Contact Us

Just about every company has a website and just about every one of them has a 'Contact Us' page.  I send them my helpful comments.  My messages have gone out to GEICO, Nationwide, and many others, some of which you may not know because the commercials run only on CNBC.  90% of them have serious issues.  Generally, they reply with a "thanks for your input."

I've been at war with Google for some time over their fucked-up Android keyboard.  They have a 'Send Feedback' option on it which I use regularly.  It only takes one person!  I guess it's going to be me.

The Google keyboard is crappy.  Swiftkey has some nice features but I had to disable it because the gesture typing was way too tight.  So, I went back to your keyboard even though it has fundamental flaws (don't you dare tap on the three word menu) that annoy me to no end.  I'm sure your nineteen interviews identified the potential problems with the person managing this project. 

"But they're such a good fit!" 

Since you can't fire this person, I suggest you give them a promotion and put them on a team with other similarly afflicted personnel in order to mitigate the damage.  Call it project 'Bubble Duck' or something.

I've been at war (probably a dozen messages) with Trivago because they keep running the same commercial over and over and over and over and over and over.  It follows me around from channel to channel so I have to hide on the religious channels.  The Trivago guy is worse than the Jehova's Witnesses's'es's'.  Maybe I shouldn't be so dry.  My humor was probably lost on the poor customer service person.

I'm a little unclear just how it works. If only there was a way to educate consumers.

There's no easy way to search Facebook posts, but I found my final plea with Trivago in my Gmail spam folder.

So, you're obviously never, ever, never, never, ever, ever going to stop running that same commercial. You may as well show 30 seconds of a burning pile of money. I give up. You win.

Sometimes of my observations are oblique.  Sent to Ameriprise financial.  A high-up guy actually replied.

Why is Tommy Lee Jones standing on the porch of an abandoned, dilapidated property, surrounded by dead or dying trees? Nobody caught this? Is this the image you want to convey? What's next? Tommy Lee Jones talking about Ameriprise from the ruins of a burned-out neighborhood in Detroit? Maybe TLJ's next commercial can take place in a shuttered factory amongst rats and assorted vermin? Just some ideas.

Sent to Meijer's a thousand years ago.  A Walmart like place in Michigan.  Paraphrased.

... the high ceilings and open floor plan give me panic attacks.

Here's part of an ancient exchange I had with a car dealer.  I used the name 'David,' and put in typos on purpose.

Are you a Christian car dealer? And do you have salesmen that are born again, and accept Jesus? I want my car blessed before taken delivery. Microscopic demons in engine fluids can ruin the car so i want to be sure. Thanks

David, 

Thanks for the email.Our management staff and dealer principle are all Christians, we believe in taking that belief in all aspects of our dealership. The salesperson I have that I would recommend, who is born again, is Lakeith ********. He has excellent customer satisfaction, and is a very good spiritual person.

Sincerely,

*****

What kind of name is LaKeith? sounds Mormon. Found out today my wife is pregnent again with our 8th. Hoping for a boy this time. But thanks I will come here 1st when I can afford it. God Bless - david

That's a Molly Hatchet video.  I wanted a Lynyrd Skynyrd 8-track for my birthday but my parental units got me this.  They said, "President Carter said all of us have to sacrifice."  Anyway, I don't know how it got there.  This blog machine has a mind of its own.

That's from a post I deleted because it was stupid.  I don't know what's happening.

This is from my post 'Fantasy Football.'  This blog is apparently broken.

Some guy singing in his kitchen.  Sigh.

Battle of the Brans

Today we take a comprehensive and totally thorough look at two breakfast cereals, Kellogg's Raisin Bran and Post Raisin Bran.

The presentation

Both come in a purple box and look rather appetizing.  But the Kellogg's one has the gregarious sun creature liberally dumping raisins into an already packed bowl.  This box contains exactly two scoops of raisins and each scoop is personally delivered by the sun god.  Post tried to rip off Kellogg's 'Two Scoops' slogan a few years ago.  It promised more raisins than Kellogg's, but the '2.0149 Scoops' campaign was a miserable failure.  After all, the raisins might be delicious, but who wants them scooped out by the planet Jupiter?

The taste test

We only had one bowl available for testing (the others were dirty) so we had to pour both brans into the same bowl.  This really fucked-up our spreadsheet.  And all the raisins settled to the bottom of the box, so we didn't get to test those either.  Damn you kinetic coefficient of friction!  And then we ran out of milk so we used orange juice and that was just weird.

The results

The results of our ground-breaking study were affected materially by a number of important factors.  The most important, and relevant, being the fact that we were exceedingly hungry.  We had a can of beans and some Ramen noodles (try making Ramen noodles without electricity, fucker) a couple days ago.  Therefore, our findings came out somewhat skewed.

We liked Post's Raisin Bran, although we're not really all that certain that's what we ate.

The Best Commercials

As a companion piece to the award winning 'The Worst Commercials'*, I present my piece 'The Best Commercials.'  My assistant and housekeeper, Maria, said "¿Usted quiere que yo aspire el sofá?" Roughly translated, she said, "Your blog is awfully negative.  Too facetious for most."

So, I took Maria's advice and wrote the positive and morally uplifting article, 'Your Face Disturbs Me.'  But this contained the negative word 'not,' so I crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into the trash.  Actually, I just dragged the file into the virtual trashcan.  The computer asked me, "Are you sure you want to delete this piece of shit?"  I thought my computer was being a little rude so I went into the kitchen, poured myself another cup of coffee, took a sip, and decided, after a few moments of staring at the homeless man getting beaten in the Albertson's parking lot below, that the article really was a piece of shit.  So, I went back to the computer and answered "Yes."

