Eww Matt, unfun.

And yipes Cass! Significantly more unfun! Now the wine has to serve a medicinal function on top of its spiritual one.

Aw, cute widdle mousey!

So--who's getting a Windows phone? How much do you feel advertising spots on TV affect your purchases of phones? And then for people who spend less time on the internet?

I'm curious about what stands out in those ads to differentiate them from iPhones (I sincerely cannot remember Android ads). I mean, how does one look like it will fix stuff better than the other? Gwen Stefani vs. Zooey Deschanel? Is that what it comes down to?

A friend of mine has a windows phone and swears by it--and he is in a house full of iPhones and iPads.

But swears by it for what? What is the differentiator in such a saturated market? I'd imagine most people would be happy with a Windows phone. But who'd be unhappy without one?

Man, I have come bang up against some doozies of security questions recently. Things I'm all "I committed to a favourite?" about. Yoinks.

I think mice can be cute and part of the local ecology until they are in my space. Sorry you had to bleach, Matt. But it was a tub and not something less porous. So bleaching was an effective technique.

And yipes Cass! Significantly more unfun! Now the wine has to serve a medicinal function on top of its spiritual one.

Medicinal pinot.

Worse, I have to find a new corkscrew. And this one was really nondescript. It looks like most others but I somehow really loved it best. The only things written or stamped on it are italy boomerang and pro-turn. Makes replacing it awkward because Google isn't magically giving me a product to buy and replace it. Unless stores want to let me open a bunch of bottles of wine while deciding.

Which is slightly less probable than my dream of stores having floor models of tea kettles so you can judge your preferred whistle. My current model has glass marbles in it because I debarked it years ago. Serviceable kettle, terrible whistle. Now it just rattles at me.

How much do you feel advertising spots on TV affect your purchases of phones?

I like to think it doesn't affect me or that it only gives me "data" when I am considering consumerism but I know that's not true. I'm guessing they can sway people into getting a level of phone they didn't think they needed or to prefer a model that might not be the most suited to their needs. Advertising is way more effective than people want to admit.

I can say that TV advertising hasn't affected my phone purchases because I've been buying European unlocked phones for...shit, could it really be a decade? Anyway, the Samsung S3 is the first phone I've seen on TV that I would definitely buy if I had to get a new phone. Good GOD that thing is gorgeous.

But, as I keep reminding myself, I made a sensible purchase last time. Not only is it still working just fine, it's getting updates (I just got Jellybean ten minutes ago), it's a perfectly fine size, etc. The two things I'd tweak, none of the ads are telling me I can get with them.

However, my Galaxy tablet was started off by an ad. One of those before movies. I was totally "What is that magic thing???" And now I have three tablets, and again am trying to talk myself down.

It's a good thing my mother lives in third world because my paltry inheritance would be blown on "As Seen On TV"--she confesses to being awful at exercising discretion in the face of an "Ooh!" My sister doesn't care enough to talk her down, so I'm the bad guy. But I'd love to know which of the phone ads would get through to her. I just can't work out what they look like from where she's standing.

I can say that TV advertising hasn't affected my phone purchases because I've been buying European unlocked phones for...shit, could it really be a decade?

But how did you ever get exposed to those? I mean, it could be pure tech journals but those honestly involve a sense of marketing even if the author is just waxing poetic about something they think is the next big thing. I'm not sure that tech exists in a marketing free space right now if it has more than a handful of users. And those users probably think they have the superior XYZ and are just kinda cooler than the masses.

But, as I keep reminding myself, I made a sensible purchase last time. Not only is it still working just fine, it's getting updates (I just got Jellybean ten minutes ago), it's a perfectly fine size, etc.

Which, all of the above isn't to say that what you bought wasn't a really good purchasing choice. It sounds like it was. Frankly, most of what I want from tech is long-term happiness and decent usage.

It's a good thing my mother lives in third world because my paltry inheritance would be blown on "As Seen On TV"--she confesses to being awful at exercising discretion in the face of an "Ooh!" My sister doesn't care enough to talk her down, so I'm the bad guy. But I'd love to know which of the phone ads would get through to her. I just can't work out what they look like from where she's standing.

I can't figure out why my folks have half of the Apple gadgets that they bought. Things that were popular but were never the actual best tech answer to their needs.

I think things are just shiny. In ads and in collective consciousness. It's shiny and popular.

Before the last time I went home, my sister told me to buy one of our cousins a tablet. I mentioned it here, and y'all were appropriately snarky. Once she got specific, she got really specific. It had to be the iPad 3, she insisted. When I gave it to her I asked if she was excited by the prospect of the retina display.

The what?

Uh, how informed was that extra $50 if you don't know the simplest thing that you're getting for that money? And her "You can get the internet on this, right? You sure?" and I just had to smile and run screaming.

When I bought this phone it was the only one I could find on the market that satisfied my connectivity (unlocked, T Mobile) and platform (I'd have taken anything highly customisable with a large app market, but there were also no nos--I don't like iOS or Blackberry, and I'd never seen a Windows phone that didn't annoy)--voila! Samsung Nexus was really the only option by then.

Did marketing make me stick with T Mobile or dislike iOS? It's impossible to rule that out. I'd say it's more likely to be poor marketing. I didn't find reviews of other phones that met my criteria, so I was just waiting for a bargain on this one.

I am not gonna lie, although I'm grateful there seems to be a growing diversity in the Teen Wolf fan art (they're branching out to include the lead now), I do wonder if my perception or my hardware is off. Because when I look at them, I don't see this disparity--is this part and parcel of me not being able to colour?

I mentioned it here, and y'all were appropriately snarky. Once she got specific, she got really specific. It had to be the iPad 3, she insisted.

We're kinda bitchy. Sorry.

But we see the ads too. Being judgmental and thus belonging to a select group in a herd sense is the point of big ad campaigns. Getting the iPad is buying into the Apple mythos in a sense. It helps that Apple stuff is really forgiving of a clumsy user and can be really useful for a skilled user. Plus it seems cool.

Did marketing make me stick with T Mobile or dislike iOS? It's impossible to rule that out.

I think, in our world, it is impossible to say. But marketing got you to chose a phone and that phone won your loyalty. It might be the absolute best phone on the market for you. Maybe the best phone possible (and, no, I don't believe that is ever really built for consumer technology) for you. But it's still a battle for market resources.

Advertising is fraught when you look at the overall picture. But it's huge business so it's going nowhere.