Archive for August, 2009

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Instruction Manual Outtakes from Common Household Appliances

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

microwave

Sharp 800-Watt Microwave

Do not use Microwave for non food items or for functions beyond its intended use.  Microwave should not be used as a skin tanner. You should not attempt to modify circuitry to convert Microwave into a time machine.

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GE Stainless Steel Juicer

Assembly instructions:

  1. Please insert Juice Basin Piece (see fig 1.1) into the base of the juicer
  2. Set function to preferred power level according to desired fruit consistency
  3. Display Juicer on prominent place in the counter.
  4. Plug in to turn on, then ignore.
  5. Optional: In 1-5 Years Comment: “What ever happened to that juicer we used to have?”

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Shark 14.4V Dust Buster

Warning: The Dust Buster is intended as a cleaning assistant and should under no circumstances be used as a sexual device.  Bill O’Reilly, we’re talking to you.

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Sony Universal TV Remote

To program station preferences:

  1. Select OPTION
  2. Select INPUT 2
  3. Select MENU
  4. Scroll down to CHANNEL CONFIG.
  5. Hit SELECT ALL
  6. Note, to store memory you may deselect stations that are rarely used, such as NBC.

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Whirlpool DuetSport Combo Washer/Dryer

Please note that when running the spin cycle at high temperatures, too much pressure may cause the load to explode. That’s what she said. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.  Okay, no, but seriously, be careful not to overload the washer or there may be some leakage. That’s what she said. Oh God, I’m sorry, really, I’m sorry. Oh man, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Where’s the backspace on this computer anyways?

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Environmental Friendly Light Bulb

Before screwing in, please refer to the appropriate category you belong to in order to ensure you meet the minimum number of recommended people for installation.

Aerobics Instructors: 5

Economists: 0

Bureaucrats: 2

Data Base People: 3

Gorilla: 1

Oregonians: 6

Philosophers: 3

Rednecks: 6, 3, 1, or 1

Republicans: Unknown?

Sheep: 21

Union Electricians: 16

Zen Masters: 0

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iPod Nano

If your iPod Nano is no longer holding a charge, please follow the following steps?

  1. Confirm that your charger is plugged into an active outlet?
  2. It is? Are you sure?
  3. Hmmmmm.
  4. This is a tough one.
  5. Have you checked out all the cool new ipods at your nearest Apple Store?

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Black & Decker Toaster

Dude, it’s a toaster. Stop wasting my fu#king time.

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Luffa Sponge

Warning: The Luffa Sponge is intended as a cleaning assistant and should under no circumstances be used as a sexual device. Bill O’Reilly, we’re talking to you.

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Posted in what is funny | No Comments »

Friday Links

Friday, August 28th, 2009

TGIF!  Which reminds us that we never gave the answer to our WIF Quiz from September 15, 1996: What was the original TGIF lineup on ABC?  The correct answer is, of course:

Full House

Perfect Strangers

Mr. Belvedere

Just the 10 of Us

Now, onto the links:

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Uncomfortable Movie Plot Summaries

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An Onion story with a ring of truth

(for those of us who worked at McDonald’s at one point in time)

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Everything is Real!

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And more bad news for old people

(an SNL classic)

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Some helpful advice from ecards

(very, very wrong)

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Obscure Fortune Cookie Messages

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From boingboing.net:

Who will take care of your pets after the rapture?

Maybe the same person feeding gorillas poptarts

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Facebook Hamlet

(let’s not forget I played Hamlet’s father in our schools 4th grade production)

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Puppies dressed as cats!

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Posted in links | 1 Comment »

Misguided Focus Group Findings

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

snuggie

Time for another episode of: Misguided Focus Group Findings!

The product: The snuggie—a blanket that you can wear, for people who like blankets, but are too lazy to hold them in place.

Assumed Focus Group Findings: While consumers love the idea of not being cold, and are intrigued at the prospect of being able to fall asleep without the cumbersome steps of changing clothes or pulling a blanket slightly over your body, there is some resistance to looking like an idiot walking around in an over-sized sweatshirt/robe/duvet cover.

