I signed up for BlogShares the other day just to try it out. You might have noticed a link about it at the bottom of this page. Or not. I’m quite enjoying the simulation of it all; everything everyone does in the blogsphere, whether they’re part of the game or not, affects everything else. Connectivity at its finest.

In one proper day of playing, I’ve managed to almost triple my money. Although that’s nothing to the hardcore traders, ”m quite proud.

Oh, and Simon , I’m your biggest share-holder at the moment, so get those links going!

At some point during my recent back-end change-over, I invalidated my mark-up in at least 3 places and didn’t notice. Everything should be fixed now and I’ll be checking with the validator more often. Whoops!

Whoever the bright spark behind Vanilla Coke is deserves to be fired, from a cannon into a lions mouth at high-speed. Three sips were enough to make me feel sick. The most awful idea in soft drinks since Tab.

What is the point of an advert? My initial answer would be that they are there to make us, the public, buy a product or service; perhaps, also informing us about the item in question. Given this, why do so many adverts today seem to be more about completely unrelated ideas?

Consider this example: A man and woman are in a kitchen. The woman tells the man that she’s leaving him, to which the man replies with a request to wait. Now, 2 eggs come inexplicably from her mouth. The woman then says, “Where did you learn to do that?”

What was the advert about?:

• Saving relationships,
• How precious and wonderful eggs are,
• Or, the value of education.

If you answered with any of the above, you were wrong. It was about a rail provider. Now, call me crazy but I don’t see the connection between trains and that scene.

How successful can an advert be in doing it’s job if there is no connection between advert and product? We buy stuff in adverts because we remember the clever tagline, or annoying jingle, or because, in some other way, the brand identity established by the advert is engrained in our memory; not because of some weird imagery. It might makes us laugh or scratch our heads initially, but chances of us associating with a brand at a later time are next to zero.

So, advertisers: if you insist on marketing stuff, make sure there’s at least some relevance in your adverts.

Funny how there’s always 2 sides to a relationship: his and hers.

Apparently, every relationship has list like these. I can’t begin to imagine what mines would be like. I’m sure I’ll figure it out soon enough.