Just so ya'll know, that was a relaxed sigh, not an angsty, stressed-out one.
But, yeah, things are better. Maybe I was just having a case of the SADs. Whatever it was, I'm glad I got it out of my system. Things are going well, and Christmas is around the corner, and it's just a nice time of year.
I got all my Christmas shopping done pretty early. I just had this itch to go buy things for people. Hell, I had to FORCE myself to wait until December to go shopping, just because I refuse to be one of those people that tries to shove Christmas into Thanksgiving. Seeing stores put up Christmas stuff the day after Halloween just irks me. They're two SEPERATE holidays, people!
I read a short sci-fi story a month or so ago where the characters were getting ready to celebrate "Thanksmas". Apperantly, the two holidays merged because people didn't see a point in doing them seperately when they were so close together. Hell, why don't we just make it "New Thanksmas Year's" and get all three holidays lumped in there. Although people seem to be much more willing to donate blood the closer it gets to Christmas . . .
Anyway, back on track. What I wanted to blog about today (or tonight, as the case may be) is about advertising. Or, more specifically, advertising that pisses me off. Yes, it's another rant. But with the holidays, it seems that advertising for EVERYTHING is in overdrive. It's nuts. Anyway, here goes:
1) Ads with purposely mispelled words. Yes, I've mentioned it before. But I figured I'd say it again just because it STILL irks me.
2. The Famous Daves ad. You know, the one with the cheeful pig roasting his fellow pig over a roaring fire? Yeah, that's morbid. Why the hell are they showing thier food cooking itself? It seriously makes me lose my appetite every time I see that stupid logo (and THAT is quite a feat). Whoever decided to have a homocidal, cannibal pig be the spokesperson for that restaurant is a moron. In fact, I vow never to eat at that place ever again. I don't like BBQ that much anyway.
---- and as a side note, this made me realize why eating some foods just strikes me as really icky. Specifically, shrip, lobster, or those bugs they eat in Africa. WHY does it disgust me to think of eating those? Because when you eat shrimp, lobster, or bugs, they still look like shrimp, lobster, and bugs when you put them in your mouth. When I get a hamburger, it doesn't still look like the cow it came from. Eating meat is so much more pleasant when you can just turn a blind eye to how you got it in the first place. With the aforementioned arthropods, you can't turn a blind eye at all. Oh, and I don't like fish because I just don't like the smell. It makes me want to retch.
Moving on.
3. Giftcard radio commercials. Ohhhh, those need to go away RIGHT now. I swear to god, every commercial on the radio is trying to get me to buy people giftcards for Christmas. It's not neccesarily the commercials themselves that bug me (not anymore than a typical commercial, at least), but the fact that they're about GIFTCARDS. Here's one of the commercials that first opened my eyes to the absurdidty of giftcards:
In it, the a man was talking about his store that only sells generic gifts. And how if you didn't know what to get someone for Christmas, this store would have something generic, like a paperweight, that you could buy them and be done with it. Joe Schmoe walks into the store looking for a gift, but claims that all these generic gifts are boring, but he still doesn't know what to get people. Then the announcer of the commercial suggests that Joe Schmoe get his friends Visa gift cards so they can get what they "REALLY" want.
. . .
Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but would a visa gift card be a MORE boring and generic gift than even a paperweight? I just think giftcards are just really pointless. It's just saying, "Well, I didn't know what to get you, so here's some money and you can buy yourself something because I don't really know you well enough to pick something out on my own."
And yet there's all these companies that are URGING people go give giftcards, like they're the GREATEST THING EVER! Because then your friends and family can get WHAT THEY REALLY WANT! YAY for taking ALL the effort out of giving gifts and reducing Christmas to a chore that can be shrugged off!
And this VISA giftcard is the worst of the bunch, because it's not even to a specific store. At least a SPECIFIC giftcard to, say, Gamestop, would require a little bit of thought and effort on WHERE the person might like to spend their money. But if you're going to give them a VISA giftcard, you might as well just hand them a $20 bill . . .
And there's all these restaurants who are advertising their giftcards. Good lord! I mean, taking someone out to dinner isn't a bad gift. But wouldn't it be better to TAKE them out to dinner and spend time with them instead of handing them money and telling them to go feed themselves?
Although, I admit it, I DID get my parents a giftcard to the Upstream Brewery for their anniversary. But that was because it was for their anniversary, and they were spending that together. So, I guess in cases like that, a restaurant giftcard would be a good gift.
Well, anyway, I don't HATE giftcards, I just really am annoyed that their being promoted as the ultimate christmas gift.
But yeah, I think that was my main point this whole post. I just wanted to complain about the psychotic pig too, so I tried to link the ideas together and threw in an allusion to a previous rant. Meh, whatever. Tomorrow night is boardgame night and I'm PSYCHED! Boardgames are AWESOME! WOOT! YAY FOR GEEKINESS~!!!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
Eric 12/17/2006 07:54:00 AM
Comments:
Happy Christmas Eric,
Hope to see you soon. I burned a copy of my '06 Christmas Mix CD for you.
Oh, I had another thought. Rather than merge Thanksgiving through New Year's, I think we should add a major holiday to all the months that don't already have one. This includes making Halloween, St. Patty's and some other holidays official day-off holidays. Easter Monday would be a day-off. We'd add something to fill in the gaps in the summer. My birthday is in June, so we could make that a holiday! And we need something in August, too.
The way I figure, if we have a big, celebration-type holiday all the time, people won't get so stressed by them since they'll be used to them. And we can spread out all that togetherness, so we don't have to cram it all in to just a couple days.