Misguided Solution: If only we could make the snuggie more stylish so that people would want to wear them! Let’s see, what is stylish…oh, I know, leopard and zebra prints.  Because if you are wearing a one-sized-fits-all blanket with sleeves, so long as you also look like a lumpy version of a wild animal, then it’ totally okay.  Looks like the snuggie’s not just for inside anymore!

Projected Sales Impact: Yes, people will buy these.

See the Designer Snuggie Spot Here.

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Posted in Madvertising | 2 Comments »

Strangely Irrational Deathbed Requests

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

lord-byron-on-his-death-bed

To be read in the highly unlikely event that, at some undisclosed time in the future, I am on my deathbed:

So, the unthinkable has happened and I am about to die. Perhaps, given the sum of human experience up to this point, I should have seen this coming. In any case, as I contemplate my final moments on this earth, I can think of only a few small requests to you, my living friends/family/creditors–

  1. Tell someone dear to you that you love them.
  2. Tell someone not so dear to you that you love them too. Not someone you hate, just someone you don’t know that well. Like maybe the guy who responds compulsively to mass e-mails at the office with funny little quips. I think his name is Jason.  Anyways, that guy is alright, and it sure would be funny to see his face when you, who barely know him, profess your love to him. I wish I could see it but, as you know, I’ll be dead.
  3. Rearrange all the possessions I left behind alphabetically and by date of purchase. Some guesswork will inevitably be involved here, but I trust you can ballpark it. Once you’ve done this, donate all my possessions to a charity that helps blind children learn to appreciate beach volleyball.
  4. Invent a new kind of synthetic butter. The market for synthetic butter has really slowed down recently and that bothers me on a spiritual level.
  5. Cremate my body and scatter the ashes on the white sandy beaches of whatever Caribbean country is currently fashionable for celebrities like Ashton Kutcher.  Someplace expensive without any foreigners around. A year later, retrieve my ashes and from the remaining DNA, remake the dinosaurs like they did in Jurassic Park. But even cooler.
  6. I think maybe I left an avocado on top of my fridge in 1993. You might check on that for me.
  7. Live every day like it’s your last. By which I mean, run around in a state of panic making ill-conceived declarations of regret, squandering your money, and weeping profusely.
  8. Lie to my children about my life. I don’t mean embellish or make better, I just mean deceive. As in, “Your father really enjoyed swordfish and his real name was Barney.”
  9. Pay my back taxes. This isn’t so much a request as your new legal obligation per the state. This could get expensive since I stopped paying taxes around the same time I made that avocado purchase.
  10. There’s a folder filled with reading material I keep under the mattress of my bed with big black letters on it that say DO NOT OPEN.  Whatever you do, DO NOT OPEN.

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Posted in Confessional | No Comments »

Friday Links

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

A man walks into a bar.  The bartender asks him what he wants.  The man says surprise me. So the bartender passes bi-partisan healthcare reform without compromising with the insurance companies.   And we’re off–

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More lazy Ad Guys

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From the Daily Show: Guns, guns, guns!

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Star Wars Flaws

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Toy helicopter attacks woman

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Crap, that’s my (old) bank

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Not so convincing High Schoolers

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BBQ and Foot Massage

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Posted in links | 4 Comments »

Fruit, Vegetable or Republican?

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Time for another exciting addition of our always popular segment, “Fruit, Vegetable, or Republican?”  Correctly identify each of the six and win a free vegetable of your choice*

Now, let’s play–

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1. Kumquat-Crosssection

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2. zucchini

3.

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Rep._Darrell_Issa

4.

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cantalope

5.

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squash_butternut

6.

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tomcole-

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And the answers…

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1. Kumquat, Fruit

2. Zucchini, Vegetable

3. Representative Darryl Issa, Republican Congressman

4. Cantaloupe, Fruit

5. Squash, Vegetable,

6. Representative Tom Cole, Vegetable

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*Offer not valid in locations

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Posted in Quick Hits | 3 Comments »

What will you do with that???

Monday, August 17th, 2009

will-work-for-food

The late Mitch Hedberg told a joke that goes something like this:

I bought a box of Ritz crackers and on the back of the box they have all these suggestions as to what to put on top of the crackers. Put some peanut butter on there. Try it with cheese.  But I like crackers man, that’s why I bought them. It’s like, they have no faith in the product itself.

