Picking the right corporate doo-dad is a tricky art. Years ago, Novell gave out Bowie knives at an analyst event, as a way to demonstrate they could cut through the competition. Most everyone who attended the one day meeting came with only carry on luggage and had to hand it over at the airport, said analyst Chris LeTocq.

Dan Hutcheson of VLSI Research recalls one company giving away binoculars to underscore how it was looking into the future. Unfortunately, they proved impossible to focus, he recalled. Intel once gave me a set of coasters that looked like something Buddy Hackett may have owned to herald the coming of the Pentium II for notebooks.

This week, AMD sent out a gift box set celebrating 64-bit embedded processors and the man in black himself, Johnny Cash. It includes a DVD of Cash, a CD of his greatest hits, a poster from one of his early shows, and a cassette tape of "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison."

One might ask, what's the connection? AMD sells 64-bit processors. Did Johnny Cash spend 64 nights in the Memphis Memorial Rehabilitation Clinic? Did he kill 64 men in Reno just to watch them die? And who knew they still sold cassettes?

That is kind of strange. What are they thinking of? The Cash part perhaps...

Connection or no connection, I'd be happy as hell to receive Johnny Cash swag. Who wouldn't love that? ... Ok, who with musical taste wouldn't love that?