This weekend, Dixon and I continued our search for the perfect house, with disappointing results. Again.
Last week was pretty bad. I’m especially disappointed by the house with the beam at the top of the basement steps that was guaranteed to give you a concussion, and the falling-down garage that came with “a $1,000 Lowe’s gift card,” which is hardly a gift considering it would cost us $20,000 to rebuild that damn thing.
But this week was WORSE, if you can imagine.
It’s not for a lack of trying on ours or our realtor’s part. The fact is, every house we look at…is a HOT ASS MESS.
The first place we looked at was absolutely gorgeous from the outside. Inside, however, was a totally different story. Shit everywhere. And the kitchen…well, I was waiting for the roaches to jump out and be all, “Wasssup?”
The next place was actually kind of decent, save for the broken windows on the second floor. I mean, why spend all that money on a brick garage and then allow two broken windows to let in all the cold? I don’t get it.
The third and fourth places were such a bust we didn’t even bother to climb any stairs. Sloping floors do not sell a house, so why would anyone buy it in the first place?
Naturally, every place we saw had some illegal apartment set up in the basement or attic. This is a major gripe of mine because I don’t want to be a landlord, I don’t want to separate parts of my house from my home, and I don’t want to open the place up to strangers. So if I want a house in the city, I’ll have to resign myself to the fact that we’ll have to tear some shit up – at cost.
I really hate the ghetto way that things are set up in these makeshift apartments – the stove next to the bed, etc. It’s just an eyesore, and it’s not convincing me to buy a place. In fact, it’s making the estate sale, with its pink carpeting and lack of A/C and furnace, look like the deal of the century.
That’s right, Miz J is officially on a diet. Well, actually, Miz J has been on a diet for some time now, but hey, dieting takes up a lot of time and energy, so you’re just hearing about it now.
Aaaaaaanyway, I’m on the Wii Fit every day, no matter what—even when it tells me I’m fat and asks me to give it a reason WHY—probably because I’m a glutton for punishment, too.
So, in an attempt to unload a little lot of resentment, I am going to list several instances in which I COULD NOT EAT something I LOVED. Most magazines and nutritionists will say that if you walk away you’ll forget about the craving, but THAT IS NOT THE CASE WITH ME. I hold a grudge, people, and I hold it for a long time.
LAST NIGHT:
Picture this. We’re at Cirque du Soliel, didn’t eat lunch or dinner yet, and the show is two hours long. The intoxicating scent of buttered popcorn wafts through the theater and I’m practically clawing Dixon’s eyes out to get some. Props must be given to Dixon, because he risked life and limb to keep me on track. And he did it with style and grace, even when I said (very loudly), “But I WAAAAAAAAAANT it.” It’s good to know that temper tantrums don’t work with the man I’m about to marry.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT:
There was very little low-fat cheese left for me to make my amazing veggie quesadillas. All that was left was the full-fat stuff from the Mexican produce store, which would be SURE to satisfy. Well, okay, wait, this one doesn’t count, because I totally ate some, mixed in with the no-fun kind.
SUNDAY BEFORE LAST:
At breakfast with my Mom, I was ready to DIG INTO some biscuits and gravy. But I resisted the urge somehow (a few tears were shed), and managed to order scrambled eggs through clenched teeth. Bonus: sausage is okay to eat, so I ordered some and ended up kinda happy about sticking to my guns.
Dieting this way has really opened my eyes to how much garbage we really eat in this country. Everything I thought was a good choice was NOT, and even though I’m pretty active, the pounds packed on anyway because of those choices. So now I’m learning all over again, in a way, and it’s HARD. RRRR
Now that Dixon and I are engaged, we’ve decided to begin house hunting, too, because planning a wedding isn’t AT ALL stressful, right?
Anyway, over the past few weeks, we’ve noticed some things about the whole process that make us shake our heads in disgust/disbelief, and we’ll chronicle them for you here, starting with TERRIBLE REALTOR LISTINGS.
You may or may not be familiar with listings, the way on-the-market homes are advertised to prospective buyers. Basically, realtors put their available properties on the web with some basic info like measurements, # of rooms, type of heating/cooling/plumbing, and any added perks, like a pool or a fireplace—plus some photos to generate interest.
Most listings are fairly accurate, but sometimes the sin of omission is clearly being committed…and other times, realtors don’t realize just how painfully honest they’re being when they snap the photos. Check it out.
Is this the back or front of the house? Is that a driveway or a patio? Why is the main photo, meant to persuade me to buy this house, making me ask all these obvious questions?