I offer this joke as prelude to an observation.  At a party the other night with many people who did not know me, I was asked repeatedly what I’m up to.  When I tell them that I’m currently studying Yiddish and poetry, the reaction was universally the same—

How interesting…(insert confused pause while they wait for me to say—haha, just kidding, I’m an investment banker!)…and what will you do with that?

My instinct is to say, ‘Well, I’ll probably speak Yiddish better and know more about poetry, that’s probably what I’ll do with that,” but somehow I’m guessing this wouldn’t satisfy the question.  Because, as we should know, the point of learning something is not to learn it—it’s to prepare you for a tangentially related career.  But I like crackers man, that’s why I bought them.

And yet, an irony emerges.  One of my inquisitors told me his own son (and his eyes moisten with pride), is off to study at Wharton Business School.  Now, dear readers, you’ll forgive me here because one of my own loyal readers as a misguided youth almost went to Wharton and perhaps some of you know people who went to Wharton or even (God forbid it!) went there yourself, so you’ll forgive me when I say that my reaction on hearing this was to start giggling uncontrollably and what a worthless endeavor this truly was.

Luckily, the proud father was too busy talking about how amazing the curriculum was and how he’s going to major in entrepreneurism (!).  But honestly my thought was, business school? (pregnant pause)…what the hell will he do with that?

Because is anything vaguer than the idea of studying business? What the hell is business? What business? The Yiddish translator, the TV writer, the astronaut, and the accountant are all involved with a business, so what magical curriculum will prepare a young mind to tackle all these disparate fields?  You might as well major in ‘Having a Job,’ since majoring in business reveals your curiosity toward the world does not extend beyond this goal. You could take such amazing classes as, “Stuff you do at different jobs,” and “How to enroll in direct deposit,” and “Is giving up our company eye insurance in favor of pet insurance a good deal?”  (from experience, no).

What you learn in business school, it might as well be Yiddish for what good it will do you in “business.” Okay, maybe an exaggeration, but I do know a little bit about what I’m talking about—I was a business minor after all.  And in answer to your question, I haven’t done shit with it.

ADDENDUM: Of course, since my University-subsidized writerly life is coming to an end soon, I basically have 9-12 months to figure out what I really am going to do with…uh…that. MBA maybe?

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Posted in Financial | 1 Comment »

Friday Links

Friday, August 14th, 2009

Back with the best and brightest that these American internets could provide…

One day I will photoshop you

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Fun with crayons

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Army recruiting appeals to people who want to be dicks

(per collegehumor.com)

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Conan gets to the bottom of the Chevy Volt and Canadian Healthcare

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How long before Republicans start claiming this clip is real?

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The real definition of an activist judge

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Never too early to start thinking of Halloween costumes

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Golf choker keeps choking

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Glen Beck loves our healthcare system…in theory

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Make my logo bigger!

(another advertising whine)

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For the dog lover in Philadelphia

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Why fast food companies hate birthdays

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

0309_burger_art

As someone who has worked on a fast food, ur, I mean Quick Service Restaurant account (as they fanatically prefer to be called), I know the QSR advertising world is very small. People bounce from Burger King to Carl’s Jr. to McDonald’s to Wendy’s—all in a matter of a few years. The cholesterol circuit we call it.  Actually, we never called it that, but maybe we should have.

So I’m wondering if the new Wendy’s campaign for their Boneless Buffalo Wings is the result of recycled creative minds, or an actual belief permeating the QSR marketing world that there is nothing customers despise more than having someone sing Happy Birthday to them at a sit-down restaurant.

Carl’s Jr. was the first to stumble upon this theory when they attempted to convince us that sitting under the harsh neon lights of a local fast food joint, or eating in the front seat of our own car, is actually more comfortable than being in a restaurant.  As the ad copy went—the worst thing about a restaurant burger, is the restaurant.  This to the terrifying backdrop of those awful restaurant employees singing a peyote-fueled rendition of happy birthday to some more customer.  So much better to just deal with the friendly fast food restaurant staff than to deal with this unwelcome kindness.

