Remember remember the 1st of #Movember.

Day 1 of Movember.
I have to tell you I'm joining this movement this year.
I have to tell you because if I don't, you likely won't know I'm trying to grow a moustache until maybe November 26.

Movember is men growing their moustaches throughout November to raise funds and awareness for Men's Health issues. They stem around Prostate Cancer but it's kind of also about us men getting over the barriers to getting checked out by a doctor, because there's a lot of health doo-doo we could prevent if we get checked out early. 

I've never done it before, but this year I'm joining forces with my brother in Toronto, forming the Mo Tang Clan alliance to grow our facial hair(s) for the cause. So far I have my daughter's pic as my Mo pictorial presence. I doubt I can beat the appeal of her fruity Mo.

I'm toying with "thon"-ing the concept: having people pledge an amount for every time someone comments on the 'stache. It's part of the objective of the month, plus I'm curious if anyone would ask. Again, might not be an issue for me till after the 26th...

Anyway, here's my Mo page.
And here's the Mo Tang Clan team page. 

Please give early and often. Thanks for your support!

Dexter: a darkly dreaming post for #Halloween

via youtube.com

I had fond memories of Dexter's Laboratory and was more than pleased to share this cartoon gem with my 21-month-old daughter on the tube. Imagine our surprise when we clicked on the show Dexter and...
...I'm totally just kidding. I can tell the difference (could you imagine, though? I wonder if the show's creators had banked on that kind of snafu...).

I started watching Dexter this fall.
I watched the first 3 episodes of Season 1, then read the plot synopses through Season 6, then watched the Season 7 premier. It was a neat way to go. I was so very glad to see the title sequence had remained the tight-focused innuendo-laden visual (the video posted above) since the beginning. Also, Season 7 ended with the biggest of big reveals (I'll not spoil it if you've yet to catch it...).

In a small nutshell: Dexter is a blood splatter expert for the Miami Police Dep't. He's also a closet serial killer, using his "gift" to moonlight as a killer of other killers. 

Dexter's very much an ordinary guy, just with a talent and unusual affinity for homicide. Not that it makes it hugely forgiveable, but he's become very neat and efficient at it. And therein lies the crux of a fascinating premise: the primal urge for eye-for-eye justice is expressed in fighting darkness with equal and opposite darkness. In the show, it occasionally works out neatly but very often, in individual cases as well as in the overarching story, Dexter's private and public lives are an unbelievable mess to manage, with heart-wrenching collateral damage.

Dexter is based on a short story called Darkly Dreaming Dexter and those words resonate with the spirit of what it is, and with the spirit of today: we all have a dark side which is a bit more allowed to peer through on Hallowe'en.
Sometimes the release is healthy.
When it's out and/or acted upon too much, though, things can get real complicated.

Is this a bagful of candy for #nerds? a post on the primo #HalloweenTreat

Is this the Hallowe'en treat for adults? I got the image here.

There's a lot of scary going on right now.
And I'd planned to blog scary for Hallowe'en.

After some thought, though, I re-discovered a core truth about Hallowe'en that was just a little off the scary obvious: to the target market, kids, Halloween is, in many ways aboutcandy.

Gobs of candy.

Candy by the handful.
Candy by the bagful.
At no other time of year are handfuls and bagfuls the measure of candy. 

I'm not sure if my Hallowe'en experience was typical or not. We not only went for volume, but quality: we pinpointed the primo treats (for us, there were cans of pop, full-size candy bars, and chips) and devised ways to repeat-visit them.

This got me thinking about what a treat would be in marketing.
One adult equivalent is tradeshow swag.

And in that realm, the Lancope light-up ninja sword really stuck with me as a primo treat. To me, Lancope really understood their target (tech nerds at a computer security conference) and treated them to branded merch that tapped into a core essence of both the security product AND the aspiring ninja inside any self-respecting nerd. Kudos to Lancope for suitably equipping their prospective customers (quite possibly for Hallowe'en).

According to my research, witty T-Shirts are a close runner-up for primo nerd swag.

Note: I use the term "nerd" with affection. I love nerds and consider myself one. If I were at this show, I'd either have grabbed one of these swords or been really disappointed when they ran out.

I'll have the scary post go up deeper into Hallowe'en.
Stay safe. Have fun. And please enjoy your gobs of candy responsibly.