PSoTD

There's something a little odd about the American interest in spending a night in an old jail. Think it's not an American interest? How else can you explain all the inns and bed and breakfasts that have been converted from jails - and which retain their past history as part of their tourist allure?

There's the Jailhouse Inn in Rhode Island. The Jailhouse Inn or The Old Jail in Minnesota. The Jailhouse Inn in California, Jailer's Inn in Kentucky, Old Washington Jail B&B in Arkansas, and so on.

It's enough to make you wonder when some of the older prisons in America are decommissioned, if they may end up being converted into theme hotels.

From the Bridgeton News:

A Downe Township mother of a 15-year-old Bridgeton High student claims that the school bus her son rides has been stopping at McDonald's on East Broad Street in Bridgeton en route to the school every Friday since last school year.

She's not happy about it and doesn't believe her concerns are being taken seriously by the Downe school district, which pays to have its students bused to Bridgeton High, or Sheppard Bus Service, the Fairton-based company contracted by Downe to transport its students to school.

Linda Tyler said she learned of the weekly breakfast stops at the fast-food restaurant on Wednesday, Oct. 5, when she questioned a neighbor about why her son was out of their Newport home well before he should have headed to his bus stop. She wanted to know if the neighbor's child was already gone, too.

The bus company or the school district or both are opening themselves up to some liability if any accident should occur at the McDonald's. If it continues, it's a sign that the company and/or the school district is poorly managing the situation.

If you're a condo or apartment dweller with a bad case of Halloween lawn decoration envy, you're not alone. Last Halloween Americans spent $780 million on Halloween decorations, part of a $3 billion Halloween industry that is "boo"-ming by an average of 53% a year. And the bulk of that Halloween decoration spending went to outdoor yard decorations; the more elaborate the better. So how can yardless Halloween fans get in on the devilish decorating fun with an equal amount of bloodthirsty creativity shown by the happily yarded? With collectible Halloween villages!

After Christmas (by far the frontrunner), and arguably Independence Day (by sheer flagitude), Halloween is the next highest decorative holiday of the year for homeowners around the United States. These holidays generate huge industries which generate huge revenues for creating such decorations and entertaining home novelties. It's enough to make you wonder what the next big decorative holiday will be. There are industries to feed.

The real key to a decorative holiday, it seems to me, is that it has to appeal to both genders and to most if not all ages. It needs common denominator status on things such as religious value and believability. It needs loveable fable status that can serve as replacements for original holiday purpose, particularly in the case of religious holidays, for those who are less faith-oriented. Christmas has that in spades, from Santa Claus to Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer to Scrooge. Halloween has it with its various monsters. But few other holidays have it. Yes, Easter has the Easter Bunny, but men tend to steer away from proudly decorating their abodes with rabbits and baskets.

Give Easter another, more "manly" fable, and it could be the next big decorative holiday. Short of that, it leaves the game open for other contenders:

St. Patrick's Day. It has the leprechaun and the shamrock - and a color. But there's the nationalistic view of the holiday, and to a lesser degree, the religious view of it as well. It's a colorful celebration day, but will Americans adopt it as their own?

Valentine's Day. Do you really think the chocolate, flower and gem industries are going to let the home decoration industry start nibbling away from money spent for this holiday? Not gonna happen.

Thanksgiving. It does have a mythical proportion to it, and it has a 4 day weekend for many folks. But it's sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas, and a lot of people see Thanksgiving weekend as the time to start pulling the Christmas decorations out. They don't want to have to put away the Thanksgiving decorations at the same time. I just don't think it's the next big decorative holiday.

No, I have a holiday in mind that really doesn't have industries taking advantage of it to sell product, other than generic holiday sales. And I think it is a shame. There's a holiday out there that needs a brilliant marketer to grab, a holiday that many Americans wonder why we celebrate it anymore, a holiday that is worth celebrating and worth remembering and worth having fables that young and old, man and woman, Christian and non-Christian will appreciate.

That holiday is Labor Day. There are fabulous stories of working men and women in this country, fantastic stories of the improvements in lives by the activities of unions. The problem may be that there are too many true stories, and not enough fables that celebrate working. If nothing else, unions should work together to fund a creative effort to invigorate the Labor Day holiday, because that would also re-invigorate an appreciation of labor and unions as well.

