Got a blog tip? Contact us

« April 2006 | Main | June 2006 »

Online purchases? Not very secure.

Wedding season has begun, and with it comes wedding registries, where one's own taste can be happily suspended in favor of buying something the happy couple has certified it wants. Carrie and I bought a gift for a friend from Williams-Sonoma and found this curious note in the shipping confirmation:

Jay Huber and Tanya Accone
625 Broadway, 12 floor
For privacy reasons, the city, state and zip code have been omitted.

So let me get this straight, Williams-Sonoma. You will tell me the street address and floor of the person receiving this gift, but not the city and state? Do you suppose I am sending wedding gifts to people whom I know so casually that I don't know what city they live in?

I didn't know their new address until I got the receipt. I almost feel like I have to stalk and kill my friends just to make a point.

Dutch pedophilia

No longer content to furtively masturbate to Saved by the Bell reruns, pedophiles in the Netherlands have announced that they are forming a political party to advocate for lowering the age of consent to 12.

Right now, their biggest problem is that it is illegal to shoot their campaign commercials without compromising artistic integrity. Or losing their erections.

You can go to prison for that?

Kudos to the headline writer that was able to sneak this one through.

Bigger kudos to Ken Lay if he planted the headline himself as a self-defense technique before getting sent to prison. You're on your own, Skilling.

Fat Dude Nation

For all the fuss that Big Cholesterol is making about the upcoming movie Fast Food Nation, in context the anti-FFN PR blitz is clearly the backup plan. The primary plan? Make the world so fat that they can't rouse themselves to protest.

In the wake of Super Size Me and Fast Food Nation, the fast food industry has introduced:

1)  Meatnormous Omelet Sandwich (Burger King, two slices of melted American Cheese, two eggs, three strips of bacon, two sausage patties and two slices of ham on a toasted bun, 740 calories)

2) Monster Thickburger (Hardee's, two 1/3-pound beef patties, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame seed bun - 1420 calories)

3) Famous Bowls (KFC, bowl of mashed potatoes, corn, fried chicken strips, cheese and gravy - 690 calories)

...and now McDonald's is introducing a Bigger Mac (actual name TBD).

I understand that they are responding to what consumers want. All I ask is that they drop the pretense that they care about nutrition. They shouldn't even be able to have a "Nutrition" link on their websites - or if there is a link, all it should say is "Like you care, fatty. Just eat it."

"It's just easier"

There's a disturbing article in today's New York Times about how more parents are finding that it makes "more sense" (read: "is a lot less work") to plop their infants and toddlers in front of television sets to pacify them. The article cites a recent study finding that 61% of babies under one year old watch television or video every day. Parent Jennifer Beck-Wilson (an educational curriculum designer, no less) offers this half-assed justification:

"It helps with his vocabulary and with learning about morals," she said. "A part of me thinks I am being lazy, and I shouldn't be doing this, but it's just easier."

Oh, it's easier? It must be the right choice, then!

How NOT to start a revolution

Gothamist recently posted about activists who appeared to be protesting Wal-Mart but were slyly handing out Wal-Mart-sponsored flyers. Thing is, those apparently Wal-Mart-sponsored flyers were in fact sponsored by critics Wal-Mart Watch. Confused? Yes, and so, I imagine, were many people who got the flyers and mistook them for some kind of change of heart by Wal-Mart.

The flyers quote Sam Walton favorably and describe reforms critics WISH Wal-Mart would do without making clear that Wal-Mart hasn't actually done then.

“If you want people in the stores to take care of the customers, you have to make sure you are taking care of the people in the stores.” - Sam Walton
WAL-MART WILL AGGRESSIVELY WORK to ensure that employees are never mistreated through practices such as illegal firings, "off-the-clock" wage violations, intimidation, sexual harassment, violations of child labor laws, or discrimination of any sort. And Wal-Mart will justly compensate each associate with a family-sustaining wage that will enable the associate to raise a family without having to rely on public assistance.

So maybe Gothamist doesn't need to correct itself after all. The flyers weren't endorsed by Wal-Mart, true, but they work as feel-good advertising for Wal-Mart regardless. Someone, please, Wake Up Wal-Mart Watch and kick 'em a good swift kick in the head!

Nike: Just Coopt It

Not content to borrow the reflected glory of the punk scene, Nike has decided that they also need some covert prestige, UK-style.

The working-class London borough of Hackney is furious that Nike is selling t-shirts with the Hackney logo without asking for permission to use (much less license) the decades-old icon. In keeping with their act first, act later practice, Nike has agreed to discuss the issue with Hackney.

I suppose this means that I can start selling shoes with a swoosh. If Nike disagrees, we can discuss whether they should get a piece of the action whenever they notice. I'm sure that they will be reasonable.

(Via CMM News)

Erik Estrada, Esq.

Did you think Erik Estrada hit rock bottom when the only post-CHiPs acting work he could get relied on an ironic nostalgia for Ponch? Did you think it was when he started acting in a telenovela - based on ironic nostalgia for Ponch, repeating lines that came from an offstage Cyrano because he doesn't speak Spanish? Maybe you thought it was when he sold the ironic nostalgia for Ponch to shill for a real estate company. Wrong, three times over.

Erik Estrada hit rock bottom when he took ironic nostalgia for Ponch to become a pitchman for hire for law firms.

I'm Erik Estrada, and I've heard of the legal system. As a former television cop about whom you might have ironic nostalgia, I know that I would trust my case to Jewname, Jewname & Latino and you should too.

(Thanks to Beeeej, who let me tear the ad from his copy of Trial)

AAA's Oakland bus stop bench make over

The Anti-Advertising Agency has completed another campaign.  Working with Packard Jennings (you may know him from Stay Free's Illegal Art Exhibit), we surveyed neighborhoods within one block of Oakland bus stops.  The surveys polled residents about which advertising tactics they found most bothersome in that area.  Packard then created illustrations based on the survey results and the new content was placed in the respective neighborhood bus stop.  There's a set of photos on the AAA site showing several of the benches in their various locations as well as additional information on the project.

I'm Too Busy Underestimating Your Resolve to Set Back Our Relationship

If you like television, and who among us doesn't, you might be interested in the escalating stand-off between the Writers Guild of America and the networks over "product integration." The guild alleges that certain networks pressure writers to cram mentions of products into scripts. Not only does this practice blur the line between advertising and content, it creates revenue for the networks that isn't covered by the labor agreements between networks and the creative guilds (writers, actors and directors).

Here's a bit of integration in action, as reported by Variety's Michael Learmonth today:

Fox's MyNetworkTV is trying to differentiate itself on Madison Avenue by offering sponsors opportunities that would send network writers and producers fleeing to the picket lines.

Net, which will air primetime strip soaps over 13-week "seasons," is positioning itself as a one-stop shop for product placements, which can be written into its English translations of telenovelas like "Table for Three" and "Fashion House."

Twentieth TV sales exec VP Bob Sessa showed sample clips for how products can play within the shows. "Please pass the Evian," said one actress in a restaurant scene. "That's a beautiful Cartier watch," said another.

I'm not sure I'd mind the above examples if the actresses then turned to the camera and winked with a CHA-CHING sound effect.

This week, the networks' trade group, the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, ran an open letter to the WGA in Variety. The tone is very ominous. It's the kind of note you expect to see composed of torn-out letters from magazines. (I guess in this case BusinessWeek and the Robb Report.)

Both sides are acting aggressive now to bolster their position for labor negotiations in 2007, when their existing agreement expires. Writers last went on strike in 1988. A lot has changed since then. A lot has changed since January. Were a strike to happen again, can anyone really say if the tv-watching audience would bother coming back?