He lost it on the 18th green, when a putt he’s made a thousand times in his long career came up short, forcing a playoff that ended his hopes quickly. A few months shy of 60, Tom Watson gave a lot of us “geezers” a thrill.
Watson called himself a geezer on the Friday of the British Open, and I’m sure he meant it as irony. But sports writers and columnists and commentators had a field day with the “age” issue, particularly on television, where the default position is EXCESS.
You’d think Watson was pushed up to the 18th green in a wheelchair, and shakily attempting to maintain his balance on the green, according to the picture the announcers were painting about this “old” man. The only “old” sports analogy the ABC announcers didn’t drag up, during Watson’s march down the 18th fairway, was that George Foreman was the Heavyweight Champion of the World at age 45, a feat far greater than Watson’s would have been.
Golf is a game you’re supposed to be able to play all your life. When you start losing your distance off the tee because your body isn’t as supple and your muscles not as strong, you just use a lower-lofted iron on the fairway for your second shot. And putting has always been the great equalizer.
So what’s the big deal about a guy who’s 59 doing well in a sport you’re supposed to be able to play all your life? I guess, because nobody his age has ever done so well in a major tournament. But stand by for this to change, because they weren’t’ kidding when they said 60 is the new 40.
I get more than a little tired of all these youngsters in their 30’s thinking guys like Watson are “old”. Wisconsin native Andy North, one of the ESPN golf commentators, was born in March of 1950, so I guess the guys that work with him must figure it’s extremely unusual for someone born in 1949 like Watson, to actually be playing competitive golf. Mike Tirico is pushin’ 50.
Having attained 60 this past May, it probably irritates me more than usual to hear someone my age, like Tom Watson, referred to by the TV announcers as if he were Methuselah. I don’t “feel” sixty, at least not in the sense of my dad’s generation. I was 35 when my dad turned 60, and I know darn well my dad’s 60 was not the same as my 60.
Guys my age talk about it frequently, how we feel so much better than our dads did, at our age. We know so much more about diet and pharmaceutical chemistry these days, and its impact on aging. The only guys I don’t mind calling me an age-related name are the guys over 80 who are members at the health club I attend. They call me “young fellow”.
But I have little doubt that even though he didn’t win the British Open, the TV folks will be talking all week about how this “old man”, Tom Watson, gave everybody a thrill.
Those of us who are Tom Watson’s age will be snickering.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Anybody Got The Time?
I have a pattern of plunging into projects headlong, confident that I can master a new skill, with the ultimate end of saving a few bucks, and then crashing and burning, poorer, no smarter, and ultimately frustrated.
My wife can list the catalog of my numerous failures, but she’s too nice a person to do it.
My latest venture is to become my own watch-battery changer. I have negotiated the purchase of what I hope will be all the small tools necessary to do it, have downloaded scads of information about how to proceed, and I’m on vigil for the FedEx lady who frequents our neighborhood. I’ve secured a source for replacement batteries.
This all began a few days ago, when my bride mentioned in passing that she had about half a dozen watches she couldn’t wear, because the batteries are dead. She and I are both big fans of the watch as a fashion accessory first, and timepiece second. Her tastes run to trendy; mine run more toward flashy.
I have a Rolex Day-Date that’s got to be worth somewhere well north of ten grand. I could never bring myself to invest in such an extravagance. It was a gift from my brother. The night of my father’s Irish wake, we were sitting at the kitchen table in our parents’ house, drinking Jameson whisky, and I admired his Rolex. I had on a 29-dollar watch with a radio station logo on the face.
He said “let’s swap”, and even in the sober light of a cold February day in Wisconsin 14 years ago, he wouldn’t take his Rolex back.
A few years back, I let fly for an Omega SeaMaster James Bond watch. At a dinner party my wife dragged me to, an executive from Trek Bicycles - and obvious watch aficionado - recognized it on my wrist, and asked to try it on.
Made it worth every cent!
I haven’t gone off the deep end in this watch-battery-replacement enterprise. The Rolex and the Omega will NOT be victims of my amateur meddling. Registered dealers, only! The Rolex is a “perpetual” model, so there’s no battery anyway.
