Multinational Corporation Olympic Endorsements
Is Visa an official sponsor of more than one country's Olympic team? If so, I think they ought to disclose this in their commercials. I want to know if my bar tabs are going to support the French pole vaulting team. If they are, I'm paying in cash, goddammit.
Cell Phone Language
When you go over your allotted cell phone time, and you have to pay extra fees, cell phone companies call these "overage charges". They abbreviate this phrase in the commercials as "overages".
Why is it that when you put on a suit and go to work, you immediately start talking like a Marxist cartoonist's wet dream? Can't these corporate assholes talk like actual human beings?
Olympic Wedgies
Female Olympic beach volleyball players aren't very self-conscious. They have no qualms about pulling their bikinis out of their asses on international television.
Excuse Me, Mr. Highdiver, Can You Direct Me to the Grouting Supplies?
Home Depot ran an interesting commercial. They declared that they have the largest number of US Olympic "hopefuls" of any American corporation. That's actually kind of a cool claim, but it's a little odd. Are they implying that there's some kind of correlation between the heart of a champion and their ability to help me fix cracks in my toilet?
Wouldn't it be more honest to say:
"We have about 10,000 entry-level, shit-paying jobs, so of course it's more likely to find an 18-year old working for us than at the local investment bank. It's a goddamn numbers game, and if our market research department didn't stumble upon this one, we probably would have been bragging to you about the number of black, female customer service reps between the ages of 31 and 45. Just buy our goddamn hardware, for Christ's sake, would you, please?"
I'm tired of tenuous connections that companies try to make between themselves and every socially-acceptable cause on the planet. It's like British Petroleum claiming that burning their oil is good for the environment, or whatever nonsense their latest batch of image ads are trying to convey.
Here's a novel concept. Why don't you just tell me what you sell, and if I like it, I'll buy the goddamn thing. If I don't like it, it's not gonna make a bit of difference whether or not I like you "personally". I deal with companies who make good stuff at good prices. Your ability to hire an ad agency who can combine pretty pictures and cheesy-ass Christian-rock-wannabe bullshit is not going to get me to dish out my hard-earned cash. In fact, the more full of shit you are, the more likely I am to pick some other company's products just to fuck with you.
Do us a favor. Quit the shit talking already.
The Olympics Are Cool
For some reason, Bravo is the main station broadcasting the table tennis matches. They must think that there are more geeks like me out there than arrogant, artsy assholes who watch their usual garbage.
Did you see those opening ceremonies? When my jaw wasn't hanging open in disbelief, I was laughing my ass off. There's nothing funnier than well-funded pretentiousness.
I admitted to another guy that I watched the female synchronized diving finals on Saturday. That was a big step for me.
