Caitlin Upton is No Dumb Blond

By now everyone has seen the clip of Caitlin Upton, Miss Teen South Carolina, answering the question about why 20% of Americans can't locate the United States on a map. It's classic and exactly the type of 15-minutes-of-fame that the Internet is all about today.

She appeared on the Today Show with Matt Laurer and Ann Curry today to talk about the clip and the contest and basically tell everyone, "Hey, I'm human. I was nervous. I rambled. I made a mistake."

The thing is, she came off very poised, extremely cute, honest and really, really good-natured. She even explained what a lunar eclipse is, probably reading from a prompter, but still, not a single flub delivering a detailed technical definition.

Most importantly...whose name is everyone saying today? Whose face is everyone seeing? Whose clip from the competition was shown last night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno? Who is everyone searching for on YouTube? And who just made the above-mentioned appearance on the Today Show?

Can you tell me the name of the girl who actually won the contest?

Caitlin Upton is no dumb blond. She will go far. Good for her!

Marketers Are Idiots - Viagra Edition

What's wrong with this picture?

Six guys - four whites, including a guy who is presumably a "biker" because he's dressed in leather and wears a red-and-white bandanna, and two blacks - meet at an abandoned roadhouse bar somewhere in the woods. They happen to have some guitars, a standup bass, a set of drums and a piano - and each one knows how to play one of these instruments. It seems only the white guys can sing. They start jamming and do a version of Elvis Presley's Viva Las Vegas...except they change the chorus to "Viva Viagra".

Pretty ludicrous idea, huh? Well, that's Pfizer's current prime time television campaign for their little blue boner pills!

Everyone I know who has seen this commercial - and it's print version which is now hitting the national magazines - thinks it is just laughable. A true "what were they thinking" response. Even my 14-year-old son thinks they are totally absurd. It's really hard to comment on it, because it is so incredibly lame - and I guess ultimately desperate. The product managers at Pfizer are trying to make Viagra a new happy party pill instead of treating it as a prescription medication to treat a medical condition. Pop a Viagra, sing a happy song, and go have some wild sex, man! Sad...very, very sad.


But just when you think it couldn't get any worse...go to the official Viagra website! Not only do you get watch the commercial, but you can play a game of educational darts! After each toss of a dart, up pops some very useful information about erectile dysfunction and how Viagra is the miracle cure. Yes, a game of online darts! I can only image a group of 50-year-olds gathering around the computer and competing with one another, and oh yes, reading aloud the statistics on limp dicks. "Hey, Bob, come on over and we'll play some Viagra darts on the computer!"

But there's more! You can also mix your own version of Viva Viagra! It actually says: Learn more about Viagra by creating your own rendition of the Viva Viagra song!"

Click on the link and..."Choose the instruments. Mix up the beats. Get into the spirit of Viva VIAGRA."

Doesn't that sound exciting? Can you imagine one sick, sad, sorry person in need of a life actually DOING this?

A new low has been reached. An incredible amount of money has been wasted. Congratulations to the idiotic Viagra marketing team at Pfizer.

Read a good critique by Allison Linn at the MSNBC blog, Ads of the Weird.

LOL Cats

I don't know a whole lot about the LOLCat phenomenon, but true to its name, I frequently burst out laughing when I see some of the goofy photos and clever captions. I know it all started with a photo of a cute cat and a caption having something to do with a "cheezburger" It seems the best site to view LOLCat photos is icanhascheezeburger.com.

I decided to jump on the bandwagon. I've had a cat allowing me to live with it and feed it for most of my life. In fact as I write this I have a large orange tabby laying against my leg and purring loudly. He even permits me to scratch his head once in a while.

I submitted a couple of photos to icanhascheezeburger, but none of my work has showed up yet. Apparently they are a small operation that pretty much started out as a blog and has grown much faster than they ever could have imagined. Good for them! I tried using the "LOLCat Creator" tool that links to their site, but it was awfully slow and never seemed to work, so I just fired up Photoshop and did it all myself. So here are a couple of examples. If they don't make you laugh, at least I hope they make you smile.





Maybe I'll upload some more later. Right now the cat is demanding some attention, and patience is a virtue he does not possess!

Moronic Commentary by Michael Kinsley

I've been reading the August 13, 2007 edition of Time magazine and just finished the Commentary on page 26 by Michael Kinsley.

What a disappointment! Kinsley is normally in sync with my views on things. At the very least he writes intelligent, insightful and thought-provoking opinions. But this one, entitled Nostra Culpa, is so flawed that I couldn't resist commenting on it. The subhead is, Pundits and politicians admitted to being wrong about Iraq. Shouldn't the American public do the same?

Are you serious?

Basically he is calling for the American public to recant or apologize for supporting the country's decision to invade Iraq. He figures if the politicians who supported the war and are now backtracking can admit they were wrong, so can the American people. Someone he doesn't see President Bush's dwindling approval rating - especially as related to his handing of the "war" - as exactly what he is demanding. We are withdrawing our support. We are recanting our acceptance.

There is another big difference that Kinsley seems to have missed. A politician, a congressman, a senator, a military general or a member of the Bush administration is a person. And a person can apologize, recant, admit wrongdoing and change his or her mind. The apology can be made to the American public. But the American public is not one person with one voice who can possess a single point of view. Does Kinsley expect a couple hundred million apologies? And to whom? How about if instead, we withdraw our support of the war by not approving of the way the administration is handling it? Oh wait, isn't that what we're going?

Kinsley also seems to want to lay a certain amount of blame for the invasion on the American public. He says we supported it at the beginning, so we're responsible for it.

