OMG OMG OMG its Twilight!!

How Twilight Works!!

A few weeks ago I had the miserable experience of reading Twilight. A friend bought it for me and I took it with me to read on a long flight from Seattle to Houston. I knew it was going to be crappy, but I thought it would be a guilty pleasure kind of crappy – where you know it’s bad but you still get enjoyment out of it. I actually managed to power through around 400 pages until I gave up and started reading Sky Mall. I’ve been seeing Twilight everywhere lately, especially with Vampire Teens II New Moon’s release, so I thought I’d break down why chicks go apeshit for it.

First off, the author creates a main character which is an empty shell. Her appearance isn’t described in detail; that way, any female can slip into it and easily fantasize about being this person. I read 400 pages of that book and barely had any idea of what the main character looked like; as far as I was concerned she was a giant Lego brick. Appearance aside, her personality is portrayed as insecure, fumbling, and awkward – a combination anyone who ever went through puberty can relate to. By creating this “empty shell,” the character becomes less of a person and more of something a female reader can put on and wear. Because I forgot her name (I think it was Barbara or Brando or something like that), I’m going to refer to her as “Pants” from here on out.

So after a few chapters of listening to Pants whine about high school, sucking at volleyball, and being the center of attention, the second major character is introduced. Imagine everything women want in a man, then exaggerate it by ten thousand – and you’ve got Edward Cullen. The level of detail that the author goes into while describing Edward’s appearance is remarkable. At one point while reading I started counting the number of times the author used the expression “Edward’s perfect face,” and it was far into the double digits. The author excruciatingly details his muscular pecs, clothing, hair, eye color – even his goddamn breath (I’m not joking).

Edward intensely listens to everything Pants has to say, even if she’s bitching about she had diarrhea on Christmas or her preferred method for cutting a sandwich in half. As far as the reader is concerned, Edward cares about nothing in the world more than Pants. What the author has done is created a perfect male figure – a pale Greek statue which the reader can worship and in turn be worshiped by.

So what about men that like Twilight?
If you’re male and you like Twilight, you’re gay. I don’t mean that in the derogatory sense, I mean it in the “you want to put your testicles against another man’s testicles while gripping handfuls of chesthair” kind of way.

And the movie?
The movie is just the same uninspired crap shat out onto a film reel. If you like the taste of horse manure on your bologna sandwiches, you’re probably gonna like it on your birthday cake as well. The same principle applies with Twilight.

Beyond that, it’s just a romance novel with the occasional vampire teen drama bullshit peppered here and there. It doesn’t really break any new ground in the realm of vampire fiction, other than portraying vampires as a family of uncomfortable retards who prance around the woods eating deer and bunny rabbits. There’s lots of nervous lip-biting, tender kisses between Pants and Edward, and lengthy descriptions of every feature of Edward’s body. Pants is a static character who never really progresses beyond being an insecure vampire fangirl who obsesses over Edward. Whether her character grows beyond that is unknown to me, I’d stopped reading by then and shifted my attention to an electric butt-massaging chair in Sky Mall.

I am a good boy mom…

Just a little piece I read somewhere, written pretty amaturely but still says a lot..

I went to a party Mom,
I remembered what you said.
You told me not to drink, Mom,
So I drank soda instead.

I really felt proud inside, Mom,
The way you said I would.
I didn’t drink and drive, Mom,
Even though the others said I should.

I know I did the right thing, Mom,
I know you are always right.
Now the party is finally ending, Mom,
As everyone is driving out of sight.

As I got into my car, Mom,
I knew I’d get home in one piece.
Because of the way you raised me,
So responsible and sweet.

I started to drive away, Mom,
But as I pulled out into the road,
The other car didn’t see me, Mom,
And hit me like a load.

As I lay there on the pavement, Mom,
I hear the policeman say,
“The other guy is drunk,” Mom,
And now I’m the one who will pay.

I’m lying here dying, Mom….
I wish you’d get here soon.
How could this happen to me, Mom?
My life just burst like a balloon.

