hiester.com

In the latest salvo in the Verizon vs. AT&T map wars, Verizon says it will change its name to Uchitel. Verizon executives deny that the name change is in any way connected to AT&T pitch man Tiger Woods’ alleged affair with a woman named Jaimee Grubbs.

By now, you’ve probably been exposed to IBM’s ad campaign, “Let’s Build a Smarter Planet Together.”

Naturally, such a bold proposition invites a few questions.

1. Forget for a moment about building a “smarter” planet. How does one build a planet at all? Where would you put it. There’s only one ideal place for a planet that can support life that we’ve been able to find and it’s currently occupied.
2. How big will this planet be? If it’s going to be anywhere the size of Earth, then where does IBM plan on getting the materials? Is there a Planet Depot out there somewhere?  And what’s the construction process? How do you keep the molten core from cooling off while you wrap it in the mantle, crust, etc. ? Where do you get the water? How about all the minerals? While they’re building it and it’s getting bigger, its gravitational force will increase. But in the early phases, how do you prevent the bulldozers from just floating into space?
3. There are, of course, various theories about how our current planet was “built.” Some believe it was just a random lucky set of conditions–a cosmic lottery winner. You have just the right temperature range, water, evolution and BAM! next thing you know Times Square appears. Others believe that the Earth was created by God (or Gods or Deities of one sort or another). I realize that this is a gross simplification–there are countless faiths each with their own cosmological story–but for now let’s just classify them as the “not random” school. Either way, the challenges to IBM are mind-blowing. Does IBM think it can replicate the perfect conditions for life; can it guess a lottery number whose odds are 999 million-gazillion-squllion-to-one? Does it have billions of years to tinker with the conditions until it gets them right and single-celled protozoa materialize out of a bolt of lightning? Or does IBM think it can pull this off with the same speed and ease as beating Garry Kasparov in a chess match?  What’s more of a concern: Does IBM think it is God (or a Deity or Gods)? Will IBM build this planet in six days? They usually take six months just to write a requirements document for a relatively simple thing like an ecommerce web site.
4. Who will govern this planet? If IBM builds a new planet, is it still also an earth-based corporation? Will it pay taxes on income from this new planet? How about all these mid-sized business that IBM says are the “engines” of this new planet?
5. Will this new planet have a new ozone layer with no holes in it?
6. Who will be allowed to immigrate to this new “smarter” planet? Will there be a test? If Jerry Springer somehow gets in, isn’t that going to ruin everything?
7. Is IBM saying the Earth is stupid?

For those who don’t follow sports news, here is a brief recap. Roger Clemens has been accused of having taken performance enhancing drugs during part of the time he was a star Major League Baseball pitcher. The initial accusations came in a report issued by former Senator George Mitchell whose special commission investigated all claims of steroid use by Major League Baseball players. Additionally, Clemens’ trainer, Brian McNamee has testified that he injected Clemens with steroids. McNamee even kept the hypodermic syringes and turned them over to investigators who found Clemens’ DNA on the needles. Nevertheless, Clemens denies ever taking performance enhancing drugs (most of which are now banned by Major League Baseball, but were not during most of Clemens active career). Clemens is now under investigation by a Federal grand jury for perjury allegedly committed when he testified before Congress in February 2008.

Earlier this week, after more than a year of  silence, Clemens went on ESPN Radio and again insisted that he has never taken performance enhancing drugs. Interestingly, he said, “Brian McNamee never injected me with steroids or HGH.” The interviewers, Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic of the “Mike & Mike” show completely blew it by not following up that statement with questions like, “Did Brian McNamee ever inject you with any substance?” It’s possible that someone else gave Clemens his steroids, but McNamee gave him the female fertility drug (the one for which Manny Ramirez tested positive) that players use to try to mask the steroids. Another follow-up might have been, “Did anyone ever inject you with steroids or HGH?” But it seems ESPN is sympathetic to Clemens,  getting down on bended knee for his new Public Relations firm. Greenberg later said he thought he did a fair interview, “straight down the middle”, in his words. I agree it was right down the middle, like a softball pitch. Still Clemens whiffed because the entire setup was bogus. He tried to make it sound like the timing of the interview was based on the fact that he was about to go on vacation and not really directly related to the book American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime that was released the same day. Clemens only wanted to chat with his buddies “Greeny” and “Golie” (as he called them during the interview). “Book? What book? Oh yeah, I heard something about it but it’s all garbage.”  I wonder if Greeny and Golie vote for MLB Hall of Fame candidates. I hope not.