But I am fearless in tackling the job with my wife’s fancy Diesel model, her various Anne Klein watches, and my assorted other less distinguished watches. If past is prologue, in a short time I will be either a hero in her eyes - again - or a goat - again.
If you see an ad on Craigslist in August offering “like-new watch repair equipment” for sale, you’ll know how it turned out.
My wife can list the catalog of my numerous failures, but she’s too nice a person to do it.
My latest venture is to become my own watch-battery changer. I have negotiated the purchase of what I hope will be all the small tools necessary to do it, have downloaded scads of information about how to proceed, and I’m on vigil for the FedEx lady who frequents our neighborhood. I’ve secured a source for replacement batteries.
This all began a few days ago, when my bride mentioned in passing that she had about half a dozen watches she couldn’t wear, because the batteries are dead. She and I are both big fans of the watch as a fashion accessory first, and timepiece second. Her tastes run to trendy; mine run more toward flashy.
I have a Rolex Day-Date that’s got to be worth somewhere well north of ten grand. I could never bring myself to invest in such an extravagance. It was a gift from my brother. The night of my father’s Irish wake, we were sitting at the kitchen table in our parents’ house, drinking Jameson whisky, and I admired his Rolex. I had on a 29-dollar watch with a radio station logo on the face.
He said “let’s swap”, and even in the sober light of a cold February day in Wisconsin 14 years ago, he wouldn’t take his Rolex back.
A few years back, I let fly for an Omega SeaMaster James Bond watch. At a dinner party my wife dragged me to, an executive from Trek Bicycles - and obvious watch aficionado - recognized it on my wrist, and asked to try it on.
Made it worth every cent!
I haven’t gone off the deep end in this watch-battery-replacement enterprise. The Rolex and the Omega will NOT be victims of my amateur meddling. Registered dealers, only! The Rolex is a “perpetual” model, so there’s no battery anyway.
But I am fearless in tackling the job with my wife’s fancy Diesel model, her various Anne Klein watches, and my assorted other less distinguished watches. If past is prologue, in a short time I will be either a hero in her eyes - again - or a goat - again.
If you see an ad on Craigslist in August offering “like-new watch repair equipment” for sale, you’ll know how it turned out.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Rick Wagoner: Fail
By any definition, Rick Wagoner’s tenure at the helm of General Motors was a failure. On his watch, Toyota surpassed GM as the world’s biggest auto manufacturer. GM failed and went into bankruptcy, after absorbing 50 billion bailout dollars from the taxpayers, via President Bush and President Obama.
GM stock, once a part of every institutional portfolio and one of the bluest of the blue-chip stocks, went from about 70 dollars a share when he took over as CEO, to under 3 dollars a share when he was forced out a few months ago.
So, what do you get for retirement benefits after you’ve so thoroughly run a company into the ground? A lifetime salary that anybody could live on…74 grand a year…and on top of that, over 8 million dollars in cash over the next five years. Not to mention a 2.6 million dollar life insurance policy. Oh yes, and a juicy liability policy, as well.
But, as rich as that farewell package is, Wagoner would have been far better off under the terms of his previous employment contract, before the bailout. That deal would have given him 23 million dollars, PLUS his “lifetime salary” of 74 grand a year.
Now, you and I own about 61% of the new post-bankruptcy company, called “General Motors Company”. Four fewer GM brands; fewer factories and assembly plants; far fewer dealers; and hope that the company will survive - to say nothing about “thrive”.
At least they’ll still make Cadillac, Corvette, and that sexy new Camaro. The new electric car, the Volt? Ah, let’s talk about something else. We’re still workin’ on that.
As Richard M. Nixon used to say, “let me make one thing perfectly clear”. I am NOT in favor of having congress, the President, or some car-czar micro-managing the new GM. But since we own well over half the company, I’m glad somebody representing our interests is helping paint the broad strokes for the new company’s future.
There’s an old story that talks about how the Japanese and American car-makers had a rowing contest. The Japanese team had eight oarsmen and one steerer. The American team had eight steerers and one oarsman. After the American carmakers lost the first race by two miles, they reorganized the team into one chief steerer, three executive steerers, four assistant steerers, and one oarsman.
