h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On a completely different topic...

what do you get when someone decides to apply a bit of iconoclasm to some iconoclasts...?

http://comedy.allinfoabout.com/queen.html

(Beware cookies, and possibly popups).

B

Hi dottyfix, welcome to the atelier! Check A304354 for a comprehensive idea of what kind of place you've walked into, and then you'll find a link to an offsite place that has illustrations, backstory and even a floor plan.

Hypatia, I could have shot that busybody, if it were me. That's the same relentless mindset that caused schoolbusses to sprout stop signs and strobe lights. Anything that falsely boosts a child's sense of invulnerability is pernicious. I've even watched a teenage girl stop and re-tie a shoe, using the bottom step of the bus, simply for the power trip.

OK, this is mainly for telly watchers, but here's a discussion point. TV ads (let's include radio ads). What's the worst you've seen? I ask this having noticed a proliferation of ads on telly for male virility nostrums. The worst features a fellow with a fixed rictus of a grin.

Hi dottyfix

Hypatia, I'm wishing that old a dose of e-coli!

Those adverts don't appear on UK tv, or at least not the channels or times I watch. We do seem to be having a rash of adverts that are out doing each other for sheer cr*ppiness: Michael Winner in the eSure advert for car insurance and just about every advert for loan firms. My current favourite though is Donald Sutherland and Gary Oldman in one for Barclays Bank, they even act well in an ad

Actually, that series of ads with the grinning Bob tickle my funny bone. The ones that bug me the most are the prescription drug ads. The ones that you can't even remember what condition it is they are suppose to treat and have silly made up names. And they scare you out of ever wanting to take them with the litany of side effects they can cause.

I've noticed a prescription ad for toenail fungus, with lots of possible side-effects for the liver. The way the ad runs, you'd think toenail fungus was a bigger world health threat than SARS.

And then there are the drug ads that don't even tell you what the srug is for, they just advise you to go talk to your doctor about wheepizil or whatever. Gee, how much does it cost you to go talk to your doctor?

I guess grinning Bob annoys me because I keep wondering about the target audience (notice that companion ad at the hardware store that goes on about "wood"?). I think it's a direct descendant of those ads for Massengill feminine hygiene products that feature two twenty-something women sitting in a vast sitting room full of expensive furniture, and woman one just happens to have a box of disposable douches sitting on the side table by the Stieffel brass table lamp.

Howdy, dottyfix! It's good to see you on this thread. Hope your poetry portfolio is growing by leaps and bounds on GetWriting.

Lil. Oh, Lil! May I please have a blog waiver? I've gotten behind and don't think I can scan back those ten or more LEDs without losing the pace y'all are keeping at the moment.

B4theblogmonsterconsumesme

*pulls the pad of coupons out of her ettui, scribbles B4's name on the top one, rips it off and hands it over*

As for the best ads, I am having the SBC Communications ad soundtrack running through my head incessantly. It's a wonderful deep blues riff on electric guitar, and I have no idea what it is, but every time I hear it I stop what I'm doing. The ad's editing is pretty good, too.

Welcome Dottyfix!


Grinning Bob is somewhat funny, if frightening. Especially the episode when he jumps in to his pool and leaves teh pool sans-swimming trunks.

No, the person in question isn't the smellfungus. Although she causes nearly as much trouble. She turned in the church she attends for not meeting health department standards for their weekly covered dish dinners and fundraisers. The result was that they spent a ton of money redoing the kitchen and now have one of the few commercial kitchens in town. Ms Busybody (I need a name for her) told me that in the future I could use the church's kitchen to cook the hot dogs and then transport them to the library. When it snows purple, perhaps.

She also turned in a couple of the vendors at the Farmer's Market. That I can sort of understand since they are selling their baked goods and jams, etc. I will give her the benefit of the doubt as to her intentions. I really think she wants to keep the residents of our fine city healthy. And avoid lawsuits and the resultant bad publicity.

The health department regulations are somewhat over the top if you ask me. I did ask if it was ok for me to bring my lunch without geting a permit. And in all seriousness, the inspector told me that I could, but I couldn't share any of it with anyone.

Wow the worst adverts we get in the Uk are for thrush treatment or 'feminine sanitary products' and maybe one brand of Haemorrhoid cream!

I suspect it's a side effect of the NHS that there are no adverts for prescription drugs. You pretty much get what the doctor prescribes.

The loan ones really annoy me. The interest rates are astronomical, but I guess that's how they make their money.

Grinning Bob's grinning wife is what kills it for me. Obviously written by a man.

I hate the Avlimil ads. I have a question. If 70 - 80% of women are said to have low libido after they hit 35-40, then how is that abnormal? That high of a figure indicates to me that it is perfectly normal. Shouldn't they be selling a pill to suppress the abnormally high libidos of the other 20 - 30%?

Good point Hypatia.

And you notice how the content of the avlimil ads are full of billing and cooing and sunsets on the beach? Imagine if they created an ad for avlimil along the lines of the one with grinning Bob! There would probably be a fundie backlash.

Hypatia, It has always been so.

I have a book at home that details the history of the vibrator; it was basically invented by Victorian doctors, who were bored of administering the ‘cure’ for frigid and hysteric women by hand.

According to records something like 75% of women were ’abnormal’ as their husbands attentions were not sufficient for them!

I think the fine citizens of your fair town, Hypatia, should tar-and-feather Ms. Busybody and run her out of the community. Wait. She might report the feathers as being unsanitary to the local health inspector.

Those female libido pill ads bother me too for the reason the women in them explain why they're too tired to have sex: they have a job, they're taking care of the children, they're cooking and cleaning the house, they're involved in this or that activity. I say, where's the damn husband? Why isn't he helping out around the house and taking care of some of that work so the two of you can get a little nookie at the end of the day?

Those ladies don't need a libido pill. They need to book a Passion Party:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/04/magazine/04PASSION.html

Just visited my bookie.

Note for Ti:
Check the "Greetings B4..." thread.

'Nuff said. For now, anyway.

B4ishowmyverbosesideagain

I went to one of those parties last autumn, and I'm not telling any of you what I bought...

Great names in e-mail spammers from today's inbox:

Raciness J. Apprending
Glorifying R. Acetone (my favorite!)
Symphony R. Spacewalked

[p] The course is almost over, we could have finished it today but that would mean I'd have had to go to work tommorrow (guilty concience and all that )

There's been a pall of smoke over the valley since before dawn, thanks to a forest fire or two just across the state line, in Arizon.
http://www.osei.noaa.gov/Events/Fires/US_Southwest/2004/FSMHSusSW189_N5.jpg