Some Blog Site

On the way home last night, I saw a white car. That would not normally be remarkable enough to appear on this blog, but this was not a normal car.

This car claimed that it was green.

Clearly, the car is not green – it is white.

A green car would look like this:

If they had used the term “eco” then there would be no problem. “Green” is too ambiguous – don’t use it in your product name. Well-known products can be grandfathered into this rule, such as Jolly Green Giant.

Somewhere, in a secret location below the streets of New York, the nation’s telemarketing executives plan their next move…

“The average citizen is on to our plan to disguise our caller ID.”
“They’re not falling for the caller ID where we list just a city anymore.”
“They’re not answering when we block the caller ID so they can’t tell who it is.”
“What can we do?”
“I got it! We can use caller ID to tell them they must answer the phone.”

No, I didn’t answer.

It turned out to be a reminder from the doctor’s office about an upcoming appointment. They must use a calling service that handles a number of different clients, so they keep their caller ID generic – a little too generic I think.

If they had the caller ID display the name of the hospital or doctor’s office, more people would answer. But it’s just a recording anyway, so no one’s offended if you don’t answer.

In summary, we had a recording leaving a recording. Eventually, all the machines will talk to each other and leave the people out of it altogether. That’s fine with me if it means that I don’t have to answer any phones.

If the electric company ran a tool rental center:

Guy: I’d like to rent a nail gun.
E.C.: Sure, what for?
Some projects around the house.
But what projects? I need to know specifically what it will be used for.
Why does that matter?
Our rates are different depending on what you do with it.
Umm…I’m going to be installing highly-efficient thermal windows.
Okay, you qualify for our air conditioning and ventilation rate.
Great! And I just bought a hybrid car, so I’m going to build a thing in the garage for it.
You’ll need to rent a separate nail gun for that.
What? But I’ll use the same nails. I don’t need a separate nail gun.
Corporate policy – the nail gun in the ACV plan can’t be used for an activity that qualifies under another plan.
What’s the other plan?
Our electric vehicle rate.
Oh. What’s the cheapest rate plan you have?
That would be the interruptible off-peak rate.
I’ll get that one.
Sure, but you can use the nail gun only between the hours of 8 PM and 8 AM.
Okay.
And somebody else might need to use it too, so we may borrow the nail gun from you for a little while.
Could I rent that one then?
Only for heating or cooling – your window work qualifies.
Okay, I’ll take it.
That will be $30 a day.
Fine.
Would you like to pay $3 a day extra for a nail gun made from renewable resources?

I could keep going, but I’ll end it there, somewhat ungracefully.

Stay tuned next week, when the electric company runs the gas station (“What vehicle do you have and what is your destination?”), followed by what happens when an airline sells cans of paint (“You’ll be painting today? That’s about double the normal price. But if you buy today and don’t paint until next month, it’ll be cheaper.”).

My kids went through a relatively quick Dora the Explorer phase. Their Star Wars phase has lasted much longer. But Dora is innocent enough, although they repeat things so much that I cannot forget them now. For example, to get to the end, we need to find forest, cornfield, tallest mountain!

Anyway, I noticed one marketing partnership that has not been realized yet. Ford has created limited-edition vehicles in partnership with Harley Davidson, and a concept truck with Tonka, but why nothing with Nickelodeon?

Today we’re going on an adventure! To get there safely, we need to travel in our Ford Explorer. Can you help me? To start the SUV, you need to say arrancar. Ready?
Arrancar.
Arrancar!
Arrancar!!!

You did it! You did it! You figured it out!

Boots is in the back, buckled safely in his car seat.
Swiper is on the other side of the vehicle, stealing the rims.

I was supporting our local economy the other day, when I noticed further proof of the decline of the education system. Or maybe it was a pointy-haired manager’s decisions. Or maybe it’s the decline of common sense.

Regardless of the cause, here is the effect:

What are Star Wars books doing in the non-fiction section?

And it wasn’t just one book out of place. There were a few blocks of different Star Wars titles in there.

I can almost hear the rationalization: “It’s a book that describes the characters in the movie. It’s a non-fiction book about a fictional movie!”

If it were a making-of-Star-Wars book or the actors’ biographies, I could understand it. But it’s a book about fictional characters. It’s nothing but made-up people, places, and other nouns.

It’s fiction.

Subway is falling behind again.

Subway never used to offer to toast my subs. Then Quizno’s showed up with their toasted subs and Subway quickly followed suit, in order to negate any marketing edge that Quizno’s might have had.

Now Tubby’s has raised the bar. Here’s an ad from a local Tubby’s Sub shop:

Subway offers only meats, cheeses, and vegetables. They offer only non-alcoholic dressings too, like mayo or mustard and such. This ad says, to me at least, that Tubby’s offers beer and wine in their sandwiches. How can Subway compete with that?

Click on the image to get the full effect of the ad.

Plus you get the context that shows maybe, just maybe, they might mean the beer and wine are inside the store, not inside the sub.

Consumer Reports has their “waste of packaging” award. In that spirit, I present to you the biggest waste of space we encountered over Christmas.

The Sea Monsters kit looks promising, especially to a 4- or 5-year-old boy.

But an adult who opens the box is immediately unimpressed.

At least the bags of chips have a plausible reason for their half-filled packaging – settling may occur and chips are fragile so a buffer is needed. For this box, there is no settling and the contents do not need a buffer.