Let’s hope that Fritz Henderson, the new CEO at GM, does NOT follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, and knows that it takes more than a lot of highly-paid executives to build and sell good cars.
GM stock, once a part of every institutional portfolio and one of the bluest of the blue-chip stocks, went from about 70 dollars a share when he took over as CEO, to under 3 dollars a share when he was forced out a few months ago.
So, what do you get for retirement benefits after you’ve so thoroughly run a company into the ground? A lifetime salary that anybody could live on…74 grand a year…and on top of that, over 8 million dollars in cash over the next five years. Not to mention a 2.6 million dollar life insurance policy. Oh yes, and a juicy liability policy, as well.
But, as rich as that farewell package is, Wagoner would have been far better off under the terms of his previous employment contract, before the bailout. That deal would have given him 23 million dollars, PLUS his “lifetime salary” of 74 grand a year.
Now, you and I own about 61% of the new post-bankruptcy company, called “General Motors Company”. Four fewer GM brands; fewer factories and assembly plants; far fewer dealers; and hope that the company will survive - to say nothing about “thrive”.
At least they’ll still make Cadillac, Corvette, and that sexy new Camaro. The new electric car, the Volt? Ah, let’s talk about something else. We’re still workin’ on that.
As Richard M. Nixon used to say, “let me make one thing perfectly clear”. I am NOT in favor of having congress, the President, or some car-czar micro-managing the new GM. But since we own well over half the company, I’m glad somebody representing our interests is helping paint the broad strokes for the new company’s future.
There’s an old story that talks about how the Japanese and American car-makers had a rowing contest. The Japanese team had eight oarsmen and one steerer. The American team had eight steerers and one oarsman. After the American carmakers lost the first race by two miles, they reorganized the team into one chief steerer, three executive steerers, four assistant steerers, and one oarsman.
Let’s hope that Fritz Henderson, the new CEO at GM, does NOT follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, and knows that it takes more than a lot of highly-paid executives to build and sell good cars.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Wisconsin Is Divided Into Three Parts
Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, said Julius Ceasar, and anybody who’s studied Latin can tell you that phrase means “All Gaul is divided into three parts”. It’s a familiar early Latin lesson including a bit of history concerning France (Gaul).
Many of my friends who’ve only lived in southern Wisconsin are amused when I say Wisconsin is divided into three parts. Roughly speaking, by my estimation, the dividing lines are Highway 21 and Highway 29. Madison and Milwaukee are south of Highway 21; between Highway 21 and Highway 29 lie the Fox Cities (Green Bay south to Oshkosh) and Eau Claire - LaCrosse is right on the line; and north of Highway 29 there’s the huge expanse of “northern Wisconsin”.
The folks who live south of Highway 21 are, as far as I’m concerned, the most “liberal” of all the Wisconsinites. Between Highway 21 and Highway 29 folks are quite a bit more conservative in their politics. And north of Highway 29 - well, let’s just say that it’s a different breed of cat that lives up there. Rugged individuals who take the phrase “property rights” pretty seriously and think those of us down here in Madison are one step away from being commies.
My perspective on this comes from being born and raised in the Fox Cities, and while I consider myself an independent politically, my family members who still live up there think I’m a huge lefty. I even lived for years in that lefty loony bin of southern California, for heaven’s sake!
Crivitz is a small town off Highway 141, well north of the Highway 29 dividing line. They hold the American flag to be a sacred symbol of their nation, and they don’t like people messin’ with it, especially around the 4th of July. Just before the 4th this year, a Crivitz businessman, Vito Congine Jr., started flying the flag upside-down outside his restaurant.
To most folks, flying the flag upside-down is a symbol of distress, and that’s the message Vito was trying to send to the Village Fathers in Crivitz. Vito spent 200 grand to remodel a run-down joint into a nice Italian family restaurant, and the Village Board now doesn’t want to give him a liquor license. Vito says it could mean bankruptcy, so that’s his distress, and his reason for flying the flag upside-down.
According to the Associated Press, a few hours before the annual 4th of July parade in Crivitz, four local cops went to Vito’s restaurant and removed the flag, acting under “orders” from Marinette County DA Allen Brey. The county sheriff, Jim Kanikula, admitted it’s not illegal to fly the flag upside-down, but said it was “making the locals angry“.
