Let's hear it for the Telstra marketing people. Every so often, my mobile phone bill comes with a booklet titled "conversations" (note the stylishly lower-case title), containing announcements of new services, SMS competitions and other attempts to get the consumer to work up a higher phone bill. To keep up the façade that the booklet is a fun free magazine, and not, in fact, an attempt to sell you something, the "news" and advertising are interspersed with a small amount of copywritten, non-promotional "fun" material, such as some highly dubious "conversation starters":

I can totally see these being used as an icebreaker at parties. Or indeed to approach attractive strangers in a bar.

YOU: "Did you know that pearls melt in vinegar?"
ATTRACTIVE STRANGER: "Wow! I never knew that..."
YOU: "It's true. And the Grand Canyon could hold about 900 trillion footballs... (nervous giggle) That's a *lot* of footballs!"
ATTRACTIVE STRANGER: (wide-eyed) "Reeally?"

Try it!

Posted by: billy | http:// | Fri Sep 27 19:16:42 2002

Alright!

Posted by: cos | http://polydistortion.net/monkey/ | Sat Sep 28 08:27:56 2002

...and if you run out of those, you can always use those STA billboard ads.

Posted by: Ben | http:// | Sat Sep 28 16:01:12 2002

The best conversation starters are lines from Derek and Clive (www.derekandclive.com) such as 'The Worst Job I Ever Had' (pulling lobsters out of Joan Crawford's arse)

Posted by: Andy Gimblett | http://gimbo.org.uk/ | Sun Sep 29 22:45:27 2002

Huh? On what planet is an eggplant, not a plant???

Posted by: alex | http://fnord.org | Mon Sep 30 09:20:24 2002

you mentioned telstra in your weblog. they win. :) how about that new wi-fi network being set up in 'trendy' hotel foyers and the like? has it been haxx0red yet? $10 an hour my arse.

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Mon Sep 30 11:06:20 2002

Is that like the Starbucks one which jams free access points nearby and requires users to pay by the half-hour? (Still, if it's only Starbucks customers it affects, I don't have too much sympathy for them.)

Apparently some activist in San Francisco has set up his car as a roving 802.11 access point and taken to parking outside Starbucks and other such establishments, spreading the love. It must cost him a fortune, especially since the dot-coms all crashed.

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