The nerd pen incident

Speaking of True Majority (see previous post): Over a year ago, they were just getting started, drawing largely on the name recognition factor of Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's. At that time, I and lord-knows-how-many-other-people received this little gift in the mail (click the photo for a full description):

Apart from the advantages of having bar-charts (with footnotes) on national and global defense spending priorities quite literally at my fingertips - well, I mean that part's obvious, isn't it? and did I mention it's also a ball point pen? you can write with it too! - there was now the added comfort and security of knowing that, the next time I found myself in a bar talking to a really attractive woman and suddenly wanted to make absolutely certain she left with someone - anyone! - other than me, I could always whip this bad boy out.

As funny-but-useless tchotchkes go, it's actually kind of a kick, but I think we can mark the day I opened my mail and found that pen as the day I stopped having absolute confidence in True Majority's marketing strategy.

I still have the pen, though. It's kinda cool.