A rose by any other name is pure marketing genius

Often it seems that in order to distinguish yourself and your products from your competitors you need to come up with some sort of gimmick. Not that I have an issue with that. In fact it seems to be Marketing 102 to me. It's just that every once in a while I come across a product that just doesn't seem to be named right for what it is, and yet at the same time the name nails it.

This time it's a carpet swatch. A green swatch to be exact. They could have named it something like Forest or Meadow or even Tropical Something-or-other. But no! They've taken naming green carpet to a whole new level!

Behold the awesome marketing power of Botanical Fury!

The Rat's Nest of Cables

Fire code be damned!
We need more power!

Weird Fries

Some great graffiti / building art in Austin, Texas. After all, if one keeps Austin weird, then one should also keep their french fries weird too...

House Phone

Ah, back in the good old days when you could just pick up a phone and get whatever it was you needed.  

Subtle Sleep Message

It looks like the Wyndham hotel chain wants to add a little subliminal message to my stay. I may have actually been well and slept better if the A/C compressor didn't make so much noise.

Ban Rap Music

Spotted on a car in Austin, Texas. 

Squares and Windows

A view from within a parking garage stairwell which is just a repetition of squares and parts of squares. The sunlight coming through the grate behind me added extra squares as a grid across the entire picture.

Bonus for the woman walking right into the middle of my shot without me trying.

Water Droplets

Every once in a while I'm even more impressed with a picture from my camera phone than usual. This one is one of them (not to toot my own horn or anything). 

A close up shot of water drops left over from a brief rain shower that landed on the BBQ grill cover. I love the reflection of the sky in the drops (more visible in the full size) and the depth of field overall in the shot. Just enough of the center section is in focus and the foreground and background just fade into blurriness nicely.

Heck, I like it so much it's currently my background on the computer.

Row of Lights

From the roof of a parking garage. The clouds were too good to pass up, and the light poles remind me of the old optical illusion of "Which one of these is bigger?"

From http://opticalillusion.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/256/

Shadowy Self Portrait