There is blood all around me, Mom,
And most of it is mine.
I hear the medic say, Mom,
I’ll die in a short time.

I just wanted to tell you, Mom,
I swear I didn’t drink.
It was the others, Mom.
The others didn’t think..

He was probably at the same party as I.
The only difference is, he drank
And I will die.

Why do people drink, Mom?
It can ruin your whole life.
I’m feeling sharp pains now.
Pains just like a knife.

The guy who hit me is walking, Mom,
And I don’t think it’s fair.
I’m lying here dying
And all he can do is stare.

Tell my brother not to cry, Mom.
Tell Daddy to be brave.
And when I go to heaven, Mom,
Put “GOOD BOY ” on my grave.

Someone should have told him, Mom,
Not to drink and drive.
If only they had told him, Mom,
I would still be alive.

My breath is getting shorter, Mom.
I’m becoming very scared.
Please don’t cry for me, Mom.
When I needed you, you were always there.

I have one last question, Mom.
Before I say good bye.
I didn’t drink and drive,
So why am I the one to die?

Yahoo! ready to attack Twitter on the Microblogging warfront

After closing the social network platform SpotM, Yahoo has launched Meme, in English, to take on microblogging site Twitter. The company had launched this service in Spanish and Portuguese languages earlier this month.

Meme is currently in an invite-only mode, similar to few microblogging services like Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce and others. After creating the account, users get a blank blog for micro-sharing text, images, music, videos or mash up of all these things.

It also offers the facility to add new friends by searching the internet, which is quite similar to Tumblr and Twitter.

The company’s previous efforts to capitalize on the social networking domain kept failing in spite of repeated attempts. The recently launched ‘Know Your Mojo’ also failed along with the Indian social network, SpotM, which was closed down less than a year after its launch. Well Yahoo has a reputation of not being consistent with its products, they disappear and the accounts close down.

Saad Khan’s death – Inside scoop

The death of Saad khan has slowly made its way to the mainstream media. I have been hearing that GEO and Dawn have recently covered it. Meanwhile there has been a lot of discussion,heated debates,questions and grief over the incident on twitter and Facebook. The news was first brought up by Farrukh Ahmed, his message on twitter made the most impact it read:

@Farrukhahmed: is thinkng while we sleep, some1 is lying in a casket in a foreign land waitng 2 return only 2 B put away 6 feet undr. RIP Saad Khan

@Farrukhahmed: 2 all blaggers: need your help in raising voice against a miserably organized game show arranged by unilever which took the life of a good friend. unilever is refusing to disclose the details / video footage of the event. pls RT

Today am trying to do my part in highlighting the freak accident that took Saad’s life. Saad a champion swimmer,a banker, and most importantly a 32 year old father of four has left behind a widow and a grieving family. One can only imagine the condition of his friends and families, their never ending questions that have only met silence so far. Saad was participant in a reality show commissioned by Unilever and mind share, two multinational giants, who still have not been able to elaborate the circumstances in which the tragic accident took place.

Here is what we know:

Photo Courtesy- Paksatire

Unilever Reality show kills father of 4!!

A very sad sad tale indeed

In their quest to produce a western copy of thrilling and adventurous reality show, Poor and substandard arrangements have become the reason of the killing of a young man Saad Khan. According to the news circulating around and the word of mouth. I got this information from a colleague who knows the victim.

Saad Khan lost his life in the recording of the show when the host Amina Sheikh (Mrs Mohib Mirza and a known actress) gave an under water challenge to him. TSaad lost his control and shouted for help but the lame safety and lifeline measures failed to rescue him from the deep water and the young man, the father of four had to suffer.

The blame goes straight to the producers of the show, apparently who are Unilever and their agency – Mindshare (Mr. Taher A Khan’s property, TV1 as well) for hiring such a sub standard team and the cheap arrangements that became the cause of his death. For now, the mainstream media has rejected to air any such news as they get a fair amount of advertising business from Unilever. And spokespersons of these two companies have been shamelessly calling the incident a mere accident.

