RantBlogariumVille

Or, Fixing What's Wrong With NameThis.

For the last few weeks, I've been playing with NameThis, a website that uses crowdsourcing to name new products and services. Basically, someone plunks down $99 and provides a description of the product, service, or company they want named and the members of NameThis have 48 hours to submit and vote for their favorite names. If you voted for the name that ends up the winner, you get a little money. Be the submitter of the winning name and you get a lot of money. (Relatively speaking.)

The idea behind NameThis is new companies get real-world-approved brands delivered to them for less than a C-note and the people who helped name the brands get a little scratch in their pockets. Everyone wins, right?

Not necessarily.

You know those online logo design companies that promise professionally-designed logos in four days for something like $129? You know how actual designers hate these services because they churn out shitastic work and collectively lower clients' standards and expectations of real designers while making it harder for those designers—people who give a shit about their profession and have worked and studied for years in order to do what they do—to charge clients what their work is worth? Well, NameThis is basically the branding version of that. I'm sure that folks who make their living getting to know individual clients and their businesses personally in order to develop a uniquely tailored branding and marketing strategy love that cheapasses can now pay NameThis $99 and have some bored housewife name their new line of bedazzled dog leashes. NameThis is basically an idea vulture whose raison de etre is fleecing those who don't know any better and fucking those who can't beat its price and instant-gratification turnaround.

But whatever. Judging from the growing number of members and activity on the site, I don't think anyone gives two shits about jobs being snaked from professionals—not when they've got more important matters like Sarah Palin's 80s hairstyle to get hysterical about. So since I can't make NameThis any less evil, I'll settle for making it more functional. To wit:

#1. Blind submissions. Anyone who's watched the voting and tabulation of winners can see that the same dude wins almost every time. And since you get rewarded with cold hard cash if your horse places, the smart thing to do is to back that dude, no matter how retarded his submissions are. It's a strategy I've employed for a minute now and others have admitted to doing the same. All of a sudden the voting (NameThis calls it "investing") is tainted and the best names rarely come out on top. (See recent winners Advantain, SheilData, Off the Beaten Snack, and SheJuvenate.) Good for me and my bank account; not so good for the sucker who dropped $99 only to be stuck with "Connectroniks."

#2. Demarcate the submission and voting processes. As it stands now, users have 48 hours to proffer names and vote on their favorites. When the clock hits zero, NameThis runs a top-secret algorithm factoring the uniqueness of the name, the investments in it, and some other flim-flam hoo-ha, and announces a winner less than a minute later. But what if the most perfect name in the whole contest wasn't submitted until hour 47 of the alloted time? It's simply not possible to accrue enough votes in an hour to overtake an inferior name that's been collecting that'll-do investments for nearly two days. Simple fix, this one. Cap the naming at 24 hours, then open the voting for 24 hours. Everything's square, everything's fair. Just like in life!

#3. Take down this video. (Let the page load, then click on "what happened here" to watch. If you dare.) Look, kid in the video, you fucking chief, I admire your enthusiasm but the douche act has got to go. That's a real Grade-A, piece of shit, loudmouth gasbag of a douche performance there. We don't need any more of that in the world. You look to be about 14, so maybe it's not too late to change your ways. Here's how: The guy who shot the video? The filmschool dropout who thought it would be so cutting fucking edge to blend the cinéma vérité of fucking Friday Night Lights with the gritty urban milieu of The Departed and do it in—get this—black and white? That guy? Fuck him. He's a bigger tool than you are. Second, go back to your loft in Bushwick or wherever and flush all your coke. All of it. Right now, right down the toilet. You need to chiiiiiill for a sec, mkay? They could light Shea for a month if they could somehow harness the energy generated by the grinding of your teeth. Lastly, pay a visit to your folks, who you probably haven't seen in a while. Surprise them. Buy some flowers for your mom and give dad a great big hug as soon as he opens the door. Then, greeting pleasantries fulfilled, I want you kick them as hard as you can. First in the back of the knee to get them on the ground and then just go ape. Kick 'em in the neck, the spine, their fat asses for comedic effect, and lastly, right square in the face. Clearly those two did some grave disservice to you as a child, as your fuckstick behavior can only be the result of prolonged sexual abuse or never hearing the word "no" once in your spoiled, wretched life.

