Never Again (yeah, right)

I’ve said “DON’T DO IT!” to myself a zillion times. And yet I still DO IT in moments of weakness. I’m talking about buying those cheap, store-brand Ziploc-types of zipper freezer bags with prices so low they’re hard to pass up. And, every time I falter in order to save a few bucks, I wind up cursing myself for being so stupid. Either the zippers work one time only and then derail, or the bag itself splits open upon trying to seal it up. And every time it happens I say “NEVER AGAIN!” out loud one more time.

Yeah, right.

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Plastic Wrats

I really hate the new kind of plastic packaging, the indestructible type that is heat-vacuum-shrunk around the purchased item; the type whose packaging design offers no means of opening it short of using a hacksaw. The plastic itself is so thick it is impossible to tear or pry apart. And I know that even if I am somehow able to slip a finger in-between the plastic joins, I run a very real risk of severing a digit or two on the wickedly sharp edges.  Every time I cautiously approach one of these packages, I wonder how many finger-related law suits have been filed.

Since kitchen shears are no help at all, I decided to purchase an inexpensive pair of tin snips. But when I found the pair of industrial-grade snips I wanted at my local Lowes Home Center — you guessed it — they were tightly cocooned in an impenetrable spent-plutonium plastic diaper.

“Would you please open this package for me?” I asked the checkout person after purchasing the snips. “My fingers aren’t what they used to be and I’d like to keep them that way.”

The cashier slipped her own pair of tin snips from under the counter. Snip, snip. A couple of dangerous daring finger maneuvers, and the metal snips separated from the packaging. She made it look so easy. “There you go sir. Works like a champ.”

They must. She still had all of her fingers.

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FFT: Gobbledegook the Foolish

FRIDAY FOOD THING

It began many years ago when I realized taking pictures from a TV screen was easy if you had a digital camera. Just for fun, I began taking snapshots of outrageous television advertisements. Outrageous from the viewpoint of product reality: what they advertise vs. what we get.

I want one!

My first experience was a Burger King “Whopper” sandwich ad. I mean, have you EVER bought a “PERFECT WHOPPER” that looks like this one? Sesame seeds placed just so; exquisitely deposited dollops of ketchup and mayonnaise; thick onion slices to die for; perfectly arranged serrated pickles; Ginsu-sliced tomatoes and leafy lettuce straight from Martha Stewart’s garden?

Hell, I don’t want to EAT this burger — I want to frame it and hang it on my wall!

Which got me to thinking.

I printed the picture and carried it into my local BK. When my Whopper was delivered I opened the wrapper on the counter and asked for the manager. Yeah. I was a butt-head. I placed the ad picture I had taken next to the pathetic burger-thingy. “I want one that looks like THIS one!” I said, pointing to my picture.

Needless to say, I was not very popular with that particular BK establishment for a long time to come. Like — forever. Of course, I realized the burger-thingy’s shortcoming was not the manager’s fault, false advertising or not. And even though I received an extra burger or two, I went home to the internet and did a little “false advertising” research, where I discovered it is nearly impossible to get a “false advertising” conviction because of  little known legalese gobbledegook often referred to as “reasonable expectation”.

In the above link, the following excerpt pretty much sums it up: “An advertiser cannot be charged with liability with respect to every conceivable misconception, however outlandish, to which his representations might be subject among the foolish or feeble-minded.”

At least the bureaucrats who concocted the document did not exclude themselves from the folks they are trying to confuse.

Today’s FFT is not about the Whopper, however.  It is about “Mrs. Paul’s frozen, 100% WHOLE FILLETS — Beer Batter Fillets”. Man, does that picture on the box look terrific — or does it? When I got the package home, I noticed a tiny, unobtrusive bit of text on the bottom right corner of the box: “ENLARGED TO SHOW QUALITY”.

"Enlarged to Show Quality" Perception vs. Reality: the REAL fillet is to the right.

Do those advertising folks know how to gobbledegook us foolish and feeble minded folks or what?

BTW, the 4-inch long fillets tasted “okay”.

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The Future of Television

Sadly, the following video portends the future of television. It is a video clip from a recent “Hawaii 5-0″ television show in which the fast-food restaurant, Subway, pioneers a new and alarming approach to the continued degradation of our television viewing experience: full-blown advertisements, whose pitch lines are delivered by the actors themselves, carefully scripted and unscrupulously inserted into the show’s running dialog. It is an embarrassment to watch, and, I’m sure, an embarrassment and an additional degradation for the cast and crew who are forced to partake, which is evident when viewing the clip.

(submitted by Rich)

This new type of shameless encroachment into our personal viewing habits far exceeds the recent introduction of the visual “product placement” types of advertising cropping up nowadays in television shows and movie productions as well.

For example: on the “Fringe” Sci-Fi series (one of my favorites!)  last week, during a conversation inside a speeding vehicle, the camera lingers a bit too long on a tight shot of the actress’s finger pushing a phone button on the steering wheel.

