Pure Twaddle

Actual Craigslist sublet title:

$550 very specious Brooklyn apt. to share

At least they’re honest, just like my previous spammer.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The Washington Post seriously needs to reconsider where online news is going. They have started a new “blog” called Innovations In News which, according to the sub-headline, offers a peek at “the latest creations from Slate and The Washington Post.”

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Popularity: 3% [?]

T.V. viewing is at an all-time high, according to the Nielsen Company, at 151 hours per month per average adult. That’s three-tenths of each waking day sitting in front of the boob tube. This news is disturbing, considering a majority of Americans don’t even read one book a year anymore. So how much T.V. do you watch?

I find television to be very educating.  Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.  -Groucho Marx

Popularity: 66% [?]

Recently I’ve been watching a little too much TV and I have inadvertently become a critic of commercials. I know that’s like saying I’m a wine connoisseur since I can recognize subtle differences between Carlo Rossi “Red” and cooking sherry; but believe me, there’s a difference between a good commercial and a bad one.

For example, the new TurboTax commercial. In an advertising binge, Intuit has created a series of ads featuring Ben Franklin, Ulysses S. Grant, and Andrew Jackson*, stars of the $100, $50, and $20 bills, respectively. Here’s the twist: they are painted green as if they just stepped out of their pointillist portraits from our most-coveted currency. Ignoring the fact that the front of all US bills are printed in black (hence the term greenbacks), the TurboTax marketing team have presented us with a terrible alternate reality.

As you can see in the above video, our two relatively forgotten presidents and one founding father are presented as helpful zombies who are looking out for the common man by offering advice on various fiscal matters.

If there is one thing that George Romeo has taught me, it’s that if the reanimated corpse of old Benny shows up at your door backed by Grant and Jackson, you don’t invite them in and discuss IRS statutes, no matter how helpful they seem. Club them on the head and flee to your nearest windowless basement with a bat and a radio. If the zombie apocalypse does befall us, my last worry will not be how much I’m saving on taxes; it will be whether I need to bludgeon my best friend to death before he’s transformed by the bite he got trying to be a hero.

In short, get a new angle, Intuit. Drop the dead presidents before the US becomes inured to the undead threat.

As an aside, this is the first video I ever captured from TV and uploaded to YouTube. I’m ashamed that I went to the trouble, come to think of it.

*Jackson’s bank policy is looking mighty attractive now, aren’t they?

Popularity: 25% [?]

Be a nonconformist (just like everyone else). That’s Adidas’ new mantra, according to their new advertising campaign, which gives us lesser mortals a glimpse into the three-striped life. For sixty glorious seconds we see an eclectic group of famous folk clad totally in Adidas gear party it up in a mansion to the soothingly insipid electronic tunes of Madcon. It is not clear what David Beckham, Russell Simmons, Missy Elliot, Kevin Garnett, et al. have enough in common to want to socialize, let alone dress identically. Perhaps a hefty check from Adidas suffices.

As if watching the idle rich being paid to be even more idle isn’t stupid enough, the commercial ends with the gentle command to “CELEBRATE ORIGINALITY.” What better way to do so than to wear the same clothes as everyone else?

Popularity: 28% [?]

Something has always bothered me about American Apparel clothes. No, it’s not the 50-pound boxes in which their shirts are shipped to retail stores. It’s not that they are the overpriced, low-quality uniform of the tragically cool hipsterati, though I loathe this, too. No, it was something else; something deeper and more sinister.

Once I spotted it, I couldn’t believe how simple it was. Some choice items from their online catalog look strikingly similar to Mormon undergarments. To wit:

Popular items from American Apparel
vs.
Popular items from your local LDS temple

As you can see, the two differences are that the American Apparel designers have taken the huge leap of using dye and that Mormons prefer flowery backdrops for their glamor shots.

After some research, I discovered that one of the groups uses these sacred garments as an outward showing of their devotion to a peculiar and exclusive religion. So do the Mormons; the only difference being that they refuse to wear them in public.

Popularity: 100% [?]