Oh sweet chaos. Anna Pickard reviews 2012. Well, actually she's only reviewing the trailer for this movie. Nonetheless, she has the gifted talent for epic analyses of very un-epic Hollywood films, second-by-second review of the next Britney Spears music video, and now she has a few cool ideas how to ruin marketing for this 2009 blockbuster.

"Yes, the world can end in so many different ways, but only some are cool when rendered in CGI. Tidal waves and meteors exploding into the earth? These look cool. Everyone coming down with a bad case of the runs all at once and pooing themselves to death? Not so cinematic. Unsurprising, therefore, that no one has ever made a film with that as the plot.

But tsunamis over the Himalayas? That, as Roland Emmerich knows very well, looks cool. And sure, you might lose a couple of monks here and there in the search for looking really awesome, but that's just collateral damage, isn't it?

In between the cool visuals, the plot is teased with three stark chunks of white capitals on a black background.

HOW WOULD THE GOVERNMENTS OF OUR PLANET

PREPARE SIX BILLION PEOPLE

FOR THE END OF THE WORLD?

It is an interesting question, I admit, and look forward to seeing what the answer might be. Luckily, I do not have to wait four years (or even until next summer, when the movie actually explodes into blockbuster season), as the Gods of Trailer have thought to answer the question within the teaser itself ...

THEY WOULDN'T.

Oh. Not at all? Brilliant, so we can look forward to the movie being two hours of people failing to tell some other people that the world's about to end?"

She goes on to describe how since the trailer dares and teases your curiousity by asking you to "google 2012" because some crazy religious prophecy must be out there. I got bored after visiting the first hit I received. Might as well though, because we all know already what a disaster that one will end in. Snore.

But Pickard's fantastic idea of bombarding Google with lots and lots of more silly conspiracies will have curious victims looking at pages of completely unrelated things. I'm not impressed with her current suggestions of 2012 being the year that "all the disappeared bumble bees are found once more, discovered to be hiding in a secret underground lair playing bee-poker for pots of honey". Or 2,012 being the "number of unicorns required to make up a unicorn quorum and change policy in the unicorn parliament". But still, there's no denying it's a great concept.

It reminds me of this fantastic email I got recently about counter-spamming. When you read the following, you'll have to admit there is some slight genius to it.

REVENGE ON THE TELEMARKETER

Three Little Words That Work!!

(1) The three little words: 'Hold On, Please...'
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off ( instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear BT's 'beep-beep-beep' tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset .... you have efficiently completed your task.

These three little words could help eliminate telephone soliciting.
(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?

This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone.

This technique is then used to determine the best time of day for a 'real' salesperson to call back and get someone at home.

What you can do after answering: If you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialled the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer!!!

3: When you get those 'pre-approved' letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-prepaid return envelopes, right?

It costs them more than the regular postage 'IF' and when they are returned.. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-prepaid return envelopes.

Send an advert for your local chimney sweeper to American Express ... they might need one!
Send a pizza coupon to HSBC ... in case their canteen packs up. You get the idea.
If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them back their blank application form ... after all, it is their form!

If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you return.

You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them, and it is their envelope after all ... you are just returning it!!!!

The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the post, but folks ..... we need to OVERWHELM them, in order to stop them.

Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it ... Twice!

Let's help keep Royal Mail busy. Since the Royal Mail are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, let's help them so they will not need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea!

If enough people follow these tips, it will work ---- maybe you'll get very little junk mail anymore.

I've got a whole lot of bricks and some time to kill. Just waiting for some envelopes now..  ¶ posted by Jon at 11/26/2008