mango pudding blues 2.0

CORPORATE WORD WATCH

In the real word, “optic” is of or relating to the eyeball or a man-made lens. Optics, optical, optically, whatever; they all refer to things in the eye or eye-like things, no? In the puffed-up self-aggrandizing corporate world, however, “optic” is now the word you say when you want to refer to what something looks like. A classic case of politically correct euphemism, the corporate man presumably doesn’t wanna just come out and say, “Gee Fred, sales don’t look good,” so he now says, “Fred, let’s discuss the negative optics that the sales are producing.” Or, “We need to hire more women, minorities and disabled people in our factories to improve the optics.”

One wonders what they say in corporations where they actually produce lenses and such. “Gee, Dave, the the optics on the new optics aren’t good.”

Optic’s cousin is the metric, for which at least a shaky case can be made. The wiser corporate dogs are always measuring things, and the resulting numbers of these measurements might be called, one supposes in moments of leniency, metrics. The Oxford Canadian won’t really support that, but Mango Pudding Blues might let it slide. However, now people seem to call any number whatsoever a metric, so one actually hears, in well-appointed, air-conditioned boardrooms, sentences like this, “Joe, I don’t like the optics of those metrics,” and one struggles not to bray with laughter while one’s brain performs the translation into “Joe, I don’t like the look of those numbers.

And all this from some of the most highly paid and respectable citizens in the nation. Jeepers.

MAILBAG

A very nice reader from Vicksburg, Mississippi, responded to the bewilderment we were expressing in the last couple of days over our new visitors. In the case of Vicky Vicksburg, she wended her way here from our friends over at Not My Dog, which is (and I quote, Jane) a favorite of hers. We tip our cap to her, and we tip it to Not My Dog also, of whom we are a regular reader. Now where the hell did the rest of you come from?

In a comical moment of Murphy’s Lawism, we noticed today that our archive index, the Old Mangos page, was busted and not really listing the archives. So any of the new visitors who happened to take a look into our back pages were greeted simply with one page of us swearing and babbling as we tried to build this thing. We’ve rectified the problem, but archive browsers are asked to please ignore the eldest two of the archives, which are the ghost postings of those early tests. They were never meant for public consumption, and we would delete them if we knew how the hell they got there. The rest of the archives are filled with the richly rewarding Old Mangos that we know you demand.

We also received a note from our pals at Gaijinworld, who admonish us once again to buy the damn Shuggie Otis record. We have, so far, been unable to find a copy, but we are glad the Gaijin is back in Japan. We promise to send a personal letter soon.

In other MPB news, we noticed, in an idle moment the other day, that Google will now respond to a search on Mango Pudding Blues by spitting up some fraction of this site or other. We didn’t lift a finger to achieve this status, in spite of the many admonishments of those who thought we ought to. Instead, it is evidence, we suppose, that those pesky Googlebots who race through here from time to time are really doing their jobs. So we may all rest easy now that our imaginary 14-year-old in Tupelo is well-served by the Mango.

* * *

BITTERSWEET MYSTERY

We at Mango Pudding Blues, like the hundreds of thousands or perhaps even millions of other bloggers like us in the world, live in constant throbbing hopeless hope that people will come and read what we’ve written and gasp with delight and tell all their friends and worship us. So imagine the bittersweet feelings we are having this week, when our back end reports are indicating to us that heaps of eager new visitors have finally come, at a time when we have barely posted a thing. That’s right, our worshipful hordes have arrived, and we are completely unprepared. Or perhaps we are being rewarded for our silence. Like people are saying, “We like you so much better when you don’t post anything.”

Listen, you new people. We know that many of you are just passing through. We know that this is too good to be true. We see that some of you are horribly bored by what you see and never delve past page one before darting back out the exit. Yes. That’s okay. You are all welcome back any time you like. But won’t one of you please tell us where you’re coming from? We know we have not yet been selected by the all-powerful Ev as a Blog of Note. Did you arrive via Google whilst searching for a Mango Pudding recipe? Did a good samaritan buy us a Pyrad? Or is it simply true that we built it, and now you have come?

* * *