, a murderer, a drug trafficker or have accepted a large bribe.

"We try to take a cross-section of the country's prison population, not just the nice criminals," said Oyvind Alnaes, governor of the minimum security prison on Bastoy Island about 46 miles south of the Norwegian capital.

Inmates have included Norway's most notorious serial killer, Arnfinn Nesset, convicted of murdering 22 elderly people when he was manager of a nursing home in the 1970s. He was freed for good behavior after serving two-thirds of a 21-year sentence.

"A lot of people in Norway say that we treat them (the prisoners) too well because they should be punished. But this is the biggest mistake we have been making since the 1600s. Taking this line makes people bad," Alnaes said.

"You have to believe people are born good."

The one square mile island offers its 115 "residents" cross-country skiing, tennis and horse-riding, but before the inmates can slope off to practice their serve or head to the beach for a swim, there is work to do on the farm...

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not always advantageous to engage in thorough conscious deliberation before choosing. On the basis of recent insights into the characteristics of conscious and unconscious thought, we tested the hypothesis that simple choices (such as between different towels or different sets of oven mitts) indeed produce better results after conscious thought, but that choices in complex matters (such as between different houses or different cars) should be left to unconscious thought. Named the "deliberation-without-attention" hypothesis, it was confirmed in four studies on consumer choice, both in the laboratory as well as among actual shoppers, that purchases of complex products were viewed more favorably when decisions had been made in the absence of attentive deliberation.

A friend who worked at O'Hare International Airport told me this story. He once watched a passenger absolutely scream at an airline ticket agent. The ticket agent, however, remained completely calm. After the tirade was over, my friend asked her how she could remain so calm, and she said, "That's easy. He's going to Auckland, but his bags are going to Sydney."

One of the great misconceptions of selling, pitching, and partnering--basically, any time you want to get someone to do something for you--is that you should suck up to the people with the big titles and "A list" designation. Sometimes you do--as you've already read in this blog [Bona tempora volvantur], but the ability to suck up to the folks who don't have big titles but make the world run is more useful...

At Turn Your Head, we fill the space between two opposing profiles of your face. By spinning that space into a three dimensional “visage” that follows the outlined silhouettes of your two profiles, we create the "Pirolette".

Place the “Pirolette” to your face and it will match your profile. Locate it near a wall and the shadow of the "Pirolette” will be your silhouette.

Your profile captured forever in an object of art. An optical illusion of shadow and light, each one unique because it’s you!

The “Pirolette” is hand crafted from American Black Walnut, Cherry or Maple and is hand polished to a natural luster.

The country that gave the world such risque comic acts as Benny Hill, the Two Ronnies and Little Britain has banned Australia's new "bloody hell" tourism ads from television because they are too rude.

Australian Tourism Minister Fran Bailey said Britain had banned the television ads, which end with a bikini-clad woman on a beach asking "so where the bloody hell are you?," although the ads would still be seen in British cinemas and appear in print.

"The regulators have clearly misplaced their sense of humor..." Bailey said in a statement Thursday.

...But Tourism Australia was unfazed by the British TV ban, welcoming it as unexpected publicity for the campaign.

"It's a bit of a PR dream," Tourism Australia managing director Scott Morrison told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"This is a great opportunity to really promote the campaign. We'll be driving people to the Internet like there's no tomorrow," he said.

The living dead beat rhino horn to be named Oddest Book Title of the Year.

Bookseller magazine gave the award Friday to a self-help book on being haunted entitled "People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It."

In a close fight, the runner-up was "Rhino Horn Stockpile Management: Minimum Standards and Best Practices from East and Southern Africa."

Previous winners have been "Bombproof Your Horse" and "Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers."

Painter Helen Frankenthaler's landmark abstract work "The Bay" just got a little more abstract -- to the dismay of Detroit museum officials.

A 12-year-old boy visiting the Detroit Institute of Arts with his school group on Friday stuck a wad of chewing gum on the painting, which is worth an estimated $1.5 million, the Detroit Free Press said.

The barely chewed Wrigley's Extra Polar Ice gum left a residue stain about the size of a quarter in the lower left-hand corner of the painting, the newspaper said...

...Museum curators expect to be able to remove the gum residue with a solvent once they have researched the chemicals contained in the gum, assistant contemporary art curator Becky Hart said....