BP - Beyond Pathetic

Okay, I want to get something out of the way first. I don't usually get too "serious" in my blog, and there will be humor later, but I need to say this. This oil disaster in the gulf is heartbreaking, and my thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the 11 lost workers, and the working families whose lives and livelihoods are impacted by this catastrophe. Initially, I didn't blame BP for the actual explosion itself - and frankly, I still don't think they were mostly to blame for the equipment malfunction itself. The company that owned, operated, and maintained the equipment would be the more logical target. However, unless you're an investigator, that's no longer the point. The point is, BP has agreed to take care of the mess, so they should, y'know... do that.

Right now it seems like little to no time is being spent actually enacting these fixes that they talk about. It sounds like they have decided that the "relief well" is going to be the only valid solution, and so why bother putting their full effort into anything else? They don't have the ability to stop the damned leak, but they DO have the ability to set up a live feed on the ocean floor, showing us just how unsuccessful the efforts to stop it have been? Really? That would be like saying, "Hey, we don't have the technology to land on Mars yet, but we DO have the ability to build remotely a perfect 1/8th scale erector set model of Manhattan Island. On Mars."

To borrow a phrase from a friend of mine, "Put a brick on it." (I call this method the "Kaged Thunder.") I mean, if BP had spent as much time coming up with logical solutions as they spent on coming up with cool names for their projects, they'd have it stopped by now. Seriously, we've had the "Containment Dome" (or ConDom for short...) the Top Kill, the Junk Shot, and the Top Hat (which, by the way, they never used. They lowered it to the ocean floor and then... what? They certainly never tried it.)

Their latest attempt involves robots slicing a clean cut through the pipe, and then capping it with one of four different devices, which are basically just variously configured top hats. And do you know what they call this method? They call it... wait for it... "Cut and cap." That's it? That's more a description than a name, isn't it?

To me, this is a sure sign that BP has given up. If they've lost the will to come up with clever names, they've lost any desire to actually fix the problem. Not that they won't keep trying, but I have a feeling they'll be half-hearted attempts, because they already have their hearts set on the relief well being the only cure.

If imagination is the problem, let me help, please. I can come up with clever names for your projects, so you guys can refocus your energy on something that actually matters, like actually FIXING THE PROBLEM. Here are some thoughts:

1. Take the current project, for example. A bunch of stiff robots, clumsily going through a series of intricate choreography. Instead of "Cut and Cap," I recommend we call this, "The Kate Gosselin."

2. How about stacking a mile long column of bad DVD's, then sliding that into the broken pipe? This could be called, "The Gigli."

3. How about giving a stand up comedian a once-in-a-lifetime shot at stopping the leak, only to be replaced by another who demands the opportunity? You could call it "The Leno," just don't be surprised when the replacement doesn't do any better than the other....

4. Listen to James Cameron's shamelessly self-promoting idea, which involves using something called "Unobtanium" to congeal the oil before it leaves the pipe. He calls it "Ava-TAR." Seriously, will someone get this guy a hobby?

5. Get the Dharma Initiative to build a small room around the leak. In this room, place only a computer and a small chair. Every 3 seconds, someone must press the Space Bar, or the leak will start again, destroying the room and anyone in it. You can call this one, "WHY THE HELL WAS THERE A CORK IN THE ISLAND?!?!"

6. Have Jesse James be the one in charge of pressing the Space Bar in example 5. This way, we'll finally be rid of him and he'll be someplace where we know he can't cause any more problems. I call this one "The Waste of Space."

Okay, here's one last idea. If you don't like this one, I don't know what to tell you. How about a group of people who make an obscene amount of money (no, not the NBA) puts their heads together (IMPORTANT: This means your heads will have to be out of your asses) and comes up with a plan to fix what should be a less-than-impossible problem. Don't worry about 4 months from now. Fix it now. Don't worry about trying to pass the cost on to your customers - you screwed it up, don't expect someone else to pay for fixing it for you. You could call it "The BP," instead of what it's currently called, "The Fantasy World."

Oh, and for the love of God, if people want to offer you ideas, fine, but stop asking the general public to come up with an idea to fix it. This is part of what your scientists and engineers get paid for out of your ridiculous yearly profits - it's damage control. And it really makes you look even sillier and more incompetent than you already appear.

If you think I'm being unreasonable, consider this final thought: in all the times I've visited a hospital in my life, I have yet to see a doctor run into the waiting room and yell at the patients, "Quick, who knows how to set a broken bone? I have never seen anything remotely like this!"

That's all for now....

Worst... advertising... EVER....

I would like to air a few grievances with companies who think they are effectively marketing their products to me, but are really just annoying the hell out of me.

