Spizella Takes On A New Target - Sheldon Cooper

(With a little help from Patricia from Down Under and A to the Power of 4)
Sparrow:  You know, Minothi, I ‘m sorry the exchanges between me and Dick Costolo of Twitter are over because now you won’t write about me anymore. You’ll go back to featuring posts about Mosquitos and Diogenes and sports like Cricket. And I will go back to being just Sparrow.

Minothi:  Sparrow, tut, tut...counting this post, you’ve been in 5 posts on my blog. That’s plenty.

Sparrow:  Is 5 posts a record?

Minothi: Yes. A record you share only with Sheldon Cooper.

Sparrow: Who’s Sheldon Cooper?

Minothi:  Only one of the most interesting characters on human television. My series of posts on him is posted on my Big Bang Theory Board on Pinterest. Read the posts and tell me what you think.

Sparrow:  You have a Pinterest board dedicated exclusively to Sheldon Cooper?

Minothi:  Yes – as I said it’s called Big Bang Theory.

Sparrow:  What about me, Minothi?  Why don’t I get an exclusive Pinterest board?

Sparrow (continuing): ...why am I on Reflections on Facebook and Twitter and not on a board by myself?

Minothi: ...because...(and then, not wanting to argue)...well, I suppose you can have your own Pinterest board.  What do you want to call it?

Sparrow:  Something original. Sparrow’s Board, maybe?

Minothi :  That is unique.  You will have your own Pinterest board and it will be called Sparrow’s Board.

Minothi (continuing): Now, if there’s nothing else...I would like to get back to working on my Xactly Incent prototype.

Sparrow:  Actually, there is something else.  I want to beat Sheldon Cooper. I want to be in 6 posts on your blog.

Minothi:  However are we going to come up with...?

Sparrow:  Hear me out... I think we could do a Bird Quiz post. I already have some ideas after reading the comments of Patty and A to the Power of 4.

Sparrow (continuing):  Please. Pretty please.

Minothi:  My goodness – you sound like my daughter – you’re even making the face. I can’t believe I’m letting myself be talked into writing another post about birds.

Sparrow (triumphantly):  Yes!!!! 
Sparrow (continuing): Now if you will excuse me, I need to go.  I have to tell my BFF about this.

Minothi (under the breath): Forgot to ask – have you been spending time with Tanita?

P.S. Dear Readers....yes...there is to be another Sparrow post.  Look for it this Saturday. Meanwhile, here are all the previous Sparrow posts which you can also find on Sparrow’s Board on Pinterest:

Dear Dick Costolo

Spizella Arborea Strikes Again

Bye Bye Birdie? Yeah,Right!!!

Spizella Arborea Has a Change of Heart. How Tweet!

P.S.2: If you are wondering why Sparrow is calling me Minothi rather than by my real name, it will make perfect sense after you read my post Porki and Bonkers tradition.

P.S. 3: Thanks Patty and A to the Power of 4 for providing Sparrow the inspiration for one more post.

P.S.4:  As always, readers, thanks for reading, and hope you have a great 2012.

Spizella Arborea Has a Change of Heart - How Tweet!

Sparrow: Owl...

Owl ......yes?

Sparrow:  Did you know that the Twitter logo is a sparrow?

Owl ....hmmm...

Sparrow: Well, here’s a picture of the Twitter bird graphic.

Sparrow (continuing): Now if I turn this way and you look at my side profile...what do you think?

Owl: Splitting image! Could be your missing twin!

Sparrow:  Owl!

Owl:  Okay, okay!

Sparrow: And, did you know the Twitter sparrow is all over the place – on everything from coffee mugs to tee-shirts to bags to aprons. There’s even a Twitter bird hammock chair.

Owl: gimme a sec to get a paper and pen.

Sparrow:  Paper and pen – for what? To make a list?

Owl (continuing): For your autograph, Mr. O'Pry.
Sparrow: O'Pry??!!
Owl: He is only one of the most successful male models of the last decade in the human world ... Armani, Calvin Klein....

Sparrow: Stop teasing, Owl - you remind me of this human called Rosie – she is a relentless tease.  
Sparrow (continuing): Did you know there are professors of Ornithology using Twitter to get students to talk about what they have learned in class?

Owl: hey, now that’s pretty cool!

Sparrow (reading some of the tweets):

“Saw a heron flying over fenton river, its large wings provide low wing loading for its body size. good for flight! #birdclass”

Mourning Doves allopreening off of North Eagleville Road. Love is in the air! #birdclass

Every morning I hear the same birds chirping away, I hope they find some mates soon, or I am going to go crazy. #birdclass

A flock of canada geese on the Mad River in Winchester. Several of them preening their feathers while drying off on shore in sun #BirdClass

Owl: (peeping over Sparrow’s shoulder): what’s that “sign” and “BirdClass” at the end of each line mean?