Anyway, here are some of the best commercials, in no particular order, and somewhat recent.  All of them can be found on YouTube.

The Hyundai Sonata commercial with the little girl driving from the backseat.  A Joan Jett soundtrack is featured too.

The 'Don't Touch My Dart' commercials are weird and absurd.

You may have not seen this one but it features a bottle of Ensure ejecting unhealthy foods from a refrigerator.  It could be called, 'The Apprehension of the Corn Dogs.'  My favorite part is when one of the Corn Dogs parachutes out of the fridge using a piece of lettuce.

Another absurd Dodge commercial.

*I gave myself the Really Amazing Observations award.  The award itself is made out of old newspapers, toothpicks, and super-glue.  There was one other nomination, which I crushed.  They only got one vote.  It was from my imaginary frirend Steve.  By the way, fuck you Steve.

Affirmative Statements

Some Detroit Tigers fans held up some rather gloomy signs during today's inevitable defeat to the Baltimore Orioles.

'Refuse to Lose' isn't entirely bad because it's short and it rhymes, but 'Not Giving Up' could benefit from being run past a focus group.  They may have some ideas for ways to improve this sign.  For example, they'll probably suggest the obvious - such as the addition of an asterisk - which was required by the legal team.

Not Giving Up*  *We've totally given up. We're going to lay down in the path of this truck now.

The addition of an exclamation point changes everything.

Not Giving Up*  *We've totally given up. We're going to lay down in the path of this truck now!

Maybe something more upbeat.  Fans want to see a positive message.

It looks like we're going to lose!

See how the exclamation point really adds emphasis?

The person in the picture is probably a professional and works for an automaker in the marketing department.  That's where the smartest people are usually kept.

Our cars no longer explode!

The airbags almost always work!

Remember to pump the brakes.

The Big Food Theory

Today we (I) examine CBS's popular comedy, The Big Bang Theory.  We're (I'm) not delving into the topic of just why two forty year old dudes live together in a small apartment.  We (again, I) also will not be broaching the issue of just why a young, attractive woman has a thing for a much older guy who has no discernable aspirations in life.  And we (do I have to do this every time?) most certainly will not be asking ourselves just why this hypothetical young woman has lived in the same apartment for seven years now.  And we (it's just ME here, people) definitely won't be wondering just when the show went off the road, with the engine screaming, the incapacitated driver slumped over the steering wheel, and the car headed for a group of blissfully unaware children waiting for the school bus.

We (our southern California office) think this degeneration happened slowly, shortly after the Bernadette character changed her voice to be more high-pitched and squeaky.  We (our naval fleet at Pearl Harbor) think it may have been that nebulous moment sometime after the introduction of the Amy character.  We (our soldiers on the international space station) may never know.

But the thing we (our army on the moon) really would like to know is just why these people are always incessantly [picking, pecking, poking, jabbing, stabbing, killing, murdering, impaling, beheading, playing] with/at the contents of their food containers.  Are their food containers filled with venomous baby snakes?  Or, is a member of the catering company going fishing and mistakenly gave them cartons of live worms?

Left Behind: a movie review

Today we review the excellent Christian movie, 'Left Behind.'  It stars Nicolas Cage as Rayford Steele, who is an airline pilot.

He spends most of the movie looking for the passengers on his plane, who have been freshly raptured by Jesus.

"But what are we going to do with all the extra meals?  Did one of them take the 'H' in my first name?  Empty your pockets, Jesus."

Here our hero (by the way, who names their kid Rayford?  What a dumb fucking name) threatens to crash the plane into a packed football stadium if Jesus doesn't return his 'H' in the next five minutes.

"You'd better give back my H or I'll crash this bitch!"

"Go ahead.  I'll just rapture the plane.  You'll look pretty stupid falling from 30,000 feet."

I give this movie 5 out of 5 stars.  I was on the edge of my seat for the entire movie, and not just because I spilled my Coke on my seat.

Book Corner: Kindle Books

Here are just a few of the outstanding books I'm currently reading on my Kindle.  Many of them are free or just $1.

This is the two part story of Kevin and his journey where he finally becomes a man, from his dangerous descent into the grimy streets of a poor Philadelphia neighborhood, to his budding Heroin addiction, as well as his obsession with full-figured black women.

We'll cover this prolific author in greater detail a bit later.

This is actually a cookbook.  It's the story of a man who travels the country sharing his delicious roadkill recipes.

The first one is the story of a haunted, one-room church.  It seems to be plagued by the ghost of a city inspector.

"Those bleeding walls aren't up to code.  I'm afraid I can't give you an occupancy permit until you fix it."

These are the stories of the terrified congregation.

The second book is about a person walking on a snow covered path in a symmetrical forest.  This person is going to or from a pair of twin girls with half faces.  Maybe it's not winter after all.  Maybe the person is walking to or from the twins in the summer and the path in the symmetrical forest is lit by the Moon.  I don't fucking know.

As we can infer from the title, this one is about a pandemic that begins in a small African country that nobody has ever heard of and quickly travels to America using an infected host.  Very timely.

This is a three part series.  The alternate title of the second one was 'My Devouring Love: Pretty Good Shoveling Job, Huh?' 

From page 104 of the third one, "Honey, it's cold out today - you'd better wear your winter coat.  Oh, and look out for the zombies."

Winning the award for the most hastily assembled, disturbing cover that one will ever see, is the literary classic, 'Plea From a Stranger.'  Never mind the sick imagery for a minute, let's ask ourselves why there are black blobs of shit falling on this poor woman?  I actually read some of this one.  It starts out with a guy driving home in the snow - all the while lamenting the driving skills of others.  Then he fills up his car's gas tank, but the guy working that evening is "surly."  I guess the depressed attendant is the reason why our hero imprisons the blond woman in his basement.