Many of you watched the double wedding of my two oldest daughters, Emily and Kathryn, on the live webcast this past December 28. Now the video is uploaded and available for viewing too!

Scientists have discovered the fossilized remains of an ancient rodent — about the size of a bull. What did these creatures eat? ….Pretty much anything they wanted to.

Microsoft is working to create shopping carts, soon to be tested on the East Coast, with video screens that show your previously-loaded shopping list, flash advertisements at you based on which aisle you’re in, and let you scan and check out without a clerk. But ‘”This is not all necessarily about bombarding consumers, about targeting advertising,” said Scott Ferris, general manager of Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions group. “It’s about also making the shopping experience better for the consumer.”‘

Not necessarily. Huh.

What the heck is “the shopping experience”? What a stupid phrase. And do they really want to “make the experience better”? for shoppers? If they did, they wouldn’t be putting video screens on shopping carts. Better in what way? By what standard?

Why are things “experiences” now, instead of just stuff you do? Because that way marketing can target you and craft you into being the kind of creature they want you to be — a passive responder to other people’s desires, the market’s desire to make you a consumer of their stuff, stuff you never knew you wanted till the market told you that you want it — see Calvin and Hobbes. Instead of a responder to your own natural desires; an initiator of your own conduct and attitudes, you become a consumer instead of a doer.