sneaky little commercial, part 2

This has nothing to do with yesterday's post, but yesterday's post got me to thinking of another pet peeve of mine...when they sneak commercial into T.V. shows!!! I have become hooked on "The Biggest Loser" this season and thoroughly enjoy watching it. Maybe I'm just sappy, but I love rooting for people to succeed. Sadly, I can honestly say I've even shed a tear or two (like when Mikey gave up his year supply of food to Aubrey...touching). In fact, the only part of the show I don't like is when they have the shameless product placement. It happens all the time, but some of them stick out in my mind:

• Ziploc - Jillian came in to talk to her team and says something like "I need to talk to you about your food for a second" and then goes on to talk about how they should store the food in Ziplocs to maintain freshness. She did a nice demonstration.
• Steamed Veggies - Bob came in and saw some members of his team eating and UH OH, they didn't have any color on their plates. "That's ok," he said, "I've got something to show you." Then he goes to the freezer, pulls out this bag and talks about how healthy yet delicious the veggies are. The team members eat it with a satisfactory "MMMMmmm." One even threw in, "My kids will love these."
• Fiber One Bars - Once again, Bob was the culprit. He came in and asked if they've been eating enough fiber in their diets and they all play dumb and say, "What, fiber, I didn't know we need fiber." Even though for the past 10 weeks, all they've heard about is fiber. Nobody's buying it. But Bob conveniently had some Fiber One Bars on hand, spoke of their goodness, and then ended with, "And the best thing is that they're delicious."

I know that they need the money, but it's so cheesy and shameless. I just think they could do better with making it look more natural.

Every time I see it, it makes me think of "The Truman Show" when the wife is peddling the hot cocoa!

sneaky little commercial

So, I was watching television a little while back (nothing new there) when a commercial came on and grabbed my attention. Those of you who customarily read my blogs know that I have an affinity for infomercials since I find them so funny, but also how I hate the overt deception which they use. Well, this commercial I saw was not an infomercial, but it had some cleverly written deceptive wording to it. I don't know if you've seen it or not, but let me know if you catch the deception before I make it clear. I don't think you'll miss it. It was a cereal commercial (I don't remember the brand, so if the commercial rings a bell to you, please let me know which it was so I can track down the video of it.) It did the typical showing of kids eating this yummy, delicious cereal and then threw out an interesting fact. It was something along the lines of "studies have shown that kids who eat [name of cereal] do [insert percentage, maybe like 20 or something]% better in school than kids who don't eat breakfast." I know I didn't have the verbatim script, but did you catch that sneakiness. If you didn't then read it again. This says nothing about the quality of their cereal versus other breakfast foods. This simply shows us the advantage of eating breakfast in general. Notice they didn't say that the study showed how kids who eat their cereal do whatever % better in school than kids who eat other cereals. They generalize it by saying they do better than kids who don't eat cereal at all. Pardon my antiquated use of the following word but DUH!!! I've been taught my whole life that breakfast is important and beneficial to kids who eat it versus kids who don't. I don't want to know if your cereal is better than no breakfast at all...I want to know if it's better than other breakfast options. Most people just listen to the nicely spun statistics and say, "Ooooh, gotta get me some of that!" without reading between the lines. Maybe I'm just picky but the commercial really annoyed me. Commercials are known for doing this.

3 out of 10 ain't bad

In baseball, 3 hits in 10 at bats is not only considered efficient, but it's also considered very good. The all-time MLB average is thought to be somewhere between .260 and .275. Getting a hit 4 out of 10 times is almost unheard of. In fact, the last baseball player to get a hit 4 out of ten at bats was Teddy Ballgame (Ted Williams) who batted .406 in the 1941 season. That means that nobody has done it in the past 57 seasons. That's simply incredible. I don't have statistics to back up my thoughts on meteorology, but I'm sure that most would agree success and efficiency in that industry is about as low as a bar can be set. The weather men and women are lucky to get it right twice a week from what I've seen. There are certainly other fields which don't require much better luck to be considered successful, but meteorology is at the bottom of my list. This got me to thinking...which professions/industries would suffer the most to have such a low standard of expectation in order to be considered successful? Sticking to the baseball "3 out of 10" model since the efficiency rate of meteorology would be difficult to quantify, I would like to hear some ideas from you. I will begin with a few candidates of my own (in no particular order):

