But I'm Tryin', Ringo

The Path of the Righteous



Jules in Pulp Fiction is having a hard time interpreting Ezekiel 25:17, as three conflicting analyses compete for his approval. And this morning, one month after Microsoft's Cloud Data Breach, we find ourselves in a perfectly analogous quandary. How to interpret this Windows Azure spam promotional email from Reading?

Come in We're Still OPEN

At first I thought they were trying to reassure me, that despite the forementioned breach of customers' confidential data security, "We're still trading! Yes I know, it's incredible! We're still in business!"

Then, Colleague P suggested it might instead indicate the ongoing status of that breach: "Customer data still available! We're still w-i-d-e open!"

But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is - upon subsequent, more sober reflection - that the intended interpretation (becoming clear only after you read into it at least a little further) is just this: "We are open 24/7/365." Still open, in other words, during holidays.

Windows Azure: We're Still Open. What an odd email to receive, as Tweeter CloudClip-Azure muses. You can't help bracing yourself for the inevitable and apparently imminent follow-up promotion. Windows Azure: Closing Down Sale.

A famous advertising campaign in the mid-1980s, by the now defunct British Rail, and sporting the tag line We're Getting There, was universally ridiculed from its launch day. This Azure email campaign seems almost as easily avoidable a case of foot-in-mouth as that one.