Go West, Young Mitt

A new WBB post every six weeks or so is probably not going to be enough to hold your interest, but I know that for many of our die-hard readers, this blog is the go-to site for unvarnished Mitt Romney (2012!) news and notes. So after a long-ass hiatus, we're back to share the latest Mitt bon mot.

A well-placed source, known in some quarters as the Associated Press, reports that our cherished once-and-future presidential hopeful has moved out to schmancy La Jolla, California.

On behalf of the WBB Los Angeles Bureau, welcome to Southern California, Mitt!

21st century conundrum

If Twitter is down, where am I supposed to go to bitch and moan about Twitter being down?

King me

For some reason, there's an article on Yahoo! Travel today about the World's Most Beautiful Castles. Since you wanted to know, my immediate reactions were these:

1. This is the perfect travel piece for the depths of the Great Recession! Thanks, Yahoo!! (And, by the way, since Yahoo! comes with its own exclamation mark, I assume that's the proper style for when it appears at the end of an exclamation, right?)
2. Damn, I'm really looking forward to Yahoo! Travel's article about the World's Ugliest Castles.

I don't really care much about castles unless they're white and serve small hamburgers in cardboard sleeves. But I read a few parts of the story anyway. And I'm glad I did, because I learned about Bavaria's Newuschwanstein Castle.

The good folks at Newuschwanstein must be very proud indeed, because the writer claims that Neuschwanstein was "a major inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland." Which I think is like saying that Monet was "a major inspiration for Thomas Kinkade: Painter of Light."

My new favorite Web site

Here it is! Don't think I don't have an RSS feed set up for this bad boy looking for goodies!

My favorite trend story is back!

It seems only appropriate that the first week back at WBB one of my all-time favorite trend stories would re-emerge: the story of the poor person/service worker/person generally not of "significant means" who found a crap-ton of money (or an equally valuable item) and--AGAINST ALL ODDS--actually did the right thing and returned it.
I first blogged about this exciting and mind-blowing phenomenon two years ago and again later that year. This time, it's a Bangladeshi cabbie in NYC who found $21,000 in his cab and returned it to the rightful owner. This is, of course, exciting stuff. Because 99 percent of cabbies would probably just go on a spending spree with the ill-gotten loot, buying fur coats and fancy cigars, and hitting Atlantic City all mobster-style, am I right? Well, no. Probably not. Like any economic class of people or profession, most would probably return it and a few would probably try to get away with taking it and spending it. I laid out my my beefs with this type of story more thoroughly in this post from March 2008.

Anyway, my point remains the same. Why don't we hear about lawyers or magazine editors or office workers or any other "white collar" employees finding a boatload of money and returning it? I'm sure it happens. My guess is because there's a silent-but-implied idea lurking in these stories that education or money translates into having a superior sense of morals or ethics. (Although I'm not sure the money argument even really works here...I imagine cab drivers, particularly in NYC, that are good at what they do earn a pretty decent wage.) So yes, while it's a heartwarming story (and I'm glad whoever thought it was a smart idea to ride around town with $21,000 in cash got their money back), I'm not really sure it's wise to propagate the concept that a cabbie or McDonald's worker returning what he or she has found is the exception--and not the rule.

My robot girlfriend

Meet Roxxxy. She's just your girl next door, except that she's a bizarre robot sex toy.. er... companion for lonely men with a lot of money.

From the CNET article: "Depending on the personality you choose--"Wild Wendy" or "Frigid Farrah" for instance--Roxxxy may purr a metallic, "That gets me hot!" after you introduce a topic like soccer."


Um, OK. Now, let's get past the whole programming a robot girlfriend to talk dirty and wax poetic on Manchester United for a moment... let's imagine what happens when Roxxxy's "boyfriend" meets a real, live, human woman and brings her home. Only to find his mistress in the closet.

What do you think real life woman would do?

A. Run. Quickly.

B. Shrug her shoulders and say "more fun at the party"

C. Oh silly blogger, no woman would end up in a home belonging to a woman who owns Roxxxy

I think this actually disturbed me more than finding out about Sarah Palin getting a gig with Fox News.

Almost (too) famous

In the past six weeks, Tiger Woods has seen several of his corporate partners end their endorsement contracts with him (AT&T), pull their Tiger-related products (Gatorade) or kill Tiger-focused ad campaigns (Tag Heuer). In their carefully worded news releases, the companies generally opted for language like "no longer the right representative" for our company (Accenture).

Obviously, in marketing-ese, that Accenture quote translates pretty clearly into "apparently slept with about 428 cocktail waitresses and future porn stars, which wasn't exactly what we had in mind for our highest paid endorser." I get that.

What I'm wondering is: What exactly do the good folks at the St. John apparel company mean when they explain that they're scrapping their Angelina Jolie ads because the actress "has overshadowed the brand"?

Because it's not like Jolie was a little-known up-and-comer when they signed her back in 2007. She was already Mrs. Pitt and a tabloid fixture - nay, tabloid hall-of-famer. And, at least according to my marketing textbook, massive, consistent and overwhelmingly positive media exposure isn't usually the kind of thing that compels companies to drop celebrity spokespeople, who were, after all, hired for their ability to generate exposure.

I don't want to start any rumors, but maybe they're getting ahead of the curve in case the world soon discovers that ongoing Angelina-Tiger relationship.