1. UPS. What can brown do for you? Maybe I should have started with a different one, because this one always leaves me shaking my head, speechless. First of all, every time I hear this slogan, I think of bathroom humor. I'm sorry if that makes me an 11 year old boy, but I do. Second, while I think it was an odd choice to make their primary color "brown," that's beside the point - who refers to their company based on the main color of the logo? It would be like FedEx saying, "Orange and blue delivers fast for you!" Or the US Postal Service saying, "Mail Trucks: the Robert Duvall of delivery. They're old, white, and a lot slower than they should be!"

And while we're on the subject, what else would I WANT "brown" to do for me? Have they added to their list of services? Because if it doesn't have to do with shipping packages, I'm probably not going to UPS....

2. DHL - "Yellow is the new Brown." Sheesh. Way to drink the Kool-Aid, DHL.

3. There are a couple of car dealerships in the Houston area which advertise using animated talking cars. This by itself isn't that annoying, but ONE of these dealerships decided to make the cars have bad attitudes. I mean SERIOUSLY bad. In each of the commercials, the owner comes on and talks a bit about his dealership, and then the car starts speaking in a really egotistical manner and for the most part, insulting the owner through the commercial. Is this supposed to make me want to buy a car from them? Because unless you're pushing a model called the "Chrysler Jackass" it's really not effective. The only thing in which you've succeeded is making me want to find your lot and punch the cars in the face. (Oh, hell, you've made me think of them as having faces now. I hate you.)

4. He went to Jared. I'm going to say this once. Are you listening? Good. I could not begin to tell you HOW LITTLE I CARE WHERE HE WENT! Sorry. Don't know where I went there for a second. Really, though. Shut up.

5. Capital One - What's in your wallet? I'm not telling. Because, first of all, there's NOTHING in my wallet; I sent it all to my Capital One bill! And if I tell you what's in my wallet, you'll probably figure out a way to adjust my rates or assess fees so you can get the REST!

6. Greyhound - Leave the driving to us. Also good things to leave to Greyhound? Crashing, burning, and settling personal injury lawsuits.

7. M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand! Okay, I love you M&Ms, but you have to stop this false advertising. Which one of us as kids didn't test this theory by grabbing a handful and holding them tight, only to come out of it with a sticky multicolored hand? When the Red Bull people say "It gives you wings," they don't actually try to convince you that you can jump out of a building after drinking one and NOT experience a sudden failure to live. So, why all the deception, M&Ms?

8. Toyota - I love what you do for me. This one just writes itself, doesn't it? Do I really need to say, "Yes, if what you do for me is take my brakes away and crash me into the back of a semi at 90 MPH?" I do? Oh, okay.

9. This one goes back home for me. In Iowa there was a power company, don't know if they're still around, with the name MidAmerican Energy, and their slogan was "Obsessively, relentlessly at your service." Really, MidAmerican Energy? You don't think that sounds a bit desperate? 'Cause I'd be okay with just "At my service whenever I ask for it." If I open my bedroom door and find you lurking on the other side asking if you can help me out with my power lines, I will react to you in much the same way I react to an obnoxious talking car.

Oh and get this, their address in Des Moines is 666 Grand Avenue! I can think of another historical figure who relentlessly tries to get you to sign a contract with him... in fact I think he had the same address....

10. Finally... Southwest Airlines has been pushing its new ad campaign lately. I know you want me to go on a vacation and book a flight with you in the process. But please, I beg you, for the love of all that is good and pure in this world, PLEASE stop commanding me to "Grab my bag." Seriously. Stop it.

You don't know me like that, Southwest Airlines....

Limited Time Offer...

Odd...

I saw an ad in a flyer this weekend which baffled me. I know that companies have gotten to the point where they cut down on any "extras" included with their products, for the most part to save money. Understandable. Except where those things they choose NOT to put in are actually required to use the item.

It doesn't really matter what the item was, but the important thing was, in the description of the item it said, "Act now and get a FREE AC Adaptor ($4.99 value!)" Wow. So, you're selling me this thing, and if I act now, I'll also get the ability to use it? Great. Because if I bought it at some other time and found out there was NO CORD in with it, you know... I might feel kind of screwed.

This, to me, is possibly the worst kind of sleazy marketing. You're making it seem like a perk to give people the AC Adaptor. It's not. It isn't like buying a Blu-Ray player that only comes with composite (yellow) video cables, because you can still use it, you just have to get a BETTER cable to get the best picture. It's not even like a Printer company selling you a printer but not putting in a USB cable, because they figure you're replacing another printer and don't NEED another USB cable. If I buy something, I need POWER. If it's not a battery-operated device (which this one is NOT) then of COURSE it needs a power cord!