And then... maybe cash in on that industry as well.

Haven't seen any news to the effect yet, but gotta think that the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is heading for a couple of record years, particularly with all the hurricane impact of this year. New Orleans had to cancel all large conventions through March at this point. The National Association of Convenience Stores Show 2005 and the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses Convention both moved their venues to Las Vegas after Katrina.

During the pre-incident period, who is gearing up for avian influenza, or at least is ready to sell today based on the threat?

Check out the sponsored links at Google.

Advertisers as of 8/18 include:

Gerson Company (respirators)
National Next of Kin Registry (now that's positive!)
NutriMedical Online Database of Nutritional Supplements (whenever there's a chance to sell I guess...)
MyDNA.com
wiseGEEK (you got me)

Today there's more:

Vitimmune (glutathione)
Evans Vanodine International (hygiene solutions)
SurvivetheFlu.com

At this point there's nobody hawking Agaricus Blazei Murill...

Had to reactivate my credit card, as the old card was expiring and they sent me a new one. It had a sticker on it with the phone number to call to activate the card, but there was also this warning at the bottom:

Please call from your home phone (24 hrs/7 days).

It is all automated, so I'm wondering - do they log the phone numbers of those calling to activate a card? What would happen if I used a different number?

Update: Google content is amazing. I searched for the italicized message above, and found this:

Never Received Fraud has decreased dramatically over the last 5 years due to the introduction of card activation. The presence of "stickers" on cards as they are sent to cardholders with the message "please call from your home phone number to activate" has thwarted most criminal attempts to use cards stolen from the mail.

Death Toll Now 30,000 in South Asia Quake

Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake killed more than 30,000 people in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir alone.

"I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir," Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.

There's a possibility - maybe it is hope - that these numbers are overstated due to lack of communications. Still, just another mindnumblingly large death toll from a disaster in a year full of such disasters. Relief and assistance agencies dependent on charitable contributions are being pushed to the brink. Again, this is the time for Americans to give.

Pumpkin beer on tap coming soon

Anheuser-Busch is launching a series of seasonal beers available on tap, to reinforce the brewer's already strong presence in bars and taverns.

To kick off this draught program, the nation's largest brewer this week rolls out a pumpkin-flavored beer, Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale, for the fall. This will be the first time the company has offered seasonal beers on tap.

Anheuser-Busch has quickened the pace of new products this year as it seeks to drive up sales in a sluggish beer market.

Although the company faces more competition from Miller Brewing Co., it sees a bigger threat coming from distilled spirits. Spirits have been growing in popularity among younger adult drinkers who are looking for the wide variety of colors and flavors typically found in mixed drinks.

Under development for the last year, the new program will offer different beers to match each of the four seasons, said John Costello, product manager, Michelob Specialty Brands at Anheuser-Busch's domestic brewing subsidiary.

Okay, okay, okay, enough with the freakin' seasonal flavored beers. We get it. You want to sell beer for Halloween parties and Thanksgiving get-togethers. Okay, okay, okay.

What's next for Anheuser-Busch? Putting toys in the bottom of each case of beer? Making "3-D" bottles so drinkers can see an image inside each Bud? Bottlecap Bingo?

How about just trying to make some good "no special occasion" beer instead of the soulless brews that they currently blanket the market? There's already a zillion specialty flavored brews out on there. Is AB planning to compete on price? Because I find it hard to believe they will be competitive on flavor...

No word yet on the flavors of the other seasons. Easy suspects for winter: Egg Nog, Candy Cane, New Year's Day Dry Heave... any other suggestions for the other seasons?

France is generally not on my list of places I really want to visit, but I wish I was in Paris to witness this "interesting failure"...

Fortunately, I can go - and will - to the National Gallery of Art, sometime between February 19th and May 14th, 2006, to see Dada, the first major museum exhibition in the United States to explore in-depth this influential avant-garde art movement.

Should be discombobulating!

Anita Smith seems like a pleasant lady. But why would Capital Blue Cross want to spend their television advertising money promoting their Chief Executive Officer? Their commercials look more like a platform for her to move on to something else - elective office? - than designed primarily to benefit CBC or the Central PA community.

Just wondering.