Is FOX trying out Google AdSense for their TV commercials now?

It's not much of a stretch to believe that, although I have absolutely no facts to back up that idea. It certainly can't be too far off, the way things are going with Google these days.

My only basis for posing this question is this:

I just watched this week's episode of 24 last night, in which the phrase "marshall law" was frequently mentioned. I didn't fast forward through some of the commercials, because I was doing something else and it wasn't convenient to do so, and one of them caught my attention (during two different commercial breaks).

It was an ad for the department store, Marshalls, which started out with the line "Marshall's Law Number 21..." (or something like that).

It was probably purely coincidental, but if it was done on purpose somehow, that was pretty clever! I've never seen/heard that ad before, but a Yahoo search for "marshall's law number" did return this page, which makes it look like they did have ads with a similar opening line in December 2005.

Side-effects of taking care of your teeth

From Chris Pirillo's blog, Toothpaste Can Help You Lose Weight:

...
Went to dentist for checkup and got reamed by the hygenist for not taking better care of my teeth. Since I have poor memory skills, I decided to form a new habit, that of brushing immediately after every meal. Which led to not eating between meals or after supper. Know what? I started losing weight.
...

This reminded me of something I've been meaning to blog about for a while now. I posted it as a comment on Chris's blog entry, but wanted to put it up here as well, for better visibility/archiving:

I found that braces have a similar effect, especially with rubber bands. It's such a pain to take care of your teeth when you have braces, that it makes me slightly less interested in eating. Rubber bands are supposed to be worn anytime I'm not eating, and they are a pain to attach, so that's yet another reason not to eat.

I've lost about 20 pounds in the past 9 months, since I got braces. I've also stopped biting my nails, a habit I've had for as long as I can remember. Not that I'd recommend braces as a dieting tool or habit-breaking technique (more of a very expensive torture device, I think).

Life without Google?

Two different articles came to be today, from completely different sources and interfaces, which shared an interesting common theme: Life without Google.

From Wired News: Google Users: I Can Quit Anytime:

Six days a week, Shari Thurow spends copious amounts of time conducting searches on Google. But each Saturday, she makes a point of observing a "Google-free day."

The rules are simple: Use any search engine except for Google. In practice, however, the policy is surprisingly difficult to implement.

From one of my favorite blogs: Googlefasting

Chris Pirillo is trying to spend two weeks (originally just one week) without using any of Google’s many services. Here’s his account of this digital adventure:

* The Mission Statement. “I’ve been growing increasingly concerned over how Google is starting to do more... and the world is just letting it do more without asking questions (because most users trust the brand blindly). Google is everywhere. I want it to be everywhere, but I also don’t want it to be everywhere – because that’s very scary.”

* Day 1. “Still can’t figure out how to work MSN Search. The results are just... not relevant. I must be doing something wrong.”

This was interesting to me, because in my first blog post ever, back in November 2004, I was already talking about how much I depend on Google on a daily basis, and the potential for future Google withdrawal issues:

I noticed recently that I google for programming / utility / OS / etc-related information all the time. I mean, I've known this for a while... I think I probably do at least 10-50 google searches a day on average. If they changed to a pay service at some point (can't see that happening, but I've pondered it), I'd probably get depressed and resort to (gasp) books and real people for information.

It was nice to see that other people are already bravely trying this out, so I don't have to. :) Also, coincidentally, I was just thinking within the past few days "I wonder what ever happened to Lockergnome" (an email list I used to subscribe to, back in the late 1990s, which had computer tips, tricks, software reviews, etc.).

As it turns out, Chris Pirillo (from the "Googlefasting" post above) was the author of that Lockergnome email list. Small world. He's got a blog here, which I've now subscribed to. Cool!