I'm not saying there's anything fundamentally wrong with a fanny pack. It seems very practical. It's a backpack for your butt (provided you are not using the British meaning of the word fanny). However, practicality aside, I just don't see a fanny pack as a major bonus to anything, especially if you happen to be a fan, of say, Kesha. Excuse me, I mean Ke$ha. Apparently the marketing geniuses behind Ke$ha's new VIP tour disagree, and they think it's exciting enough to help entice you into paying extra to be a Ke$ha "VIP" on her new tour, as evidenced by the actual promotional email ticketmaster sent out.

Interestingly, they note that this is a "new design!" as if people weren't sufficiently excited about the old design, but of course, the concept itself wasn't the problem....

SCENE: Ke$ha Marketing Headquarters. Team Meeting.

Ke$ha Marketing Analyst: "People aren't really excited about this whole fanny pack, thing. We're getting only a 7.8 percent response rate and that's all negative."

Ke$ha Marketing Intern: "I have to agree. People are making fun of it on the blogs and talking about how disappointing it is."

Ke$ha Marketing Director: "I guess we should redesign the fanny packs, then."

Ke$ha Marketing Analyst: "That's not really what I meant--"

Ke$ha Marketing Director: "Okay folks, that's a wrap. Any other business?"

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 Poetry month on NPR: doesn't it seem like the correspondents are... too excited? And now they are throwing twitter into the mix. Why? Is it the only way to get people to pay attention to poetry? Is that our attention span? Or is it more insidious than that: are they trying to be cute?

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She specifically requested a gossipy roommate on her freshman housing application form

     I have a piece of sobering news for pimple-faced adolescent boys inundated with movies (porn), magazines (porn), and television shows (porn) that titillate with images of collegiate girl-on-girl action. Turns out those college girls may actually be *studying* instead of getting it on with each other. Studying something decidedly unsexy like Entomology or 19th Century Victorian Literature. At least, this is according to the New York Times, which recently published the results of a study suggesting that women with bachelor's degrees were actually less likely to have had a same-sex experience than those who did not finish high school.

 We just received a special announcement from Kashi, makers of cereal, snack bars, frozen dinners and other food with a health, planet, and "lifestyle" conscious vibe. They have a new branding campaign for their "Good Friends" high fiber cereal: they are putting you on the box! Just what do they hope to accomplish? Aside from slimming that waste-line, with lots of high-fiber goodness, their new cereal box also promises to trim that white liberal guilt away in no time!

 So apparently, lots of guys are signing off text messages to each other with "x". As in "kisses". And when I say lots, I mean almost a quarter. While I think it's nice that guys aren't afraid of a little SMS (short message snogging) with each other, it might make some of their wives jealous if they found out that their guy friends are getting more textual love than they are. Still, it makes me wonder: if fully 75% of 18-24 year old men are "Metrotextuals" and 48% saying that the kiss is commonplace among their friends, what kind of messages are they sending to each other? (Also, did T-Mobile get our permission to do this research?)

I've always known, deep in my heart, that women would be the death of me. Truth be told though, I always thought it would be one, solitary gun wielding femme fatale who simply had an taste for danger. Now I know the truth: all attractive women are dangerous. All of them. My misconception was due to art, while the truth comes by science. Thank God for science, which, truly, is unbiased, honest always has our best interests at heart. Take it from these wise researchers: Don't spend any time with attractive women: especially not alone. They are like black widows sucking at your souls!

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 After reading this comic you might be thinking to yourself, "man, Bjorn has a really low opinion of marketing people," but actually what inspired this comic is not what you think. I happen to know a few really amazing marketing people. These people not only follow hip new trends and know what's up, but they actually understand things like how to analyze sales and other data to see if marketing campaigns worked. These folks also seem to use Twitter very effectively, and it got me curious, so I did some googling to find out how you might use that new-fangled twittery-thing for marketing purposes. The results of my research are in the comic.

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When the internet first came out people talked about how it was going to "democratize" free press, by which they meant lowering the barriers to entry (sort of like when Alan Greenspan said that sub-prime loans would "democratize" credit. They are confusing capitalism with democracy. Ayn Rand would be proud.) Well they were sort of right: it's really cheap to start a blog/website/online-magazine/whatever and tell people what you think about things. Look at me doing it right now! Unfortunately, for the most part, if you are highly opinionated, you will usually be preaching to the choir. So, in the end, democracy is pretty much unchanged.

Twitter is sort of the same way. It started out as something fun and when people started engaging in politics or news on twitter, suddenly it was changing the very nature of politics and news. Sane people knew this was ridiculous, but sane people can never stop the hype machine. Hopefully twitter won't be hurt by overblown expectations.

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In case you didn't know this about me, I am a big dork. Not only that, but I'm not really into new-fangled things like twitter, and so on. While I love computers, I have more in common with the old Unix guy with the beard than the kid at the dotcom with his fancy new laptop: I hate buying new laptops. I rarely get excited about new hardware or things like twitter. I don't plan to ever buy an iPhone, and it's only recently that I've seen any actual use to the web other than as a diversion. Still, I think this comic represents two sides of my geekiness.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this three-part comic series on why I still just don't get twitter. The next two will be more accessible.

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 Well, it's fall and that means that once again the television networks are trying to get us interested. We asked our readers what's going to be flickering on their screens this fall:

I don't think people are going far enough in their attempts to get dangerous books out of the hands of our innocent children. Here is just one example of the kind of book that we must absolutely protect our children from. Why, the very idea that Jesus himself had two father figures is not something we need in our children's books! Instead, we need to remind them of the important parts of the bible, like love your neighbor don't kiss people of the same gender. Banning this book would be a step in the right direction, people! Let's do it! Let's be brave!

Living with Chicktellectuals provides a unique opportunity to study them in their natural habitat. This column provides readers with insights into the lives and culture of the modern Chicktellectual.

This page from the notebook of my colleagues at overcompensating.com shows that although appearing similar on the surface (use of showers, etc), the grooming habits of the chicktellectual differ markedly from our own:

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