Village President John Deschane is 60, an Army vet who served in VietNam. He said “if he wants to protest, let him protest, but find a different way to do it”. Vito, who’s 46 and a Marine veteran who was called back to serve in Iraq in 2004, said “it’s pretty bad when I go and fight a tyrannical government, and I come home to find it right here at my front door”.
The parade went off as scheduled, and the flag was returned to Vito the next day. Now, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is more than a little bit interested in Vito’s case, and is preparing legal action against the village for violating Vito’s First Amendment rights.
Of course, the Wisconsin ACLU office is in Milwaukee, with a branch here in Madison. They’ll face a challenge in explaining to the good folks of Crivitz that the First Amendment is there to protect UNPOPULAR speech. Popular speech doesn’t need much protection, north of Highway 29 or anywhere else in the nation.
Many of my friends who’ve only lived in southern Wisconsin are amused when I say Wisconsin is divided into three parts. Roughly speaking, by my estimation, the dividing lines are Highway 21 and Highway 29. Madison and Milwaukee are south of Highway 21; between Highway 21 and Highway 29 lie the Fox Cities (Green Bay south to Oshkosh) and Eau Claire - LaCrosse is right on the line; and north of Highway 29 there’s the huge expanse of “northern Wisconsin”.
The folks who live south of Highway 21 are, as far as I’m concerned, the most “liberal” of all the Wisconsinites. Between Highway 21 and Highway 29 folks are quite a bit more conservative in their politics. And north of Highway 29 - well, let’s just say that it’s a different breed of cat that lives up there. Rugged individuals who take the phrase “property rights” pretty seriously and think those of us down here in Madison are one step away from being commies.
My perspective on this comes from being born and raised in the Fox Cities, and while I consider myself an independent politically, my family members who still live up there think I’m a huge lefty. I even lived for years in that lefty loony bin of southern California, for heaven’s sake!
Crivitz is a small town off Highway 141, well north of the Highway 29 dividing line. They hold the American flag to be a sacred symbol of their nation, and they don’t like people messin’ with it, especially around the 4th of July. Just before the 4th this year, a Crivitz businessman, Vito Congine Jr., started flying the flag upside-down outside his restaurant.
To most folks, flying the flag upside-down is a symbol of distress, and that’s the message Vito was trying to send to the Village Fathers in Crivitz. Vito spent 200 grand to remodel a run-down joint into a nice Italian family restaurant, and the Village Board now doesn’t want to give him a liquor license. Vito says it could mean bankruptcy, so that’s his distress, and his reason for flying the flag upside-down.
According to the Associated Press, a few hours before the annual 4th of July parade in Crivitz, four local cops went to Vito’s restaurant and removed the flag, acting under “orders” from Marinette County DA Allen Brey. The county sheriff, Jim Kanikula, admitted it’s not illegal to fly the flag upside-down, but said it was “making the locals angry“.
Village President John Deschane is 60, an Army vet who served in VietNam. He said “if he wants to protest, let him protest, but find a different way to do it”. Vito, who’s 46 and a Marine veteran who was called back to serve in Iraq in 2004, said “it’s pretty bad when I go and fight a tyrannical government, and I come home to find it right here at my front door”.
The parade went off as scheduled, and the flag was returned to Vito the next day. Now, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is more than a little bit interested in Vito’s case, and is preparing legal action against the village for violating Vito’s First Amendment rights.
Of course, the Wisconsin ACLU office is in Milwaukee, with a branch here in Madison. They’ll face a challenge in explaining to the good folks of Crivitz that the First Amendment is there to protect UNPOPULAR speech. Popular speech doesn’t need much protection, north of Highway 29 or anywhere else in the nation.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The Power of Viral
An old buddy of mine, Bill Geist of Madison, wrote a note on his Facebook page last week about the speed and power of information these days. It was a brief story about how a Canadian band, The Sons of Maxwell, were travelling to Nebraska for a one-week stand many months ago.
Musician Dave Carroll’s guitar, a $3500 Taylor, was severely damaged by United Airlines.
