Just Hose Out The Car

Well, it's been a while since I posted here.  And a TV commercial inspired this one.

I'm watching TV, minding my own business, muting all the ads for an appalling range of drugs, and all of the sudden, I get sucked into an ad for a floor mat company.   It's a sneaky commercial, with cute little kids in the back seat of an upscale car.  Then there are images of laser devices measuring floor dimensions intermingled with shots of the cute kids dropping food and assorted other trash on the floor of the upscale car.   And mom is smiling.   A lot.

After a half a minute, I'm not sure what is being advertised.  Is it a car?   Is it some sort of sound system?  Kids with some newly discovered medical inability to hang onto stuff? 

It's a floor mat company (which I refuse to identify based on the fact that the ad made me angry).   The ad ends with the smiling mom hauling the custom made (and undoubtedly expensive) mats out of the car to hose them off.

So the message is it's easier to hose out your car than to teach your children to not be pigs and drop all their garbage on the floor of the car.  And that's what made me angry.

National Curmudgeon Day

image from: http://www.greerviewmirror.com/

If I'd known about this earlier, I would have posted it earlier.   Today was National Curmudgeon Day and I think that's a great idea.   

Hallmark, have you developed appropriate cards?

Okay, calm down...

This will be a short post. Michael Jackson has died. I was dumbfounded to see NBC's Brian Williams on the evening news tonight speaking at length with a correspondent in California while the video feed showed a crowd of reporters and fans milling about on the hospital grounds. I will make a wild guess and conclude that ABC and CBS (and CNN and CNBC) all had similar hand-wringing on their evening news programs. My condolences go to Jackson's family, but please the rest of you, get a grip. The curmudgeon in me has to conclude that Jackson hasn't been relevant as an entertainer for at least a decade or two, unless you count providing scandals and bizarre behavior as entertainment. As it has for years, pop "culture" mystifies me.

Why the network news programs should treat his death like the passing of a head of state is beyond me. I bet Andy Rooney wouldn't spend that much time on this story. Grumble, grumble.

Stand In Line For A New Phone?

I have to admit that I've never stood in line for hours and hours just to buy some new "toy." I've stood in line for concerts (in my youth), but not for "stuff" like phones. This Marketplace piece on people standing in line for the new 3GS iPhone just makes me shake my head. It's not like the phone itself is new: iPhones have been around for some time now. It's a new version, but c'mon.

Here's a quote that just makes me curmudgeonly:

Ritchie says now that smart phones have made it possible, we're all expected to be on call around the clock. Employers want to be able to reach their employees at will. Clients expect immediate attention. Friends feel snubbed if you don't text them back, right now.

I've never wanted to be on call around the clock, personally or professionally. People need "downtime" and you don't get that if you're always available. I like having friends, but "friends" who "feel snubbed if you don't text them back, right now" aren't really friends. I'm not sure what they are; I guess it's safe to assume they would definitely be younger than me and not curmudgeons.