...when you start getting press releases for stuff you know you never signed up to get press releases about. This has actually been happening to me for quite awhile, but it’s infrequent enough that I keep forgetting to write about it. It’s both a bit weird and an ego boost to think that there’s someone out there who thinks SEB has enough reach to make it worth sending a press release to, but then some of them are for such obscure or off the wall topics that perhaps they’re hoping that someone somewhere might actually talk about it.

For example I wrote about these missile shaped balloons back in 2004 and as a result for the past 7 months or so every few weeks I get a press release from the FTF/Zhenhan inflatables for all sorts of balloons and other inflatable things that they’re selling they sell things like this:

Click to embiggen!

Which is cool and all, but not the sort of thing I’m going to write entries about all the time. Another company I hear from regularly is the Survival Food Store which says the following at the top of every email:

Be prepaired when you need it the most,

The Survival Food Store now offers long term storage food for times of emergency.  Stock up now and be ready when man made or natural disasters strike.

Their latest PR is advertising “Military Style Full Meal MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) with Heaters” of which you can get a case of 72 for a mere $72.95. The kit looks as unappealing as it sounds, but I suppose if it could come in handy in an emergency. Just the same, it’s not really something I’d tend to write about (with the exception of entries like this) so it tends to get ignored.

Every now and then I’ll get a PR on something that seems to fit into SEB and it ends up becoming the latest entry so I can’t complain. If nothing else they tend to be helpful topic suggestions from time to time, but it’s still weird to think that someone takes the time to include me on their mailing list.