Bloggleby Friday's

There’s nothing I hate more than bad marketing, and there are few industries that suffer from bad marketing more than restaurants. You know the places I’m talking about – O’Charleys, Applebees, Ruby Tuesdays - anyplace that has a freaking jingle or sings and dances to songs about their entrees. Besides the stupid images of people enjoying their food so much you’d think it had catnip in it, the worst example of this marketing can be seen in the menu items.

First, they take a basic meat, like chicken or steak, and cook it. Then, they get about 5 different bottles of stuff they can put on top of it, and for each different topping they pour on it they give it a fancy new name. So chicken with hot sauce on it becomes “Buffalo Chicken Kikkers”, while that same chicken with honey barbeque sauce on it becomes “Kikkin’ Chicken Honey Smakkers”. To make it worse, they try to beef up their menu (ha-ha-ha, “beef up” their menu…get it? That’s comedy gold!) by taking these same dishes and putting them on a hamburger bun and then changing the name. So “Kikkin’ Chicken Smakkers” becomes the “Smakkers Sub Club” or the “Kikkin Smakker’s Bistro Burger”.

One thing they feel they MUST do is misspell stuff. Notice the word “kickers” and how it is misspelled on purpose with an additional letter “k” – this is supposed to make the dish hip and cool. Apparently, being an uneducated idiot with bad grammar and spelling skills is HOT (or "Hawt", as hip people spell it). Why is it that stupid people are seen as cool while smart people are seen as ugly, geeky nerds who smell like joint rub? How does poor spelling make a plate of chicken more exciting?

The worst part is waiter interaction. Every time they talk to you, it, it’s like they're speaking some kind of secret code language that you have to decipher with the menu. It’s kind of like:

“Would you like to sample our Kikkin’ Smakker’s Sampler Combo today sir? Or perhaps you’d like to try our Poppin’ Apple Chicken Slammers? Our Jammer’s Jumbo Feature today is a Slammers 14 ounce and comes with our famous Potato Grabber Wedgies and your choice of Jammer’s Breezers.”

And you’re like:

“Uhhhhhhh…what?”

Incidentally, this is why no one ever orders the specials the waiters suggest…no one can understand what they are offering! In the end, you wind up just pointing to the picture of the item you want and hoping they get it right.

Just another post proclaiming my hatred for all things stupid. CLASS DISMISSED!

Yes, I’d like your Jamaica Jammers Slammers Platter, but instead of the Kikkin Chicken could I get the Bahama Beef with the Smakkers sauce on the side? Wait…what did I just order?

I wonder why?

My morning ritual (outside of mornings when I go to the gym) has been the same for the last 9 years – the first thing I do when I wake up in the mornings is take a shower. And every morning, for the last 9 years, our cat has pawed and scratched at the bathroom door in an attempt to get me to let him in. Now, I have never once let him in the bathroom in all those 9 years…yet he continues to incessantly paw at the door each and every morning…which leads me to one of two conclusions about cats. One is that cats are extremely persistent, and the second is that cats are extremely stupid. I’ll leave it up to you to decide, but if it helps your decision-making process any I'll also mention that this is the same cat who repeatedly eats ribbons and string till he pukes.

So I read an article on the Internet that says Frito-Lay is altering the labels on their “Light” chips to include the fact that they have Olestra in them. Olestra is this fake fat substance that makes chips taste like they have fat in them without actually making you fat (Olestra is a type of fat that your body doesn’t digest, so it just passes through you, so to speak). One quote from the article says the following: “In approving the product in 1996, the Food and Drug Administration required companies to include a warning label on snack packages saying olestra may cause "abdominal cramping and loose stools."” Man, the things we won’t do to try to have our cake and eat it too! “I want great tasting chips, and I don’t care if I have to install a padded toilet seat to have them!” Are people really willing to endure scorching diarrhea just to avoid having to settle for regular diet chips? Just how bad do those regular diet chips taste? I personally can’t stand those baked potato chips…they taste like seasoned balsa wood…but they’d have to taste a lot worse than they currently do before I’d be willing to switch to a bag of Doritos that I know will cause “abdominal cramping and loose stools”.

Does anyone actually look at those car dealership ads in the paper? Why bother? You know that you aren’t going to get the advertised price, so what is the point? They know those “low, low prices” aren’t real, and you know it too…but for some reason, they act like they aren’t lying and we act like we don’t know that they are lying. I guess we’re hoping that just once we’ll call them up and hear “Why yes, we are offering it at that price…and no, we didn’t just sell our last one of those promotions to that elderly woman with the 14 kids and the aroma of vapor rub…and no, you don’t have to pay the out of state leather seat licensing fee that winds up doubling the price…and no, I am not an unscrupulous weasel who would sell his own mother for an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii.”

At Conner Kia, we're so sure you'll buy one of our new "Rad-8" family SUV's that we're offering the "Test Drive Challenge" - if you don't buy one after you test drive it, we'll give you a free bag of Olestra Corn Chips! (Disclaimer: Conner Kia restrooms are not available to the general public - only those purchasing vehicles may use our facilities)

I scream, you scream...