Mansoor Khan, the cousin of the victim demands that “ALL CONCERNED PEOPLE OF UNILEVER & MINDSHARE MUST BE PUT BEHIND BARS.”

Mansoor doesn’t want you people to boycott Unilever Products, all he wants is that the culprits who gambled with the life of the participant must be brought to the court of justice.

Made in Pakistan – A fresh viewpoint

I got a chance to see the much talked about and much awaited documentary by Ayesha Khan “MADE IN PAKISTAN”. I must say its yet another masterpiece from the Indus Valley Productions, Made in Pakistan is a documentary film that aims to portray the true picture of Pakistan that is often misrepresented to the global masses.

The story revolves around the four Pakistanis namely; Rabia, the working mother and journalist! Waleed, a lawyer with the beard who returned from London! Tara, the outgoing single publicist and Mohsin, the aspiring politician. A very critical thing shown in the documentary is the black political mission of Talibanization.

Moreover, the story features Pakistan’s internationally acclaimed talents such as fashion, style, music, drama etc. The movie also vows to discredit the sensationalists foreign media who have been creating hypes by pronouncing Pakistan as the most dangerous country.

As the trailer of the documentary shows a foreigner says: ‘I don’t find an ounce of like danger here’ Nasir Khan, the director of the film expresses “the sensationalism of men in beards stalking the streets of Islamabad may sell newspapers abroad but the country and its silent urban majority such as the four individuals featured here also hold high stakes in what Pakistan is and what it will become in the future.”

I am sure you people must be much excited to watch this documentary out. So tickets are now available and you can check this out. And for now, watch out the Promo.. cuz i couldn’t post the entire video here (:

Piece of My Mind

Remember that your mind can defy the laws of the universe in one crucial way. It can go backward. Time can’t, nor can events – but your mind can. Let’s say you go into your office, and the first thing you notice is that an important report you needed was not written. The incomplete report tends to put in a less than resourceful state. You feel mad. You feel frustrated. You’re ready to go out and scream at your secretary. But screaming won’t produce the result you want. It will only make a bad situation worse. The key is to change your state, to back up and put yourself in a state that will allow you to get things done. That’s what you can do by rearranging your internal representations.

You are a sovereign, being in control, running your own brain. Now you are seeing the way to do it. In just some few exercises one can see that one has the ability to totally control your own state. Think what your life would be like if you remembered all your good experiences as looking bright, close, and colorful as sounding joyous, rhythmic, and melodic; as feelings soft, warm, and nurturing. And what if you stored your bad experiences as fuzzy little framed images with almost inaudible voices and insubstantial forms you could not feel because they were far away from you? Successful people do this unconsciously. They know how to turn up the volume of the things that help them and turn off the sound of the things that don’t.

It is suggested you ignore problems. Some things need to be addressed. We all know people who can go through a day in which ninety-nine things worked out right and come home totally depressed. Why? Well, one thing went wrong. They may have turned the one thing that went wrong into a big, bright, blustery image and turned the others into small, murky, quiet insubstantial ones.

Lot of people spend their whole lives like this. There are people who keep telling, “I’m depressed”. They almost say it with pride, because it’s become so much a part of their world view. Well, many therapists would begin with the long, arduous task of unearthing the causes of that depression. They’d let the patient talk for hours about his depression. They’d rummage through the patient’s mental garbage bin to uncover seminal experiences of gloom and past emotional abuse. Of such techniques are very long and very expensive therapeutic relationship s made.

Cristiano Ronaldo the new David Beckham!

Cristiano Ronaldo has the potential to replace David Beckham as the footballer who earns the most money from endorsements following his world record 130-million dollar move to Real Madrid, experts say.

“There is certainly a vacancy for a football central brand right now,” said Simon Chadwick, professor of sport business strategy and marketing at Coventry University in England.

“Beckham, because of his age and the stage of his career, has lost it. And Ronaldo is ideally placed to assume the mantle of ‘brand Beckham’, especially among young kids and teenagers,” he told AFP.

Chadwick, who has studied what makes a strong sports player brand, said Ronaldo has many of the required qualities: he is highly skilled, has a good physique, plays at a successful team and has enjoyed “sustained” success.