It's not even like we could choose to use a different cable, or go to the store and buy a universal power cable - we live in America, land of the free, home of companies that can choose to shape their power inputs like tiny trapezoids. Or maple leaves. Or... the silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock. Good luck finding that on a Best Buy rack.

You can't even use another cable which may just HAPPEN to be shaped the same! Electronics have so many different power requirements, you could have a Laptop adaptor which supplies 12 Amps, which is the same size and shape as the AC adaptor for your coffee pot, but look out, the coffee pot only uses 6 Amps, so if you switch the two, that toxic smell you notice won't be your toast burning.

Selling a product in this day and age with no AC adaptor would be like selling a remote control with no buttons. Or selling a refrigerator and saying, "Act now and receive a one-month supply of cold air free!" Or hiring Jesse James for a day without Sandra Bullock to increase his star quality. Sure, the one will sit somewhere in your home and take up space, but without the other, they'll NEVER WORK.

It's not an unfair request to make. If you sell someone a thing... make sure they have what they need to make that thing work as advertised. Otherwise, you should change your ad from, "Super-fast laptop computer (memory not included)" to "Big rectangular paperweight."

Halls Cough Drops - Satan in Lozenge Form

Dear Halls Cough Drop People,

Please stop trying to convince the world that "Mentho-lyptus" is really a flavor. It's not. It combines the deliciousness of Eucalyptus, which is loved by koalas all over the word (read: Australia) and "Menthol," which is really only loved by smokers for its valuable ability to poorly disguise the fact that you're sucking on a burning twig. Combining two terrible flavors doesn't make the new flavor any more bearable. You may as well come up with a new flavor called "Bamboo-ijuana," which would be loved by both pandas and pot-heads alike.

While we're on the subject, what the Hell did you people do to Menthol, anyway? It's a crystal made from Peppermint oil, which seems pretty hard to screw up, but somehow you managed to make it taste like deer urine filtered through a lunch-lady's hairnet. (Hey, there's your next flavor idea! I'll give you that one free as long as you promise NOT to give me credit.)

Even worse, Halls Plus, which has actual syrup in the middle. Congratulations, you've discovered something which, at best, makes people say, "No thanks, I'll keep the sore throat," and at worst, makes them beg for the sweet release of death. So, just when you start to think you're almost finished with that vile pseudo-candy rock in your mouth, it spits a ball of goo down the back of your throat... you know, to give you an aftertaste which reminds you all evening of just how delicious a piece of candy can be when it's flavored like trees and cigarettes.

But worst of all has to be the ones which look like candy, so you aren't even expecting the disgustingness you're about to receive. I swear, the next time I grab a red candy from a dish thinking I'm getting "cherry" only to find out I'm getting "Icy Strawberry" or "Cherry-lyptus" I'm suing you for damages.

Thanks, Halls Brothers, for replacing coughs with nausea for over 110 years. And congratulations on your side-businesses, the coconut-mango jelly bean, and the Dum Dum sucker made to taste like hot buttered popcorn.

Sincerely,
People with Tongues

Support my cause - I Love Waffles!

Okay, so, we as a society really need to stop cannibalizing images to make them stand for our own purposes. Let me just describe the scene for you:

I'm driving down the road on my way to work this morning, and I pass a car with a magnetic ribbon on the back. You've seen these before, they have really good messages of "remembrance," yellow ribbons to remind us of soldiers overseas, pink ribbons to remind us of the fight against breast cancer, even black ribbons in memory of Prisoners of War.

Except, this one was completely different. This was a white ribbon. Okay so far. But here's where it gets odd - the ribbon in question had the words, "I LOVE SOCCER!" scrawled across it. So... what started out as fights against diseases and supporting the troops has turned into the appropriate way to express completely pointless and innocuous things. Don't they have better ways of doing this? Like, bumper stickers, internet message board signatures, or in the depressing silence of your bedroom as you utter a prayer to David Beckham?

Incidentally, this car did NOT have spinner hubcaps, so I'll save that for another blog, as a friend of mine mentioned this as a particular pet peeve.

Back on topic, it's not that supporting a cause is a bad thing, nor is it objectionable to announce to the world your love for certain people, places, things, or ideals. But can't we just leave certain images alone, and allow them to represent that for which they were originally intended? A white "I LOVE SOCCER" ribbon is a bit like having, say, a brown ribbon with the words "I FINISHED THE DENNY'S GRAND SLAM IN UNDER NINE SECONDS SO THEY GAVE IT TO ME FOR FREE."

Or maybe like a Ford logo inside a Jesus Fish....