As an “ice cream freak”, I have spent a great deal of time considering how to best enhance my ice cream enjoyment. Here are a few guidelines I recommend following to get the most out of your ice cream:

DON’T bother eating ice cream if you are on a diet. I can’t stand these people who go to the fridge, pull out the ice cream, and then take a teaspoon and scoop out a thimble’s worth of ice cream to eat. What the heck are you doing? Dieting? What are you doing even looking at ice cream if you are on a diet? It has no nutritional value whatsoever! The only thing ice cream is good for, the only thing it’s ever done right in it’s entire life, and the one and only reason for it’s continued existence in this world is – get ready - to make you FAT. Don’t bother the ice cream unless you’re going to get at least 2 scoops. If you want to diet, go eat 2 of those nasty “Snackwells” cookies – I hear the new “Garden Vegetable & Grass Clippings” variety is a real treat! Ice cream isn’t diet food people! This is fattening, artery-clogging cholesterol-laden sugar-high-inducing ice cream, and it’s meant to be enjoyed in a BOWL, not a CUP. And don’t bother with low-fat sugar-free ice cream unless you like the taste of frozen milk. Some things in life just can’t be faked, and ice cream is one of them. There never has been, nor will there ever be, a great tasting low-fat substitute for ice cream. Stop looking for one.

DON’T put fruit in your ice cream or eat ice cream with fruit particles already in it. I think doing this is a sign of schizophrenia – do you want to eat healthy or do you want to eat something that tastes good? These folks can’t make up their minds, so they throw some dried out raspberry bits into their ice cream to feel better about things. That fruit is not making the ice cream less fattening – just less enjoyable.

DO use sprinkles! No matter what kind of ice cream you have, sprinkles will make it better! It’s like having little sugar crunchies mixed in with every bite! Just be careful not to let anyone see you using the sprinkles, because it’s perceived by the uneducated as a sissy thing to do. Nothing will ruin your tough guy image more than getting busted with a container full of sprinkles while smiling giddily and doing the white man’s version of the “Rump Shaker” as you excitedly pour them over your bowl of Fudge Nut Brownie Explosion.

DO remember the “ice cream density” rule when selecting your ice cream. This rule basically states that ice cream becomes tastier in relation to the amount of “stuff” that’s in it…so regular vanilla ice cream, which by itself sucks, becomes better and better with each scoop of cookie crumbs or candy that you throw into it. I strongly recommend against eating plain ice cream at all - if all you have in your house is vanilla or chocolate ice cream, find something that you can heat up and throw it on top of it. I truly believe that if it weren’t for apple pie and brownies vanilla ice cream wouldn’t even exist anymore.

Please note that the author does not recommend giving small children large quantities of ice cream unless they belong to someone else and will be leaving your house within the hour.

Chewable vitamins - why?

We all know that kids love candy. We also all know that one of the dangers you have to be aware of as a parent is that your kid might mistake actual medicine for candy and consume it. So will someone please explain to me why we are now going out of our way to make medicines more like candy? Listen, I have a precocious 4 year-old…I understand the difficulty in making kids take medicine that tastes like boiled sweat and formaldehyde. But come on…chewable vitamins that taste like sweet tarts? “Slammin’ Cherry Bubble Yum” cough syrup? Aren’t we sending mixed messages here? We don’t want them to mistake the medicine for candy, but we make the medicine taste like the candy…shouldn’t we make it taste terrible so they never want to come near the stuff? Why encourage them to partake by making it all taste like cotton candy?

I can just see my kid, sitting in the corner, slamming down handfuls of chewable vitamins and chasing them with shots of cherry-flavored cold medicine…then passing out for like 6 weeks…

Umm…wait a minute…

Ok, do they have this stuff at the grocery store or do I have to go to the pharmacy to get it?

Anyone know where I can score some "Gushing Grape" Nyquil? I need a fix man...

Political ads

I swear, the next time I hear a political ad on the radio or TV I'm going to burst a vein. Nothing ticks me off worse than having my day constantly interrupted by these over-the-top propaganda blurbs, especially considering how worthless every single politician is these days. Every time I turn on the radio, I hear something like this:

“Jimmy Johnson claims to be a conservative republican, but his record tells quite a different story. While you and I struggle to make ends meet, Jimmy Johnson has been drinking liquid gold in wine glasses made from melted silver dollars while smoking hundred dollar bills and driving an SUV that gets .5 miles per gallon. He’s voted 57 times to raise taxes by 89% on the elderly…voted twice to have laws against murder taken off the books…and last year he supported legislation that would make it illegal for you to breathe. He worked against Bob Wilson and his efforts to pass the “free money for you” program so that he could keep the money for himself to spend on anabolic steroids, gambling and lawyers fees. Jimmy Johnson fights for big oil, big tobacco and everything else that’s “big” while at the same time stealing money from homeless shelters to pay for his billion dollar mansion built on top of a sacred Indian graveyard in the middle of a wildlife refuge. The people of Alabama just can’t afford four more years of Jimmy Johnson. Vote for change this November…vote for Bob Wilson, County Coroner.”

I never knew the coroner had so much influence on the affairs of this state! I never pictured them playing into the political landscape...I guess they do more than just put make-up on dead people.

You politicians want to know what you can do for me? You can implement term limits. Right now that's the MOST IMPORTANT issue on the table, because until we get you windbags to stop thinking of how you can make a career out of politics, we'll never get anyone in office who actually considers, even for one nanosecond, what would really be beneficial for his constituents.

Now get your stinking, lying, overly-dramatic, insulting-to-our-intelligence, STUPID advertisements out of our face. Whatever it is you’re selling, we aren’t buying. You’re all pathetic, and every election we merely choose the lesser of two evils. So to the winners of this year’s election I say “congratulations”. You sucked less than the other guy. How proud your parents must be.

This ad paid for by the Jeremy Conner “Smash a Politician in the Mouth” foundation