Sparrow:  it’s called a hashtag and it’s used to categorize messages on Twitter.

Owl:  Like how?

Sparrow: (shows Owl hashtags off of a list available on hashtags.org): Like this - see here:

Business: #jobs, #business, #networking, #retail, #shoppers, #consumer, #sales, #economy, #technology, #luxury, #news, #internet, #mktg, #marketing, #webmarketing

Celebrities: #50cent, #aplusk, #bieber, #britneyspears, #charliesheen, #ladygaga, #obama, #oprah, #osama, #perezhilton, #ryanseacrest, #the_real_shaq, #theellenshow

Education: #edapp, #edtech, #education, #elearning, #lrnchat, #mlearning, #teachers

Environment / Justice: #humanrights, #poverty, #hunger, #aid, #sustainability, #health, #green, #eco, #earthtweet, #humantrafficking, #climate, #solar, #fairtrade

Social Change: #socialgood, #cause, #volunteer, #4change, #giveback, #dogood, #crisiscommons

TV Entertainment: #bones, #dwts, #glee, #gossipgirl, #graysanatomy, #idol, #lrnchat, #mlearning, #sharktank, #survivor, #teachers, #theoffice, #thevoice, #xfactor

Owl:  Cool!

Sparrow:  You know Owl, I’ve decided that this Twitter and tweeting is good for us birds, after all.

Owl: You never heard back from Dick Costolo about replacing the word "tweet" with "treat", did you?

Sparrow: No, and it's okay.
Owl: You sure?
Sparrow: I'm sure.

Owl (muttering under his breath):  Rest in peace, Occupy Folsom Street

Dear Readers…..with Sparrow capitulating (oh how vanity gets the better of us) this concludes the Occupy Folsom Street series about Twitter and tweets.  As always, thanks for reading and hope 2012 is going great for you.

P.S. Tim Siedell, whose tweets I referred to in Part 2 of this series on tweeting is one of our own (a copywriter). Tim is the co-owner and Creative Director of an advertising agency called Fuse Industries. You can see some of the work that Fuse has produced here. And you can follow Tim’s tweets here.

P.S. 3: If you want to read Parts 1, 2 and 3 of these series, each of which contains a letter from Sparrow to the CEO of Twitter, you can do so here, here and here.

P.S. 4: If Sparrow gets into trouble for turning his back on the cause, he should say "3 words for you - Sir Reg Wright".  Sir Reg Wright was a Tasmanian senator who voted against his party on 150 occasions. You can read about it here.

Bye Bye Birdie? Yeah, Right!

Dear Mr. Dick Costolo,

I still haven’t heard a peep out of you (or should I say “tweet” out of you) in spite of writing Letter 1 to you and then Letter 2 asking you to stop using the word “tweet” for what humans do on Twitter.

Besides taking this opportunity to remind you (to use corporate speak) this is still “an open issue” and to ask for a “status update”, I thought I might take a moment to clear the air about some of the other affronts by humans on birds that you could help stop.

While these tired clichés are true – “birds of a feather flock together” and “the early bird catches the worm”, it’s offensive to us to overhear humans refer to someone as being “bird brained”.

Also, why is it when your species experiences a sudden onset of rage, you call what you do next “flipping the bird”. It’s positively nasty. 

Now I am a fan of Charles Lindbergh who said, “I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes”.

But my friend Duck the Fifth reminded me that I should ask humans to stop using this phrase:

“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck.”

Some of my less fortunate friends also asked me to include this pithy reminder from Jacques Deval that trees, not cages, are our favorite hang-out:

“God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages”

My claim to fame is this phrase (wise words indeed for hasty blabberers, or even posters on Twitter and Facebook): “A spoken word is not a sparrow. Once it flies out, you can't catch it.”

Back to Business...

The primary purpose of this letter is to ask you to stop calling the outpourings on your website “tweets”.

Have you given some thought to my proposal that you replace it with “treats”?

Respectfully  yours,

Spizella Arborea, V

(Sparrow)

Spizella Arborea Strikes Again!

Dear Mr. Dick Costolo,

I haven’t heard a peep out of you (or should I say “tweet” out of you) since I sent you that letter asking you to stop using the word “tweet” for what humans do on Twitter.

I am compelled to remind you:

Cows moo.

Horses neigh.

Pigs grunt.

Cats meow.

Dogs bark.

Elephants trumpet.