The “NISSAN” leather-imprinted logo, clearly visible in the shot, is entirely irrelevant to the scene’s action. I suppose soon — during this type of product-insertion shot and the advent of more Subway-driven abominations –  the actors will be carrying on a scripted dialog about gas mileage, dealership incentives, and choices of additional items:

“Well, gee, Peter, while we are busy chasing down that shape shifting maniac who’s hell-bent on destroying our universe, I thought you might like to know Nissan has a super deal cooking for two days only at selected dealers for qualified buyers that lets you choose any seven of their 16 incredible accessories for ZERO down and 6 years to pay! Let’s forget about shape shifters for a few minutes, make a quick detour, and go check out that exciting new candy-apple-red Nissan pickup truck offer before heading over to Subway and checking out yet ANOTHER super deal I saw last night on Hawaii 5-0!”

Shame on you advertisers. Shame on you television networks. Shame, Shame, SHAME!

I think I’m going to puke.

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Flip Flop

(circa 1989)

The office computer where I work is a dog. It is about 20 times slower than my personal computer at home. And we won’t even talk about the work computer’s sub standard, syrup-slow dialup Internet speed, which is like pouring frozen molasses down a clogged drain and waiting for the last drip to drop. Or its 256 K of memory. I can brew a pot of coffee while waiting to see the Weather Channel’s National Radar picture. And heaven forbid if I accidentally click on the ANIMATED Doppler link. Incoming junk mail often takes up to 20 minutes to download.

I hate my computer at work.

When I get home I boot up MY computer first thing just to get into an UN-office state of mind. Zip. National Weather comes up in 2 seconds. Zap. MS Word loads instantly. Zing, zang, I’m happier than a mouse in a cheese factory.

On the other hand, I recall a time several years ago when my office computer was much, MUCH faster than my home computer. That was back when even mediocre computers cost thousands of dollars. I loved going to work. A twenty megabyte hard drive and a 12 megahertz processor waited for me every morning, a sweet mistress waiting for input. What’s not to like? Back then I hated going HOME. I rarely used my computer at home for anything other than writing. WordStar 2.0 and a 10 megabyte hard drive.

Funny how times change. Zip, zang. Flip, flop. I hate my computer at work.

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Music Video’s: Bah, Humbug!

I’ve never been one to appreciate music videos. The first one I happened to encounter was the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song, “SOUTHERN CROSS”. I think the video was marketed later as an afterthought, in a shameless effort to catch up with the (then) current rave of slick video productions, which indelibly pollute the listener’s mind, and the minds of our children, with prefabricated pictures nothing short of brainwashing.

To me, good music is like good poetry. Each time I enjoy a particular piece of music, or revisit a thought-provoking poem, my mind readily creates its own wonderful translation — new worlds filled with rich images and changing discoveries. To me, the quality of rediscovery is an earmark of great art, stolen from me now and forever whenever I chance upon the once great song, “SOUTHERN CROSS“, playing on some distant radio station or friend’s stereo.

Thank goodness a video camera wasn’t available when Beethoven unleashed his fearsome “FIFTH SYMPHONY”, or when Jefferson Airplane let fly with “HOUSE AT POONEIL CORNER”.

“From here to heaven is a scar,
Dead center, deep as death.
All the idiots have left.
The idiots have left.

Cows are almost cooing,
Turtle doves are mooing;
Which is why a Pooh is poohing
In the sun
Sun”

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Humanizing Email

Few things get me riled up faster than receiving a forwarded email whose subject line begins with “FW:”. It just miffs me no end, especially when FW: is followed by a string of “FW:s” back to back, and another couple of them plugged in automatically by the browser at the end of the message. What’s worse are those forwarded emails whose first 36-point, red font line begins with something like: “Gee, whiz, this is absolutely the most amazing thing I’ve ever read!!!”, punctuated with no less than three exclamation marks just in case I missed the importance of the first two.

Folks I know would never say something like that to me in person, so why do they feel the urge to send it to me in an impersonal, bulk-generated email? Is it so difficult to take a few moments to delete the FW:s in the subject line and all inane comments made by a series of total strangers and add a sentence like: “Tim — I thought you might really get a chuckle out of this one.”, instead?

Lazy and inconsiderate senders who forward something along to others using a single mouse click without thinking about what they’re doing or taking the time to add a personal touch to the message, and who lack the common courtesy of having removed the offending string of FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:s or irrelevant comments have no place in my inbox. Think about it: If senders are too busy to take the time to clean up an email before sending it to us, should we not be too busy to take the time to read it? No one (not even the bulk-mail perpetuating sender) enjoys receiving mail filled with “>>>>>”, “RE:RE:RE:RE:”, “FW:FW:FW:” or other extraneous crapola or comments. Then why pass it along to friends?

Here’s four simple email rules I try to follow that helps make a visit to the inbox more pleasurable for all of us:

1. NEVER use “Reply to All” unless you personally know everyone on the list. Ever. Even then, don’t do it.
   
2. Delete everything that’s not pertinent to the message. This includes the subject line and message body.
3. ALWAYS delete other folks’ email addresses from the body of the message. Always. In today’s spammer society, no one wants their email address Johnny Appleseeded across the Internet. No one.
   
