a launch party for windows 7? really? is that like a wake, or more like a funeral?

[trochee]

not really sure where this insane marketing idea came from, but Microsoft is trying to get you to throw launch parties for Windows 7 (here it's mentioned on Mission Mission).

The video for the promotion is in the hilariously bad infomercial mode, with fake informality (three stereotypically Seattle white people, and their token black friend!), and -- right at the beginning, they remind you to install Windows 7 before the party (accompanied with "isn't that obvious" laughter). Which, of course, means this has to be a "show off the features of windows 7" party, not an install party... or a sales party, unless it's to be combined with gold parties, because it costs at a minimum $120 a pop, more likely twice that unless you want the crippled 'home' version.

Here's the funniest response I've seen: the same party planning, but s/Windows 7/[beeep]/g;.

what's mind-boggling to me is to remember that Ubuntu costs you a CD blank, or they'll mail you one free (you can re-use it), or possibly as much as $35, if you want 20 copies shipped (say, for a party).

Comments

[trochee.livejournal.com]

the actors -- oh, i got the sense that I could see the deadness behind their eyes, saying "everybody's gotta eat". Awfully hard to talk to the camera and to each other.

If I were shooting this video, I think I'd do it without trying to maintain the fiction that the viewer is in the kitchen with them. that just comes out creepy.