It’s all “meh” until you get to the Property Information section: “Agent related to seller.” Well, isn’t that just GREAT? Now I KNOW I’ll get a fair deal.
Things look and sound idyllic for the prospective buyer of this shiny little gem until they look to the right. Hmm, why is the neighbor’s house all boarded up? Well, a look at the crime listings for the area might explain the sudden abandonment. November in particular was a busy month for this ‘hood (and I do mean “‘hood”).
So now I realize why exactly it takes so damn long to buy a house—it’s not the paperwork or the approval process; it’s the LOOKING. UGH.
Why’s it called a “wake?” What does that phrase MEAN? I’ve done some digging on mentalfloss.com to find answers to questions you didn’t even know you were asking.
Wakes
Okay, so back in the day, there was no way to be certain that someone in a coma was actually dead (except maybe the smell, which came later). So family members of the person in question would hover around for a day or two to see if their loved one would “wake,” hence the name. It was either that, or run the risk of burying that person alive, something that was done often enough to attach bells above ground to buried caskets…just in case. BRRR
RSVP
Apparently, the phrase is French, so instead of “Respond to Sender Via Post,” it is actually “repondez s’il vous plait,” or “please respond.” You know, instead of just letting the invite sit there with no response and then showing up unexpected like SOME people we know.
Scotch v. Bourbon
Bourbon is the sweeter stuff that comes from Kentucky and is spelled “whiskey.” But, if it’s smoky or briny, comes from Scotland, and is spelled “whisky,” it’s scotch. My advice? Just ask for whiskey. Either way you’re gonna feel like a truck hit you.
Crayola
The name Crayola means “oily chalk.” It’s from the French words “craie”, or “chalk,” and “ola,” an abbreviation for “oleaginous,” or “oily.” Naturally, “Crayola” is way more marketable than “oily chalk,” however accurate the description may be.
The best advertising in the world can’t help a bad product. That’s why agencies must make more than just ads. They have to work with their client to bring innovative, useful products to market. They have to be the one to say, “You know, if you just re-trained your customer service department, your sales would go through the roof,” or “Maybe cigars for pets isn’t your strongest idea. Can we help you brainstorm some new ones?”
Unfortunately, that’s not typically the case, and the results are often disastrous.
Soda Wars: New Coke and Crystal Pepsi
The fact is you can’t tamper with a time-tested, classic product. In 1985, Coca-Cola changed its whole formula and consumers balked. They flat-out REFUSED to buy it or try it, opting instead to write millions of angry letters.
David Keough, the president of Coca-Cola, said of the whole debacle, “There is a twist to this story which will please every humanist and will probably keep Harvard professors puzzled for years. The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people.”
Pepsi experienced something similar, though not as damning, in 1992 with Crystal Pepsi.
There was a fad in the early 90s with making products clear. Don’t ask me why, I was just a kid who thought clear pop was kinda cool—that is, until I drank it. This shit tasted like cough syrup. It was NASTY, and my mom, salty about having to pay for it in the first place, made me drink every last can. I’m pretty sure that’s how it went down in millions of households across the country, but ever since then, I’ve been a Coca-Cola gal.
The CEO of Yum! Brands said of the launch, “It was a tremendous learning experience. I still think it’s the best idea I ever had, and the worst executed. A lot of times as a leader you think, “They don’t get it; they don’t see my vision.” People were saying we should stop and address some issues along the way, and they were right. It would have been nice if I’d made sure the product tasted good. Once you have a great idea and you blow it, you don’t get a chance to resurrect it.”
Respect the Tech
Of course, the wounds from 2006’s Vista launch are still fresh on this side of the screen. For all its hype, Vista was continually being relaunched and retooled, and people migrated to Windows 7 with an unmatched quickness (including yours truly).
But Vista isn’t the only tech flop in recent memory. Do you guys remember WebTV?
The idea of surfing the web on TV was a good one; it just never really caught on. The technology was weak, even for the timeframe (mid to late 1990s), which made it hard for people to really invest in the $300 box and $100 keyboard. Most opted instead to use less complicated, but more expensive computers, and now that we have internet access on our phones and laptops, it seems pointless to have it on our TVs as well.
Be a Good Sport
The XFL was created and launched by Vince McMahon, the same guy responsible for the WWF. As such, no one could muster up much respect for the “rules-light” football league, including most sports press entities. The league folded after one season because, hey, the games were probably fixed just like the wrestling matches.