• Surgeon - Think about it...if you needed an operation for something and found out that your surgeon performed the surgery at 30% chance of success, you wouldn't be too confident about the surgery at all. I know that some surgeries may have a poor rate, but what if this was the general rate? Do you think Hollywood stars would be so adamant about their plastic surgery if this were the rate of success?
• Lawyer - Would you hire a lawyer if you knew he/she was only successful in 3 out of 10 lawsuits?
• PCP - What if your personal care physician successfully diagnosed his/her patients at a 30% clip? Sign me up...I don't think so.
• Fast Food - What if a fast food joint only got your order right 3 out of 10 times? Ok, ok...bad example. I'd be ecstatic if they got my order correct that often. This is why I hate fast food.
• Prisons - What if a prison boasted at its ability to retain 3 in 10 prisoners? Would you move to that area?
• AIG Big Wig - What if AIG big wigs mismanaged their company into the ground? Would they deserve bonuses? What? That happened? Oh, my bad.
• Prophylactics - "Buy our brand of prophylactics, they are successful 3 in 10 times!" Don't think so.
• Judge - What if a judge only reached the correct verdict 30% of the time?

There are so many more and I have so many on my mind but didn't want to write them all and take up all the good ones. I wanted to leave a chance for you to give some input. Let me know what you think.

sometimes being nice is mean

Yesterday, I posted a blog about my weight loss and how bad I looked in the photo from my wedding shower. Check yesterday's blog if you haven't already so you can know exactly what I'm talking about. Some people, including me, came up with what I thought was a good, legitimate question based on my Jaba the Hut inspired picture...Why would Polly let me be seen in public like that? Seriously, how could someone who loves me let me look that awful? Well, I did the best thing I knew to do in this situation...something foreign to many people who want an answer...I asked Polly. Me: "Polly, looking at this picture, it begs the question: How could you let me leave my house like that?" Polly: "I didn't want to be mean and hurt your feelings or make you mad at me." This was a commendable response and showed her pure, loving motives for why she didn't comment on my gooiness in that shirt. However, I think this may have been an occasion where being nice was the mean thing to do. As I told her, I would rather have had my feelings hurt a little than having subjected myself to public humiliation and fodder for laughter. It's much like when parents think it's cute when their kids dress themselves, but they look so bad that they're bound to get picked on. A little positive criticism and advice is a good thing. (For the record, there's a girl in my church who is excellent at dressing herself and it actually is cute...I'm not looking to discourage that practice, but simply desiring to put parameters around it.) When we decide to do something nice, we should make it a point to ask ourselves if we'd actually be nicer to simply tell the truth, though it might hurt a little initially. For example, Polly and I were going out Sunday and she put on an outfit and asked my opinion on it. The outfit itself was cute, but the back of her top was quite wrinkly. I could have been "nice" and said she looked great, but the true niceness in me compelled me to inform her that the top was wrinkled. Sometimes the line between being nice and being mean becomes blurry which creates the paradox which I have set before you: "Sometimes being nice is being mean!"

i promise i won't only post about weight loss...

...but you'll have to deal with at least one more. I have some pictures which were taken a couple of years ago while at a wedding shower that our church put on for Polly and me. They are easily the worst pictures I've ever had taken of me. Yesterday, as I was going through my closet to get dressed for church, I found the shirt I had worn for those pictures. I decided to wear it and then take a picture to show the weight I've lost since that time. I've lost 24 lbs. this year, but probably closer to 30 lbs. since this picture. Warning: Do not let children or people with weak stomachs view the following picture. It can cause nausea and in extreme cases vomiting may be present. So, there you have it. I'm so glad to be losing weight. I will definitely post more blogs soon not related to my weight or running. I feel the blogging fever coming back on.

it's not a sprint, it's a marathon...literally

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I've been busy. I'll try to come up with some more random humor on a more regular basis...I promise. Anyway, onto the point of this post... I am currently training for the Cape Cod Marathon, which I will be running on October 25th. I realize that I have no chance against any Kenyans or really anyone who is in any way athletic. Instead, I am running this marathon for the following two reasons: 1. I set a goal when I ran track in high school that I would run a marathon by the age of 30. What I thought at the time was that I would probably run one when I got out of college. What I didn't know is that I was going to put on 60 lbs. in college and become completely out of shape. Now that I'm getting back into shape, it's the perfect time for me to accomplish it. I've only got 4 more years until 30 and there's a good chance that I'll be busy with a kid atleast a couple of those years. That's cuts my options way down. So this is the year. 2. I want to raise money for Speed the Light which purchases vehicles and sound equipment for missionaries around the world. I had a friend run a marathon last year to raise money for Speed the Light and decided that if he could do it, I could too. If you would like to make a pledge in support of my marathon, please contact me at bostonbrown@gmail.com. I added the "donate" tab connecting to Paypal per request of a friend. Seriously, I have no clue why I let myself get so out of shape in the first place. I've lost 21 lbs already this year and will be looking to lose another 25-30 by the marathon. Wish me well on that people.