Louisville- the unofficial start of my summers of three square meals a day :>)

Since this will be my 9th year in Louisville grading Advanced Placement US History exams, I've actually seen all these things, but I'm looking forward to seeing at least a few of them again the first week of June.  The Louisville Bats have four straight night games scheduled, for example.

I wonder why the fossil beds on the Ohio River aren't included here- but that's ok, fewer crowds.

As usual, I'll do my best to post while I'm gone, but just in case I can't, here's a reminder of why I might not be updating  until June 9th-or why my posts are few and far between until then.  If I can't post, enjoy the archives while I enjoy life at the Galt House and Kentucky International Convention Center reading essays!

Another idea I should have come up with....

Selling a piece of plastic and tin that can be attached to a television for $19.99 plus $15.99 shipping and handling, and throwing in another one for "free" for another $15.99 shipping and handling (because that's where the money REALLY is in these scams- grabbing the customer with the "buy one, get one free" bs.)  Two pieces of plastic and tin for $36 which will allow you to pick up the exact same channels you could get with a pair of rabbit ears available at your local dollar store for maybe $10.

Then again, I have this conscience thing I'd have to deal with.  Stupid conscience thing.

See, it's funny because it's DirectTV and this is America and we really, really suck

It probably says nothing good about me that I'm less freaked out about the guy's half-smile at contemplating the total disintegration of his son (why didn't the crayon scrawls on the wall also vanish, btw?) than I am about the fact that this couple is settling down to watch television while their bored kid is reduced to scribbling on the wall and sunlight is streaming through the windows of their suburban mansion.  Anyone take their kids outside anymore?

Ok, on to the "reconsider that second child" bit, because I know that's the part that's getting most of the reaction.  Yeah, that's a pretty damned horrible thing for Bon Jovi to be singing- I guess the message is that if only this couple had more control over their television, they wouldn't have resorted to sex to pass the time and Ooops No. 2 would never have shown up......and right now they wouldn't be moaning about missing a show while that kid was quietly stewing in the world of despair created by his asshat parents, desperately trying to get their attention the only way he knows how, not yet realizing that not only do they not give a damn about him, but kind of regret that he even exists.

I guess Fox had "fair and balanced" copywrited....

...which is why Dealdash.com went with "Fair and Honest" instead?

The most honest thing about this ad is that is shows a fast-talking young guy conning an old woman into thinking that she can buy expensive electronics for pennies on the dollar by just going to Dealdash.com and "bidding" for them.  I have no problem believing that old people are exceptionally lucrative targets for this sleazy, Really Ought To Be Illegal But Hey Capitalism Equals Freedom After All scam.

Here's how Dealdash works (and if my explanation doesn't cut it with you, please check out any number of YouTube videos demonstrating the bait-and-switch techniques used here:)  Before you go after the "great deals" being offered at "rock-bottom" prices, you have to register your credit card with Dealdash and buy a "package" of "bids" called a "bidpack"--- $36 for sixty bids, or sixty cents a bid.  You can bid on any item as many times as you want-or, rather, until your common sense overtakes your greed or you run out of bids.  If you actually win a $300 tablet for $11, one of two things happened:  either no one else bid against you, or you're lying about winning that tablet, liar.

Far more likely, you bid that tablet from a "starting" price of one cent to $11 and then run out of bids,* at which time that tablet you spent several dollars bidding on goes to an annonymous bidder, and you get an electronic "OOOOOOHHH So Close Better Luck Next Time Sucker" message, with the words "sucker" omitted.  If you have any brain cells left, you chalk it up to Stupid Tax and never go to Dealdash again.  If you are like any of the tools commenting at this particular Youtube video, you buy another pack of bids and start the "fun" all over again.**

PT Barnum was born too early.  In his time, he had to provide some level of real entertainment for the dimes and quarters he squeezed out of the public.  If he could visit this century, he'd be astonished at how easy it is to get real money out of people- usually poor people- while providing absolutely nothing in return.  If he'd been born a hundred and fifty years later than he was, he might have invented Dealdash, but I kind of doubt it- I think Barnum probably had too much integrity for this.

*Every bid- even if it raises the price by one cent, costs the bidder 60 cents.  So it's entirely possible for the bidding price on an item to go from $2.00 to $2.10 while making Dealdash $6.00-- and for a $200 item to finally sell for $20 while making Dealdash a huge profit- a profit built on possibly HUNDREDS of failed bids.