The doozy of the interview was Clemens claim that he has a family history of heart disease and it would be “suicidal” for him to take dangerous steroids (as if steroid and other drug users think about long-term consequences when they’re shooting up). Part of his claim to having a family history of heart disease was, he said, “My stepfather had a heart attack.” Now THOSE are some powerful genes.

The family history revelations prompted me to do my own exhaustive investigations into Clemens’ family history of heart disease. Here’s what I found:

• Clemens’ golf caddy’s cousin lives next door to a guy who had a heart attack
• Clemens’ friend Dick Cheney has had 97 heart attacks and has 12 pace makers and 8 diesel-powered backup pacemakers and a Clemens’ autographed defibrilator that he keeps in Rush Limbaugh’s broadcast booth
• When he drives to a local high school to pitch batting practice, Clemens drives by the Baylor Heart Clinic and they have loads of people in there with heart disease
• 28% of Texans who die each year die of heart disease and .0000000001 % of Texans become seven-time Cy Young award winners; do the math
• Clemens’ vacation house, which has no contact whatsoever with the outside world, especially information about new books written by veteran investigative journalists from the New York Daily News, was built by a guy who later had a heart attack; and now the place has plumbing problems–scary stuff, so you know there’s NO WAY Clemens would be taking any dangerous steroids or HGH out there
• Jose Canseco has not had a heart attack, but he got his brains beat in by  5’9″ sportscaster Vai Sikahema in the first round of a celebrity boxing match; When Clemens reaches his desperate years he wants to be able to at least go at least two rounds against Sikahema, so you know there’s NO WAY he would ever touch any dangerous drugs!

With all the hoopla over the NFL draft, I’m amazed that there haven’t been more creative attempts to profit from all the publicity. Here are some ideas for next year:

* DraftFlakes Breakfast Cereal – The box could feature photos of flakes like Roger Goodell, Drew Rosenhaus and fans who actually attend the draft in person.  There are so many NFL-related flakes, it would  be difficult to fit them all on the box. The cereal would be made up of small brown football flakes and huge green $ sign flakes. But here’s the best part. You can’t just go to the store and buy this box of cereal. Nooooooooooooooo. You have to first buy a PCBL, a Persnal Cereal Box License for $14,000. Only then do you have the right to buy the cereal for the estimated retail price of $12.99.

* Draft Beer Specials – A creative sports bar owner could cook up a scheme where the “first round” of beers purchased during the ten-minute window of the first pick would be priced really high. Let’s say the beer costs $50. Nobody would buy it, right? But, you could configure it so anyone buying a first round beer has a chance to win $250. As with the draft, there are no guarantees. Subsequent picks would be cheaper and the potential prizes less, except that once in a while  a lower round beer could win a very large price, let’s say $1000(think Tom Brady, a 6th round draft selection).  Customers could declare their table their “war room” (or as with the case of a pharmaceutical company I did work for–they made us rename our project meeting/scrum room from “war room” to “opportunity room”) and negotiate with other tables based on their prognostication that a certain round has been light on prizes, in which case they would trade up to that round.  I haven’t worked out all the details yet. There are probably bars that do this, but I don’t go to bars anymore so I wouldn’t know–and the only news I hear about bars is when people get shot inside of them, which happens too often here in Philadelphia.

* Sweepstakes – some product targeting the male 12-70 year-old demographic could hold a sweepstakes. Grand prize would be a chance for the winner and five friends to carry Mel Kiper down Broadway in an NFL-themed sedan chair, then sit with Mel durin the draft while he tells you exactly who is going to be drafted next–through all seven rounds– with 100% accuracy.  Given that his year-round job is to blab about the draft, make up mock drafts, inform us who is “sliding” and whose stock is rising, he should be able to get it right. Otherwise, it would be like Santa Claus leaving the wrong gifts for kids all over the world.

Phillies’ comeback win over Braves had a certain ring to it