Don't get me wrong. Like I said, I like the original "cause" ribbons. And I actually like soccer, too. But whereas I can totally understand rallying support for troops overseas and fighting illnesses, I can't wrap my mind around rallying people to support your preference of European foot-sport.

I guess if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, though. If we as a society persist in stealing images and twisting them around to inane purposes, then my first act will be to file a patent on the image of a Crucifix with a "Kilroy was here" painted on it... and also a trademark on Andy Warhol's iconic image of Marilyn Monroe, but with a Photoshopped speech bubble saying, "I love Diet Pepsi!"

Ninja Librarians and Cell Phones

Okay, so, I feel like this is quickly turning into a “Products no one needs” blog, first with Nut Milk and now this… but really, I can’t be the only one who notices these things.

Would everyone here raise his or her hand if you feel you need a phone which will search the internet, your songs, your contacts, and Google maps all for the same word? No one? Okay, that confirms my suspicion. I keep seeing this commercial for Verizon’s “Droid” smart phone, and I just can’t take it anymore. It boasts a phone which can search the internet for sites about the word “Human,” find locations through Google maps with the word Human, find friends with the word Human in their name (which it admits would be weird if you had any… d’ya think?) and can also search for songs that you forgot you downloaded, with the word Human in them.

So, my question would be, what earthly purpose does this serve? On that RARE occasion when this might be useful, are we really so lazy now that we can’t just do a couple of different searches – one in music, one on the web, one in Google maps, etc.? Does it really take that much time?

Usually, though, it won’t be useful at all - I mean, when I search for something on my phone, I usually want one thing, not four or five different things which are all connected by one word. For example, let’s say I want to find a song on my iPhone by the 70’s group Starbuck. (I don’t have any, they sucked, it’s just an example.) Not only do I find the song (entitled “Everybody Be Dancin’” in case you’re wondering; again, please don’t take this as real, it could seriously damage my reputation) I also find directions to the nearest Starbuck’s on Google Maps. Oh, and look, I receive a Wikipedia article with the Character Profile of Starbuck from Moby Dick (stop giggling.) AND, I am stunned to learn that at some point I met the actress who played Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica and put her in my Contacts.

So, this is terribly useful for me if I want to drive to the nearest Starbuck’s, call “Starbuck” on the phone, and explain to her the origin of the name “Starbuck,” all the while playing some groovy “Starbuck” background music. Yeah. That seems really practical.

More often I would think it would be ridiculously annoying, like being assaulted by information you’re not really looking for. I mean, we already can barely do a simple internet search including the word “tiger” without receiving a flood of junk related to Exxon mascots and jackass golfers, when all we were really interested in was learning how many Bengals are left in Asia. Do we really need a phone that multiplies that by four? I don’t think so, but I’ve been wrong before.

If that DOES sound useful, look at it another way: imagine going to a library (one of those brick-and-mortar places with all the books that sadly almost no one uses anymore) and looking for a National Geographic article on quicksand. You’re thrilled to find the article almost immediately. But, before you can find your way out of the stacks, you find yourself suddenly buried under a pile of old Mythbusters DVDs about Quicksand, various editions of Don Quixote, and a hundred encyclopedias all containing entries starting with Q. (Don’t ask me how that would happen, I’m just saying… maybe the librarian used some crazy Ninja Librarian skills to get above you and dump them on your head….) My point is, that would be kind of like what the Droid does for you. It’s a Ninja Librarian that helps you find the 10 page article you’re looking for, then crushes you under a thousand pounds of books you didn’t want. Or something like that.

Open Letter to the Almond Milk People

Dear Almond Breeze,

No thank you. While I do love milk, and I do love almonds, I do not need milk made from almonds, for a host of reasons. First, even for the people who have lactose intolerance, there are several different types of lactose-free milk which taste EXACTLY like regular milk. I have tasted them, so I'm not just giving an empty testimonial.

Oh, and, if it is made from other things, is it really milk? I'm going a long way to use the term "milk" with Soy Milk, let alone Almond Milk.... Making milk from almonds is like Quincy Jones remaking We Are the World with today's artists; no matter how much like the original you try to make it, it's clear to everyone that there were lots of nuts involved.

I'm just going to float this phrase out there. Nut milk. 'Nuff said. Doesn't that just scream "deliciousness" right in your face? No. And by the way, I don't really need a food (or anything else for that matter) which could potentially invite any number of inappropriate comments. Especially from 8th graders. Or George Carlin. Or the city of Amsterdam.

We're sorry to be blunt. But look at it this way: now your company can get back to your more profitable projects, like Sawdust Steak, the SPAMCar, and the amazing TurkeyShirt - the shirt made from 100% reprocessed turkey!

Sincerely,
Earth