Cool Marketing Thoughts

So Friday night was the night of 5 years Maxim in Belgium. I went there with my girlfriend and my main man Dave to go and have a party. The last party before the exams, because we don’t plan to out on New Year’s Eve and the exams are starting right after x-mas holidays. We need to get focused, really. If I do this right, these will be my last exams ever.

The Maxim party was kinda great. A lot of models, sure, but nothing to be really impressed about. They could basically be ‘the girl next door’ if you saw them without make-up, and we did. They looked kind of good on stage, but when they came down the stairs again, I was surprised to see they weren’t that hot at all. I stood next to my girlfriend all the time, and very coincidentally, when I went for a wizz, some photographer had come around to take pictures from ‘my’ girl. Tssssss. Like he’d been waiting all night for me to go pee and then sneaked behind my back to ask her to pose.

Then there was this desperate guy who asked me if he could please (x5!) have his picture taken with my girlfriend. Duh ! What’s your malfunction, dude?

Some model/singer started pole-dancing, but it wasn’t the best I’ve seen. Good try though, but a lot of practice makes perfect. I think her name made people go wild even more than her acrobatic attempts. Not that I can do it better. I’m not such a pole dancer, plus I was the dessignated driver, so maybe it was the lack of booze that kept me from showing her how it’s done. Still, the music was quite good, sometimes, and all in all it was a fun night.

After the party we went back to Dave’s office, where we had parked the car in the basement. A quick peek into the geeky playground before we headed back home made the night perfect. Man, I envy Dave. Such a cool company ! They had a real formula 1 car parked at the entrance (of course I had to go sit in it, pictures will come later) and it was like one big relaxation studio, apart from the computers and desks. Table Tennis (ping-pong), candy, books… all these things designers and creativos really need to get relaxed before starting on a project. Way to go Dave ! You rock !

Then on the way back we encountered something very crazy. As we were driving through Wijnegem (city) we came through a dark and empty street, with in the middle of the street a car that had definitely been in an accident. The car itself was blocking my lane and had its front wheels buried in the sand from the little strip between the road and the sidewalk. There was no movement on first sight, and we passed the car. To be sure, I stopped right after I returned to my lane, put on my four safety-blinkers and went for a check. No sane person leaves his car like that, and if it was an ‘old’ accident, surely the cops should’ve placed some markers to inform the drivers approaching the accident site. But the street was all quiet.

I noticed the car was seriously damaged, and looked through the driver’s window. A man was inside of the vehicle, folded in a very weird position underneath the dashboard at the passenger’s side. I ran back to my car, asked my girlfriends mobile, because my battery was running low. I dialed the emergency number ‘112′ (we don’t have ‘911′) and told the lady where I was and what I had seen. With all the questions she was asking me, it took like ten minutes before I finally got to hear help was on its way.

I then ran back to the damaged car to see if I could do something, and opened the driver’s door. The door fell out as I opened it, and I started talking to the man inside the car, because he was moving a little. I asked him if he could move, felt pain somewhere or if he was stuck and the man replied : ‘No, I’m just resting a little’. Then it became clear to me this guy was seriously drunk and didn’t even realize he just had a car crash. He managed to get out of his vehicle and then asked me if I knew what happened. I told him I was passing by and found him in his car, to which he replied : "have you hit me?" and he went to my car to see if I had hit him and thus caused his accident. Wow !

He then asked me to help him push his car off the road, and he wouldn’t listen to me saying that would be a bad idea, since he had 4 flat tires and his two front wheels were buried in the mud. As I overlooked the accident scene, he must’ve either fallen asleep or downright turned left from his driving lane to mine, then hitting two concrete bumps that were buried next to the road to protect the sidewalk. Those two concrete blocks were no longer buried, but were laying next to the road. They used to be under the ground for at least 40cm (15 inches). Apparently his car then spinned around in the air because the roof at the passenger side was now on the dashboard, and the windshield was totally broken, as were the side windows. He must’ve landed on his four wheels again, with his two front wheels off the road, which would explain why they were sunken into the ground up to the axis.

I went back to my car, because the guy seemed ok. He could walk, only had a minor scratch on his hand, probably from some glass. He then approached my car, so I opened the window. He thanked me because I stopped (that comes in great, right after you checked if I didn’t hit you, you *?@!!) and he said he’d go for a walk. I replied to him that wouldn’t really be a great idea, since I had called for help, and if they’d find his car empty, he would be penalized for running away (or walking away) from the scene of an accident he was involved in. He then asked if he could use a phone, to call a tow-truck "because we have to be careful" to which Dave quite amuzingly replied: "don’t you think that’s a little late?"

What scares me is that he must’ve been speeding, and not just a little. If he had hit someone, he sure as hell would’ve driven away, leaving behind whatever he’d hit. What even scared me more is that none of the people in the street came out of their houses to check what had happened. I mean, suppose if he was really injured, he could’ve been left to die right there, and nobody would know. Also, while we were waiting for the ambulance and cops, at least six cars drove by, so the accident must’ve just happened (but his hood was cold, so I doubt that) or many other people just drove by because the car seemed empty. Apathy is what kills this world. If you pretend nothing happened, it’ll swing both ways. No other car stopped while we were there. Nobody asked if help was needed. And that is something to be afraid of. What if this happens to you? What if you need help but people just drive by? I can’t stop to think about that. It makes me shiver.

At last, afer ten or fifteen minutes, the ambulance arrived, closely followed by the cops. It started to snow. I explained to the cops how I found the car, and that I had called the emergency service because I thought the guy was hurt, lying there with glass around his head. The cops asked if I had seen the accident happen, but I didn’t so they told me I could go home, and they’d handle it. The last thing I heard was that one cop said to the other: where’s the breathalizer? And I couldn’t stop myself from smiling a little.

The rest of the weekend, I’ve been working for school, because this final week is going to be hell. I have 4 presentations coming up, all about market research and proposals for qualitative, interactive and quantitative projects I’ve been working on these past months.
Posting on this blog will be low this week, and now you know why. I’ll be back, promise !