Today was the last day of my summer marketing course in college. The class was divided into six different groups, and each group had to do a presentation on a particular brand or company, explaining how the company advertises, improves its product line, repositions itself in the average consumer's mind, and other stuff like that. Other groups had companies like Starbucks Coffee, Volkswagen, Reebok, and Dell Computer. My group had Timex watches.

It was a fun project. We got to pick apart the minutest details of how the company functions and suggest new techniques for it that might increase profit. But the REALLY cool part was our visual demonstration...

Remember those old "Takes a lickin' and keeps on ticking'" TV ads? The ones where people would torture Timex watches and yet they would still work after it was all over? Lucky me, I got to re-enact the ads today. I stomped on that sucker as hard as I could and it did still work. Then I smashed it with a hammer. The band snapped apart, but the watch kept ticking. So I hauled out a big ol' metal baseball bat and pounded it to smithereens. It finally died. But then, just to be sure, I gave it some old-fashioned sledgehammer action and the thing just exploded. We're talking metal pins and shards of glass and various watch innards all over the classroom. That was a whole mess of fun.

My demonstration really satisfied some sort of carnal urge that I must have been brewing for some time. Nothing quite relieves built-up stress like thoroughly smashing stuff. I understand there's even a place in Japan where frazzled businessmen can pay to throw fine china and stuff at walls. I bet they make a fortune there.

Anyway, just thought I'd let y'all know how totally awesome my morning was.

-useless"On the other hand, I could use a new watch now..."ness