Just as well – Ollie probably wouldn’t have taken well to it.

I finally managed to convince one of the agencies I work with that the term “independent contractor” isn’t merely a figure of speech (that and the liberal use of the term “employee” – why do I keep running into this?!), so I was looking forward to doing some work from home and mixing in healthy doses of blogging. But fate, being the filthy whore she is, pulled another steamy week out of her ass.

That window fan I’ve had going non-stop for about three months now has simply been circulating oven-like heat throughout my living room, over the exposed chassis of my computer and two surprisingly warm monitors (programming with just one monitor is a sort of punishment), and right back at my puffy, bloated face. Oh yeah, and it’s allergy season again.

Anyhow, I finally ran out of excuses tonight and took it to the streets.

Not that it’s significantly cooler, mind you. You know what they say, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. I mean, they say a lot of stuff that’s asinine, but in this case it’s true. The only reason it’s slightly cooler is because the sun’s gone down; we’re all pretty much still swimming.

But it’s kinda nice to be outside at night. Lotsa stuff happens that I probably wouldn’t ever get to experience during the day. To begin with, there’s all that night-time work that takes place so that when we wake up, parts of the city have magically changed.

That and trash collection from all the public bins. Maybe it’s the lack of surly morning people (having just lugged their reeking receptacles to the curb), but the garbage men (no offense, ladies, but I haven’t seen any females on the job), all seem to be a lot more casual and chatty. One of them happily took me through the steps of unlocking and emptying one of those newer, gray, pedestal jobs with the foot-pedal-operated flaps. I don’t care what anybody says, I find that kinda stuff fascinating. I always hope that, one day, this knowledge will be put to the test in some sort of high-stakes trivia contest.

Not everything that happens at night is that thought-provoking, though.

While passing my locally renowned strip joint (seedy hotel and reputation attached), I was accosted by a tall ruddy-faced man with a thick moustache, tiny feather-adorned hat, and protruding belly, pronouncing, “Ya! Ich bin Randolph!” I was the only one beneath the marquee with him so I thought he was addressing me, but almost immediately he turned away and gazed at the entrance to the peeler bar. And remained that way.

Huh.

Shortly after this I stopped by George’s for a bit of rotisserie chicken.

George’s is another well-known local spot (the original of a few others scattered around town). For a fair price you get enough chicken to feed a small family, their dog, and a few relatives overseas, and there’s always an entertaining crackhead or prostitute in there to distract you while you wait for your bird. Tonight it was a trio of bike cops, one of whom was especially vocal and all “buddy” this and “yeah, eh?” that.

Once the tall verbose black officer and his cadre exited, George leaned over the counter and asked, “You know who that was?”

“Nope.”

“You know that officer that had the bubbles blown at him by that girl?”

I thought for a bit – there are so many!

“You mean at the G20 protests?”

“Yeah! That’s the guy!”

“Ha! Officer Bubbles … you don’t say.”

Yes indeed, Officer Bubbles’ beat is my neighbourhood. Small town.

So that was this evening. Okay, I know … no gun fight or exploding car chase, but it’s a sight more interesting than my days have been lately. Not to say Glade didn’t have its interesting aspects, but watching sparkles fall down the screen gets a little tired after the fiftieth time. Throw in some soupy heat and you’ve practically got monotony.

Right now, the night’s where it’s at!

Share / save this post

So I’m terribly pleased to be back to be back to my regular Saturday routine, breakfast, coffee, and extracted sections of the voluminous Saturday Star: the news section, Insight, Weekend Living, and the stalwart comics. If someone were to finally remove the creator of the Family Circus blight, I’d be tempted to call it perfection.

Well, that and a few other unsightly blemishes I’ve noted inside the main news section, namely the condo ads.

Now, to be fair, I’m on record as saying that all the new development around Toronto is a good thing, and I stand by that. Even if some of the architecture is a little uninspired, the corollary benefits are great: lots of competition means lower prices, denser population means less destruction of green space, and being closer to where the action is can effectively remove the need for a car. I gave mine up two years ago and haven’t looked back – surprisingly hard to do without a rear-view mirror.

But the ads for these new condos, they’re just a bit on the weak side. Maybe it’s because I’m such an instantly critical jerkhole, but I immediately read between the lines, often without reading the lines themselves.

