Tag: FAIL File
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Siri, Please Teach Google Voice to Listen
Sometimes using one’s smartphone is like playing a game of, well, ?telephone.? Half the time no one can hear you and when they can, the message gets lost in translation ? even when it’s not actually being translated. I’m convinced that mine is actually a ‘smart-ass phone? given how it willfully drops calls, truncates texts…
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Tipply Tributes: Celebrity Beer Names
For your typical celebrity, it’s to be expected that one day someone is going to name a sandwich or some other edible after you. Every deli menu in Hollywood boasts some kind of transubstantiation of stars into grub. In the world of cocktails, oddly, they’re usually of the non-alcoholic variety (“Shirley Temple,” “Roy Rogers”). On…
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Why Do Men Put Their Penises Online?
?To tweet or not to tweet?? ? that should have been the question for former U.S. representative Anthony Weiner whose infamous social media snafu made him and his briefs-ensconced boner a household name synonymous with ?moron.? Not only did Weiner’s foray into softcore porn (and subsequent revelations about ‘sexting? with numerous women) provide a wide…
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Twitter the “Mayor” of the Middle East?
I’m just sophomoric enough to still enjoy a typo or two when it comes from in such a venerable a news organization as the New York Times. In a article exploring the 5th anniversary of the launch of Twitter, the Times substituted the word “mayor” for “major” when describing its role in the recent uprisings…
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Blade Runner’s Sequel Sickness
Certain films are so singular in vision, so spectacular in their realization that they’re fundamentally immune to the disease of sequel-itis, or its often more virulent form, prequel-itis. Among those in this rarified canon are Citizen Kane (of course), Casablanca (duh) and, until last week, Blade Runner. Whether or not one agrees that the futuristic…
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How to Make a Newspaper
http://www.facebook.com/v/10150104714212552 From 1937’s Trees to Tribunes. Gotta love the juxtaposition of newspaper hacks and trees being felled ? this could be the moment the term was “hack” originated. Kudos are due to the composer for such a rousing score. It’s my new ringtone for my editors.
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FAIL: Chase Feedback ‘Compromised’ by Customers
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. sent this FAIL-o-gram to remind me to proof-read my bank statements. How the financial behemoth let the word “compromised” instead of “comprised” slip by the copy-editors is beyond me. The result is an obtuse? description of its “Chase Panel” survey program as having been somehow jeopardized by its clients. I’m sure…
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Groupon Public Voice Guide Fail
Deal-of-the-day website Groupon might have passed on Google’s multi-billion dollar acquisition offer but it hasn’t forgone using the online search engine and advertising empire’s document hosting services for a memorandum entitled the ?Public Groupon Voice Guide,? which details, with embarrassing clarity, ?principles? apparently ?intended to help new and applying writers learn Groupon’s signature writing style.?…