Sheep bleat.

and

Birds tweet.

The bird kingdom would like to take back the word “tweet” from humans.

After sizing up Twitter and its content, I have come up with a perfectly good alternative you could use.

How about “treat”?

Please take this as a compliment about the outpourings of your 150 million active users.

I do think many of the messages on Twitter are real “treats”.

For example, these treats by Tim Siedell:

“Sometimes I just want to give it all up and become a handsome billionaire”

“Converted my Panic Room into a Consternation and Trepidation Harbor. Pretty much the same thing except I also keep my thesaurus in there.”

“128 stunning photos of famous bridges. There, I just wrote a coffee table book.”

“Having a very productive day coming up with snappy comebacks for arguments from five years ago.”

I have become one of Tim Siedell’s followers. I understand this is how one becomes a fan of someone's treats on Twitter. We don’t have this follower business in the bird kingdom and I think it’s pretty cool.

Let me know your thoughts on using “treats” instead of “tweets” ASAP.

Respectfully yours,

Spizella Arborea, V

(Sparrow)

P.S.  If a certain AAA starts "treating", let me know. It's sure to be pretty interesting.

Dear Dick Costolo

Sparrow:  Owl...I don’t know how it doesn’t bother you...

Owl (sleepily): ....what?

Sparrow:  This business about humans tweeting...

Owl (yawning)...I know...but what are you gonna do?

Sparrow: Humans whisper, talk, shout, rant, rave, scream, bluster, holler, yell ...they do not tweet. “Tweet” is our word. It’s what we do. We have owned it for like 2.5 million years.

Owl:  How did you get that number?

Sparrow:  Well, that’s how old human language is.

Sparrow (continuing):  “A thin chirping sound made by small or young birds” – this has been the official definition of “tweet” since time immemorial.  Now you look up Merriam Webster online and there’s this: “a post made on the Twitter online message service”.  I can’t stand it.  I won’t stand for it.

Owl: My, my...we are worked up on this, I see....what's your plan?

Sparrow:  I’m thinking. (thinks)... I got it...we could do a Sooty Shearwater on these tweeters - like they did in Santa Cruz in 1961.

Owl: That’s a great idea, Sparrow, except I don’t want to slam into someone’s home and die - never channeled suicide bomber - not about to start now.

Sparrow: Ok, Ok...I know, I know...how about we do a Skua on them like what that Skua did to that world famous wildlife photographer Mattias Klum.

Owl: What did he do?

Sparrow: You don’t know anything, do you?  Here’s the video...

Owl (after watching it):  That’s funny.  That’ll work – except how are you going to round up enough birds to cover 7 billion people.

Sparrow: Actually we need to cover just the 150 million or so active Twitter users. But you’re right, it’s going to be a challenge.

Owl: Understatement!

Sparrow:  Well, we have to start somewhere, so let's begin with the classic first recourse of all activists.

Owl:  Which is...?

Sparrow:  Silly! A letter, of course.

Sparrow's Letter:

Dear Dick Costolo,

These words are the proprietary soundware of birds:

Tweet

Twitter

Chirp

Cheep

Quack

Hoot

Squawk

Cock-a-doodle-doo

Not forgetting Too-whit, Too-who (my friend Owl asked me to include that).

Please consider this letter a Cease and Desist.

Stop the tweeting.

If you don’t, things could get nasty as we are in the first stages of planning Occupy Folsom Street. Do you really want that?

I think not. 

Respectfully yours,

Spizella Arborea

(Or you can call me Sparrow)

The Carpinteria Times

So you want to be a Copywriter?

Tar Pits Park, Carpinteria, California - (now the oil tar towelettes in Holiday Inn Express make sense)

Can you pass this test?

Jan 25, 2012

The Carpinteria Times

Holiday Inn Express, Carpinteria saves the day with a toothbrush

A resident from San Jose staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Carpinteria on Baillard Avenue, wakes up in the morning (half hour away from a business meeting) to discover she has no toothbrush or toothpaste.  She is panic stricken until her eyes light on a placard in the bathroom which says:

” If you forget to pack a toothbrush, toothpaste, a comb, a razor or shaving cream, call the Front Desk and we will rush a complimentary one up to you.”

Half-hour later, she's at her business meeting with a clean mouth.

Your Assignment:  View these ads (appropriately called “Holiday Inn Toothbrush”) and come up with one of your own targeted at the same demographic – a bunch of men on a business trip.

