Swollen Pickles

I was up Monday night watching ABC2 and Dr Who was on. When I was a young'un I used to watch Dr Who when it was on ABC regular, in the days when it starred Tom Baker, the guy who does the voice over for Little Britain.

Anyway, the production values on Dr Who have sky rocketed. On Monday nights episode there was a distinct lack of silver painted cricket pads, but there was a CGI shriveled up Doctor. Following the episode ABC2 screened 'the making of' the episode. One of the visual effects guys spoke about how they created the full size to shriveled up transition effect which I found kind of interesting. If I'm interpreting what he described correctly, they basically filmed the actor for three minutes or so gyrating on the ground (looking like he was having a spasm) then went back in the editing suite and remove a whole slab of frames almost at random, to give the shot a frenetic transformation vibe. If I ever get hold of a video camera again I may try to reproduce something similar in After Effects. I looked for it on YouTube with no luck. It's the sort of effect that would be at home in a home made vampire flick or industrial music video.

Here's a more sedate type of effect (not as aggressive) that uses a bit of that stop go style animation. It's cool in its own right.

n

Did you know...?

...that it is possible to respond to any statement or question with "that's what she said"... I said it's possible, I didn't say it was socially acceptable.

Whether it be in films, TV shows, public events or the boudoir, music plays a key role in setting the mood. Music can make us feel happy, make us feel sad, make us reflect and make us scared. Music is the universal language.

Most importantly, and sometimes forgotten, music can be responsible for creating meaning. Changing music, can change a persons perception of something altogether. It can make the mundane exciting and the friendly sinister. Don't believe me? Check out this revised version of the Different Strokes opening credits sequence. By dropping some alternative music under it, the scene takes on a whole new, creepier, meaning.

Along a similar line is this little nuggety gem from the Victoria's WorkSafe. Having been grossed out by the original ad quite a few times, I found it to be much more watchable once a nice little tune was dropped over the top.

Up until this morning I'd never heard of the Cranbourne Cup. But now, thanks to the Midget Cup controversy I have. From that point of view it was a marketing success story. In case you haven't read the tale, the Midget Cup was run during the Cranbourne Cup, with three little people acting as jockeys, riding three 'regular' sized punters down a 50 metre track.

Here's a highlights reel from the event.

Critics have panned the event as degrading to little people, however I'm not sure who should be feeling the most 'degraded' today, the jockeys or their 'average sized' mounts?

Is the Midget Cup more or less degrading than "Midgets vs. Elephant"?

... or, more or less degrading than "Four midgets vs. a Camel"?

I've developed a bizarre fascination with this YouTube video of a major league karaoke fail. Besides its melodic appeal, the incomprehensible lyrics make this a musical train wreck worth watching.

I will say, in the performers defence, the lyrics from the original version of the track from Mariah Carey are equally incomprehensible.

A bad affiliate program is one that does everything in its power to make you feel like you've just paid a visit to an alcoholic, sausage fingered, proctologist.

In the good old days Commission Junction were quite good to me. I was doing reasonably well with them, largely on the back of their relationship with eBay. A couple of years ago, if you wanted to earn commission from eBay referrals, your only option was to go through Commission Junction.

While Commission Junction have a large number of partners, 99.9% of my revenue with them was generated via eBay. When eBay decided it was time to fly solo, and started there own publisher program, 99.9% of the money I would have made through Commission Junction was made via eBay directly instead. So, since eBay flew the Commission Junction coup, my Commission Junction earnings have been sporadic at best. Currently I'm only partnered with Musicians Friend, which generally offers high involvement, high value, products for sale. My last commission probably occurred earlier this year, and since then it's been quiet.

Last month I logged into my dashboard and noticed that my account balance had dropped from the previous month, and the month before that. Four months ago I had $47 in my account. Today I'm down to $7. Why? Here's what I found buried in the Contact Us >> Check FAQs section of the Commission Junction site.

If your account was charged a $10 fee it is because you have not generated any commissionable transactions for a six-month period. Publishers that have less than $10 in their account or a zero balance after six-months of activity automatically have their accounts deactivated. Because publishers can sign-up for a Commission Junction account for no charge, our system carries thousands of accounts that are either duplicates or never generate any activity. This makes it necessary to remove those accounts from the system so that it can work more efficiently for publishers and advertisers that are generating revenue.

So each month I'm being charged $10 for what exactly? Extra support? Help in turning around my poor performance? I'm not sure. All I do know is that I never received any correspondence from Commission Junction to tell me they were siphoning my account. Maybe it's there way of coping with the financial crisis? Whatever it is, it leaves me less than impressed.

Now, I may not be a big user of Commission Junction at the moment, but that is not to say I wont find something I want to promote in the future. With that said though, Commission Junction make it very difficult for me to want to continue on with them in the future. If I don't generate a commission this month, my account will finally reach zero, which will see my account deactivated. Surely I can do something to avoid deactivation? Lets check their FAQs some more...

How can I prevent my account from being closed for non-activity?

Commission Junction deactivates accounts for lack of performance (dormant account policy) if they have not generated any commissionable transactions for six consecutive months. To prevent your account from being deactivated, you can make a purchase from one of your advertisers to generate a commission.

So to avoid deactivation I should generate leads... from myself? Doesn't sound 100% kosher, and there's probably sub-clauses in the individual agreements you enter into with the actual advertisers that could end up seeing you booted from their programs?

Commission Junction is one of the larger affiliate programs around, which is why I guess they figure they can get away with such a dick move. For the big publishers I'm sure none of this really matters, but perhaps Commission Junction should consider that big publishers all need to start somewhere. By raising the middle finger to the minnows of today, they may pissing off the killer whales of tomorrow.

For those of us unable to make it to Germany for Oktoberfest I may have stumbled across the next best thing... Brewfest. One minor problem though, it's in Azeroth, so you're going to need a World of Warcraft account.

Once you've got that sorted, head to the beer garden outside the dwarven capital city Iron Forge. Then, drink up until your computer generated you cant walk straight anymore. Brewfest began on the 20th of September and will finish up on the 4th of October.

Besides the opportunity to get your geek drink on, Brewfest also opens up a heap of Brewfest related quests that will see you drawing your sword against the nefarious Coren Direbrew, leader of the Dark Iron dwarves. Defeat Direbrew and he drops a heaps of cool stuff at random, including some weapons and trinkets, as well as a couple of Brewfest mounts, the Great Brewfest Kodo or the Swift Brewfest Ram. Personally I'm after the Kodo, cause it looks cooler, but as of writing this, I've paid Direbrew five visits, for a total of 25 drops, and neither the Kodo or Ram have dropped once. With a couple of days left my luck might change.

I've also got four days left to complete two of the final achievements in order to take the title of Brewmaster. I have Drunken Stupor (basically getting sh!t faced and surviving a 65 yard fall) and Disturbing the Peace (While wearing 3 pieces of Brewfest clothing, get completely smashed and /dance in Dalaran) left to complete.

Not surprisingly the event has spawned a range of real world merchandise including the "Tankard O' Terror", that can hold close to 2 litres of your preferred beverage. Personally, I'm feeling more than a little include to pick up one of the groovy Brewfest t-shirts. I'm sure chicks dig dudes in World of Warcraft apparel.