What I hear you saying is...

(Thanks SallyPNut)

Flying back from Vegas the other night, I'm reminded of a time I was on a Southwest (SW) flight a few years ago. As the drink service came through, a woman says to the attendant that she absolutely l-o-v-e-s these pretzel-mabobs they hand out, and would buy them if she knew where to get them. The attendant nods, smiles and agrees they are tasty. The attendant disappears and 30 seconds later comes back with a carton of ~50 of these pretzel packages and hands them to the woman, gratis. The woman gushes and accepts gratefully.

Is the woman a SW customer for life? We can bet that her bridge club and grandchildren have heard the story 100 times.

Obviously the attendent didn't run off to ask for permission to give away a ton of pretzels to the lady -- he just reacted with remarkable customer service that left all of us thinking SW really knows how to treat people.

Well, fast forward to the other day -- I'm trying to switch my evening flight to one that is earlier. There are plenty of seats on the earlier flight, and as it turns out the later flight I had originally booked was completely full. So, I call SW thinking I'm doing them a big favor by opening up an additional seat on the later flight for one of their erstwhile standby passengers.

Yes, says SW reservation agent -- for $50 they can make that change.

Really? $50? If they just allow me on the earlier plane, it costs them nothing, makes me happy, as well as the person that gets my seat on the later flight. What happened to the employee empowerment to make everyone's life a bit better? Where is the win-win(-win)?

I expect policy like this this from UAL or AA, but SW? No amount of quirky FAA emergency preambles or tossing peanut packs down the aisle during take off offsets something so stupid. Years of positive experience washed away in a single incident.

Of course, I'll probably still fly SW since they're still much better and cheaper than the alternatives (for now). Just a bummer that they seem to be losing their edge.

But over the years it's been a crap-shoot on quality. Some great ones... some not so great. Some seemed really cool at the time (i.e. when I was 10) but have not held up, while others age like a fine claret.

So I thought it would be fun to take a stab at ranking some of the Bonds -- Here are the three best Bond movies:

CRITERIA:

1. Plot: Does the premise simply taunt your suspension of disbelief? Or does it openly mock it?
2. Dialog: Does the dialog -- especially the one-liners -- hold up? Or does Bond sound like a douche?
3. Car & Gadgets: Relative to other Bond films -- Great, or simply good?
4. Bond Girl: Hot or not?
5. Villain: Bad ass?
6. Pre-title sequence interesting? Is the title track insufferable?

BEST

1. GOLD FINGER (1964)
For me, Gold Finger is the most balanced and classic of the films -- not too over the top at any point, but taut and engaging. There is a little bit of everything "Bond" present in this movie, and it holds up especially well for a film that is now over 40 years old.

1. Dialog: The most famous exchange in the franchise: "Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"
2. Plot: Nuking Fort Knox to corner the world's gold market is far-fetched but intriguing.
3. Gadgets: Totally bad-ass Aston Martin with ejector seat + machine guns.
4. Bond Girl: Not that hot, but the writers did name her "Pussy Galore".
5. Villain: Auric Goldfinger is a great megalomaniacal villain, but his henchman Odd-Job (with the decapitating bowler hat) is second to none.
6. Title track: Shirley Bassey is tough to beat.
Bonus Misogynist line: James Bond: [speaking to a woman when another spy arrives to talk business] Run along now, man talk...

2. GOLDEN EYE (1995)
Yes, I know - Pierce Brosnan in the #2 slot? But this movie is fantastic for the Bond fan. Great plot, good twists. The most amazing opening 10 minutes of any of the films. It's easily one of my faves.

1. Dialog: Probably some of the most overt sexual innuendo in all the films.
2. Plot: Stealing control of military satellites to release an EMP that wipes out the financial grid long enough to steal gobs of lucre is cool!
3. Gadgets: The car is a BMW Z3. Not bad, but I'd have preferred something more exotic.
4. Bond Girl: She's be the pretty-hot girl next door... if you lived in Minsk.
5. Villain: Best friend Sean Bean 006 twist is great, and Alan Cummings is well cast as the Russian computer nerd. I'm not into Russian women, but if I were, I'd put Xenia Onatopp of that list. Heh, get it? Ooof.
6. Pre-title sequence: My favorite of all time. When Bond runs out to the middle of the dam and then bungee jumps off the edge, I freaking stood in my chair and yelled. Unfortunately I was at matinee showing in Osaka Japan -- surrounded by house wives that couldn't quite understand my enthusiasm.
Bonus sexual innuendo exchange:
Bond: It appears we share the same passions: three, anyway.
Xenia Onatopp: I count two: motoring and, uh, baccarat. I hope the third is where your real talent lies.
Bond: One rises to meet a challenge. [OOF!]