Speeding Toward Failure
In the late 1950s, Ford decided to compete a little more with GM and Chrysler with a new extension of its brand: the Edsel. Amidst tons of hype and $400 million invested in development, Ford churned out a car that didn’t fit in its mid-price range, didn’t look so hot to consumers, had serious mechanical failures and cost way too much. People were scared off by the price tag, confused by the features and grossed out by the overall design. According to Wikipedia, a popular wisecrack about the Edsel at the time was, “It looks like an Oldsmobile sucking on a lemon.” Way to be, Ford. Way to be.
It Leaves a Bad Taste
McDonald’s is no stranger to failure, either. Witness these quickly-dropped-from-the-menu flops:
McDLT
Not only did they use a young up and comer named Jason Alexander, but McDonald’s also managed to create 49573967 extra pounds of trash for the nation’s landfills with this “keep the hot side hot and the cool side cool” idea.
Arch Deluxe
Ronald’s paycheck signers decided to market this one as the burger kids would hate, and that was created especially for sophisticated adult palates. Enough can be said about sophisticated adults avoiding places like McDonald’s like the plague, so I won’t belabor the point. But honestly, let’s think about this messaging for a sec: if you show people disliking something, the message they’ll take away is gonna be, “Don’t eat it.”
McAfrica
McDonald’s created the McAfrica…at a time when the famine and subsequent starving of damn near the entire continent was splashed all over the news. According to many sources, the sandwich tasted fine, but the timing didn’t. I mean, how can you sell a sandwich that’s marketed as an homage to a country that’s starving to death?
McSpaghetti, McHotdog and McPizza
All of these have been tried at McDonald’s before, and all were met with extreme disappointment. McDonald’s isn’t gourmet. Hell, it’s not even FLAVORFUL. People just aren’t going to Mickey D’s for pasta or pizza, or even hot dogs. Local carry-out places that specialize in these items are always a better bet, and everyone knows it. They’ll hit up McD’s for the Happy Meals and the Shamrock Shakes, thankyouverymuch.
When it comes to innovation, companies have to walk a fine line, and their agencies have to walk it with them. The fact is, perception is reality—you are what you are and that’s all you can be. It doesn’t mean you can’t try new things, but they have to be things that make SENSE.
Although maybe a hot dog at McD’s wouldn’t be so bad.
This morning, I was unfortunate enough to catch a snippet of “news” show in which the anchors were discussing Obama’s progress during his first year.
Let’s make a note right here that it’s actually only been 280-something days. Obama wasn’t sworn in until January of this year.
Okay, so, having made a note of THAT inaccuracy, let’s move on to the discussion of his progress. The talking heads are big into results, so they set up a “report card” that we could follow along with. They gave him a “D” for healthcare reform, which, come on. Why isn’t anyone grading our Congressmen, who are likely taking all kinds of that sweet ass kickback cash to look the other way and veto.
Also, IT HASN’T EVEN BEEN A FULL YEAR YET.
They also bitched about how things are slow to turn around. This pissed me off the most, because it took EIGHT FULL FUCKIN’ YEARS for Dubya to tangle us up in this hopelessly knotted ball of twine. It’s going to take at least that much time (if not more) to get us out. And really, O is the man to do it, slowly but surely, with ideas and solutions that will work in the long term, not instant gratification style garbage that got us in this mess to begin with.
Look, I want to bounce back as much as everyone else. But I want us to do it right, so that we’re not dealing with a recession every 7 years. The dot com bubble, the housing bubble…this shit has to stop.
Also, we have to stop doing things the way we’ve always done them. Change takes time and patience, and we have to understand that.
Sometimes, a creative will get a dull assignment for a dull product, and he or she wants to CREATE SOMETHING SO BADLY that they go for the shock value, even if they’re just selling candy or fast food or some other run-of-the-mill item. Below are some examples of this phenomenon in action. Do you think they work or don’t work? Why? Let’s open it up to comments—leave your thoughts on each: like/dislike, works/doesn’t work, why, etc.
First up: Those long-running ads for truth, the non-profit, non-smoking advocate.
I think this works brilliantly. This is an instance where the thing that creates shock value is actually a direct consequence of smoking, so it really drives home the message. Which, of course, is DON’T FUCKING SMOKE.
Next up, a little ditty from Skittles.
This one, while funny, doesn’t really send any message. It’s just an “awareness” piece, which creatives LOVE to do. There are virtually no limits to what can be done, and clearly there are no rules. I don’t think this one really works to sell product, although it probably gets people talking. Start a conversation in your group and see if anyone remembers which candy the ad is for, exactly. Then we’ll know if it works.
