I received this unpleasant-looking object in the mail at work a few days ago.  It's supposed to make me want to buy stuff from HP (Hewlett-Packard). In fact I do buy stuff from them, and have always respected their engineering, but this certainly did nothing to encourage me. It's about the size of a large egg, and it arrived in a little box containing either nothing else or a very small piece of paper with a bit of advertising on it (I can't remember for sure).  The color in this picture is not accurate--the thing is actually a very plain grey, and made of a sort of foamy plastic. The orange lettering is the address of a web site.

This wouldn't be at all remarkable, except that it could only have happened with the work and cooperation of a number of people, most of whom must have thought it was a good idea. I know! We'll send them this plastic brain, and it'll be like "Now that you have a brain, buy HP!" It'll be huge!" And it probably represents an investment of many thousands of dollars.  Someone had to design it. Someone had to find a manufacturer (probably in China--so picture the cargo hold of a plane stuffed with boxes of these)...etc.

Well, my cat really loves it. I brought it home from work to show it to my wife, and left it on my desk. The cat immediately started playing with it and when I got home the next evening it was two rooms away. Come to think of it, maybe the cat is trying to tell me to get rid of it...