Thursday, July 24, 2014

One more vacation.....



Every summer for the past 17 years, my family has rented a cottage at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire for a week.  Before that I would go for 2-3 day visits to this very nice, middle-class ocean resort.  I kind of like this video because it's from the summer of 1988, and that was the year I took my 7-year old nephew to Hampton and we stayed at a hotel which no longer exists, right on Ocean Boulevard on the boardwalk.

I spend my days at Hampton taking long walks along the beach, talking to fishermen in the early mornings and evenings, watching the whale watch boats head out just after dawn (went on a whale watch about ten years ago, lots of fun....)  At night I play old video games (I wore out "Time Pilot," neither of the big arcades have one anymore, pretty much switched to Qbert after that) and get ice cream cones and listen to the live music at the Shell Stage.  And walk along the beach some more, especially if we are treated to low tides during the right time of the evening.

Anyway, all this is just to explain why I won't be posting again till next Saturday- I'll have my phone at the beach but that's just for emergencies, I'll have my tablet but that's just to check my email in the evenings.  When I get back it's time to start thinking about school again and the non-summer routine, but before then, I've got a week of bloviating (a really underused term) ahead of me, with very little television- which means, very little exposure to crappy commercials.  Looking forward to it.

Check out the archives while I'm gone!  'Bye for now!
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2 comments:

  1. Morning KvetchAugust 2, 2014 at 3:10 PM

    Hope you're having a good time, but also that you come back soon. I can think of about a million ads you need to rip on. I can get you started with the one for Tax 10000--you know, one of those outfits that promises to reduce your onerous IRS/state tax owings--where people play back messages they supposedly got from Tax 10000 telling them how little they would now have to pay. (The message that starts with "Are you sitting down?" really irritates me. You're telling them you reduced their tax liability--not that they won the freakin' lottery!) Anyway, to me the thing that begs for ridicule on this ad is the age of the phone technology in it. A man plays back the message on his land-line answering machine; a woman plays back the message on her BlackBerry; a couple plays back the voice mail on their flip phone. This ad was made only a few years ago, but it already looks old just because of the phones in it. Classic!

    And then when you get done with that, you can attack the Wendy's redhead again, now that she's apparently begun a singing career. Agggghhhhh...

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    Replies
    1. John F JameleAugust 2, 2014 at 7:20 PM

      Those commercials drive me nuts- I need to find clips of radio ads and start doing those too. One that currently is just driving me to distraction is for some kind of "appliance insurance" -- "you are just one broken refrigerator away from busting your bank account"- which includes the usual "all COVERED REPAIRS will be paid for with our service" (super clever, huh? "All approved repairs will be approved," basically. And here's the real kicker- a muted voice tells us that there's a SERVICE FEE attached to filed claims. That's right- this "insurance" charges it's customers for FILING A CLAIM. Another scam preying on people who can least afford to be cheated. Assholes.

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