The Green Porch Archives - Page 3 of 30

Dr. Pepper Kills Beloved Dublin Brand… Why?

February 3, 2012January 12, 2012 by David Mark Brown

Okay. Contracts were broken. But how is that worse than lying on your taxes? This past Wednesday Dr. Pepper Snapple killed the “Dublin Dr. Pepper” brand name. They claim it was to protect the diluting of their Dr. Pepper trademark. Read more about it here.

So nine different Dr. Pepper products (including Dr. Pepper 10. What the hell is that?) is just fine, but ten is watered down? And aren’t they just going to keep making Dublin Dr. Pepper at other bottlers anyway? (The answer is yes.) So… they still have the same amount of trademark-watering-down Dr. Pepper products as before.

The only difference is that now instead of “Dublin Dr. Pepper,” ~~fanatics~~ aficionados will be drinking “Dr. Pepper made will real cane sugar.”

History’s Forgotten Moonlight Towers

February 3, 2012January 9, 2012 by David Mark Brown

Moonlight tower in San Jose Every era has technological innovations that seem significant at the time (and sometimes are) but somehow slip out of the history books to fade from the collective memory. During research for the second novel in my Reeferpunk series, I found one of these innovations too irresistible to pass up. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century moonlight towers illuminated cities across both Europe and the United States.

While these towers populated dozens of cities for almost half a century, illuminating city blocks with powerful arc lamps, they quickly dimmed into history’s forgotten archives. Bizarre to the modern eye, these towers often ranged from 150 to over 200 feet high and were used during an era when standard, smaller-sized street lamps were impractical and readily-available electricity had yet to burgeon.

Your Indie eBook Sucks. Now Look Right Here.

February 3, 2012January 5, 2012 by David Mark Brown

GreenPorch Winter of eReading After self-publishing my second eNovel in December, I’ve been increasingly tormented by the fear that it possibly may not be quite the classic in the making I assumed anything pouring from my fingers would instantly be. Understand, this is a strange sensation for me. Even as a kid I used to imagine what it would feel like to be one of the dumb kids. I’ve just always been blessed/cursed with an ego the size of a professional athlete’s (despite neither being very professional or athletic).

Maybe my ego is more the size of your aunt Edna’s goiter. Anywho, as I’ve said in an earlier post, I’m stoopid like a fox. Steven Pressfield’s quote about artists and writers is so great that I’ll include it here again: “Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be—and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway.”

Normally that is me to a “T.” I’m as cluelessly cocky as they come. But lately I’ve rather non-stoopidly become aware that lots of self-published eBooks are ludicrously crappy. I have a collection of free Kindle samples to prove it.