Thursday, July 2, 2009

A Japanese Wednesday Weirdness and Advertisementism


Say no to Arby's
Originally uploaded by donovan1983s
Today's Wednesday Weirdness comes to us from Japan. (Random side-note, I really enjoy ABC's "I Survived a Japanese Game Show." I think it's fun!) Anyway, apparently a man in Japan, Hiroshi Ishiguro, created a robot that looks and moves exactly like him. He made a robo-twin! He reportedly made it "to fill in for him as professor at Osaka University." He calls the robot the Geminoid HI-1. It apparently "even has the personal idiosyncrasies of its owner. It sits and fidgets, taps its toes and can sit in a chair and gaze around the room. The shoulders rise slightly as though it were really breathing." (More about the robot here.) This all creeps me right out! I'm going to make sure to get a good close look at my professors when I go back to school this fall. Because if I get to class and discover that my professor is a robot, I'm going to be very upset. Perhaps I'll take a water bottle to each class with me and "accidentally" spill some on them. Surely the professorbots would spark and smoke like in cartoons. That'll show 'em to try and teach me with robots! Anyway... so I'd rather that the teaching profession not be outsourced to robots. Robofessors? No.

And now, about Advertisementism: I have always held a grudge against businesses that have sucky commercials. When it comes to food however, I generally don't boycott them as thoroughly as I might other companies whose services or products I would use far less often. I've decided today, (after seeing AWFUL commercials by both Del Taco and by Arctic Circle) that I'm going to officially boycott fast food chains for crappy, awful, obnoxious, and mostly for crude commercials. I must say that I still think about how much I HATE that stupid Taco Bell Chihuahua every time I go to Taco Bell. I also still get a queasy feeling about Quizno's whenever I think about those CREEPY flattened-mice commercials that they ran a few years ago. While I realize that my Advertisementism isn't going to send a big enough message to these companies to not run such disgusting or disturbing ads, I'm going to stick to these boycotts nonetheless. Ok, official boycotts by Jeff:
Boycott 1: Arby's:
Why? For a sleazy commercial they ran about 6 months ago that used a sex joke. I will not go to Arby's for another 6 months from today! (My roommate Andy and I started an unofficial boycott on them when we first saw the commercial. I haven't been there since.)
Boycott 2: Del Taco:
Why? Despite being one of the few options close to my current employer, their commercial that I just saw a while ago with a guy with like a dozen mouths all over his body creeped me RIGHT OUT! They need to be boycotted at least until they stop running that commercial.
Boycott 3: Arctic Circle:
Why? A commercial of a girl making a shake that is totally trying to suggest that her making the shake is like an exotic dancer (as there are about a dozen guys standing behind her and freaking out.) Plus, it's just an obnoxious commercial. This is an easier boycott for me, as I don't remember the last time I went to Arctic Circle, so we'll make it two years, why not?

Join me if you like, or don't. I just wish that companies today could show some sophistication and taste. I hate that even commercials are super trashy. TV is bad enough these days. I used to watch MTV and VH1 shows, now I don't even dare go to those channels. I don't mean to sound preachy (especially since I do watch some not-so-classy shows like the above-mentioned show), but they can at least make commercials that aren't disgusting. Ok, enough ranting about that.

K, see ya.

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