Pop Culture Gangster

Philadelphia Eagles Breakfast Butz... umm.. Blitz

Saw this while walking through a supermarket in the Philly area.  I literally walked by it, stopped, did a double take, then walked back to check what I thought I saw.

I can't be the only one who thinks this looks like "Breakfast Butz" and not Breakfast Blitz, right? 

Interrupt This Blog...

I know I'm supposed to be blogging about my European trip, but wanted to share a link for the new Guinness advertisement.  A rare commercial that you can find yourself watching over and over.

It's True, ANYONE Can Get On YouTube

A little over a month ago I got suckered into giving a testimonial on camera for the Southeast New England Chapter of the American Marketing Association.  Which means I am now on YouTube.  Yay.

Where's "Other"?

I just took a survey and the last question was asking me to indicate my gender, as shown below:

 

Now, I'm sure that there's a perfectly good reason for them feeling the need to tell us survey takers to select only ONE answer for this, but I'm not sure I want to know what it is.  Did this particular survey designer have an issue with a lot of people trying to click on BOTH genders?  At least with that little bit of instruction I can narrow down my answer.  I have a 50-50 chance of getting it right!

Date Night at Olive Garden

There is an Olive Garden commercial that has been on for a while that shoes an attractive woman walking into an Olive Garden restaurant (doesn't matter which one, now does it?) and being asked by the hostess if she can be of assistance.  The woman says she's looking for her date, who is "very handsome... and his shoes are probably untied."  At this point they cut away to the infuriatingly cute kid calling out "MOMMY!" which makes us all chuckle and laugh oh so much.

However, every time that commercial comes on, there's a little part of me that hopes the camera will cut away to someone resembling Barney from The Simpsons bending over to tie his shoes, exposing his plumber ass crack, then falling over himself, landing at the woman's feet in a drunken stupor, looking up at her and saying "Heeeey baby!" 

As the final payoff, after the Olive Garden the drunken fool looks up her dress and declares "Whoa... no underwear! It's my lucky night! *hic*"

Just once...

Are the Doodlebops going to be at Ozzfest?

Ticketmaster STILL hasn't gotten any better.  Last four concerts I've bought tickets to through Ticketmaster:

• Guns N' Roses
• Tool
• and two Aerosmith/Motley Crue shows

Today... I get a pre-sale offer for the Doodlebops show coming to the area.  A waste of bandwidth!

Venting and Ranting

Rolling Stone has been a favorite magazine of mine for a long time now.  I've been a subscriber since at least my early teens, which means I've been a steady subscriber for about 15 years now.   I'm a loyal customer and depend on the magazine to keep me up to date no new music, good movies and more.  Definitely one of my top choices for pop culture information.

However, they are ruining my love for the magazine with one poor customer service effort.  Their 1,000 issue recently came out and I never received it in the mail.  Maybe it was stolen, maybe it was lost in the mail... who knows?  Point is, that after 15 years of subscribing, the first issue I don't receive is one that I was really looking forward to.  It was a disappointment, but I was confident that they would set things right and send me a replacement issue.

So I hop on their web site and quickly discover that there is no way to reach a person - you need to do customer service through a web-based form.   So I shoot off a polite email explaining the situation and instead of getting resolution, I get this insulting piece of cookie-cutter response:

Thank you for contacting Rolling Stone Magazine.

We are sorry to inform you that the issue you requested is no longer 
available.

We have extended your subscription one issue for each issue requested.  
The new expiration date will appear on your address label in the near 
future.

Thank you
Rolling Stone Magazine
csf

Obviously, not only did they NOT resolve the problem in the way requested - by sending a replacement copy of the issue - but they extended the subscription by one issue, not two, which would have been more appropriate, since it was a double issue.

I send back a more terse email and they come back with an offer to extend the subscription by TWO issues.  Still no replacement issue and still saying that the issue isn't available, which struck me as strange, to say the least.  Turns out it is indeed a farce, since if you follow this link, you'll see that they are still selling it. 

So I can't get a free replacement issue, though I've done nothing but dutifully pay my subscription every year for over a decade, never complaining or asking anything more of them, BUT, if I want to give them an ADDITIONAL $20, I can certainly have a copy of the magazine that I never received. 

It really is enough to make you wonder if this a scam... I'm sure that this would fall under FTC wire fraud or USPS mail fraud regulation.   I'm not even going get into the "spirit of Rolling Stone" and how they are betraying their roots of the 60's and hippie-dom by screwing over a long-time subscriber.

I'm going to go do some deep breathing exercises now.

Starburst 1 - Toxic Avenger 0

There's a commercial for Starburst that I see nearly every night on the Simpsons syndicated re-runs featuring two doofuses in an industrial plant of some sort, surrounded by 55 gallon drums of toxic waste.  One of them asks the other to give him a Starburst, so the second guy throws it to the guy asking. 

