Food Network has officially crossed the line

Lately, Food Network has been getting on my nerves. For the longest time I enjoyed a number of their programs. Examples: on Good Eats, Alton Brown is brilliant - he makes every aspect of cooking entertaining and educational. Rachel Ray was cool when she was limited to 30-Minute Meals and $40 A Day. But then there was Paula Deen, whose accent alone is proof that evil incarnate can be embodied in sound. But hey, I don't need to watch what I don't like, right? Then they brought me the joy of Iron Chef America - corny, reasonably entertaining, and not too annoying (at first). If you're familiar with the program at all, you'll no doubt realize it's rapidly getting out of control, like a nuclear reactor sans inanimate carbon control rods. It's taking itself far too seriously. (And don't get me started on the new Iron Chef's Hibbertesque giggle.) And Rachel Ray appears to have been injected with huge quantities of "Yummo" (by Nabisco). I think she's trying to be like Martha Stewart, minus the stick up her ass.

One of their more recent "personalities" is this guy, whose appearance alone makes me change the channel. Seriously, step away from the peroxide, and no one gets hurt. During a commercial break, he helped out some poor schmuck whose cranberry sauce is apparently too tart. His prescription included the use of a Food Network skillet, available now at Kohl's. Did I mention that this "help the dork on the street" piece was interrupted by an ad for Food Network brand cookware, available only at Kohl's?

My Xmas wish list

It would be nice if people would take seriously the issue of consumption. Adbusters has been trying to publicize the issue for years, and one of their classic anti-events is coming up this Friday. Yes, it's Buy Nothing Day, the day you avoid crowded malls and hyped-up bullshit. Another proposed activity is Buy Nothing Christmas. The site tells us: "Buy Nothing Christmas is not really about refusing to spend a dime over the holiday season. It’s about taking a deep breath and deciding to opt out of the hype‚ the overcrowded malls‚ and the stressful to–do lists. It’s about reminding ourselves to really think about what we are buying‚ why we are buying it‚ and whether we really need it at all."

This is an idea that I completely support, for a couple of reasons. First, I hate the shopping. Second, I hate trying to come up with ideas for what other people should by for me. Third, I have so much stuff already. A lot of the stuff I have - whether received as a gift or purchased by myself, sits around and never is used. Yet at the time, I "needed" it. Hell, I still find myself "needing" stuff, or just wanting things enough to say, "Fuckit, I'm buyin' that."

Simultaneously, I'm a huge fan of the bounty that capitalism has produced in this country. Apparently, I contain multitudes.

Now, a lot of people out there will argue that anti-consumerism is akin to communism, or is illogical (if I literally consume nothing, I'll die, for example), or is it's own form of hyped-up bullshit and or hypocrisy. And I'm not going to engage that, because it would be pointless. I think the biggest argument I can make is that it's not about anti-consumerism, but rather mindful consumerism. Think about your consumption and its consequences. It's not easy, but if we start paying attention, and teaching our kids to pay attention, maybe in a couple of generations people will find it easier to consume less. Assuming they aren't too busy fighting each other over puddles of filthy water.

Randomness

The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks made the Blogs of Note list today! This is far more exciting to me than it ought to be. Or rather, it is "far" more "exciting" to me than it "ought" to "be." iscanbe. Money.

I was contemplating something on the way over here this morning, something that was a "ponderable" or a "musing," (not to be confused with "amusing," though the two characteristics might intersect at times, and share ancestry), and it's completely gone now. One imagines it was something about school, or cities, or something else that's been on my mind a lot of late.

One of my classmates has passed out blank CDs to the rest of us with the request that we burn her a disc of our favorite music. While I presently lack the technology, I've started a list (every time I hear a song that I want to include, I write it down), and after the first few days, I had to get a 2nd disc from her. I might need to snag a couple more before this little side project is finished - which might not even happen until Christmas break.

I saw that billboard again this morning that says "Embryos are just tiny babies!" All I can think when I see that is "and you can sprinkle them on salads or breakfast cereal, just like Bacon Bits(TM)!"

I was thinking the other day about making a bumper sticker that says "Jesus Loves You - Unless You're Black or Gay." I don't think I'd put it on my car though....

odds 'ñ' ends, cont.

(here's that thing i remembered)

... Ad heard on the radio: "Attention piano buyers: If you're thinking of buying a piano...."

Also, remember that thing I said a few days ago about undergrads? High school girls are worse by several orders of magnitude.

