ESCAPE VELOCITY

1 - Between Dr. Horrible and The Shoe Fairy, my vote goes to NPH for the win!

If there's any doubt, check out his Old Spice commercial. I buy OS now despite the fact that it makes me smell like a 76 year old longshoreman... but I digress.

Back to the topic - You almost have to wonder if that exact conversation didn't happen though; what the hell was Microsoft thinking?!

"I know, we'll get the guy from 'Bee Movie' - he's hip and cool, right?"

2 - Well, stereotypes are always funnier when they're not *your* stereotypes :) (Seriously, though - I used to work in back office operations for a bank, of all places, and of the 60 or so department heads, we had five (five!) named Rocco, but I don't think a single Jew.)

But I digress - I can totally see the second half of the conversation taking place along those lines... My favorite line is "if we try to get someone who's a public figure NOW, that might draw attention to the fact that we haven't done anything interesting in the last 8 years."

I'm curious to see the actual campaign (and the results), myself. Although to be honest, I think we're almost at the point where people are going to give in to Vista out of inertia more than anything else. (I've got a new home PC purchase coming up, and am debating whether to back it down to XP or just leave it at Vista.)

3 - It should be interesting... Adam has a good point. My arsenal of XP laptops that I've had for years are starting to get a big haggard and tired, just like the vast majority of the population's XP installs are probably going to start showing their age soon. There will be change soon. What it will be is anyone's guess.

4 - Won't take offense at the stereotypes, the chumsa on the wall will protect me.
Picture it now, Jerry did Amex commercials and loves his Porsche. Picture a Porsche running Windows or something along those lines.
There may be the sly remarks about just what does apple put int heir laptops that they cost 3-4 times a pc laptop? Same basic hardware, must be the white casing.
But time will tell.

5 - @1 - I switched to OS thanks to Bruce Campbell, not NPH.

@2 - I realized I was pushing the boundaries here. I figured the readership knows me well enough to understand my sense of humor.

It's not *my* stereotype, but it was an interesting experience when I moved to NYC as a kid to discover how often people assumed it was. I'd regularly go to events where I'd be handed a name tag that said "Nathan Friedman."

To paraphrase the Bard, "Be not afraid of Judaism: some are born Jewish; some convert; and some have Judaism thrust upon them."

6 - @5 - Loved those OS ads with Bruce.

You know, in the right context, I could see him doing a great IT ad.

7 - @5 - Y'know... I first saw that commercial with my wife. When he's walking past (no spoilers) for the long-shot, I started laughing so hard I'm certain I did some permanent damage. Shirley totally missed it, and then was distracted by my reaction.

Bruce (Campbell) is the man!

"Even a big bitch cockroach like you should know... never, but never, fuck with the King."

8 - I'd like to think in the boardrooms of Apple/IBM/Ubuntu they'd think about hiring Jason Alexander (George Kastanza) as a foil to the MS Vista/Seinfeld ads about nothing.
Didn't JA make a showing at Lotusphere 2006?

9 - @5-Great name tag story. Guess that would make me a famous NYT columnist & author!
Send me your e-mail address.

10 - How about Bubba Hotep

11 - There are only two things keeping me from pitching M$ Widows entirely. The lack of a Domino Admin client on Linux, and the *#$^% Nortel Contivity VPN box at work.

@2, Why not consider a Linux distro instead of business as usual Windows?