Pantomiming a bazooka

I'm starting this off lately with nothing in mind but a bunch of concepts that are happening all at once in my old noggin pan. I have some weird thought processes, a lot of multi-tasking going on up there with the breathing, the peristalsis, and this maddening array of conflicting concepts that are being juggled by a mime on a unicycle.

Someday I'm going to pantomime a bazooka and knock that guy off that unicycle.

Anyway, I like to watch shows on television. Big show watcher over here, right here, I'm talking about me, pay attention.

But, what I am coming to be loathe of is the rampancy of the personal appeal in advertising, especially in late night television. I wind up in front of a television on a somewhat inconsisent basis around 3 Am EDT, and I have to tell you there's some crazy stuff on cable that time of the morning in this day and age. Luckily, you've still got the options of terrific networks like AMC, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, and others that repeat some of their best programming in the dead of night. But, and I mean it's a big one, the downfall of all of that glorious distraction is the torturous and intelligence assaulting advertisements that you have to suffer through an hour of television.

Sometimes, in that hour I'm asking myself who the target of some of this drivel really is, because it's not me. And, I can truly say that because the bulk of the advertising that is confronting me is the direct appeal.

By 'direct appeal', I mean advertising that tries to befriend you and start asking all sorts of personal questions right up in your bleary eyed starving little face. "Do you want to make more money?" "Are you suffering from psoriasis?" "Does your urine sometimes fail to come out when you've spent an hour on the toilet?" "Have you been injured by poultry evisceration equipment?"

All of the idiot statments that are being made in advertising today are what has killed a formerly magnectic segment of American culture. It's no wonder that more people would rather DV-R, streeam, download, share, or steal their programming.

The direct appeal is easy, it's traditional, and it immediately engages you in the message. But, the chief problem with all of advertising is whether or not it's going to connect with someone who will give them a return on the expenses invested in trying to get you to hire them because you got boils from your face cream.

Having been a very avid television watcher for decades now, as well as being cursed with highly acute observational skills, I can usually tell whether or not a commercial is directed at me.  And lately, I don't find that any of it is directed towards me at all, and that's frustrating, because if I don't want to buy your crap, hire you, or vote for you, then shut up and let me watch my show.

I'm not eating that. You eat it.

Do you know what  we need on this planet? More of yesterday. Geologically speaking, and by that I mean that a stalagtitite had barely formed an inch of limestone we  had this remarkable system where people grew food, someone took the product of that growth and made something delicious from it, and then some other jackass came along and gave them a buck-fifty for something locally grown that was tasty, and everyone had a great time.  But, today Heartburn, Inc is manufacturing your food from a cow that was grown in a lab in Bumfuck, Egypt Antarctica and shipped in fetal form to a lab in Idaho and then later formed into a patty so it could be put into a pretty pink package and then you bought it and zapped it in your electron vibrator and threw it on a plate.

You tell me what sounds better?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I tend to do better when I consume something that isn't in a box with some doofus's logo on it. I like my food in a bag, or in as little packaging as possible. And, my stomach will corroborate this if you want to interview it yourself to confirm that.

Case in point, I've paid pretty close attention to when and where I've eaten and how my body has reacted to  what I've put into it and anything from Krystal's is not allowed anymore. Which is sad, because I actually enjoy consuming those slimy-tenth of a centimeter thick beef patties on thick slabs of steamy bread. But, that ecstasy lasts only for a moment, because afterward I'm cursing this manufactured food industry that we apparently embrace in this spur of the moment world we've launched ourselves into when we sat foot on the moon and planted our Ronald McDonald flag. 


Anytime that I eat those burgers, I get some violent heartburn and I doubt that I'm the only person on this misshapen ball of rocks and water that responds this way. I don't know if it's age, or  a change in their manufacturing practice, or it's something that is symptomatic of this whole industry of fast food that has laid waste to my digestive system, but I simply suffer more than I enjoy consuming fast food from that particular establishment nowadays.

I write this only as a response in recently learning that they are expanding their reach into the fast food market, as well as a sort of plea to their organization that they try to focus on making foods that I(along with all of my brothers and sisters in heartburn) can consume and enjoy free of whatever additives that they've stretched out their materials with to make it possible for them to increase their market share of the American consumer's digestive malaise. Seriously, I eat a lot of different foods. I'm pretty freaking omniviorous, and not a picky eater. So I have to ask you, Krystal, what are you doing now to your food that you weren't doing in the past couple of years that have caused me to regret ever hearing of your little tasty square grease laden burgers that are so perfect after a night of alcoholic debauchery? You must have added something, or neglected including something that has lead to this sort of reaction from one of your previously ravenous consumers. 

I don't think that it's just Krystals that is guilty of stretching out materials with fillers and chemically treated substances which likely shouldn't be consumed by human beings, but Krystals happens to be what is on my mind at this moment. Actually, it's most anything that is in a package that I have had a problem with lately, boxes specifically. Pre-prepared foods that contain a laundry-list of  hard to pronounce chemicals that have no place in a human digestive tract, yes you Budget Gourmet, Stouffers, Digorno, and you too Marie Callendar, all of you do nothing but cause me to have heartburn. After I've eaten your food, I have to go and have an antacid. So, over time I've learned that it's just not worth it to subscribe to your version of fast food in a pretty box that I can prepare in minutes in my microwave, screw you and your antacid producing parent companies too. I'll just eat this potato right here, and maybe that broccoli over there, those Brussels sprouts in the bag are okay, oh and give me that frozen chicken despite that you've eviscerated it while it still lives...I don't care it's tasty.

