LadyGypsy.net – the blog of Kimberly Dowd of New Jersey

I was going through my 4th-string blogs tonight. These are the blogs I check in with once in a while to roll my eyes at or to make sure the author hasn’t gone crazy yet. (Because there are a great many bloggers out there who are THISCLOSE to completely losing it.)

Anyway, in my travels, I found this ad:

You all pretty much know I’m not a reader of Dooce’s blog*. And I know a lot of you are. And that’s cool. But even you have to admit that “Family Fun Articles” and “Dooce” is a pretty big stretch.

I mean, if you’re looking for fun things to do with your kids you’re going to French Toast Girl or Secret Agent Josephine or … another crafty mom blog. There are hundreds of them.

Dooce isn’t going to tell you how to make Play-doh from scratch. She’s going to tell you how much Grey Goose she drank when she found some store-bought Play-doh that was ground into her fair-trade Persian-yarn looped rug while she was traveling to speak on a panel. Then she’ll link to the rug on some website and you’ll see how much she paid for it. Then she’ll post a highly touched up black and white photo of her left eye and piss off the LDS in one fell swoop. That’s blog talent. But it’s not Family Fun.

Which leads me to wonder what in the hell they were thinking at McD’s when they decided to create an ad that had to spider through YEARS of archives (her daughter is 6 now) to find four blog posts that may mention “fun” in them?

This isn’t Dooce’s fault – I almost feel badly for her because it’s like her name and image are being grossly misused to hawk Chicken McNuggets.

(Then I think about the dump trucks of cash her blog brings in and I don’t feel so bad.)

It’s the fault of the marketers who completely don’t understand the online culture – who think that you can just find the most famous blogger out there and they’d be a great fit for whatever you’re selling.

Or the ones who won’t run ads on the local news section of the paper because they want to target women.

Or the ones who pay big bucks to cookie my computer and run World of Warcraft ads on every site I visit – blissfully ignorant of the fact that I got that cookie in the first place because I visited WoW fan sites BECAUSE I play WoW so … showing me an ad beseeching me to try World of Warcraft free for 10 days isn’t going to work.

It’s a waste of money.

Everytime a woman clicks that McD’s ad and goes to Dooce and says, “That blog McD’s sent me to wasn’t about Family Fun” and stops clicking on McD’s ads altogether…

Everytime a woman reading about the town council meeting doesn’t see that breast cancer screening ad because it ran only on the food section…

Everytime World of Warcraft looks at their reports and puzzle over why the clickthrough rates are tiny, even though they have the best targeting they could possibly buy…

…someone gets the idea in their head that online advertising doesn’t work.

It does work. It just requires some thought.

*I used to be, long ago. We grew apart.

There are three drafts in WordPress of posts that never got off of the ground. I’m emptying it out today and in the interest of keeping this blog going, I’m sharing them with you!

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9/24/09: Musings on being 37

“So I’ve been 37 for 19 days now, and so far it’s not bad.

Thankfully, I still don’t get/like Chico’s.”

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10/2/09: Friday Five – Story

Question 5 is all I filled out.

5. What song would be an appropriate soundtrack to the story of your most embarrassing moment?

Probably that “Bad Day” song that was popular 2 or so years back.

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1/25/10: Weekend Wrapup

Saturday: Swung by the mall to see the sights and walk a bit. While the Disney Store didn’t have anything of interest, we spent some time in Urban Outfitters where I picked up this hat to match my blue winter coat. It was only $9.99! Then I had my customary Saturday Sonic meal (19 points for the meal, good thing I have that weekly points bank) and we went grocery shopping for all sorts of good stuff.

The worst part about eating healthier is that it costs SO much more than eating like crap. I could eat at Taco Bell every day and save heaps of cash. Fruit and vegetables and meat is expensive. :/

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4/5/10: Untitled

There are hipsters. There are crafters. Then there are hipster crafters. Unfortunately, I think the hipster crafters have completely taken over the Internet.

Take the simple task of dying eggs for Easter. Last week I found quite a few links about how to create natural egg dyes. A few of them had the smug tone of being “above” those families that dyed their eggs with PAAS.

(My point was going to be: maybe instant egg dyes were invented because our ancestors were tired of boiling tumeric and red cabbage for hours to make drab Easter Egg dye? Some people have TOO much time on their hands. Your special snowflake isn’t going to grow up a troglodyte because of an instant dye tablet.)

Woohoo! It’s Friday Five time again, which’ll be my THIRD new post this week. Whew. This week’s called “Rules”.

1. Be honest: what are some rules you have for yourself that don’t really make much sense?

Nowadays I only get out of bed when the minute hand is on a :05 or a :00. So I’ll get out of bed at 6:30 or 6:35, but not 6:33. I have no idea what I do this. Maybe it’s laziness, because a rule like that only results in my staying in bed as much as 4 minutes longer.

Yeah. It’s silly.

2. What rules of questionable sense did your parents have for you when you were young?

Nothing really questionable although I will say the only kids I grew up with who had a stricter upbringing than mine were the “fundie” kids.

3. What’s a rule most people (if not all people) seem never to obey?

When you’re waiting to get on an elevator, let people exit first. It’s rude to push yourself on while people are trying to exit. Certain people in my apartment building will ALWAYS stand directly in front of the doors when they open and run right into people. I’m seriously not trying to be racist or insensitive or politically correct, but I wonder if it’s a cultural thing.

4. There are no rules governing the giving and receiving of Valentine’s Day gifts, but what rules should there be?

Speaking as someone who does not go out on V-Day anymore because I am old and cheap, I’d lke to see Valentine’s Day become a holiday for couples again. Cards/candy for kids are fine, but I’m slightly squicked by the growing trend of taking your daughter/son out on a “date” that day. Parent/kid dates are cute, but can we have one day out for the grownups?

5. If the Golden Rule says you should do unto others as you’d have others do unto you, what would the Silver and Bronze rules say?

Silver: Obey the Golden Rule, but don’t be a doormat. At some point, you have to quit putting yourself out for certain people because they’ll use you.
Bronze: Don’t leave an empty food product container where someone else could possibly think it’s still full. That’s cruel.

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Wt: 167.8
Dream: I was hanging out at a NKOTB concert.