Pretense and affectation

Is there some point at which pretense and affectation will reach a critical mass that will cause an event to collapse under its own weight, tearing a hole in the fabric of time and space and creating a singularity from which no attention whore can escape? I certainly hope so, but the fact that it didn't happen at this event makes me wonder how high that threshold is.

Buy stuff. DO IT!

"Product placement" - a nice little euphemism for "advertising disguised as something else" - has gotten so pervasive, and it's really starting to annoy me. I suppose it's inevitable in a society of the money, by the money, and for the money, but at what point do people say "ENOUGH!"? (I am intrigued by Adbusters, but what impact have they had?) I doubt I can just stop buying everything that annoys me with its marketing. (Although A-1 steak sauce is off the list, and I won't really miss it. I actually don't even like the idea of subjecting you, dear reader, to that ad, but I must share the annoyance!)

I've bitched about this before - ads in menus, 3 minutes of ads ahead of the trailers at a movie, name dropping on TV programs (e.g., T-Mobile (regularly) and Home Depot (recently) on The Closer - otherwise one of the best shows that's ever been on TV), designed into clothes, ads being transmitted into our dreams - oh, wait - that one's not real...yet.

I'm surfing the internets and the TV is tuned to the Science Channel. And there's this show about building stuff - they're talking about roller coasters tonight. The show starts out with the host doing a voice over about how after he graduated from college, he wanted to "learn the stuff you don't find in books" or some such. During this voice over, wherein he uses words that connote rugged masculinity, they show him walking across a desert landscape backed by towering mountains, toward his black Toyota Tundra. Then he takes off, leaving a trail of dust, and the camera zooms in on the Toyota emblem on the grille.

Ben pointed out: Hey, at least Toyota's sponsoring a program about science/engineering, rather than some "reality" tripe. Which is a valid point, yes. But why can't they say "This program is sponsored in part by Toyota blah blah blah"? Why the conceit of an ad, with all its psychological bs? (Is it ironic that Toyota is also listed as a sponsor for The Closer?)

Oh, then, just to piss me off a little bit more, he comes to Minnesota, to look at some bigass roller coaster at Valley Fair... IN A SNOWSTORM. WTF?!? COME ON!

Better living through chemistry

I just saw this ad for Requip, which is supposed to relieve restless leg syndrome. I've experienced RLS, but not a severe case - a bit of walking keeps it under control. I'd hate to be one of the poor bastards who has to resort to this crap, after hearing that list of side effects.

Here's a hilarious spoof (adult language).

Date night = marketer's dream

I mentioned that we saw Stardust over the weekend (by the way - if you are thinking about seeing it, do!). I forgot to say that we arrived about one minute after showtime, during an ad for Dell computers. Then we sat through three more ads, including one for Verizon and a REALLY annoying one for gum. Why are ticket prices still so high (6$ for a matinee) if I'm having to watch all these ads too? It makes me think of this scene from Futurama. Fry doesn't mention "menus" though. "Dinner and a movie" is apparently the perfect time to try selling people stuff.

Time, apparently, is relative

In today's mail we received this item from a local furniture store. It's a standard flyer of the sort businesses mail out to solicit business. But this one has a curious instruction printed at along the top of the envelope.



It's a good thing it got here today! But if it hadn't, no biggie. Y'know - within a day or so is fine.

Hangin' with the guys

I've mentioned that I don't understand a lot of advertisements. This ad for Viagra is a perfect example. I think it can be summed up as: "Hey guys, I'm so excited about my E.D. - let's jam!" One blogger has commented on it sufficiently that I don't feel I need to expand on it.

This one for Sunsilk shampoo, on the other hand, is hilarious - in a good way. I need that stuff.

Oh noes! My windows has infection!

I just saw an ad for Windex(R) Antibacterial - "Kills 99.9% of bacteria something something." You know, so your windows don't catch TB or Salmonella.

Marketing efforts that make me less likely to buy stuff

Is it just me, or have advertisements gotten more bizarre lately? Why would I buy Sour Skittles after watching that?

Spam and pinochle and cheesecake, oh my!

Over the weekend Ben and I went up to see Spamalot with Ben's dad. We drove up and met him for dinner at the Great Waters Brewing Company, and then walked over to the Ordway for the show.

==== SPOILER WARNING (highlight to view) ====
I enjoyed the show. The multi-media nature of it was intriguing, and some dialog was taken verbatim from the film. I felt that a lot of that was not delivered as well as in the original, although the French Taunter scene was very well executed. The bit at the end where Lancelot marries Prince Herbert - and says, "You know, in a thousand years, this will still be controversial" was a hoot.
==== END SPOILERS ====

The costumes and the set were really well done, and Esther Stillwell, who played The Lady of the Lake, did a great job.

