jasonenglish1.com

jasonenglish1.com turns one today. Last June 16th, I launched this site with lots of help from Noah Brier – and without any real vision for what I wanted to do.

It showed.

But I wouldn’t expect many changes in year two, except perhaps the layout. I’m waiting for a designer friend (or stranger) to owe me a favor.

Since we didn’t get our fifth visitor until our fifth month, there’s a good chance you missed some early material. For the next week, in the spirit of catching up and nostalgia and laziness, I’ll re-post one vintage entry per day. Then I’ll move on to more dog photos and crazy predictions.

Our first entry comes from September 25, 2006, after I noticed a humorous relationship between a product placement and the witty banter on House. So I rigged up my camcorder to take a screenshot.
Product Misplacement
September 25, 2006

It hasn’t been a good year for Dell. Slowing sales. Exploding laptops. Blogosphere disparagement. And it seems like every Dell now comes with a customer service horror story.

While good PR has been hard to come by, at least founder Mike D. can slip top TV shows a few dollars to bring Dell products into your living room.

That’s where a smart and disgruntled writer comes in. During this season’s second episode of House, Dr. House bites the hand that furnishes his promotional consideration.

“Why don’t I have a high-def in my office? I’m a department head. Tissue characterization is impossible when the pixels are the size of Legos.”

As you can see in the picture above, the pixels he’s complaining about clearly belong to Dell, a company outed as a paid sponsor in the credits.

While I’m not an Emmy-winning writer on a hit TV show*, I would imagine being told to write a product into the script is a source of contention. Glad to see the placement so organic to the plot.

*If I were, my show would be called Representing. Our main character, a disgraced former sports agent, would represent regular people (from grocery store cashiers to whipped boyfriends) against the forces keeping them down. The show would be a Scott Baio vehicle, and it would be a blockbuster.