Take this ad for FIVE Condos, located at 5 Saint Joseph Street, not terribly far from my own groovy pad:

Aside from a hackneyed Flash website with a poorly designed menu (one of the few things I’m actually qualified to talk about), the print ad has a lot of information lurking just beneath the surface. Here’s what I read:

At least Bisha near the CBC building has some slickly done videos with some cool aerial shots of T-Dot, even though they remind me of the “improved” Mr. Plow commercial. The site also has hideous typography (check out the “Bisha is…” link — and try not to vomit), and a serious Flash programming error that causes my browser to crash:

TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.

at page2_fla::scrollbox_1/frame1()

Whoever wrote that sloppy code should be spanked mercilessly and without mirth.

The print ad ain’t a whole heck of a lot better:

In other words:

Mild edginess can turn into hardcore porn so fast.

And then there’s Chaz – nestled in between developments somewhere on Charles Street (the frickin’ website doesn’t even have a “music off” button let alone any actual information!)

Granted, whoever put the campaign together probably didn’t choose the name or the building design, but for me it has some immediate connotations.

Here’s how it’s pitched in print:

And here’s what jumps to mind:

Print isn’t really my thing so the gory details would be better left to professional designers, but had these companies had the good sense to work with someone like me (as do my current and most wise clients), simple turn-offs like cryptic Flash programming errors, contentless pages, or barfy text would’ve been avoided.

I mean, how much does a condo building go for these days … a few hundred mill.? A couple of grand thrown precipitously in my general direction would’ve produced a digital something that would make the investment seem a little less amateur-hour.

Plus, they’d get my twisted take on all the stuff they’d want to toss onto a printed page and so perhaps make some revisions.

Pretentious all-caps text on repeating, Macintosh-inspired pattern bars? That was so, like, ten years ago, and chicks with closed eyes and dishevelled hair were out of style a decade earlier. Also, please note – curate (v.): To mount, label, store, and protect museum specimens.

Blindfolded women certainly can be attention-grabbing, especially on posters wrapped around poles advertising gay nightclubs – not that there’s anything wrong with that. Unless you’re advertising a building. Ready? Or not.

And seriously … Chaz? That just sounds dirty. As in, “I totally chazzed all over that girl’s tits”. But if the name is sticking then at least the onus is on the campaign manager to try to class it up a bit, not present it as a boozer in the sky. And perhaps even pretend like temporal words have meaning: Chaz is happening! Now! Soon. Why not just say: Chaz happened tomorrow and will do yesterday as of next week in a fortnight. Duuuude.

Well, it’s almost the weekend again and I suspect more treasure will spill forth over my bacon and eggs. If they simply replaced filth like Family Circus or Cathy with this, I might cast a less critical gaze toward the rest of the paper and appreciate real humour where it belongs. At least Marmaduke is gone. At least that.

Share / save this post

To begin with, I completely missed Halloween. My hemorrhagic fever (I cut myself shaving) not only cost me my opportunity for cheap chocolate, but I didn’t even get to see my brobro’s costume. I asked my younger sis to send me a pic but that may or may not come to pass. May lady Fate smile on us.

Next came that Daylight Saving Time fiasco.

Today when I stepped out for a much-needed haircut, I was met with stark darkness:

I thought the entire point of D.S.T. was to save our daylight hours, not destroy them completely! Thanks a lot, Mr. Hudson. (shifty Kiwi, of course!)

And now, with the half-price Halloween candies still hanging around on shelves, all manner of Christmas gaudiness is blasting everyone in the face. Don’t we still have Rememberance Day? And what about U.S. Thanksgiving? I mean, it’s in the wrong month, but I say live and let eat turkey. Where’s the harm? Why you gotta get people all worked up and credit cardy?

I know, I know; it’s nothing new, but it still manages to somehow surprise me every year. This year the shock was somewhat mitigated by the general classiness that some retailers chose to adopt. For example, the Hudson’s Bay Company (no relation), chose to forgo the neon, abstract, tree-like constructs they’ve been sporting since the eighties in favour of more classic window displays:

Isn’t that nice? I figure if it’s going to be cold outside and I’m being forced to spend my non-existent money on garbage (gifts) I wouldn’t buy at any other time of the year, I don’t need to stare at the Bay’s rendition of a profitable holiday season. I believe they’re on my wavelength because not a thing in these displays is for sale; just for gawkin’:

The couplets that accompany the windows talk mostly about some fat guy with a remote shop where he forces slave labourers to produce “gifts” for his own self-aggrandizement; not my idea of yuletide joy. Guess that’s a corporate Christmas for ya!

