Have a Politically Correct Christmas

I found this at Laurie Weiss's Business Communication Blog:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or the secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious or secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

May you have a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped to make our country the uniquely wonderful place that it is (not to imply that our country is necessarily greater than any other country, including yours, should yours be different from mine, but nonetheless including and recognizing the distinctiveness of our country) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, political belief, choice of computer platform or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and the warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

In other words…. A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Original source attribution is Dan Poynter.

Hilarious Example of Why to Do Marketing Research

You can learn from anything if you are paying attention: this just in from The Muse (aka Vicki) from a Food TV program, Food Finds I think. (I may have a couple of details off but the big picture is accurate.)

There's a restaurant/bar in Norfolk, VA. that is near an Air Force base. Since there are frequent fly-overs, which are quite loud, they decided to use the situation to their advantage. The idea was to have a night when there would be a drink special whenever a fly-over occurred. Sounds like a great marketing idea, huh?

What they didn't know was that on the night in question the airbase was having maneuvers. Almost never-ending fly-overs! They sold a lot of drinks that night. (I'm falling down laughing at the image of the poor bar-keep trying to keep up with the demand.) Didn't make much money but wow, what a story!!