If you haven’t heard Cee-Lo’s new single ‘Fuck You’, you will. To get in on this catchy-ass song and its deliciously vulgar chorus before it completely blows up, just have a listen. The preview video is simple, but stands on its own quite well. As you might expect given the name, the song is obviously NSFW – Not Safe For Work.

That’s quite a chorus.

If you’ve already heard the song, however, you know it’s also NSFW in a different way – Not Safe For Whites, at least those of us who don’t want to toss out the N-word. After much thought, I’ve hit upon a solution for the “golddigger problem”:

• Oh shit, she’s a gold lover.
  Just thought you should know, brother.

Use it when you inevitably find yourself singing this song in the car, belting it out in the shower, or serenading the mailman while flipping a magnificent double bird.

My poor television, which does nothing but what is asked of it, is often subjected to hysterical rantings about the nincompoopery that is modern advertising. The most recent ad to have me scattering flecks of spittle into the air is AT&T’s ‘Ballet’, which can currently be viewed via YouTube¹. It shows the same woman in two parallel universes, one where she’s on AT&T’s faster network and the other where she’s on a different, ever-so-slightly slower network. As she walks outside, she downloads something to her phone. When her download finishes, she puts away her phone, dropping her ballet shoes in the process.

In the AT&T universe where her download finished faster, a pair of ballet producers take notice of the woman. She joins them, auditions, and gets a part. How very fortunate that she had that AT&T phone!

On the left is the AT&T universe. On the right is a depressing world of unfulfilled promise and crushing despair.

In the non-AT&T universe, the ballet producers pass our protagonist by without noticing her, leaving her to continue her sad and unfulfilling existence. Ultimately, she watches someone else perform in the ballet and contemplates taking her own life.

Of course, the two outcomes have no real relation to AT&T or its supposedly faster network. They’re simple chance. If the producers had left their office 5 seconds later, AT&T’s network would have had the woman dropping her slippers too early, while the slow network would have led to the fulfillment of all her dreams.

Here’s a tip for the thousands of advertising executives out there among my faithful readers: if the meaning of your ad depends on a coin flip, you probably don’t have a very good ad. Also, a follow-up tip, a quick look at the numbers says that you probably don’t have a very good ad anyway.

The most galling bit is that it would be so easy to fix this dreck. Instead of a chance meeting on the street caused by dropped ballet slippers, the woman could be downloading directions to a ballet audition. The faster AT&T network would get her the directions sooner, so she could set off and get the part. The slower network could delay her enough that by the time she got to the audition, the part has gone to someone else. Everything else could remain the same, and the entire premise would no longer revolve around happenstance.

AT&T advertisers, you’re welcome to this idea free of charge. It’s all yours, because avoiding the mental drain caused by your brainlessness is worth far more than money.

Footnotes:

1. I’ve also archived the commercial in all its 720p wretchedness here.   ↩

Near the entrance of a nearby K-8, there is a display showing the fundraising efforts the school did to assist Haiti. This sign is a testament to the fine charity efforts of the school’s students, who raised over $3600 to help erect new buildings in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. The sign is also evidence of the obliviousness of every single adult who has entered the school since the sign was first hung.

“Almost there…so close…so close! Yes! YES! YES!!! WE DID IT!”¹

I do wish I also had picture from before the fundraising efforts had climaxed. Either way though, wow indeed.²

Footnotes:

1. If you really want to make this caption creepy and disgusting, add the word “kids” anywhere you like.   ↩

2. This sign was first spotted by one Ms. Steciuk, who happens to be celebrating a birthday today. Happy birthday!    ↩

On the face of it, a recent soft news piece gives an account of a maladroit marriage proposal and a lost engagement ring. After dating his girlfriend Stacey Scanlon for more than a year, Matt Cawley planned to propose to her this past Monday. His proposal was set to occur on a jetty at Bass River Beach, but things fell apart when the $9000 diamond ring he planned to give her was lost just before he proposed. Several hours of searching turned up nothing, and the dejected couple headed home empty-ring-fingered.

That’s certainly an unfortunate story. But what exactly happened? According to Cawley, he’d tied the ring to a sand dollar and left it on the beach. Shortly after, on an early morning walk, he pointed the sand dollar out to Scanlon. When she picked it up, the ring’s weight pulled the knot apart and the ring fell into the rocks, never to be seen again. Or seen at all, actually.

Scanlon said she wasn’t able to catch a glimpse of the ring, which was set with a diamond passed down from a relative of Cawley’s, before it slid down through the jetty.

So a man wishes to marry his girlfriend, but the engagement ring is sadly lost just before his proposal. In fact, the girlfriend never even sees the ring before it’s swept into the sea. Instead of a tale of tragedy, this sounds more like a clever man hoodwinking his girlfriend. To prudent spenders everywhere, this may well be worthy of applause. After all, going into debt by spending thousands of dollars on an overpriced hunk of rock is a bad way to begin a marriage. Of course, the benefits to the marriage obtained by avoiding debt are probably cancelled out if you get them by starting your new life together with a massive lie.

It’s possible there’s even more going on here. The story indicates the diamond was passed down from a relative, so there’s no paper trail on this ring. Further, upon giving up after hours of searching, Cawley’s cousin just happened to drive by in time to picked up the couple. But the most damning piece of evidence, indicating that perhaps this is a massive fraud, wherein an entire family conspires against both an unsuspecting girlfriend and an industry which seeks to indemnify against loss?

Only later did the couple find out that, unbeknownst to them, Cawley’s mother had insured the ring in full.

How convenient.