Despite the dictatorial overtones, however, I’m glad that the Bay is trying to take Christmas back to something a bit more soulful. Earlier this year they re-opened up The Room on the third floor of the store to sell couture women’s clothing, once again in a style that’s reminiscent of something a bit grander:

People questioned the logic behind this move in the middle of the current financial storm, but I think it has more to do with looking forward, giving hope, and at least getting people to stand in front of the windows. Hopefully, when they have some cash, they’ll come and spend it here. With my own current financial micro-climate, I’m glad that the penny-pinching miser appears to be gaining some traction with retailers. I’ll remember them when I make my millions.

Tomorrow I’m taking a trip to the east end to meet with my RRSP guy; I get to find out how much my only investment’s tanked. I probably won’t be doing any shopping at the Bay any time soon, but at least I get to stare at the windows. From the cold, dark street. *shiver*

Share / save this post

I wouldn’t have even mentioned it because the whole thing barely warranted it. What, like thirty to forty people complained? TCL gets that many visitors in a month, easy!

However, on my standard route this afternoon I found another one of their ads:

I read it. Then again. Then one more time.

I still don’t get it.

I mean, I like to think I’m kinda hip when it comes to this social media stuff. I may never have become a Facebook addict because I found it to be a cheap high, I never did have much use for MySpace because I already have my space, and while YouTube has been an endless source of painful (in so many ways!) hilarity, I can only digest it in twenty minutes sittings. But I digest (YES!! FINALLY GOT TO USE IT!!). I do it to stay with it. Like I said, hip. *thumbs up*

So this Coors ad … what the heck is it supposed to mean? Is it a reference to an online chat room where someone pokes you to get your attention? With a beer? I’m just not stoned enough to appreciate that, I guess.

My next thought was troubling; did someone just imply inserting a cold beer into my anus?! And what about the option for ladies?! — Hopefully that was not the message.

Could it be that someone has just physically poked you, with a beer? Does that make the beer more appealing in some way? Maybe has it touched a variety of sweaty spots during the poke and is now ringed with savoury body salts? Not with my beer, thank you kindly.

It just seems like the Coors people are having some trouble getting their message across. Look here:

So what’s so bad about this? On the surface, nothing. You have a beer that’s so cold that it’s been frozen to the bus shelter. The whole thing has, in fact, become a giant ice box. The image of a super-cooled beverage was probably intended to convey how you’d just turn to a chunk of solid ice the moment that baby hit your lips – it’s that cold.

The first problem is that it’s a lie. A visual lie, I mean. You walk into that shelter on a sweltering day and it’s not a bit cooler than it is outside. In situations like that, the “ice” becomes “condensation” from the heat, trapping the sheltered travellers in a sweltering sauna! Or at least it seems that way.

The second problem is that it’s it’s such an extreme image, all I can think of is the pain of anything ice cold hitting the back of my throat on a hot day. Some people get brain freeze, I get this; either way, I don’t want anything that cold to drink. A voice box that can be shattered with the tap of a hammer is not refreshing to me, I don’t care how many calories it has.

Finally, you got the snow on top. That’s Toronto for a good chunk of the year; summer is when most people try to forget about it.

The message was supposed to be Coors: cold and refreshing, but to me it came across as Coors: deceptive, painful, and upsetting.

I don’t even have anything against Coors. Not a beer I care for but I’d give it a hand if it fell in the street. You know, live and let live sorta thing. Besides, other beer companies have subscribed to strange advertising ideas too. Take this Stella Artois ad, for example:

The weird square in the middle is an UpCode tag. What you’re supposed to do is to download the UpCode application to your mobile phone. When you run it, it uses your webcam (at a very low resolution) to scan the code in, like the UPC scanner at supermarkets, and it opens up the web page it reads in. An automatic, no-type web address, if you will.

If you’re bored, you can read the UpCode from the photo above (the large size works better) on your own phone; just tilt it a bit to flatten the square in your display.

Anyhow, the whole thing seems like a long diversion, doesn’t it? And what does it link to?

Hopefully they’ve fixed it by the time you’re reading this, but you’d think they’d get their act together considering the poster is, like, out there.

They could’ve used that spot in the ad for a nice-looking model doing enticing things with a beer bottle. Instead, it sports an ill-conceived brick.

I believe in the modern interweb lingo, this is called advertising FAIL. (sorry, not sure if I’m supposed to italicize that)

At least Coors got the part about Torontonians being frigid jerks right.

Share / save this post

So I decided to come home and do a bit of surfing through the local newspapers. I maintain that “surfing” is still used among webby people. As alternatives, we sometimes use “slacking” or “pr0n hounding”.

