idiocy

“Isolated showers around the area will die a slow death overnight as lows fall to the lower 70s with patchy dense fog developing in areas that recieved rainfall. Expect more isolated showers and thunderstorms on Monday again with highs in the low 90 s. Hope for some rain it will cool temperatures off and create a nice breeze. About midweek it looks a tad drier with temperatures slipping into the upper 80s and low 90s.”

Weather forecasters can be unbelievably wordy, especially in the Deep South. (All readers who feel the need to point out the similarity between said forecasters and a certain domesticat will be taken out into the back yard and beaten senseless with compound-complex sentences. You’ve been warned.)

Live down here for any stretch of summertime, and you learn that watching the weather forecast is pointless. Whatever needs saying can be summed up in these two sentences:

It’s going to be hot.

Jeff and I have a great amount of fun carping at stupid commercials. One of our favorites to harangue is a Rogaine commercial that says, “Does she want you to use Rogaine? Better ask!”

I sometimes wonder if we were dumb consumers to begin with, or if years and years of idiotic commercials like this have—well—brainwashed us into believing that this kind of thinking is all that we’re capable of as adults. My year of doing marketing and PR work led me to believe the latter.

Design ads so that the company’s message is conveyed even if the reader only sees it for a second or two. What a self-referential surprise that is! The MTV generation has been inundated with ads practically since birth (after all, no name-brand product was ever too good for baby!), and any advertising that is going to catch their collectively jaded eyes has to be subtly different. Most companies choose to go for flashier—faster, louder, harder, more colorful.