Too much? Too mean? Pointless sour grapes? Fine, here's that Palin mullet thing. Go nuts, 'tards.

Show and Tell: What's Justin Working On?

Lots of freelance, including posters and putting the finishing touches on the redesigned website for the (downtown) omaha lit fest. Check back as the festival nears for updated lists of panelists and events. After two years away, I'll be attending this the fourth installation of Timothy Schaffert's lit weekend. Should be interesting to see what he's done with the old gal in my absence.

The Endorsement: August 13, 2008

Move over, my wedding day; today is officially the greatest day in the history of the universe: Madden 09 is on shelves, Sweetpea is on her way home, and I found a penny on the sidewalk this morning. If the microwave in the breakroom shorts out and the fire department sends us all home early, I'm buying a fucking lotto ticket.

Bachelor Week in Review

Those of you filling out your Bachelor Week Bingo cards can go ahead and mark off the squares for "fell asleep watching Porky's II," "ate cereal straight out of box while not wearing a shirt," and "drank a beer in the bathroom." Classy times here at Bachelor HQ.

I Will, However, Adopt The Practice of Addressing to All Women as "Sweetheart"

Few things turn me off more than ubiquitousness or bandwagoneering. And with seemingly everyone spurting blog-love for AMC's Mad Men, I planned to avoid a show I figured was basically just Gossip Girls for the mutual fund set. However, bored with Simpsons reruns and DVR'd episodes of The Sopranos and drawn by the fact that the show was set in an advertising agency in the early 1960s—long before viral marketing and social networking and that stupid fucking Burger King king—I decided to give Mad Men a shot.

Two episodes of the new season in and I can't say the show is as great as has been reported, but I'm enjoying it well enough. There's something uniquely satisfying about men with square jaws and precise hair standing around talking mechanicals and art departments, tumblers of scotch and lit Chesterfields in hand. Beyond that, however, there's not much else going on. The mad men wear wool suits and eat red meat for lunch and drive their American cars out of the city at five o'clock to their homemaker wives. The mostly one-dimensional secondary characters—the Jews, broads, blacks, and homos—seemingly exist only for the proselytising of the writers. This is how it was in 1962, man!

Meh, I'll keep watching for now, either until the storylines spiral into overwrought love triangles, outlandish murder cover-ups, and long-lost twin brothers, or when football season starts, whichever comes first.

I've Said Stardream Quartz So Much The Words Have Lost All Meaning

Behold, my first—and last—attempt at wedding invitation design and construction. Special thanks to Paper Source for the stock; ModLux for use of their paper cutter; and Sweetpea, whose yes kickstarted the whole project.

Plus, It's More Commute-Appropriate Than, Say, Juggs

I renewed my GQ subscription today. Just mailed the check, as a matter of fact. A check that killed me to write.

See, last week I found out my health insurance premiums are going up (again). And last month my office learned Clark Griswold-style that there would be no raises this year. Gas is closing in on $5 a gallon, groceries are more expensive now than at any point since I started buying my own Lucky Charms—store brand, of course; they're 40¢ cheaper. Generally speaking, the dollar is in the toilet and I don't have enough of them (dollars, not toilets) to feel any kind of relaxed.

So, all that said, why spend $17.83 on a subscription to GQ? It's not for the $600 wingtip buying guides. Or the editorial features and pictorials of half-naked actresses I've never heard of. (Esquire does those better.) Nor is it even the layout of design of the magazine. (Again, Esquire.)

What convinced to to re-up GQ was Joel Lovell's "Men and Money" column. It's great. The last two columns of his I read—renting vs. owning your house and being 30 with no retirement fund or investment plan beyond your savings account to speak of—especially. Dude might as well be writing my financial life. And while he offers a few simple, doable plans of action to begin managing one's money like a big boy, I'm more buoyed by the fact that there are financially fucked brothers-in-arms out there, guys my age and professional standing who are just as confused and scared shitless by the fact that no matter how hard they work and deny themselves consumer pleasures in order to squirrel away a little money, there never seems to be enough of it on their monthly statement to feel like they can take even a weekend vacation or order the $32 bottle of wine just this once because the economy could go fuck-all (moreso) any moment. Lovell's "Men and Money" is not bulletproof financial security, but it makes me feel a little better about my money strategy. And that's worth $17 in my book.