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March 11, 2006 - A Pinch of Nothing and a Dash of Who-Knows-WhatTwo more responses today, bringing us to a total of 31 — 20 of the 31 have sent over something. I received Kraft's (#7) response today... Their letter said that they only do free samples around new product launches and that they typically don't have any left to give out on request. Fair enough, I guess. The letter also said, however, that they could give me some free Kraft recipes. Unfortunately, these recipes were nowhere to be found — the letter was the only thing in the envelope. I guess the next time I make mac and cheese, I'll just have to wing it. Max and Erma's (#19) sent over a free hat, a travel cup, and a bunch of fake, press-on tattoos. If my arms weren't already littered with real tattoos, I would so wear them... Thanks to Max and Erma's for the free gear. Raising the DeadDue to popular demand, I dug up the three "dead letters" (to Avis, Boston Market, and Long John Silver's), and I've taken a new envelope, a new stamp, new everything... and I'm resending them one last time. I'm fairly certain that I have the correct addresses for each now, and that stupid postal bar code isn't there, so I should be okay. I'm kind of glad, too — I like the letter to the Cap'n. Oh, and I guess "popular demand" is a bit of a misnomer. I have no idea how popular any of these people that wrote to me are. And they didn't really demand anything. It was more of a suggestion. So I guess the "popular demand" was more of an "ordinary suggestion." Sorry for the confusion. More Google Mysteries Last week, a Google search for "$39" put this site at the #1 spot. A search for "Tom Locke" put the site at the #2 spot. Despite a tenfold increase in traffic over the last week, neither of those two searches leave me anywhere to be found on Google as of today. Oh well. Fun With Numbers Lately, I've been receiving about a dozen e-mails daily from people claiming to be my "#1 fan", which leads me to ask... Where are all the #2 fans? And those die-hard #3 fans? The way I figure it, when 12 people e-mail you — all tied for 1st place in the running for "biggest fan" — there are only two real options... You can either be yet another "#1 fan" in contention, or you can be the next best thing — a #13 fan. And who wants to be a #13 fan? Maybe someone does, I don't know. Anyway, to all of the #1 fans (and to any closet #13 fans), thanks for reading. The Next Chapter A lot of people have e-mailed me asking "what's next?" (i.e., what's the next experiment?) I haven't given it much thought. This experiment is only three weeks old, and I've only heard back from 31 of 100 companies at this point. I'm obviously going to give this experiment more time to unfold... As far as doing this again... This is purely an experiment. I'm not some big anti-corporate anarchist. I don't plan to compile a blacklist of companies that "don't care" about their consumers. If I wait to hear back from all 100 companies, however, this experiment may never end. When it appears that things have flatlined, I'll think about what's next.
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