- 2006.04.04
I think I've figured out the secret of Apple's success and why
it enjoys so much good press. It's because it's easy to write a
cute headline playing on the word "apple". How many headlines have
we seen that sound like "Apple's Core Is Rotten","Apples for the
Teacher", "Jobs Job Is Polishing the Apple", and "Red Delicious
McIntosh Apples have Nothing to Do With the Beatles, So Will You
Guys Please Stop Harassing Us?"
With all these cute titles, Headline Editors (oh yes, there are
Headline Editors) say to themselves, "I've got a cute idea for a
headline for your Mac article," whereupon the writer of said
article rolls his eyes so far back in his head he has to go get
Lasik™ just so he can see out of the bottom of his
eyeballs.
My point (and I do have one) is that you just can't write cute
headlines using the word "Vista." Believe me, I tried. Looking into
the Lite Side's Ripping Headlines from the Future-o-matic, I took
notes and hereby present
Vista Headlines We're Likely to See in the Near
Future
- Vista Shipping: "Verily, I See This
Ain't Shipping"
- Microsoft Invisitagates New Windows OS Delays
- Users Look Through Windows and See XP, not Vista
- Current Windows Users Prefer to Remain Vistal Virgins
- Microsoft Chooses Ballmer as the New Vistage of Windows
- Microsoft's Bitter Pill: Vistamins
- First There Was Virtual Reality; Microsoft Explores Vistal
Reality
- Virtual Vista Visits Very Soon Now
- Vista Keeps on Slippin', Slippin', Slippin' into the
Future....
- Like a Sleepy Classmate, Microsoft Unable to Keep Up Even When
Merely Copying
- Which Came First, OS X or the Ovista?
- Young Programmers Become Vistao-sos of the Service Pack
- Granny Says It'll Be a While Longer Till the Vistuals Are
Ready
- Microsoft Decides Divistature Is Best; Abandons New OS for
Revised Version of XP
I trust my point is made. These headlines suck. No
Headline Editor in his right mind will be able to write a decent
Vista headline. Therefore, they'll pass the article on to the night
shift, and soon, like an old fruitcake, the article will return to
the original editor, who will recognize it as yesterday's news and
toss it in the can.
Good Luck, Vista copywriters. You're gonna need it.
Addendum: I just couldn't pass this one up. The funniest Vista pun was made by reader Henry Huang, who tells us that when the deadline for Vista recedes into the future, or as users leave Vista for some other OS, they can say, "Hasta La Vista, Baby!"
