Thursday, September 23, 2010

Angry Rodents

No minimizing hints from me today.  Nothing really blog-worthy at all.  An observation though.....

Squirrels are the most pissed off, irritated little furry bastards on the planet.  I'm sure you've all heard that shrill alarm sound.  That hoarse "chip, chip, chip, chip....hwarreeeeeee,  hwareeeeee.

Yes, they're cute when they hang upside-down and pillage all the bird seed from our feeders, but mostly they're just angry.   Angry like terrorists or Lewis Black or the people in the HOA gestapo in some neighborhoods.  "Chip, chip, chip, your trash receptacle cannot be left in plain sight, those are unapproved colors on your front door, hwareeeeee, hwareeeeee.

They're angry when I leave for work and when I come home.  They're pissed when I start up my truck. They're irritated at the cat for eating her food or for just sleeping on the deck.  They bitch at the chickens, lizards, frogs and everything else that makes noise or moves.  Somehow nature invented a critter that takes crotchetiness to a whole new level.

They chew and dig their way through our garden.  I wish they'd eat those bright red, incendiary Thai peppers I'm growing instead of everything else.

Is life that bad, little guys?  Take a squirrel Xanax

Temper....temper.   Take a chill pill, fuzzy.

Monday, September 20, 2010

A Gift Certificate to a Parent's Worst Nightmare

"Dad...can we go to Toys R Us today so I can use my gift certificate?"  My daughter's birthday was this past Saturday.  It was a present for her ninth..  A "choose your own gift" present.   I knew what we were in for.  

Things had changed significantly since I was her age.  Most toy stores weren't much bigger than a gas station convenience store.  More often than not, the toy section at the local department store was where we got to choose our prize...on ultra-rare occasions.  That section was typically one side of half an aisle, the other side  typically had things like paper plates or charcoal for our barbecue.  We didn't have much choice.  That was a good thing.  Today, shopping for toys with the recipient is like stepping into a swamp full of crocodiles.  The whole idea is emerge with minimal damage.

I graduated from college as a marketing major.  I own my own business and have extensively studied the many facets of a discipline that exists solely to encourage people to buy things.  One of the more sinister sides of marketing involves the promoting of products to children.  Young children are sponges, their still-soft craniums easily penetrated by repeated brand-building messages.  They are defenseless in the shadow of marketing experts who have done everything shy of attaching a bunch of electrodes to a toddler while he or she is bounding down the aisles of a toy store.

If too much choice can paralyze adults, imagine what it can do to children.  I knew this wasn't going to be a short visit.  The whole thing was further exacerbated by the fact that there was practically nothing in the building that either I or her mom would approve of.  As far as we were concerned most of it was overpriced plastic junk that would end up unused in a few days.  Rather than fight every choice she made, I felt it would be prudent to simply allow her to choose anything she wanted, as long as the item and the batteries it required were covered by the value of the gift card.  While the unknown end result scared me, it would enable her to see, once again, that the toy typically isn't as fun as it looks.

I cast her off to choose and decided to do my own perusing to see what had become of the toy market.  Frankly, I was shocked.  So much so that I couldn't help but break out my phone to snap pictures...lots of them.  Our daughter took 1 3/4 hours to choose a $25 toy.  In that time, I confirmed my initial suspicions that there is little, if anything of any good for a child at the Toys R Us.

Below is my photo-by-photo assessment...




Above is the Hot Wheels AISLE.  I had a bunch of these as a kid and didn't realize that they now required one whole row to contain them.  To build a full collection including accessories would probably require 30 year financing.  I've been in houses that contain about 1/2 of what is here.  It isn't pretty.


 

 


Some time ago, my daughter had a Nintendo DS.  We made her trade it in for her iPod Touch.  We feel that one important lesson for kids is to learn that you can't have everything and that sometimes getting what you want requires a sacrifice.  Above is the accessory section for the Nintendo.  Cases, straps, stickers and other assorted expensive "bling".







I was astonished to discover that most of this aisle was dedicated only to Avatar figurines.  I suspect the products were created to sell the movie and not the other way around.  Either way, this is a prime example of how the movie fantasies are difficult to separate from the products.







Apparently, toy stores now have a car lot.  The only thing missing was a well dressed salesman chain smoking near the door at the ready to discuss what it would take to "get the deal done today."







Way to go!  Lets encourage our kids to drive gas guzzling Escalades.  Not only that...throw in a  thumping sound system so you can be heard from a block away.  I give points for the "Hybrid" sticker though.




Talk about absolutely milking a brand for everything its worth.  This is the "Hello Kitty" section.  I need to figure out who the parent company is so I can buy their stock. 