Bill’s note drew attention to a YouTube video made by Carroll, who had been so frustrated in his months of dealings with United that he gave up and wrote a song about it. United kept denying any responsibility. So Carroll composed a song about his experience, calling it “United Breaks Guitars”. The video is four and a half minutes of fun at United's expense.
The first video went up on YouTube one week ago today. By the next morning, the video had doubled the hundred-thousand views milestone. By noon Wednesday, the number of viewers had rocketed up to over half a million, and was getting ten thousand views an hour.
By the end of the day, “United Breaks Guitars” had hit 1.2 million views, and had garnered posted comments from over 8 thousand people. The next morning, it was still growing…1.4 million views. Folks on Facebook, Twitter, and the other social media websites were still sending links to the video to their friends.
The network news operations picked up on it, and organizations like USA Today and Fox News had each sent tens of thousands of their readers to the video by linking it to their sites. This morning the view-count was well over 2.7 million. In one week, nearly three million people had seen the video, and uncounted millions had heard about it or commented on it.
United Airlines quickly became aware of what Mr. Carroll had done, and late last week offered him a fairly large amount of money to “settle” his claim concerning the damaged guitar. Saturday, Carroll posted a quick response to the offer on YouTube, saying he didn’t want money from the company…only acknowledgement that they’d wrecked his guitar. He suggested they take the money they’d offered him and give it to the charity of their choice.
Carroll has promised he’ll do two more YouTube “songs” about the United adventure. He’s gotten tens of thousands of suggestions about what he should put in the songs, from people who saw the first video.
Sometimes, it’s hard to get a handle on how quickly things happen on the internet, and for the folks at United Airlines, it was a harsh lesson on how one frustrated and dissatisfied customer can pretty easily give you a huge black eye in the internet age. The total impact of the first “United Breaks Guitars” video, and the two that will follow, is nearly unimaginable.
There’s a lesson here somewhere.
Musician Dave Carroll’s guitar, a $3500 Taylor, was severely damaged by United Airlines.
Bill’s note drew attention to a YouTube video made by Carroll, who had been so frustrated in his months of dealings with United that he gave up and wrote a song about it. United kept denying any responsibility. So Carroll composed a song about his experience, calling it “United Breaks Guitars”. The video is four and a half minutes of fun at United's expense.
The first video went up on YouTube one week ago today. By the next morning, the video had doubled the hundred-thousand views milestone. By noon Wednesday, the number of viewers had rocketed up to over half a million, and was getting ten thousand views an hour.
By the end of the day, “United Breaks Guitars” had hit 1.2 million views, and had garnered posted comments from over 8 thousand people. The next morning, it was still growing…1.4 million views. Folks on Facebook, Twitter, and the other social media websites were still sending links to the video to their friends.
The network news operations picked up on it, and organizations like USA Today and Fox News had each sent tens of thousands of their readers to the video by linking it to their sites. This morning the view-count was well over 2.7 million. In one week, nearly three million people had seen the video, and uncounted millions had heard about it or commented on it.
United Airlines quickly became aware of what Mr. Carroll had done, and late last week offered him a fairly large amount of money to “settle” his claim concerning the damaged guitar. Saturday, Carroll posted a quick response to the offer on YouTube, saying he didn’t want money from the company…only acknowledgement that they’d wrecked his guitar. He suggested they take the money they’d offered him and give it to the charity of their choice.
Carroll has promised he’ll do two more YouTube “songs” about the United adventure. He’s gotten tens of thousands of suggestions about what he should put in the songs, from people who saw the first video.
Sometimes, it’s hard to get a handle on how quickly things happen on the internet, and for the folks at United Airlines, it was a harsh lesson on how one frustrated and dissatisfied customer can pretty easily give you a huge black eye in the internet age. The total impact of the first “United Breaks Guitars” video, and the two that will follow, is nearly unimaginable.
There’s a lesson here somewhere.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Stand By For Furloughs
In the interest of full disclosure, let’s get this out of the way right away: my wife is a state employee, and she’s gonna get furloughed. 13 days into the state’s new fiscal year, it’s still not at all clear to her when she has to take the furlough days, or, even if her department really is subject to the furloughs.
Resistance is futile.