We spent Saturday with Ben's folks, and his mom prepared some great meals for us. Thanks, Kathy! (Thathy) We also played a couple games of pinochle, which was fun.

On Sunday we went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. Kathy had never eaten there (though she had gotten cheesecake from them in the past). My first impression, upon opening the menu, was that they must be really struggling, financially. About 45% of the menu consisted of ads for everything from purses to jeans to American Express to Carnival Cruise lines. I wondered if I could order those things as well, but decided against asking our waitress (she seemed like the type who wouldn't see the humor in it, even if she did understand the point I was trying to make - which is also unlikely). I think my favorite was the ad for a website where I could look at the ads again, when I got home. The top of the page exhorted the diner "Enjoy our ads again!" - because they were so enthralling the first time around. The next remarkable thing about the restaurant is that about 80% of their entrees are "specialties." Really? That seems a bit ... ridiculous.

Nonetheless, the meal was good, and of course we also got dessert - I ordered a piece of cheesecake, and I believe Ben had one of their "specialty" desserts (not the cheesecake, which was odd, I thought, given the name of the restaurant - but I don't really know much about marketing in the restaurant biz) - it was a chocolate cake. Not a piece of chocolate cake, but an entire cake - at least, it took up the same amount of space. My greatest criticism, I think, is of the prices. Given that almost half of their menu is sold to advertisers, I would have expected the prices to be a bit lower.

Time-travel in a gel

I just saw this ad for some sort of gel or cream or something. (Of course, I haven't seen it in the two hours since....) Anyway, it said something like, "What if there was a way to fight the cause of aging, not just the symptoms." And I thought, "Wait - the cause of aging is the passage of time. So they can alter that?"

You'd think there would have been something in the news. Also, isn't this kind of a frivolous application?

Is that "I" as in "International," or "l" as in "clam"?

A while back I mentioned this blog dedicated to the inappropriate use of the lowercase "L". Today I went to Ask.com and entered the search term "CIAM" - an acronym for Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (or, auf Englisch: the International Congress of Modern Architecture).

Ask.com has done a lot of advertising lately (some creepier than others - does anyone else think those Kato Kaelin impersonators look like the kid from Mask?) touting their algorithm that helps you precisify your search to find exactly what you're looking for. My question is this: What do "Clam Chowder" and "Clam Anatomy" have to do with the cold, dehumanizing steel and glass of Modernist architecture?

The new math? That's so 10 years ago.

Just saw an ad for a special about the 100 greatest movies. Its title: "100 Years, 100 Movies." Then I saw the subtitle: "10th Anniversary Edition."

Ugly people need love too

Those ads for eHarmony.com are so annoying. Really, I don't care about your first date, or your first kiss, or how much you love each other, and how the first time you met it's like you'd known each other your whole lives.

Ooh, but I do need that $2 coupon for Pantene Texturize!

And OMFSM, why are diaper commercials so asinine???

Can you plagiarize ice cream?

Have you heard of the Ben & Jerry's flavor Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream? It's vanilla ice cream with chocolate covered bits of waffle cone, & a caramel swirl.

Guess what I just saw advertised on the telly? Yes, that's right: Dairy Queen's Blizzard of the month, Caramel Waffle Crisp.

Sonic Lady with a Hat

I wonder if I should change the name of this blog to "Sonic Lady with a Hat." I've noticed lately that the word "sonic" appended to the beginning of things seems to make them better. This has been most noticeable on television, where I see ads for stuff like the Sonic Clean Between Machine, an interdental cleaning device. Calling it just the Clean Between Machine lacks a certain ... sonicity. Then there's the Sonic Scrubber or whatever, which uses sonic technology to blast away stains on grout and such. And who could forget Sonic Earz, the sound amplifier that's advertised with the question "Do you ever wish you had sonic hearing?"

And of course, let's not forget the sonic screwdriver.

Late Nite TV

I have seen the following ads at least 4 times each in the past 90 minutes:
The Sonic Clean Between Machine!
Guys Gone Wild!
Hair Club for Men! (where they say that a full head of hair is the most attractive part of a guy, or something like that, but then they show a bunch of shirtless guys with perfect torsos... torsrices?)

Also, I hate all of this phlegm that keeps hanging on inside my throat.