The 24-year-old Portuguese winger has already appeared barechested in adverts for Pepe Jeans, as well as in campaigns for Nike, Coca-Cola, the video game FIFA Street 2 and Indonesian energy drink Extra Joss.

He earned 19.6 million dollars a year at Manchester United off the pitch from product endorsements, compared to 42.5 million dollars earned by the 34-year-old Beckham last year, according to British media reports.

With his move to Real, where he will play alongside other big-name new recruits like Kaka and Karim Benzema, Ronaldo is following in the footsteps of Beckham who also left Manchester United for a successful spell at Real.

“He is in a fantastic position. Both clubs are very good at marketing their brand and players and have a huge fan base,” said Jamie Wynne-Morgan, managing director of M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment.

“He needs to be careful not to be overexposed and make the right strategic decisions, not do lots of little deals,” added Wynne-Morgan, whose agency advised on a deal that saw Ronaldo sign up as a “global ambassador” for engine oil company Castrol earlier this year.

Ronaldo, the 2008 FIFA world player of the year, signed a six-year deal with Real worth 94 million euros and will reportedly be paid 13 million euros each season, making him the world’s most expensive player.

1 out of your 5 emails doesn’t reach you!

If you’re reading this blog, the chances are pretty good that you’ve signed up for one or more email alerts, e-newsletters, or automated updates over the years. Plus, if you work inside almost any part of the media industry, the odds are also good that you or your company sends out bulk emails.

And if you’re by any chance a blogger (like me ), you’d be hard put to build an audience if you didn’t at least try the F&F approach via email now and again.

A new report from Return Path indicates that not as many of those email alerts may be reaching your intended audience as you might have expected. Based on 500,000 email-based campaigns in the first half of 2009, the company said more than one in every five — 20.7 percent –of the consumer emails never made it to the intended recipient.

B2B emails performed even worse, with 27.6 percent undelivered.

Spam or junk filters were not a significant factor, causing only 3.3 percent of the failures, but a surprising 17.4 percent of the emails were not delivered at all. The report notes that this contrasts to what marketers are normally told, which is that the percentage “delivered” ranges from 95 to 98 percent.

The differential is whether “delivered” means the message reached the email-host as compared to whether the host passed it through to the intended recipient’s in-box. Factors that affect this include how each email provider rates the sender’s reputation, as well as a mix of other, proprietary filter settings.

Yahoo! – Microsoft 10 Year Deal! Part -2

Microsoft Wins, Yahoo Folds, Google Still Reigns in Search Game

Microsoft gave Yahoo bare minimum terms in their new 10-year partnership: a fortified combined search engine off of which it can sell and retain advertising revenues, and a possible exit strategy down the road.  Either way Microsoft wins.

The long-anticipated search and advertising pact announced today did not include the favorable terms — primarily billions in upfront revenue guarantees– expected by disappointed Yahoo investors, who initially drove the company’s stock down 12 percent.

YHOO 14.32 -0.28 (-1.92% ) Intraday | 3 Month | 6 Month | 1 Year

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Whether by design or coincidence, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer played his cards well over the companies’ tumultuous three-year negotiations. Yahoo initially rejected a $47.5 billion buyout offer from Microsoft in 2008 as well as a proposed search partnership with a $1 billion upfront payout last year — both under the leadership of former CEO Jerry Yang.

By comparison, the pact finally approved by new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Yahoo board members (including five percent activist shareholder Carl Icahn) is modest, complex and unlikely to create meteoric value. It’s almost as if there is another shoe to drop in the Microsoft-Yahoo two-step.

At best, Yahoo will realize $500 million in annual operating profit and is guaranteed only 88 percent of ad sales from its affiliated and owned search business in the first five years. Yahoo will see $275 million in cost savings and $200 million less in capital expenditures annually once the companies’ businesses are fully integrated in about two years. Weak advertising and shaky initiatives will depress 2009 operating cash flow 10 percent and drive down revenues 13 percent, analysts estimate.