Friday, July 11, 2003

While e-marketing campaigns aren't effective yet, the relatively low cost and immediate implementation means they can go through multiple evolutionary stages much more quickly than print or radio or television. I suspect that within a fairly short time span, as the "organism" continually evolves, much faster than the mega-fauna of the old advertising and marketing world, it will become, if not the most dominant form of media advertising, the most effective, based on ROI. 10:36:42 AM

I guess I'd have to actually document Loki's behaviour before and after every single movie I see, but it always seems as if he's sniffing around a lot more, searching for zombies or other nasties immediately after a particularly scary film. Like 28 Days After tonight. In checking out the Web site for the preceding URL, I couldn't even enter it, as soon as I heard some of the scary Flash audio. Or Session 9. That's the thing that's so brilliant about low special effects movies - they focus on the story. And stories filled by the imagination are much much scarier than any cinema. While I can't remember, I suspect that some of the scariest sleepless nights for me were probably at church camp, after hearing some really, really spooky story around the flickering light and shadows of the campfire. I almost had to spend the night at Jans and Sarah's. Or wake Elizabeth up and spend the night over there. Jans suggested I read some Harry Potter. As if, and I wish I hadn't read ahead, knowing Dumbledore is no longer headmaster at Hogworts would give me any comfort. Maybe I'll stop before that part. I also wondered in the film if the protaganist is named after Jim Conrad. Beyond the horror, this story is all about the dichotomy of good and evil within all of us. The Secret Sharer. And the climactic final confrontation even looks like a nod to Apocalypse Now, Coppola's own Heart of Darkness. The movie also made me think about the fascination we have with life force, with death force, libido and thanatos, especially, for me, as an adolescent, I guess as we begin to form our identities. I wonder if it's a function of age or some level of enlightenment to get more and more about the business of being, knowing what it feels like to do the act of procreation, knowing, the more people around you who die, that death comes, and it's okay. I'm thinking more specifically about how fascinating it was to catch nakedness in films, or the time, I think at Sheila Dempsey's graduation party, someone rented the entire Faces of Death series. Or people who go over to the east side. For Nascar or sex. Jans told me tonight that one of my proposals sounded too much like poetry. He was actually only refering to the last sentence, which he said read as if it had been written by a mad man. I wish I remembered what I wrote, something about the delicate and delicious tension between business dreamed and business realized, the ying and yang spinning into motion. Maybe that was it. I'd love to be able to write like that and actually get clients. Maybe if were in the business of creativity itself rather than engineered creativity. I'm thinking we need to include something on our Web site about the fact that if you have a reasonably complicated project and your prospective vendor gives you a firm fixed bid that you and the vendor are both going to get screwed. Web development is not a commodity but a collaboration. And tonight, to sleep in my own house, alone, for the first time since June 29th, I think. With no rage infected zombies to contend with, no demons possessing anyone, no wizards or witches around, Loki and Snack sniffing around, should there be any otherworldly or worldly beasts to fend. That reminded me of the time up in South Dakota when Steve Berger, allegedly sleepwalking, woke up Claire in the middle of the night, who woke up the rest of us with blood curdling screams. I was so worried about people freaking out, or someone being possessed by some vengeful Sioux evil spirit that I took the axe out of the corner and put it next to me where I was sleeping in the corner, away from the overly warm wood burning stove, that everyone else was curled up around. And then I stayed up all night worrying what would happen if I ended up being the one who got possessed. Being out in the middle of nowhere makes for strange thoughts and dreams, especially when the quiet night is pierced by screams. 12:49:10 AM