Apparently someone was smoking crack when they came out with this one.  Its a brush that....get this....doubles as a microphone.  Note the sale sticker.  Buy two and get one free.  I wouldn't even buy one.  Scratch that....I wouldn't take one if you gave it to me.

By this point I was beginning to be entertained by all this product insanity.  My marketing mind silently asking..."What the hell were they thinking...?"






Here's my question.  At what point do you stop giving your kids cute things like Tickle-Me-Elmo and start buying them things like this? 




Umm...OK.  I bet you can hear the wheels turning in my mind.






Let's compare:

Electronic dog - 200 Bucks
Live dog - Free
Electronic dog doesn't need food and won't crap on the carpet or chew on the chair legs.
Live dog doesn't need $20 worth of batteries every few hours.
Tough choice.






Oh yes.  The ubiquitous Bratz - which for some reason needs to be spelled incorrectly.  Nothing like teaching our kids that it is great to be an overindulged, make up crusted...brat.  Now there's one boy brat.  He's the bad boy...probably had all the girl bratz behind the dumpster already.





This kitchen has more gadgetry than my real kitchen.  I want  a place to charge the cell phone next to my sink.  Oh and columns...must have architectural columns.





Next to that kitchen were the lower grade kitchens...for mommies and daddies that don't make enough money to afford a kitchen your tyke friends would be proud of.  "But Courtney has an INDUCTION range..."





Lets play "Who can be fatter!!!!







Get started on your Goth.  Skeleton earrings and black nail polish.









I couldn't pronounce any of the ingredients.  What are the chances its Organic?




Yayyyy.  I can make shitty pizza and play video games for eleven seconds per token.




One hour in....she wandered the aisles, eyes glazed over, mumbling "Must be a good little consumer...yes, I must."




I couldn't figure out what you did with these.  It makes spots.  Well, so does my cat if we don't let her out.  But the box sure is pretty.





I have no appropriate words for this one.   It defies description.

The teeth are embossed with the four aces from a deck of playing cards.  Role models anyone?





Get your product on the baby.  Waste no time.





Artificial cheddar crackers with artificial color and flavor.  You'll look like the package if you eat enough of them.







I'm in Toys R Us.  This is in the baby section.






What?  Even Yahtzee isn't immune to being dressed up and sold as something different.






Welcome to the world of product line extensions.  The whole purpose of this is to get more shelf space and ensure that you won't buy just one Monopoly game, but three or four.  I couldn't find regular Monopoly here.  I looked for ten minutes, but I did find Dog-opoly on the lower shelf.  So much for the classics.







I'm 44 and I'm not even really sure....They look good, but I CAN'T eat them.  Give this to a 2 year old!






Yes, that's right.  1,007 pieces.  After a play or two, 945 pieces.  And yes, $109.  


I've just gotta get her through a few more years.  

Some other observations....I turned over about 100 random items, only one was made in the USA and one was made in Mexico.  The rest?  You guessed it - China.  Even the September 11th special commemorative fire engine with lights and sounds was made in China.  Probably by kids not much older than those walking around the store.  It's too much.  It shouldn't be this way. 

In the end, my daughter chose a radio controlled car.  I suppose it could have been worse.  It took 45 minutes to get it out of the package.  The convoluted process required tools including a Phillips screwdriver to remove the locking flanges from the styrofoam base to free the car from its silvery mounting.  The packaging weighed twice as much as the car and none of it was recyclable.  Oh well.  She's been playing with it for one day.  I'll report on when she stops.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

If I Had a Rocket Launcher...

"...I'd make somebody pay."

Some years ago I remember that line out of what seemed to be a rather silly song.  The artist's name escapes me.  I imagined a modern day common, everyday Joe vigilante with an RPG launcher perched on his shoulder looking like a stereotypical Taliban fighter except he was wearing jeans, Docksiders and a "Life is Good" t-shirt.  He'd be patrolling the neighborhood, doling out justice via jet propelled high explosives.  Yesterday, I wanted to be him.

Have you ever witnessed something that absolutely made steam burst from your ears...something that pissed you off so much you couldn't possibly wrap your mind around what sort of stupidity could have spawned it?

Yesterday, I got on my bike and took a ride down a recently discovered gravel road that cut through the woods for quite a distance behind our neighborhood.  The path was one of several built by the local utility authority in an undeveloped area in order to run water lines.   The ride began pleasantly enough.  The woods flanked me on both sides.  There were no cars, no people, no houses...just birds, rabbits and the odd snake.  Then I came upon it.