Anyway, most of it sounded absolutely dreadful. In fact, if it wasn’t for one thing that kept bugging me, I would’ve just flipped to Wipeout so as to at least try to quench my unfulfilled desire for a big red ball.

Because I’ve been whoring this site out quite a bit lately, I’ve noticed that I’ve started to become keenly aware of not only ad placement but also of content. For example, on almost all major news sites, there’s a banner above the main story and the “sweet spot” of advertising gold sitting in the site’s left armpit (your lower-right).

Please allow me to demonstrate:

Here we have a heartwarming reminder about father’s day and a rather cheap looking credit score ad at the top. Usually these ads are placed here based on context or relevance to the article. At least, that’s the idea.

When I started to take more notice of these and the content they were connected to, it highlighted how open the market for contextual advertising still is. Monkeys, infants, and hamsters could all do an equally compelling job.

In the mess above, the computer responsible for deciding which ads go where concluded that a dead guard would probably remind you of your father. The mood called for a murderific Father’s Day gift, but not at the expense of your credit rating.

Here’s another interesting combination:

At least the computer here was being pragmatic. You got old dead man, you gotta wash that old dead man stink out. And hang on to your hard-earned dough ’cause you could be next, sucker.

Pragmatic but awful!

And what about this?

The computer may be trying to herd us out into the middle of the desert for something; get us all stinking drunk, no money, just sand and heat and scorching sun. That’s really the only connection I can see between murder and showing us where we should go to get away from it: Crime-free Nevada.

In case you need further evidence:

We all know that the OLG is run by shifty robots so that doesn’t leave much place for the humans. And they’re being left to die and rot alone in the cities, not like the cramped but happy humans being transported to the Las Vegas processing facility.

Or…the computer that decided to put these ads here is just dumb. Maybe you’ll never look at web sites the same way again. Maybe if I didn’t spend so much time slacking or pr0n hounding, I’d think of something more interesting. Maybe some real content tomorrow. Maybe a big red ball.

Share / save this post

Unfortunately, they were also on an ad break, but one that made me want to stay and watch further.

It was composed of these strange little mini commercials that ran for only about ten seconds and featured relatively obscure products.

The first was for Perspirex, an industrial-strength antiperspirant,  “Available at Shoppers Drug Mart“. It features an attractively nondescript young lady in a green top out on a date with…? She reaches for a flirty lock of her hair through which to run her fingers when she spots a big ole’ pitter soaking her shirt. Smile of delight one instant, dropped jaw of disbelief the next.

Bam! Perspirex gets rid of that wetness and smell. Lady’s happy and she’s now letting the whole room get a good gander at her moisture-free underarms. Available at Shoppers Drug Mart.

Yep. If that sounded a bit awkward, imagine what the commercial was like.

Next one: “As a model, I can’t be seen with embarrassing bumps on my bikini line.” Swimsuit model at a photo shoot, at times strangely aware of the TV audience watching her. Shot of smooth crotch in frilly lingerie.

Bikini Zone Cream: Stop Bikini Area Irritation Fast

…more sundry crotch shots, all with nary an imperfection.

Like I said, these commercials are really short. There isn’t even enough time to write complete sentences to describe them.

Sudden cut to three ladies’ legs on a sidewalk, one wearing galoshes and the two flanking her in strappy heels. Seems the poor girl’s hiding her feet in them big old boots ‘cuz she has an issue with dry, cracked feet. Well, dontcha know that Flexitol Heel Balm will fix that right up!

Now our girl’s just disembarked from a city bus and she’s in heels, smiling and pointing to her attractive new foot, as we are all wont to do.

Well, now wasn’t that something?

They were clearly targeting the ladies. Every commerciallette featured women exclusively. One of the products, the bump creme, seemed particularly unsuitable for most men. I guess, also, the “bikini” part of the product seemed somewhat feminine.

Okay, so they want women to use these products; women who must have fairly extreme sweat problems, itchy crotches, and abrasive, possibly bleeding feet.

The ads are just too similar, short, and tightly cut. What should have been three ads became one perturbing ad targeting a clientele with some disturbing medical conditions. Alone, each symptom is trivial, but together…forget about dinner and lingerie modeling; get your ass to a doctor, pronto!

Or maybe I shouldn’t think that deeply into it.

Wait. Isn’t that what they did at the ad agency that created this TV spot?

Available at Shoppers Drug Mart.

—

Sponsored links:

natural skincare

Share / save this post