Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Senior Party Central: Move your dorsal, shake your ventral

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for February, "Senior Party Central," is dedicated to Brown Class of '97. I regret that I will not be attending the reunion this year, but please accept this reunion-themed song in my stead. And although I don't say it outright in the song, I hope it is implied: Class of '98 drools.

Ice Cream Parlours I have Known
By the way, Class of '97, I find myself wondering if you, too, are slowly morphing into fuddy duddies. As the years dribble by, do you also reminisce loudly about simpler times when a nickel would buy you a 3 oz Cherry Coke or a 200 mg PepsiColace? And don't get me started about the death of good customer service! Drug dealers these days can't be bothered to politely count the change into your hand after your purchase. And why won't strangers carry bags onto a plane for me anymore? Nobody trusts anybody else anymore, and the airlines have all these weird rules. Smaller bombs under the seat in front of you, reserving the overhead bins for larger explosive items.

But if there is one thing that proves once and for all that I'm Fogy-licious, it's this: I still use Hotmail.

A Dying Breed, Like Cowboys, or Some Breeds of Cows
I am proud to say that I am one of the last 364 million users of the Hotmail. Go ahead and chastise me for my "sad devotion to that ancient [web-based email program]," but I find your lack of faith disturbing, and I will Force-choke you. I'm a vintage emailer. My Hotmail address has been my pride AND my joy since the late 90s, when Microsoft shrewdly purchased the rights to the word 'HTML' and added vowels to it.

Bill Gates and his team of goobers were on to something big. When people see those four consonants... H T M L, they know they're in for some serious web-business. It was brilliant, but the Gates goober team never took it to the next level.

That's why I've modified that recipe just enough to stay fresh. I've purchased the rights to www.hitmule.com/.

Go ahead and click on it. Okay, there's not much to see yet, but let me paint you a picture for you. Hit Mule... A powerful web presence. Shall I keep painting? Hit Mule. It invokes images of empowerment, hard work, great music, violence against animals, but nothing too gruesome. The future is almost now and it's Hit Mule. It's simple, edgy, and simple. And that's it, I'm out of paint.

If I had gone with Hit Mule instead of Hard Taco in the first place,  I'd have 3 million followers on my blog right now instead of three. (Thanks Lauren, Mom, and our friend Becca! You're the best!) Basically, I've found the formula for success, and it's so eloquent that it chafes. Hitmule.com + nothing = success. And by the transitive property, success - hitmule.com = 0.

But what about folks who Hate Mila? If Mila Kunis really gets your goat, there's no website where you can commiserate with other Mila haters. It just makes me so sad. That's why when Hit Mule starts generating mad revenue, I won't let a penny of those profits graze the walls of my change purse until I have also registered other essential H T M L domains, including HateMila.com and HauteMila.fr.  (The latter is for Frenchmen who would like to see Ms. Kunis drizzle foie gras with truffle sauce.)

In time, we will also register OH! Tmeal, a website that targets the burgeoning demographic of people surprised by oatmeal. Ohio Tamale will be next, and finally, if I can convince you that Y is sometimes a vowel, we'll complete our web domination with Ahoy, Eat Emily!

Financial Projections
The profits from Hit Mule will be expressed in numbers with so many digits, you'll have to look through the wrong end of a telescope to see the whole thing at once. For my 16 year reunion, I'll roll up College Hill in a satin limousine with a champagne flute-shaped Jacuzzi in the back. That means the Jacuzzi will be really tall and thin, with enough room for just one person to be submerged vertically up to the neck. I will have a satin banner on the side of the satin limousine that says, "Seniors from 1998 Drool." I'm sorry, but that is just how I will be rolling at that time.

With warmest regards,
Zach