**Click on the names of the "commentators" and you find that each and every one of them is a fake- none of their pages has any content at all.  Dealdash created a page for their commercial, and invented several dozen "satisfied customers" with gushing comments to pump up the interest.  Why is this even legal? Oh yeah, I keep forgetting- because Capitalism.

What, no Mood Ring or Earth shoes? You fail again, AT&T!

So in the latest episode in the ridiculously long-running series "cute AT&T girl determined to hang on to this gig until she becomes the Flo of Cell Phone Sales," a woman drops in from Hollywood's idea of the 1960s to buy an iPhone because her Horoscope told her to.

Naturally the woman is spacey and decked out in what everyone assumes every woman was wearing fifty years ago and- we can assume- spends a lot of her time chanting and smoking pot and Embracing The Real and Simplifying and Rejecting Conformity, etc. etc. etc.  Except that she wants an iPhone so she can be like pretty much everyone else.  Uh huh.

So Cute AT&T girl gets to make another sale and AT&T gets to check off another box on their People to Insult list.  Are they going to keep this up until I finally break down and buy an iPhone?  Don't hold your breath, AT&T.  Still don't need your toy.   Can't convince me I do.  Stupid stereotype of a hippy played by a woman who looks like she was born during the Clinton Administration isn't going to cut it.

Just Another Day With Stupid Men and Stupid Women in Suburbia....

Can someone please explain to me how the alleged "adults" in this ad managed to land jobs which allow them to participate in this lifestyle, with huge houses and swimming pools in the middle of the suburbs, despite the fact that they obviously don't have two brain cells to rub against eachother in the entire freaking group?

The female grown-ups (that's actually more accurate than "adults," isn't it?) in this ad are busy checking out their family health care coverage in expectation that their husbands are about to do something almost unbelievably stupid and get themselves seriously- and expensively- hurt.  There are two assumptions at play here- first, that whatever the jagoff "men" (that is CERTAINLY not an accurate description) are attempting to do, at least it's not expected to be fatal.  Second, that there is absolutely nothing the women here can do to prevent the men from attempting it.*

(Of course, there's a third option- that the women here simply don't give a damn if the guys they chose to legally bind themselves to get hurt, as long as they're covered, or that they already know they've got great life insurance so if they do kill themselves, no problem.)

The males in this ad- 12 year olds in fortysomething bodies, each one- are so bored out of their minds with their suburban lives and suburban families and suburban friends, they've decided to do something that would never have occurred to them a few years earlier, when they actually enjoyed being alive and looked to the future with hope.  Their current situation is so sad that they are more than willing to risk massive trauma, possible paralysis, or even death because hey any of those things would be better than this.

So in the sequel to this awfulness, I suppose we'll be treated to hi-LARIOUS scenes with these men sucking meals out of straws while confined to high-tech wheelchairs as their wives wipe drool off their chins while rolling their eyes with "that's my husband" written all over their faces (rather than spoken out loud, as in this ad.)  Someone will find this funny.  Which means we can expect to see more of these Bored Rich Guys Doing Things Only Bored Rich Guys Do commercials.  I strongly suspect we won't see a Women Doing Dumb, Dangerous Things counterpart, because that's not what happens in ads these days (in the 1950s and 60s and 70s, yes.  Nowadays, no.)

*"Which Urgent Care do you want to use this time?" is the giveaway.  This is just a typical weekend for these women.  Because they married children who could provide them with luxury.  I don't feel sorry for anyone in this ad.

The Weather Channel.com, translated

When they say...

"Rain Possible at 9 AM,"   You think "ok, it's 7 AM and it takes me an hour to walk to school.  No problem."  The problem is, what they MEAN is "drizzle by 7:15, pouring by 7:45."  If I didn't bring an umbrella every day regardless, I would have arrived to school soaked several times over the last two weeks because Weather.com acts like a jerk genie-- "well, we were right, weren't we?  We SAID rain possible at 9 AM.  And wasn't that correct?"

When they say...

"Killer Storm Approaching."  What they MEAN is "one percent chance of damaging storm hitting one percent of the country."  Big news- for very, very few people but not you, and it makes you wonder why they even bother to ask for your location if they are going to constantly be giving you blaring headlines which don't concern you in the slightest.

When they say....

"You won't BELIEVE what this animal did next" they mean "we will fill our pages with junk non-stories only drooling idiots with two much time on their hands will read."

When they say....

"If you live in Maryland here's a trick your insurance company doesn't want you to know about" it means "we'll sell spam-laden ads to anyone."

Ok, have to get ready to head off to school.  No rain in the forecast.  I'll be packing my umbrella.