swansont: Out of Work

swansont — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:00:00 GMT

The Jobs Of Yesteryear: Obsolete Occupations

No, these were not outsourced overseas. I remember milk delivery we had an insulated box on the front porch, and got the delivery at about 4 AM a few times a week. The clinking of the bottles as the delivery man walked up to the house would wake me up now and then.

swansont: The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Heard Today

swansont — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:11:00 GMT

Lindsay Lohan wants $100M over E-Trade ad

Lohan's lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, said the actress has the same single-name recognition as Oprah or Madonna.

"They used the name Lindsay," Ovadia said. "They're using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn't they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody's talking about it and saying it's Lindsay Lohan."

Yeah, right. I'm barely aware of who Lindsay Lohan is, and I'm more than happy to testify that I did not think of her when I saw the commercial. I didn't associate her with the commercial until now; besides, they said 'milkaholic,' not 'attention whore.'

A really funny thing is that because I'm a geek, and since Lindsay/Lindsey is a fairly common name, I actually checked a baby-name database (requires java to be enabled) and Lindsay and Lindsey are much more popular names than Susan these days and have been for a while now. As far as single-name recognition goes, Oprah doesn't crack the top 1000 and Madonna never got used on more than a few dozen babies a year and dropped off the radar by the '70s. i.e. those are recognized single names because the people a) have unusual names and are b) actually quite famous

(As an aside, especially to Johnny Cash fans, if you check the stats for the names, you can restrict them to one gender or the other. There actually have been boys named Sue.)

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swansont: Out of Work

swansont: The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Heard Today