It’s an ingenious trick. Try to convince people that one of the biggest weaknesses of a fast food experience (the terrible service), is in fact a strength (As loyal readers will remember, this is the SWOT fallacy).

The latest Wendy’s commercial campaign makes exactly the same point.  I can’t find the exact spot (look here for a sample :30 spot for the Asian Boneless Wings and you get the idea), but again the argument is that at a restaurant you have to pay for all these unpleasant accessories—one of which is, again, people singing Happy Birthday to some poor customer.

My question: Is it really such a horrible experience to have people sign happy birthday to you? Is this the worst thing that can happen to a person at a restaurant? Is there some kind of focus group where someone once said, “I love eating crappy food that will probably kill me, but what I really hate is when people sing happy birthday to me,” or is there one copywriter out there, bouncing through the cholesterol circuit, with an unhealthy vendetta against birthdays?

Most likely, this is another case of good-old fashioned plagiarism, which in the ad world is not a bad word–in fact, it’s how 90% of ad campaigns are born.  Now let’s just see how long it takes Mickey D’s, JIB, and BK to follow suit…

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Posted in Madvertising | 1 Comment »

John Hughes RIP (and other stray thoughts)

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

John Hughes 01

Back from a week of fun and binge eating in Chicago.  Fun fact: Chicago produced the world’s first window envelope. Strangely, and sadly, while in Chicago, John Hughes passed away. As a tribute to the king of the north suburban comedies, I present some strange musings on some of my favorite Hughes films.

Mr. Mom (1983)

I actually didn’t know Hughes wrote this. What I do know is when I was little this was one of three things I had taped on VHS (along with Tiger Town and Fraggle Rock), so I watched it quite a bit.  It’s strange to think how many strides male housewives have made over the last 16 years, while the city the movie takes place in (Detroit) remains a shit hole.

Sixteen Candles (1984)long_duk_dong

The movie serves as a sobering warning that the things we find most pleasurable and funny today, will one day be embarrassingly racist.

The Breakfast Club (1985)

My favorite scene in this movie is the lunch scene when they’re comparing what everyone packed for lunch, but here’s the thing I keep wondering–how disgusting must that sushi Molly Ringwald’s character ate have been? I mean, we’re talking mid-80s, north Chicago suburban sushi (I don’t think Asians were allowed in the north suburbs until 1989), packed in a backpack and then stored at room temperature for 4-5 hours before eating.  Come on.

Weird Science (1985)

The blueprint for the billion dollar internet porn industry.  In retrospect, of course, it’s all so obvious.

Pretty in Pink (1986)

For some reason, as a kid, I thought this movie would have lots of sex in it.  It didn’t.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

Probably my favorite Hughes flick, but more than being one of the most rewatchable comedies, the film stands as proof that Hughes was, in fact, a technological visionary. 200px-FerrisdayoffYounger readers may not be aware that, before the internet, computers were essentially really fancy typewriters that you could play video games on.  Beyond printing out custom greeting cards (yes, this was really popular for a while), the PC didn’t really do much.

Yet, somehow, in 1986, long before Al Gore claimed to invent the internet, here is Ferris Bueller, hacking into the school’s computer system to change his grade.  How? How could his shitty, 2MB RAM computer connect to the high school computer’s database? How could Hughes have even imagined this possibility if he was not (conspiratorial drum roll here) the actual mastermind behind the information superhighway?

Uncle Buck (1989)

Another film that led me to believe school parties would be a lot more fun than they turned out to be.  Re-watch the high school party scene and you’ll know what I mean.200px-NationalLampoonsChristmasVacationPoster

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

The promo for this movie was “Yule Crack Up!” proving that there is no product so cheesy that advertising can’t make it worse.

Home Alone (1990)

Hughes only acted as producer on this, but his fingerprints are all over it.  I offer this: the entire premise of this movie has been completely negated by the prevalence of the cell phone. I’m not saying the concept was believable to begin with, but give everyone in the film cell phones and not a single scene would make any logical sense.

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Posted in Low Art | 6 Comments »

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