Everything you want. Everything you need.

Tiny dog has eyed a couple of cars in recent months, chatted with a couple of barracuda car lot dudes in ties, and decided, as a technical writer, that it should all ultimately come down to how the car brochures fare in a bare-knuckle brawl of marketing prowess.

Let the spin begin.

Best rhetorical question:

Car 1: "Do you yearn for the thrill of discovery?"
Car 2: "Is maximizing fuel economy your kind of fun?"

Tell me a little bit about yourself:

Car 1: "Brainy," "eager," "secure," "ready," "wide open"
Car 2: "Bursting with enthusiasm," "powerfully fun," "naturally nimble," "environmentally conscious"

Randomly described scene involving you and future car:

Car 1: "The new (car #1) is ready to play wherever your life takes you. Whether pulling into a drive-through or up to a club valet, it's equally at home."
Car 2: "It's Saturday. It's sunny. You've got to get out. Time to call your friends and hit the road. Or maybe there's no road where you're going. No matter."

Page 1's main marketing promise:

Car 1: "Everything you want-- and everything you need."
Car 2: "A decidedly more robust stance and new durable earth-friendly seat fabric."

Bonus feature:

Car 1: Flip and sip rear seat beverage holders
Car 2: Low-profile bug shield

Ratio of uninhabited wilderness scenes to wet-looking cityscapes

Car 1: 2 : 12
Car 2: 10 : 5

Nonspecific abilities the car will provide:

Car 1: "Become an instant expert in good taste"
Car 2: "Wander in the great outdoors"

Line that Milhouse VanHouten could plausibly say in a Simpson's episode:

Car 1: "There's plenty of (car 1) to go around!"
Car 2: No entry in this category

Bonus round: coolest exchange between me and the car salesman:

Car 1:

Me: "So, what are some reasons I should choose this car over car #2"
Him: "It's better."
Me: "Um, in what way, specifically?"
Him: "All ways."

Me: "My husband doesn't like the redesign."
Him: "Yeah, well, it's a car for women."

Car 2:

Him: "You think this is a good job? This isn't a good job."
Me: "Well kid, when I was your age, I worked at Round Table. Anyway, you probably meet some interesting people, no?"
Him: "Yeah, interesting is the right, uh, word I guess."


CONCLUSION

Car #1's brochure is slick. It's cocksure. It thinks it has me all sewn up. Car #2's brochure is insecure. It's optimistic. It wants to show me a good time, but it doesn't know how to ask.

Verdict: I love a nerd. Bring on car #2.

Donut.

Tiny dog has yet to discuss donuts. Perhaps it's time.

Me? I'm not sure I like them. Every so often they crop up at work like a rash, some pink greasy box of them on a plastic chair outside of someone's office, commemorating nothing in particular. That e-mail that goes around, you know the one:

To: everyone@yourjob.com
Subject Line: Donuts outside my office
Text: First come first served...

Delete.

It is my sole dietary code: avoid incidental, low-quality office dessert items masquerading as breakfast. Everyone has a defining dietary code; here are just a few from people I know, who shall remain nameless:

• No Leftovers In The Same Format As They Were Served The Prior Night
• Tortillas Shall Be Heated Lest They Cause Headaches at Room Temperature
• Nothing Sour

In conclusion, since I don't have one, let us behold the following gallery of donut art, created by ironic donut artists and found on the intertube:

• Hipster Art Spiegelmanseque donuts
• 80's pop art donut
• Moody impressionist donut
• Earnest art student donut with corporate sponsor
• Puffy pillow donut art object for teen girl bedroom
• Retail display balloon donut
• Decaying Americana donut

Augghh!

Look people, I don't know. I am just fresh out of topics. I mean, I am sitting here on a Monday, waiting for some dude to come apply pesticide to a kitchen ant infestation, and there is this two hour executive meeting thing I gotta attend today, and...

Ok, there is one thing I know how to do. And that is, scare you. You didn't flinch? Try this. You think you're tough? Boo!

Oh my holy lord, those things are scary.

Nonfiction

It has been rumored that a certain tiny dog, last Friday the 13th, took a brand-new Thinkpad out of its box and proceeded to install Windows Vista (you are coming to a sad realization, cancel or allow) when suddenly a stray styrofoam cup of water toppled in slow motion toward the keyboard, vomiting itself in full over the keys with a wooshing sound, and flooding the key gaps like Lake Pontchartrain, thereby trapping the motherboard in a quarter inch of standing water. It has also been suggested that tiny dog, in a panic, picked up said Thinkpad, still confusedly whirring through hour two of its Vista install (albeit underwater), and shook it like an unfit mother, with the half-baked thought that this might prevent water damage from setting in.

Needless to say, this was a bad idea.

Update: I was informed today that the aforementioned aquatic incident resulted in a "fried motherboard and graphics and networking card, sorry."

A few hours later, I knocked over the same glass, and accidentally soaked the empty laptop box.

Fiction blog

Let us speak no more of quesadillas.

Since I am super bored with this blog, I elect to turn it into a fiction blog for awhile. A question and answer session follow.

Q: Tiny dog, what is a fiction blog?
A: It could possibly be a blog in which everything posted is a lie, but more likely it is ongoing chapters of a work of fiction.

Q: Are you aware that there is no market, whatsoever, for fiction anymore? Especially on the Internet?
A: Who cares.

Q: What will the fiction be about?
A: Something fictional, that did not actually happen.

Q: Will you ever go back to posting about falling asleep on quesadillas?
A: Probably.

Q: When?
A: It is weird to interview yourself.

Q: I need some coffee
A: Go get some

Q: This sucks
A: Yes. Yes, it does.

Just make yourself a dang quesadilla!

On the subject of the new lows I have reached lately, it is rumored around my house that last night, while watching 30 Rock on the DVR, I might have ended up falling asleep on the remnants of a mostly-eaten quesadilla. Probably this is a lie, especially since it was actually the plate I fell asleep on, whereas the remnant of the quesadilla itself had to be salvaged from underneath a not-new Bed, Bath and Beyond pillow with the $12.99 price tag still on it.

Anyway, needless to say the husband sat there, horrified, realizing that he had actually married a person such as the one just described. On the spot, he banned all future eating on the couch.

I probably should delete this post immediately, but I don't have any other content. So, anyway.

Hiatus?

Uhh... I am kind of out of topics at the moment, other than the fact that I went to the Gap the other day and boy is that place in some kind of full-on self-image panic or what? There were all of these squinty dark corners and blinding spotlights a la Abercrombie and Fitch, and this pulsing remix vomit techno desecration of Nina Simone blaring, and I would swear that they hired these gel-haired tight-shirted clothing model jailbait kinds of dudes to hang around the clothing racks, leafing through the boyfriend trousers and whatnot, not really shopping, just looking furtively around. I mean, I was just looking for some khaki boring office worker unfashionable over the hill woman kinds of stuff like I've been wearing for 20 years, and this is the thanks I get?

My point is this: I am kind of on a hiatus, just mentally. That doesn't mean however that I might not post something stupid here on tiny dog.