4. NEVER use “CC:” to send bulk email messages unless you are in a business environment. (“CC” also places all recipient email addresses in the body header of the email for all to see and be ultimately forwarded along to others. See # 3.) Instead of using “CC:”, use “BCC:”. Always. (If you don’t know how to do this, check your email browser’s HELP file.)
   

If you can — unless you are sending something to a sight-impaired audience — another nice thing to do is convert HTML emails (the ones with obnoxious colored text and fonts) to left-justified, unformatted TEXT before sending. Most email browsers allow you to set “always send as text” as a default within the “sending options” in your email browser preferences.

Truth is, I won’t get a chance to read many of these types of egregious email messages anyhow, because I’ve created a message rule that scans incoming subject lines for text that contains “FW:FW:FW”, immediately whisking it off to my junk email folder where it belongs.

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Lefty Lucy

In all the world I can think of few principles as unalterable as “Lefty Loosey-Righty Tightie”. Take a screwdriver to China, Russia or Mozambique, find any screw, and Lefty Loosey will loosen it. Take a wrench to France, England or Zanzibar, find any nut and Righty Tightie will tighten it. Open or close any jar anywhere on the planet: Lefty Loosey-Righty Tightie will not let you down.

So what’s the deal with twist ties?

For me, bread wrapper twist ties are the worst. Buy ten loaves — even from the same bakery — and I guarantee at least one of their twist ties will have been affixed by the demon twist tie machine from Hell.

The other day when I tried to open a new loaf of bread, Lefty Loosey suddenly became Righty Tightie — midway through the process! And by the time I figured that out, I had twisted that silly tie into a gnarly knot that required a pair of wire cutters to unravel.

Manufactures — are you listening?

Lefty Loosey-Righty Tightie: by golly, what can be more simple than that?

+ + + + +

Tim says: Okay. “Loosey” it is! Now I’ve made that error wrongy-righty…

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“The Day the Earth Stood Still”

Just another burned-out cinder.

I watched “The Day the Earth Stood Still” 2008 movie remake on pay-for-view the other night and was so disappointed I almost deleted it halfway through the viewing. The movie was filled with (spectacular) special effects and little else, not the least of which was any semblance whatsoever to the original movie’s storyline plot, to which I attribute a true “Classic” rating. I gotta tell you I have a real problem when arrogant Hollywood producers, directors, and money managers decide to remake any movie classic: Hell, let them earn their own movie classic status the old fashioned way!

Having said that, a lot of folks I know didn’t care for the original movie, either. What I liked about the original 1951 movie was its simplicity, a straight forwardness ultimately delivered to an uneasy, Cold-War-era nuclear-paranoid audience in the closing scene: “It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.”

The original 1951 “The Day the Earth Stood Still” movie was based on a short story, “Farewell to the Master“, by mostly unknown writer Harry Bates, published in the October 1940 issue of Astounding Magazine.

I must point out that although the storylines in both of the two movie versions of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” are different than the “Farewell to the Master” short story, I did not like the recent 2008 “The Day the Earth Stood Still” remake one iota. It was a pompous and arrogant production from the get go, crammed with special effects designed to be overbearing in an attempt to make up for an otherwise terrible movie plot. I usually enjoy watching lead actor, Keanu Reeves, but his lackluster performance in this classic 1951 movie remake did little to enhance the movie.

It was not worth the $4.99 Pay-for-View fee, popcorn or not.

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When More is Too Much

It’s becoming difficult for me to watch TV. What started out as an industry oddity has become an industry standard: I’m talking about the TV “Marathon” mentality.

The first innocuous baby step was taken years ago by the then Sci-Fi Channel, with the ridiculous notion that if you happened to like the Stargate series, you would like it even more if episodes were run back to back ad infinitum, 24 hours a day.

Well, things have gotten much worse since then. Nowadays, nearly all TV channels are running their own Marathon-type programming, and they are doing so more and more frequently; it is becoming an extraordinary bore.

Anaconda, Anaconda I, Anaconda II, Anaconda III, Son of Anaconda, Son of Anaconda I, Bride of the Son of Anaconda XII (all in the same afternoon!), followed by Arachnophobia, Arachnophobia II, Snakes and Pythons I through XXIV, Spiders, Ice-Spiders, Fire-Spiders, Water Spiders, Spiders on Airplanes all night long.

Unfortunately — exacerbating this terrible trend — many TV channels have begun purchasing the rights to other TV channel programing, such that similar Marathons are concurrently appearing across multiple channels, cutting one’s choice of programming even more. For instance, BBC’s popular “Being Human” series is now appearing in full Marathon regalia, scattered across multiple television networks across all time periods.

With all of this said, however, I have come up with a simple solution, and if you happen to be a television programming executive chuckling to yourself as you read this, I humbly suggest you try the following experiment in order to fully appreciate the misery you are inflicting on your dwindling viewership: eat tofu morning, noon, and night  for 6 months in a row, and you will understand!

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