The throw is off and the Starburst goes into the toxic waste.  Doofus #1, then reaches into the barrel of acid or whatever, in an attempt to pull it out, and says "I got it!" and then when he pulls out his arm... the arm is gone.  Apparently eaten away by whatever chemical waste is in the 55 gallon drum. 

So then he tries with the other arm and thinks he has it again... but doesn't, since that arm is now gone as well.

Naturally, doofus (that's my word of the day) #2 rolls up his sleeve to reach in and get it, but the commercial ends, cutting away to the final glamour shot of the logo and product, along with the tagline "Blame the juicy goodness."

So I know that the point of the commercial is that Starburst candy is SO GOOD that you will do even the stupidest things in order to get some.  Even put yourself in mortal danger.  Its a bit extreme and I thought it was a good commercial.  Until I thought about it for a millisecond more and thought about something else.... what kind of unnatural polymer-co-chain-carbonite-ferrite ingredients would Starburst put in their chewy candy that would make it survive a plunge into 50 gallons of flesh-dissolving acid??

If the chemicals in that drum of toxic waste can burn away a human arm in a matter of seconds, what in the name of Buddha are Starburst candies made out of that they would survive a plunge into the same chemicals?  Would you eat something that was impervious to an acid that could destroy your flesh?  (ok, well.. Coca-Cola and most super-spicy hot sauces could do damage to you too, but not instantaneously)

I'm sure there's a junior brand manager for Starburst somewhere reading this going "I TOLD THEM!!!"  Don't worry kid - I'm over-thinking it.

BTW - I couldn't find a copy of this commerical to link to anywhere online, otherwise you wouldn't have been subjected to my play-by-play description of the commercial.  If anyone can give me a link, I would be grateful.

So its TicketMASTER, is it???

I'm thinking that TicketMaster has lost their collective minds.  I got an email yesterday from them promoting Clifford The Red Dog live at the Opera House in Boston.   Let's take a look at the sheer brilliance of this utterly useless email effort, shall we?

First of all, Clifford The Big Red Dog is a 40-year old children's book character from Scholastic (though I swear I don't remember him when I was a kid and that was sure as hell less than 40 years ago).

Secondly, I am a single, never-married guy with no children that I am aware of.

And most disturbing, the last five sets of tickets I bought from TicketMaster were: 

1. Trans-Siberian Orchestra
2. Aerosmith and Lenny Kravitz
3. Judas Priest and Anthrax
4. Iron Maiden
5. Scorpions and Whitesnake

Uhhh... yeah. Maybe TicketMaster wants a few of us head-bangin' Satan-worshipers there to balance out the saccharinity of Clifford, but mommy and daddy probably won't be too happy if I show up wearing my "Keep Music Evil" or Baphomet and pentagram t-shirt at their friggin' kid's birthday party. 

Or maybe Ticketmaster has taken on a vast right-wing neo-conservative effort and will bombard me with wholesome entertainment until I renounce the devil's music?

Maybe I'll just show up wearing a pair of shorts worn under a trench coat with a low-wearing hat and sunglasses.  You know, just to freak 'em out.  Maybe Sesame Street Live will be in town too. 

If you're going to get arrested, you might as well make a spectacle of yourself...

On a totally semi-related note, I originally was going to write this with the following list:

1. Trans-Siberian Orchestra
2. Aerosmith and Lenny Kravitz
3. Judas Priest and Anthrax
4. Ozzfest
5. WASP with La Guns and Stephen Pearcy
6. Motorhead and Corrsion of Confiromity
7. Dio and Anthrax

All of which were in the last year.  That would have made my point a bit stronger, don't you think?  However, #4, 5, 6, and 7 were all bought through either Tickets.com or NextTicketing.  I didn't even notice how the places my tickets are coming from has changed in the last two years.  Glad to see that Ticketmaster doesn't have the deathgrip it had (and still has for the most part) a few years ago.

What am I supposed to do with 3,000 freezer gloves in an office?

So I have been having a bad streak with customer service and shipping lately and would like to IMPLORE all companies out there to LISTEN to your CUSTOMERS.  Arrrgh!!!

I'm not asking for complicated stuff.  I ask for some samples to be sent to me here at my office in Franklin, Massachusetts and the rest of the shipment to a plant in NJ or PA.  What happens?  For the third time I get the samples and then two days later I get the rest of the order, which then eats up my time spinning my wheels arguing with the supplier, waiting for UPS/FedEx to pick them up again, get sent back, re-labeled, sent out again....

It is just so ridiculous and frustrating.  This should be the EASY part of the whole process, and consistently, companies mess it up BIG time.  LISTEN PEOPLE, LISTEN!!!

If this keeps up, this blog could turn into a black list of companies that can't follow simple instructions.