If you have 20 free minutes (but c’mon, who does, am I right?!) you might find this video interesting.  It’s called the 7 Sins of the Marketplace, or seven things people do when trying to sell you stuff.  In other words, why I hate marketing.

Even if you don’t watch the whole thing, fast forward to the segment called “the Sin of Creation.”  It centers around the fictional need for “anti-bacterial” items.  Whenever I say anything against anti-bacterial anything, people look at me like I’m filthy and stupid, so it’s nice to see this fraud in particular getting more exposure.

Somewhat related — this morning I saw a commerical that stuck with me.  It was for Shout, which is a spray-on stain remover for stains not easily removed by regular laundry detergent.  This commercial was for Shout Advanced Gel.  I immediately knew that the Shout I’m used to won’t be on the shelves any longer, just like how you can’t by normal Excedrin anymore… everything is Extra Strength.

I think this is because Shout feels like they need to change their image just for an excuse to stay in the public eye.  So they invent something that makes you feel like your stains are worse than everybody else’s, and they’re so bad you might even need to decide between five different strengths of stain remover.

“Do I need Advanced, or Advanced Ultra?”

“Well, I don’t know, what kind of stains do you have?”

“Well, hey, I have three kids — four if you count my husband, har har har — so my needs are unique.”

“Great, buy both, just in case.”

“Yeah, let’s sip latte’s while we decide.”

“This latte is giving me a headache.  But it’s so good.”

“Well, I have some Excedrin right here.”

“Is it Extra Strength?  With my active, on-the-go lifestyle, my headache needs are unique.”

“Oh, sorry, I only have Excedrin Tension Headache formula.  I guess we can go buy some Extra Strength.”

“I actually think I might pick up the Excedrin Migraine formula.”

“Oh, they have that?”

We need to reinvent General Motors and we need to do it in a very, very abbreviated time period so that we’re not spending our time careening from crisis to crisis.

-New GM CEO Fritz Henderson

Wiping your ass with someone else’s homework.

Katy and I are trying out some products by a company named Seventh Generation.  This came recommended by Amanda after my post about toilet paper a few weeks back.  The company makes disposable household items from recycled materials.

We bought some toilet paper, paper towels, and garbage bags — three things used daily at our house.  The toilet paper and paper towels are made from 100% recycled paper, and the garbage bags are 70% recycled.

I’m pleased to say that the toilet paper is a lot better than I expected.  It’s not Charmin Ultra Soft Precious Ass With Lotion and Shea Butter, but it’s just like Meijer brand or whatever.  But honestly, it’s your butthole.  You don’t need luxury, right?

The paper towels are thinner and more coarse than what we’re used to, but so far have worked just like paper towels are supposed to.

The garbage bags are exactly the same as the ones we have now, drawstring and everything.

I didn’t buy in bulk, so the price was a lot more than what we’d pay in the store for regular brand stuff.  But if we decide to continue to use all of these products, sites like Amazon carry the stuff and a lot of the time have free shipping so I’ll post price comparisons.  A lot of times, I suspect these products are actually cheaper if you buy the right quantities, which surprised me and makes me wonder why there isn’t more of a push for them in stores.

This is my new favorite commercial.  I saw it this morning on TV and had to rewind, like, 5 times.  If nothing else, just the fact that they use the word bourgeoisie.  And I feel like a kid being entranced by the flight attendant’s “bye-bye” because I smile at the TV, wave, and say “bye-bye” back to her.

Ha!

A good ad makes me want to buy the product just because they did so well making the ad.  Like Apple, and Doritos, with that commercial where the idiot guy claims he can see the future and then throws the crystal ball into the vending machine.  Hilarious.

In other news, because I am crazy, I bought a musical keyboard.  I’m tired of pretending to play the piano, since I’m not doing anything else with my life I figured I had some time to actually learn.  Go Meat!