the timex thing...

Subject: the timex thing...
From: "Owen" <owenf -at- mighty -dot- co -dot- za>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 10:22:58 +0100


this is really funny. no, not the ad or the users guide, but the argument.
>
>About that Timex Helix watch manual...
>Why don't we think the writer could have been
>a woman? (I know that that thought never crossed
>my mind.) What is it about that manual that has
>a "guy" sound to it, even though there are lots
>of women in the various sports that are referenced?
>
>I think it's something in the flavor of the humor
>itself, and not necessarily in other aspects of
>the writing.

i can answer this with straightish-politically pseudo-correct post-feminist
abandon:

we don't think the writer could have been female BECAUSE there are lots of
female participants in the referenced sports.

in other words: if you wear this watch, you will be more attractive to the
women participating in these sports. This is exactly what we (males) are
thinking makes other (males) buy watches in the first place. even if the
writer was trying to be bland about it, s/he prolly had some marketing whizz
going, "sell it to guys! sell it to guys! this watch could be so big, sooo
Big..."

this phenomenon is nothing new, although it is younger marketing science
than the female equivalent; consumer tech, imho, is the male equivalent of
beauty products: largely unnecessary (read unnecessarily obsolete) and
therefore requiring more effort in marketing. after all, who *really* needs
4000 features on a watch or seven different densities of nightcream?

ever heard the expression '<name> could sell refrigerators to eskimos'?

before i get warned i'd better get back on topic (sort of):

i'm having trouble distilling word (xp) docs with embedded visio diagrams.
any scaling i apply to the diagram in word causes all the postscripty
diagrams in the pdf to go nuts - scaled way off the page.

i am hoping someone else has seen this effect, because i would rather not
redraw all the diagrams to a different scale. i have had it working
properly before and the software hasn't changed. my platform is

win2000, wordXP, visio2000 and acrobat 5.0.5

thanks for listening, off-list OT pseudo-feminist flames are welcome!

owen



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