Archive for June, 2011

An Open Letter

June 10th, 2011

Dear Advertising “Executives”,

I have complained about you a few times in the past, but I think the time has come for a face-to-face.  I am writing to clarify a few points with you in order that you can continue to make reasonable advertisements and I can retain what little sanity I have left.

That advertisement with the hilarious joke does not work.  It may have been a riot when you were making your presentation to the client, but a joke repeated ad nauseum is not funny.

Cute little talking animals, fluffy bunnies, meercats and talking dogs are for children.  Got that? If your target audience is in the five to eight year range, then that’s fine, but I’m in my sixties and I’m not in my second fucking childhood.  Yet.

The same goes for the overuse of primary colours.

Advertising a massive couch that has been reduced in price from €4,000 to €50 is all very well but it would cost an extra €100,000 to build an extension to take the fucking thing.  Do you people never think things out?

Computer generated graphics are old hat.  OK, so you can draw fancy lights all over the screen.  So what?  I’m not impressed.

When advertising cars, could you please show them being driven in a ten mile tailback on the M50 where they are most likely to end up.  Not all of us are in the habit of driving on twisty roads in the Alps.  And while I am on the subject, stop trying to flog cars on the basis that they will turn heads.  We don’t all have small dicks and most couldn’t give a raw shite what the next door neighbour thinks.

Where did you get the idea that sticking some z-listed “celebrity” on the screen is going to impress me?  I haven’t a clue who most of them are so that trick doesn’t work.  Now I have heard of Craig Doyle.  I don’t know what his claim to fame is, but get him off my fucking screen.  I am sick of the sight of him.

Do you really think women are so shallow and fickle that they swoon over the smell of someone’s front room, or are gagging to know how their bestest pal keeps her figure?  On second thoughts, you might be right there.  Forget I mentioned that one.

Stop trying to sell me something that I am already stuck with.  Promoting electricity is a bit pointless as I have to be using the fucking stuff to run the television.  You really don’t think things out do you?

Where in the name of all that’s holy did you get the idea that we are all so fucking impressed with America?  I am utterly baffled as to why you think that an Irish product should be sold to Irish people using American accents or locations.  In particular, when it comes to cosmetics, you seem to go out of your way to find the female with the harshest, most nasal, most irritating American accent on the fucking planet.

I will leave you with that little list for the moment.  I’m sure I can come up with a few dozen extra pointers and will be in touch again.

If you take heed of the above, I’m sure you will make better advertisements, and I won’t smash up so many televisions.

Yours in hope,

Grandad

Pavlovian readers

June 9th, 2011

Idle thoughts occasionally flit across my mind.

I know you will find it hard to believe that I indulge in whimsy from time to time, but there it is.  I do.

One of my idle musings is in trying to work out where all the half dozen or so readers of this site are.  What prompts this idle thought is the way traffic to the site drops off at around three in the morning and doesn’t revive until around two in the afternoon.

My first thought is that everyone goes to bed at three, starts work at nine, frantically spends the morning clearing the In Tray to allow for an afternoon of unbridled reading of rubbish on the Interweb.  That would fit in neatly but for one thing – most of my visitors are in the U.S.  If I subtract say five hours then that would mean that everyone is frantically surfing from the moment they get into the office.  Naughty!!

In the hours between three in the morning and two in the afternoon, most visitors get here by way of searching for porn.  It’s incredible the amount of traffic generated by searches for ‘senior citizen porn’.  Three of the most recent searches are for ‘senior citizen nude’, ‘Ireland granny porn’ and ‘buy kinky stuff’.  Fucking perverts.

As I said, most visitors are in the U.S. which would explain the kinky stuff, followed by the U.K.  The Irish apparently have given up on me.  Either that or they are too fucking depressed or are all out looking for jobs.

Of course another answer could be that I have trained you all well?  I usually scribble around this time of day so you are all sitting there with baited breath waiting for my latest gem of wisdom?

Somehow though, I doubt that.

Downloadophobia Part Deux

June 8th, 2011

There are times when I could cheerfully murder.

I wrote a nice cheerful piece today about Garmin and how they had an update for my SatNav.

I happily wrote about how the wankers in Garmin have never heard of Linux so I had to go into Windows.

I told you all about how fucking slow Windows is.

I gave a sunny account of how it takes around five fucking hours to download a simple update to a SatNav.

I gleefully told you how Windows Live Writer then wouldn’t work as there was an update to that too, and it took ages to download and then the fucking program wouldn’t run.

With a smile on my face, I wrote out a long sunny essay on the above topics.  It was a clever article, full of sharp wit and observations.

When I finished the article, I read it through and then published it.

Only the fucking first fucking line in the whole fucking thing was published and the rest has been fucking erased.

I fucking hate computers.

Fuck!

 

A nation once again

June 7th, 2011

I watched a wee video yesterday.

In fact I watched it several times.

I tried to find fault with it, but each time I found I couldn’t disagree with a single word.

Every single word, sentiment and punctuation mark is bang on the spot.

You agree?

With a hearty thanks to TT for pointing me in that direction.

Deadly outbreak of hysteria

June 6th, 2011

What the fuck is all this hype about E Coli?

When the outbreak first occurred, we had a frantic message from The WHO screaming about a ‘deadly’ new strain of the virus.  Now EU ministers are meeting to discuss the ‘lethal’ outbreak.

Now ‘lethal’ and ‘deadly’ to me are words that would imply that it’s a case of ‘one touch and you’re fucked’. Both words leave little to chance.  They are as uncompromising as sharing a bath with a plugged in toaster, yet they give out figures that say that 2,000 have fallen prey to the virus but only 22 have died?  Now I have every sympathy for the families of the victims, but taking a dispassionate look at the figures hardly indicates a deadly or lethal outbreak?  You catch the bug, you have a 99% chance of survival.  That sounds like pretty good odds to me?

And why are they having such difficulty finding the source?  Surely a simple interview with the 2,000 victims should throw up something, if you’ll pardon the expression?  So far they have decimated the Spanish cucumber crop and caused near riots by the Spanish farmers.  Then they left a poor restauranteur in Northern Germany in a state of bewilderment having accused him of poisoning half the world.  Then they decided it was beansprouts.  There is something beautifully ironic about that, as beansprouts must epitomise the very definition of ‘healthy eating’.

Surely the simplest way to put this story to bed for once and for all is to make sure that beansprouts are the only item on the menu at EU headquarters?

Just tell ‘em it’s part of a ‘healthy eating’ drive.

Heh!

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