I’ve read everything the Office of State Employment Relations will let me read online, and one thing is clear: the guv and his 132 fellow-travelers in the legislature intend these furloughs to cover EVERY state employee.
Even Barry Alvarez.
Although, the King of Athletics has repeatedly groused to the local sporting press that it just doesn’t make sense or fit in with his coaches’ schedules and routines. But the folks at OSER (so I don’t have to type “Office of State Employment Relations” every time) have said these furloughs are intended to affect every state employee, whether they get their money from rich old white guys in Cardinal red sport jackets, or from Uncle Sugar himself in the form of grants.
If you haven’t been paying attention, because you’re not a state employee or not married to one, since the state has been spending more money than it takes in, there’s not enough money to go around, so they’re ordering 16 furlough days over the next two years. Lots of states are doing it. 21 to be exact, and the average number of furlough days per year is just over 12, so with 8, Wisconsin’s apparently doing better than many other states. OSER and the politicians try to make that clear.
In Hawaii, state employees are being handed out 3 furlough days a month….36 this coming year…and while there’s plenty of legal maneuvering surrounding Hawaii’s furlough plan right now, at least those folks can head to the beach no matter what day or month it is. If my wife winds up on a furlough day in January, I’m pretty sure we won’t spend it on the beach.
Connecticut, Maine, and Michigan have just picked the days on the calendar for furloughs. I’m not sure how that will work with folks like ER docs and critical care nurses. “Sorry, no emergencies today - we’re on furlough”, or whatever.
Here at El Rancho Morrissey, we’ll manage my wife’s 16 furlough days in the household budget over the next two years. Sure beats the kind of “furlough” my former employer laid on me, last November! You’re fired; Happy Thanksgiving. Not even a thank-you for 30 years.
If you’re a state employee, or are married to one, I feel your pain. Too bad the transportation fund has been raided to death and there’s no more tobacco settlement money to throw into the pot. But for folks like me, who were “furloughed” from their jobs and had to take the self-employment route to continue to generate income, there are no furloughs and no paid days off.
Life’s a beach, huh?
Resistance is futile.
I’ve read everything the Office of State Employment Relations will let me read online, and one thing is clear: the guv and his 132 fellow-travelers in the legislature intend these furloughs to cover EVERY state employee.
Even Barry Alvarez.
Although, the King of Athletics has repeatedly groused to the local sporting press that it just doesn’t make sense or fit in with his coaches’ schedules and routines. But the folks at OSER (so I don’t have to type “Office of State Employment Relations” every time) have said these furloughs are intended to affect every state employee, whether they get their money from rich old white guys in Cardinal red sport jackets, or from Uncle Sugar himself in the form of grants.
If you haven’t been paying attention, because you’re not a state employee or not married to one, since the state has been spending more money than it takes in, there’s not enough money to go around, so they’re ordering 16 furlough days over the next two years. Lots of states are doing it. 21 to be exact, and the average number of furlough days per year is just over 12, so with 8, Wisconsin’s apparently doing better than many other states. OSER and the politicians try to make that clear.
In Hawaii, state employees are being handed out 3 furlough days a month….36 this coming year…and while there’s plenty of legal maneuvering surrounding Hawaii’s furlough plan right now, at least those folks can head to the beach no matter what day or month it is. If my wife winds up on a furlough day in January, I’m pretty sure we won’t spend it on the beach.
Connecticut, Maine, and Michigan have just picked the days on the calendar for furloughs. I’m not sure how that will work with folks like ER docs and critical care nurses. “Sorry, no emergencies today - we’re on furlough”, or whatever.
Here at El Rancho Morrissey, we’ll manage my wife’s 16 furlough days in the household budget over the next two years. Sure beats the kind of “furlough” my former employer laid on me, last November! You’re fired; Happy Thanksgiving. Not even a thank-you for 30 years.
If you’re a state employee, or are married to one, I feel your pain. Too bad the transportation fund has been raided to death and there’s no more tobacco settlement money to throw into the pot. But for folks like me, who were “furloughed” from their jobs and had to take the self-employment route to continue to generate income, there are no furloughs and no paid days off.
Life’s a beach, huh?