3. CASINO ROYALE (2006)
Like I was saying, this film gives new life to a pretty old series. What I like most about the Daniel Craig choice is that he's a perfect fit for the movie's gritty realism. The fight scene in the stairwell of the casino is absolutely knock-down, drag-out brutal. And while there are definitely some questionable "coincidences" in the story (did someone say "heart defibralator"?) it holds together well, and is a great set-up for future films.

1. Dialog: Polar-opposite of the Roger Moore cheekiness from the 1970s. More like what you'd expect from Guy Ritchie flick.
2. Plot: Shorting stocks and then committing acts of terror to drive the price down? Almost too believable.
3. Gadgets: Aston Martin DB5... which he wins in a poker tournament. Now that's a player
4. Bond Girl: Vesper Lynde is smart and sassy. A more balanced character than any previous actress in this role.
5. Villain: Le Chiffre? C'mon the dude bleeds from his eye. Gross. The torture scene near the end still leaves me queasy.
6. Pre-title sequence: Bond's first and second kills, chronologically speaking. Nice way to get the refresh calibrated and booted-up

Bonus back-door-man exchange:
Vesper Lynd: Am I going to have a problem with you, Mr. Bond?
Bond: No, don't worry, you're not my type.
Vesper Lynd: Smart?
Bond: Single.

In our next post: The 3 WORST Bond films... (hint: they all have Roger Moore in them)

Meanwhile, I welcome your wrong differing opinions in the comments...

Listening to local radio (KFOG) on the way into work this morning, the DJ mentions that all archives of the show can be "found by Googling 'fog files' or by going to (url/directory I've already forgotten)."

Well done. Much easier for my brain to remember a keyword search than trying to remember and then entering the damn URL (Google finally capitalized on this with the dual-purpose URL bar in their Chrome browser).

I've seen this pattern before. Japan has such verbose URLs, and with seemingly arbitrary application of the country-code extension for many sites (example: asahi.com vs asahi.co.jp) that many marketeers have simply gone to a model where they show a screenshot of the search term that will generate the desired page:

I haven't noticed this pattern in print ads in the U.S., but radio seems like a natural application for the 'Google this term' message, since the listener's attention span is much shorter and there is no 'rewind' to hear an url repeated.

Is there room here for black hat SEO sophistry against terms like this? Possibly, but I can't think of a scenario where it would be worth the effort/expense to game something on a local level, and certainly any Coke, Apple, or Budweiser has enough brand and page-rank mojo to ward off evil-doers.

So maybe there's still hope for the folks at Dillon Edwards...

For example, when composing a portrait, a photographer needs to consider where the subject is looking -- especially if it is away from the camera. All sorts of visual tension is created depending on how you frame your subject.

You'll often see this rule in action while reading newspapers. For example, if you have a person in the photo looking to the right, then that is where the page designer will try to position the text. If he puts it on the left, the article will seem disassociated from the photo.

Used effectively, it can create an interesting look. Used poorly, it just seems like bad photography.

Exhibit A:

Remarks: WTF???

However, when it comes to advertising I rarely see creative that uses visual tension without being completely intrusive and annoying. The window-shade, roll-down units are probably the worst, followed closely by the floating fly-bys for solicitations to register or take surveys.

So I'm intrigued with this new composition by Apple:

They've occupied both the 728 banner position, as well as the right rail. You've basically got Mac-guy and PC-guy having a conversation that physically (virtually?) flows across the upper-right corner of the content you are reading. Even with the sound off, I am intrigued to hear what they are saying!

Certainly, sustaining the dialog between these characters is a great (and obvious?) campaign-extension from the TV ads, but it's also neat how they're able to get my attention without being intrusive. And somehow I doubt shoving their two heads at opposite ends of a 728 banner would have been as effective.

I can't remember how quickly I've ever rescinded a ringing endorsement for a product, but let me attempt to break that record:

1) Turns out Chrome is dog slow on my wireless connection at home, while IE and FireFox run circles around it. What gives?

2) I finally got around to reading the "comic" PR piece. I don't care how great the product is -- you can double your douche-bag points for that piece of tripe. Ugh.

----------------------------

I can't remember the last time a product release actually made me say "wow" out loud.

Wow.

I am generally one of the first in line to slander new products from G that don't live up to their potential (i.e. all of them except Maps and Mail) but my first impressions of Google's new "Chrome" browser is that they've completely captured the essence of what made their search engine so successful: Simple, fast, effortless.

The page load times compared to IE and Firefox on my XP machine are so wildly different, I'm not sure I'll ever go back to using either of these other browsers except to retrieve bookmarks or to test Topix site changes. And finally, a browser that really capitalizes on the user-behavior pattern of typing random search strings in the URL bar? That's just common sense.

Simply put, this is a change that I would recommend to my mother. And I don't think that's happened since I told her to dump Y! search in favor of G.

Another nail in the MSFT coffin.