The Mini Cooper vs the Kia Forte

At approximately 3.30 p.m. on Jan 24, 2012, a representative of Avis car rentals at Burbank Airport in Southern California, tries to convince a person who has pre-booked an economy car online to upgrade to a Mini Cooper “for just 8 dollars more per day”. Refusing the upgrade, the renter is assigned a Kia Forte, which she drives 79 miles north to Carpinteria on 101 to get to her hotel.  At the end of the drive, she observes that the Kia Forte feels just like the Hyundai Elantra.

Your Assignment:  View this banned ad for Hyundai and come up with a cheeky one of your own that might meet with the same fate - (be banned).

Caffeine at Taco Bell

At 8 p.m. on Jan 24, 2012, hunger at the end of a flight and a 1 hour drive makes a certain someone enter a Taco Bell on Las Pasitas Avenue in Carpinteria.  She is taken by surprise. In addition to staples like cheese quesadillas and tacos, the menu has Seattle’s Best iced coffee. The novelty of being able to buy coffee at Taco Bell is irresistible. This decision she regrets later when she can’t sleep.

Your Assignment:  View an ad for a fast food restaurant (here’s one for Carls Jr.) and create one of your own about someone discovering coffee at Taco Bell.

Lynda.com – fast becoming one of the leading video tutorial companies

On Jan 25, 2012, an Xactly Configuration Consultant visits Lynda.com in Carpinteria, California - a web-based company at which you can source video tutorials for almost anything under the sun.  Lunch is a gluten free buffet lunch consisting of salad, soup, turkey, shrimp skewers and a vegan veggie dish – catered from outside and free to all employees. The Xactly Configuration Consultant is awed by this and many other things about the Lynda campus, including the fact that the gray glasss doors of the conference room are actually whiteboards you can write on and if you look out the windows from the break room, you can see the ocean. The Xactly Configuration Consultant is also impressed that one of the Business Analysts she meets with is organizing a duathlon in his spare time to raise money to give back to the community in the City of Montecito.

Your Assignment:  View some of the free video tutorials on Lynda.com and then create a print or video ad for them.

This completes this addition of the Carpinteria Times.

(And oh, yes, a copywriter must be a good proof-reader too.  So see if you can spot the extra ‘s” on one of the words used in this post.  Also see if you can spot where I’ve used a wrong word in one of my sentences – because it sounds just like another.)

P.S.  If you guessed that the common denominator in all the experiences listed above is “moi”, you are right.  I recently went to Carpinteria where all this fun stuff happened to me.

P.S. 2: The City of Montecito is where Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries got married. Montecito and Carpinteria are both burbs of Santa Barbara.

P.S. 3 – If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy A Short Stint in Advertising and MAJvertising - other advertising related posts.

Slice of Life

A Love Between a Mother and Her Daughter

Tanita and me are seated at two computers within 10 steps of each other in my living room. I am playing Merriam Webster Scrabble Online and she Skypes me with this IM...

 

A Guide to Dealing With the Sheldons in Your Life (Particle 5)

iPhone Cases: Available at WB Shop

Q: How to frustrate Sheldon’s attempts to ridicule you...

A: Find a Penny

Leonard: So, tell us about you.
Penny: Um, me? Okay - I'm a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know.
Sheldon: Yes - it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun's apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.
Penny: [stares at Sheldon in utter confusion] Participateinthewhat?
Leonard: [scrambling to save face] I think what Sheldon is trying to say is that Sagittarius wouldn't have been our first guess.
Penny: Oh, yeah - lot of people think I'm a water sign.

Q: How to pull the rug from under Sheldon’s feet...

A: Find a Penny

Sheldon Cooper: [He and Penny both have the flu] How did this happen? I'm so careful with my health, I avoid physical contact with others as a general principle.
[Remembers when he hugged Penny]
Sheldon Cooper: It was you! You did this!
Penny: Happy Valentine's Day.

Q: How to Get Sheldon to Obey...

A: Find a Penny

Penny: Okay, here's the deal: you either you help me throw Leonard a birthday party, or so help me, God, I will go into your bedroom, and unbag all of your most valuable, mint-condition comic books and, on one of them, you won't know which, I'll draw a tiny little happy face in ink.
Sheldon Cooper: You can't do that! If you make a mark in a mint comic book, it's no longer mint.
Penny: Sheldon, do you understand the concept of blackmail?
Sheldon Cooper: Well, of course I... Oh... Hey, I have an idea: let's throw Leonard a kick-ass birthday party!

Q: How to get back at Sheldon for insulting you...

A: Find a Penny

Sheldon Cooper: You realize, Penny, that the technology that went into this arm will one day make unskilled food servers such as yourself obsolete.
Penny: Really? They're gonna make a robot that spits on your hamburger?
Sheldon Cooper: [to Leonard] I thought you broke up with her. Why is she here?