But Mr. Kinsley, we were lied to by people who were supposed to know what they were doing! How may of us could independently check the "facts" we were being fed about weapons of mass destruction, ties between Iraq and terrorists and why we needed to do what the Bush administration was telling us we had to do? We trusted our leaders. Are we supposed to apologize for that?

This is a very misguided commentary from an otherwise excellent columnist. I can't imagine he thought it through very well. But I don't think the American public is the culprit in our current nightmare. I don't think we have anything to apologize for but have every right to expect those who do to quickly make amends.

Marketers Are Idiots - Nexium Edition

Another in the series of "what were they thinking?" ads...this time from AstraZeneca for their anti-acid-reflux medication Nexium. Here's the ad they ran in Time magazine:


Not a bad layout. Interesting photo with easy-to-read text on top of it. Detailed copy below in case it got your attention. Large image of a pill so you know what the ad is for. Good use of the logo - and color. They've actually done a good job of marketing their product as the "purple pill." That's even the URL of their website, www.purplepill.com.

So what's wrong with the ad? Take a closer look at the text superimposed over the photo of the dad climbing the ladder into the treehouse to join his two young sons:


It reads:

Knows they have homework.

Knows they have chores.

Doesn't Know acid reflux may be damaging his esophagus.

HUH?

In the world of advertising non sequiturs, this is one of the most outlandish I've ever seen! Maybe they wanted their readers to turn their heads to the side like a dog that just heard a strange high-pitched noise. But I somehow doubt it. In fact, the two statements that sort of make sense and go with the photo actually don't when you think about it. So that makes the whole ad - the visual - the headline text - everything - totally contrived, and stupid, and the product of marketing idiots.

What goes on in the board room at companies like AstraZeneca? Do they all become brain-dead zombies when the agency presents a concept? Or, more likely, do they take the agency's concept and then give everyone a vote on how best to turn it into meaningless drivel? That would be my guess. But the bottom line, they are marketers and they are idiots!

But do they know they are idiots? Hmmmm...could be an ad concept in there somewhere!

Marketers Are Idiots - Dove Edition

I've noticed that Readers Digest is really skewing "old" in its overall editorial content. I'm sure they've done lots of research and the people who are reading it are the aging baby boomers, so it seems they are filling their niche and doing so quite well. Still, it seems the ads are skewing even older than the boomer generation. Take a look at this one that appears in the current issue:


This falls into the "what were they thinking" category quite well. The ad features a "mature" woman who is wearing her hair in a style you would typically find on someone a whole lot younger. But because this woman defiantly refuses to age or fall into any stereotype, she confidently continues to bleach her hair fully blond and wear it long. The very hard-to-read copy says, "try telling her it's too late for full locks." (Didn't anybody tell the people at Dove that large, easy-to-read type is appreciated by people getting older?) Even the name of the product - Dove Pro-Age - feeds into the whole "refuse to get old" theme.

The thing is, the model - and the way she is photographed - looks either like a guy in drag or a woman trying to fool us into thinking she's much younger than she is by wearing a ridiculous wig. In fact, she looks a lot like Rob Schneider when he appeared as a last-minute replacement for Lindsay Lohan on a recent Tonight Show!


At the very least, if they feel they need to buy into this stupid "I refuse to age" game, the should have hired a model who doesn't look like a professional female wrestler and them fem her up with "full locks." One thing I can guarantee you, this ad was created by defiant women who dare anyone to say anything negative about anything they do, but approved by men who are as clueless as can be!

Thank you Dove for proving once again that marketers are idiots!

Why Bush Will Never Capture bin Laden

An article appeared on Digg today from democraticunderground.com. It outlines how three generations of the Bush dynasty have had intimate ties with the bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia. I knew most of the details that appear in the article already, but it's still shocking to me every time I read about it again.

It's time for America to stop being so gullible and start demanding some accountability. And it's time for Congress to start doing its job.

read more | digg story

January 20, 2009 - The End of America

OK, I know I'm totally paranoid, but I am convinced that the United States of American is going to come to an end on January 20, 2009. We won't be brought down by some terrorist group or rogue nation with a nuclear weapon. That's the date that I'm convinced George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their minions will declare martial law and refuse to give up control of the country to whomever is duly elected in the November 2008 presidential election.

This is why I find the "debates" and all the silly campaigning going on now to be such a horrible joke. There's no way Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton will be permitted to take the office of President of the United States. And there certainly aren't any Republicans seeking the office who are as evil and devious as the current administration's leaders.

There are so many tactics Bush can employ. First of all, he can claim that because we are at war - even if it's a war of his making - the office of Commander in Chief cannot be compromised by making a change. He has no allegiance to the Constitution anyway, so why should this situation be any different? Just rewrite it to make the presidential transition null and void during time of war. Why not? Executive privilege, right?

Or he can transfer power to Cheney, who can continue their evil corrupt practices for the next several years. Cheney can appoint anyone they see fit to rule, and we have fully entered our new totalitarian regime. The end of America. Now we can invade any country with impunity. We can rob anyone we wish of their natural resources. We can build nations and appoint rulers...and bring on the end of civilization. After all, Bush expects his rewards are waiting for him in heaven, right? Kind of like the 9/11 hijackers, huh?

So the experiment is going to fail. The wonderful ideas of our founding fathers will soon be discarded for a renewal of the Old World way of European kings and dictators. The saddest part of this is that we are allowing it to happen. Our Congress is not doing the checks and balances on executive power that it is sworn to do, and we are not requiring our elected officials to do what is right and proper. The judicial branch is a joke, fully controlled and falling in line with whatever the president's men tell them to do. So what do Bush and Cheney have to fear? Absolutely nothing. And the have everything to gain.

Count the days. Mark the date. Say goodbye to America. Rest in peace.