The long and short of it is. I'm not subscribing to this fast food bullshit anymore because I simply don't enjoy this system of propping up the chemicals that you've added to my foods that cause me to regret consuming it. I've learned through careful observations of my reactions that some of what you're putting in front of me are detrimental, you can keep that crap. You eat it, you buy the antacids. I'm not playing your game anymore when my own body has made it clear that there is something  that you're doing that isn't good for me.

So, Krystals, Marie Callendar, Mr. DiGorno, and all of you other food manufacturing bitches, I'm publicly making it known that there won't be any more of your chemically treated pre-packed non-foods consumed by this apple-pie gobbler any more.

And dammit, I don't care what kind of package you put it in, I'm not gonna eat it.

Planned obsolescence and the aging automobile

I got nothin right now. Okay, maybe as soon as I start to think about it, maybe there is something. It's my jeep and it's mystery malaise that mechanics can't seem to diagnose. I bought this car a few years back for $700 bucks. A 1987 Jeep Wagoneer Limited. Yeah, it's almost an antique if you consider an antique is anything that is 25 years old, it's coming up on it's quarter century mark with nearly 225,000 original miles on it. Someone took some decent care of it, and apparently didn't take it on any cross country excursions. I found it on Craigslist about three years ago and it has been an adventure learning about all of the idiosyncracies that go along with having an elderly car that just happens to be a Jeep. I've wrestled with getting rid of it numerous times, swearing that I'm not pumping anymore money into keeping it on the road, but for some reason, be it economy, the wont of not having a car payment, or just plain stubbornness I keep fixing little idiotic things that will prolong it's already long lifespan. So far, I've put a new starter on it, new driver's side seat belt, replaced the sway bar (that's a length of metal that keeps the body going the same direction as the wheels), new battery, new radio, new tires, as well as a lot of basic things that old-timey cars just need to get along on the road today.
  
    I guess I've always believed in keeping things, as opposed to throwing things away that aren't worth keeping. I think that comes from having parents that were born in post-Great Depression America. My folks have always been packrats, and I guess I've inherited some of that mindset to a point. While, I'm not loading up my home with a lot of things that I don't need, I still will try to fix what I've got when it breaks as opposed to going out and buying something that has a pre-programmed failure date, which most things these days have. A great many things can actually be repaired beyond their usefulness, and cars happen to be one of those things if you're willing to take the time to investigate what can be done to them to keep them running, that old Jeep is a prime example.

The truth is, I secretly love the thing, and I've like to see it restored to mint condition. Perhaps someday, it will be. But at the moment, the objective is to get it roadworthy to the point where I have enough faith in it that it's not going to kill me. And, that brings me to my current crossroads with this particular 1987 Cherokee XJ with a trim package. Back in March, I had to have the 'lateral sway bar' replaced. Remember, I just told you that keeps the body and the frame(where the wheels are attached) going in the same direction? Well, about that. You see, before I had it fixed I was confronting death most every time I was driving it and going about 35 miles an hour. If I happened to strike a bump in the road, as there are many because as a nation, we don't seem to give a crap about the roads, the thing would start shaking violently and force me to begin a braking maneuver that usually lead me toward the curbside of the road much to chagrin of fellow drivers who happened to have the misfortune of being behind me at the moment. Then, after the car slowed to a speed that was acceptable to the elderly vehicle, it would finally stop all that foolish shaking, and then obligingly decide to carry me forth to whatever destination I had chosen. Typically, nothing too far away, because I valued my continued existence and had the foreknowledge that there was something terrifically wrong with the Jeep. Well, I got that repaired, and for 7 months I was free to explore other little projects that could ultimately force my ancient chariot continued servitude. Until, finally the violent jostling and life threatening  liquefaction of wheel against road made a reappearance about three weeks previous to today, and again Friday morning of last week with a vicious vengefulness. Maybe this thing has just had enough, I don't know.

But, while I still continue to value my life and still am trapped within a limited economy where a car payment is extremely undesirable, I've pursued the possibility of prolonging it's life once again. With a return to the shop which performed the previous work related to the current problem, past invoice in hand, the mechanics are exploring the  problem, and are yet stumped to find a solution. They must be stumped since they are open to expanding their knowledge of the problem at hand based upon information I've provided. Through my own research into this issue, I've come upon a specific term, "Death Wobble". Yes, it sounds rather horrifying doesn't it? It is.

I've been in a death wobble, and it will scare the feces out of your sphincter. Not that I actually soiled myself mind you, but if I had been a lesser man, or happened to have consumed large quantities of watermelon, Mexican food,  chili, or other such repast I may not be relating this so objectively at the moment.

And all of this rambling brings me to this moment right here. It's after a night of pouring over financial transactions, listening to an audiobook of "Pagan Babies" by Elmore Leonard, and dropping by the mechanics with my Dad that I tell you this.

I'm glad that I didn't die on Friday morning behind the wheel of my old Jeep.

Because, from here on, this can play out a variety of ways. I get completely fed up with that POS and have it compressed into a coffee table-sized piece of scrap metal, the mechanics say "oh, it was this bolt here that we forgot to tighten", or they find a family of gremlins that had moved into the wheel-well, or they tell me that they haven't been able to discover what the problem is and I have to hire a Catholic priest to exorcise that demon from the film The Exorcist from the axle, or I just pick the car back up from the mechanics pay for whatever labor was expended, and go on to die at a later unknown date behind the wheel from this undiagnosed problem on my way to do something completely random.

I guess any of those things are possible. Okay, not the gremlins because that's just silly.

But, if I do die. Please, don't let some marketing executive cite my death as a reason for planned obsolescence because that will anger me greatly and I will probably go all Paranormal Activity on your ass in the afterlife.