Q: How to frustrate Sheldon’s attempt to ridicule you again and again...

A: Find a Penny

Leonard: How did you know my birthday's Saturday?
Penny: I did your horoscope, remember? I was going to do everybody's until Sheldon went on one of his typical psychotic rants.
Sheldon Cooper: For the record, that psychotic rant was a concise summation of the research of Bertram Forer, who, in 1948, proved conclusively through meticulously designed experiments that astrology is nothing but pseudoscientific hokum.
Penny: Blah, blah, blah, a typical Taurus.

P.S.1:  More of this good stuff is available on The Big Bang Theory on CBS on Thursdays at 8 p.m.  

P.S.2. Don't forget to read the other posts in this series, Particle 1, Particle 2, Particle 3 and Particle 4. Yes, you can get a 5 for 1 of Sheldon right here, right now.

P.S. 3:  You know how you wish you thought about something earlier.  I wish I thought about Sheldon back when I was doing my Christmas posts, Dear Santa and Occupy North Pole.  I might have found a way to weave this Sheldon Christmas puppy in:

Penny: Hey Sheldon, are you and Leonard putting up a Christmas tree?
Sheldon Cooper: No, because we don't celebrate the ancient pagan festival of Saturnalia.
Penny: Saturnalia?
Howard Wolowitz: Gather round, kids, it's time for Sheldon's beloved Christmas special.
Sheldon Cooper: In the pre-Christian era, as the winter solstice approached and the plants died, pagans brought evergreen boughs into their homes as an act of sympathetic magic, intended to guard the life essences of the plants until spring. This custom was later appropriated by Northern Europeans and eventually it becomes the so-called Christmas tree.
Howard Wolowitz: And that, Charlie Brown, is what boredom is all about.

Or this Sheldon Christmas puppy in:

Stuart: Sheldon, here is the new edition of Hellboy. It's mind blowing.
Sheldon: Excuse me. Spoiler alert!
Stuart: What?
Sheldon: You told me "it's mind blowing". So my mind goes into it "pre-blown". Once your mind is "pre-blown", it cannot be "re-blown".
Stuart: [Bewildered] I'm sorry.
Sheldon: Said the Grinch unto Christmas.

P.S. Hope you enjoyed the bonus Christmas jokes! Chuck Lorre, if you are the one writing these Sheldon jokes, you're the man! 

P.S. As always, thanks for reading and wishing you, spoiler alert, a mind-blowing 2012!

A Guide to Dealing With the Sheldons in Your Life (Particle 4)

Available on Amazon

Q: How to insult a judge like Sheldon...

A: You can’t

Sheldon Cooper: Good morning, your honor. Doctor Sheldon Cooper appearing pro se. That means I am representing myself.
Judge J. Kirby: I know what it means. I went to law school.
Sheldon Cooper: And yet you wound up in traffic court?

Q: How to insult someone who is Asian Indian (or Chinese) like Sheldon...

A: You can’t

Raj Koothrappali: Hey, you're just in time. We made Tex-Mex.
Leonard Hofstadter: Sounds great.
Sheldon Cooper: Ooh, Indians making Tex-Mex. Might as well have had the Chinese pizza.

Q: How to insult a policeman like Sheldon...

A: You can’t

Officer Shin: I'm sorry for your loss, but the Pasadena Police Department doesn't have jurisdiction in Pandora.
Sheldon Cooper: That's from Avatar! World of Warcraft takes place in Azeroth. Goodness gracious, how are you allowed to carry a gun?

Q: How to insult a Sultan like Sheldon...

A: You can’t

Sheldon Cooper: I don't see anything in here a woman would want.
Howard Wolowitz: You're kidding! You have lotions, bath oils, and soaps. That's the estrogen hat trick!
Sheldon Cooper: What it is is a cacophonous assault of eucalyptus, bayberry, cinnamon and vanilla. It's as if my head were inside the pajamas of a sultan.

Q: How to insult a person of average intelligence like Sheldon...

A: You can’t

Penny: Four years I lived with him! Four years, I mean that's like as long as high school!
Sheldon: It took you FOUR YEARS to get through high school!

P.S. Hungry for more? Watch the Big Bang Theory on CBS  - Thursdays at 8 p.m.

P.S. 2: As always, thanks for reading and hope your 2012 is filled with laughter and engagement - whether you're a gamer who's into World of Warcraft type stuff, a spa hog who likes estrogen hat-trick type stuff, or a foodie who perks up at anything related to food (such asTex-Mex). 

P.S.3: Particles 1,2 and 3 of this series are available for your reading here,here and here.