Friday, July 10, 2009
Nobody Wants Her Money Any More
Watching a baseball game the other night, my wife turned to me and said “nobody wants my money any more”. She was complaining about the onslaught of ads that follows every half-inning in a baseball telecast. Apparently all the products that they were hawking at this particular break were aimed at people far younger than us.
I hit 60 in May and she’s approaching 39 - again - toward the end of this month. We’re old farts, as far as the Madison Avenue crowd is concerned.
Apparently my wife is not interested in a product which claims it will give you much thicker and longer eyelashes, if you buy it and use it faithfully for something like three months. The spokesmodel for the ad was Brooke Shields - a “compensated endorser”. Seems to me the last thing Brooke Shields ever needed was help in the eyelash department. The list of side effects, however, was quite off-putting to me, should I ever decide to enhance my eyelashes.
My bride was also not interested in a new telephone (why do we still call them that?) which plays games with you, provides GPS in case you get lost, and allows you to update your Facebook status on-the-go. I believe, but I’m not sure, that you can still place and receive phone calls on the device. She has a Blackberry issued by her employer, which probably can do all the stuff the ad talked about, but she uses it 100% for work. No Facebook-status-updating.
Then there was an ad for beer, flavored with lime and salt. No thanks. Bam-bam-bam, three 30-second ads, back-to-back-to back. Then back to the game. Baseball’s makin’ money. Lots of ads.
Watching a baseball game is usually a shared-time activity for me, if the Brewers aren’t on, and it’s a “school night” as we still call Monday through Thursday evening. I’ll usually have the laptop fired up, reading blogs, checking the news, surfing the net, finding ideas for these little stories I write every day. The ads tend to pass without my notice.
I thought a bit about my wife’s comment that nobody wanted her money any more, and reminded her that apparently everybody wants my money, particularly the folks who make Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis, and that drug that stops you from having to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes. There’s an ad for one of them, and an ad for beer, in seemingly every half-inning break.
We’re not rich, and probably never will be, but the wolf isn‘t at the door. With both kids through college (well, just about, for our son) we’re starting again to do things like take real vacations, and buy each other nice birthday presents.
Advertisers still want our money. It’s just that we don’t buy eyelash enhancers and new cell phones. Or beer automatically flavored with lime and salt.
I hit 60 in May and she’s approaching 39 - again - toward the end of this month. We’re old farts, as far as the Madison Avenue crowd is concerned.
Apparently my wife is not interested in a product which claims it will give you much thicker and longer eyelashes, if you buy it and use it faithfully for something like three months. The spokesmodel for the ad was Brooke Shields - a “compensated endorser”. Seems to me the last thing Brooke Shields ever needed was help in the eyelash department. The list of side effects, however, was quite off-putting to me, should I ever decide to enhance my eyelashes.
My bride was also not interested in a new telephone (why do we still call them that?) which plays games with you, provides GPS in case you get lost, and allows you to update your Facebook status on-the-go. I believe, but I’m not sure, that you can still place and receive phone calls on the device. She has a Blackberry issued by her employer, which probably can do all the stuff the ad talked about, but she uses it 100% for work. No Facebook-status-updating.
Then there was an ad for beer, flavored with lime and salt. No thanks. Bam-bam-bam, three 30-second ads, back-to-back-to back. Then back to the game. Baseball’s makin’ money. Lots of ads.
Watching a baseball game is usually a shared-time activity for me, if the Brewers aren’t on, and it’s a “school night” as we still call Monday through Thursday evening. I’ll usually have the laptop fired up, reading blogs, checking the news, surfing the net, finding ideas for these little stories I write every day. The ads tend to pass without my notice.
I thought a bit about my wife’s comment that nobody wanted her money any more, and reminded her that apparently everybody wants my money, particularly the folks who make Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis, and that drug that stops you from having to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes. There’s an ad for one of them, and an ad for beer, in seemingly every half-inning break.
We’re not rich, and probably never will be, but the wolf isn‘t at the door. With both kids through college (well, just about, for our son) we’re starting again to do things like take real vacations, and buy each other nice birthday presents.
Advertisers still want our money. It’s just that we don’t buy eyelash enhancers and new cell phones. Or beer automatically flavored with lime and salt.
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