In the middle of the pristine woods sat a monumental pile of someone's household refuse.  An overstuffed sofa presided over the scene, one arm busted off, its outdated floral upholstery mildewed and frayed, exposing the waterlogged stuffing inside.  Joining it were several mangled appliances, a crushed TV, a well used broken recliner and an array of multicolored plastic, broken glass and what appeared to be someone's laundry pile.  Apparently someone had gone to the trouble of loading it, hauling it into the woods and simply dumping it, obviously figuring that their world was better off if they didn't have to look at it.  It would now be someone else's problem.  I would certainly have to look at it more than once if I decided to bike on that particular route with any regularity.

I absolutely couldn't believe that people still did this sort of thing.  I then chastised myself for being so naive.  I remembered as a kid, living in New York City's outermost borough, how nearly every semi-secluded road was often littered with old furniture, green trash bags and the rotting hulks of other large discarded items.  It was common practice to simply dump stuff when it was too inconvenient to bring it to a proper landfill.

I thought in recent years that we, as a society, were more concerned about our environment.  The days of tossing wrappers and garbage out of vehicles seemed to be something long since passed.  I guess not.

I biked on, grumbling expletives.  Not a half mile further, another pile.  This time it was construction debris.  Busted bricks, cinder blocks, old storm windows and door frames.  Worse yet, there wasn't even an attempt to toss it aside.  It sat in the middle of the path, the imprints of truck tires indicated that the road now swerved to the right...around the pile that had clearly been there for some time.  I continued...incredulous.  I was now mentally noting occasional objects that had been wantonly tossed into the woods, peeking from the undergrowth.  A lizard sunned himself on the remains of an aluminum lounge chair, I could make out the front panel of a dishwasher, a tire, an artificial ficus without its pot.  Some items looked recently abandoned while others had clearly been there for awhile.  This was not the work of one person, but many perpetrators over time.  I could feel myself squeezing the trigger on that grenade launcher.... a fiery ignition and immediate explosion incinerating pick up truck, contents, driver and any accomplices...the black sooty smoke and acrid smell of burning tires and sofa cushions filling the air.  My mental revenge exacted, I turned around and headed home...completely disgusted.

I know that in many areas here a bulk trash pickup is free.  Even if I leave things at the curb, most of it will disappear...picked up by metal salvors or folks who just need a couch...any couch.  I've brought stuff to the dump and it isn't expensive to drop it there... so why?  Why are people so damned thoughtless and stupid?

Somebody please tell me.

Excuse me.....Can I borrow that?

Monday, September 6, 2010

Excuses, excuses....

I still have too much stuff.

Today I woke up with the idea that I'd get rid of some more belongings.  In order to assist with the day's culling I tried to imagine a situation that might force me to make a quick decision about things.

What if I had to move from my home quickly due to.....a nuclear attack?  Nah..too focused on just surviving.  A job offer in another country?  Perhaps.

I ran through the hypothetical options one at a time trying to come up with best scenario that would force me to make educated decisions about what stays and what goes.  Moving to another country seemed best.  It didn't have life threatening implications and I had to seriously think about hauling my things a great distance, which I didn't ever want to do.  In that case an item's weight and bulk would influence the decision.

Even though I don't think I own an awful lot, I do own some big things.  One of my favorites is an antique grandfather clock.  We're not talking about a Howard Miller you buy at the furniture store.  We're talking Big Ben..a monumental mahogany monolith that stands nearly eight feet tall and inclusive of the weights that run it, it likely tips the scales at nearly four hundred pounds.  I believe it has enough mass to create its own gravitational field.  Shipping the thing would be logistical and expensive nightmare.  It would have to go.  Nothing to discuss.

I stood in the living room and looked up at it...towering above me.  Just then I became paralyzed.  I didn't want to sell it.  After all, what were the chances I'd find another?  Actually, quite good now that we have the internet.  But...but...I really liked it.  No, I didn't need it, but I loved the way it looked in the corner of the living room.  It had character.  I was making excuses as to why it needed to remain where it is.  What else would I put in that corner under the vaulted ceiling?  Whatever went there needed to be huge since the space was large.  I needed to envision me....in a smaller space.

And so today I went on making excuses as I perused my possessions.  I might read those books...  That chair is so comfortable....  But it's so COOL.  It was clear I wouldn't be spending any time with the digital camera or eBay today. 

Minimizing is a process.  Some days it is easy and on others I just don't want to make decisions about getting rid of things.  After paring back for some time, I'm reaching into the core of my possessions...the things that mean something to me.  It makes the process harder as the number of things I own goes down.   Early on in the process I didn't care so much about a lot of the stuff I had.  I probably had it all because I never got around to getting rid of it.   Closets and drawers were loaded with crap I didn't use.  This made the first cull very satisfying.  A lot went out the door, but now it's getting harder.  I need to overcome my own resistance to letting go...I can't let my belongings define me.

I'll steel myself and try again..