Magazine ads have me flipping out

I’ve been noticing a disturbing tread in my favorite magazines lately. I pick them up and get all excited that they feel a little heavier than usual. “This is great,” I think. “A double issue?” I ponder. As I flip through the magazine, it falls open to one page. A rather heavy page. No, I will not be getting any extra content this month. An ad printed on heavy-weight glossy paper is the only hidden “gem.”

Working on a publication, I can understand the importance of advertising. Papers everywhere are suffering because advertisers are using print mediums less and less. Perhaps I should be applauding companies who still contribute.

Here’s where it becomes a problem, though.  When advertising makes it harder to enjoy the intended attraction (TV, movies, magazines), then something must be done.  For TV, we know have enhanced fast forwarding techniques on Tivo and DVRs.  For movies, you can get to the show 15 minutes after the proposed start time.  In magazines, I have to rely on the power of my hand to rip these fortified pages out.

That’s right. I rip them out, and I enjoy it.  With them gone, I can fold back the pages of my magazine.  I can flip through and allow each page to catch my attention instead of having all of the pages in front of the ad fall limply into my hand.

Rest assured, the advertiser need not have made his ad in vain.  I use the torn out cardboard as a handy bookmark.  That’s advertising that won’t distract me from my magazine!

GM’s ad ‘calendar’ has me venting

Pick up a magazine lately and you’ll know what has me flipping out. No, it’s not the Gosselins. It’s the heavy duty, card-stock, glossy ads that weigh down the publication and make it hard to flip pages.

One such ad, really got me irate. It’s for the new GM Terrain SUV. While, I am glad to see GM using the bailout money to move away from monster SUVs, I wonder how much this ad set them back.

Actually, I’m not even sure you can call it an ad so much as a brochure. I would expect to see something like it in a showroom. The front is mostly white with “GMC Terrain” at the top and the phrase “We gave it more ideas per square inch, because more is what we do.” If more is what they do, then why is this page so minimalist? No picture, no easy-to-remember catch phrase. The regular reader would pass this by and not give a second thought to the interactive engineering awaiting them inside.

Open the brochure and you find a picture of the car. But, wait, it can’t be just a picture and text. No, parts of the car have little panels that the reader can open to find more information. I opened one by the rear window to read, “Available programmable power liftgate.” Below that by the bumper, I opened the door to find, “Standard rear vision camera.” I opened up another to find that I won a free medium fry at McDonalds (sorry, wrong campaign).

The car sounds quite innovative. You know what doesn’t sound innovative?  This advertising campaign. Where have I seen it before? Oh, I don’t know, an Advent calendar, perhaps?

That’s right, instead of opening up a door a day while waiting for Christmas, you can open up a door on a new GMC Terrain to discover special features that could just have easily been labeled off to the side.

Will someone who is actually in the market for a Terrain want to interact with promotional materials like a kid hoping to find chocolate behind a numbered door on an Advent calendar? My money says the answer’s not behind door number two.

Tags: advent, bailout, calendar, chocolate, General Motors, GM, Gosselins, Terrain

Insane Sanitation is a pandemic facing the nation

The effects of Swine Flu have been sweeping the world, and I’m not talking about the unfortunate deaths (which, at printing, are in the 60s).

No, in our 24-hour news cycle, Swine Flu may have been renamed the less sinister “Influenza A H1N1,” but the hysteria over the bacteria plagues new hosts every day.

And all I got was this lousy diploma

Colleges and universities around the country have altered graduation ceremonies because the flu scare. Some are foregoing the time-honored tradition of shaking hands upon receipt of one’s diploma.

I was at Mott Community College’s graduation, and they tried to make the precaution seem like a valuable time to learn other congratulatory cultural norms. Students were encouraged to tip their hats, bow, or as a nod to the especially groovy members of the staff, make the peace sign.

While perhaps an unfortuate over precaution, at least it was handled with humor. What could not be laughed at were the gallon jug-sized pumping stations of hand sanitizer placed every 10 feet around the arena. I used to consider myself somewhat of an obsessive compulsive germaphobe, and even I thought this was a bit much. I can’t imagine how we survived cold and flu seasons in the past without the opportunity to sanitize every 20 steps.

Some colleges and universities have even postponed their graduation ceremonies, while others have decided on separate ceremonies for students who have recently been to Mexico. That was the case at Pennsylvania’s Slippery Rock University. Sort of ironic that administrators at a university named Slippery Rock are being so careful.

Take this all of you and drink it

With swine flu hysteria everywhere, I couldn’t help but bring it to church with me on Sunday. If someone at a graduation couldn’t shake hands, what about shaking hands at church? Not to mention, sharing a drink from the common cup.

A Los Angeles Times article from 2005 quotes a New Jersey microbiologist who said that drinking from the common cup was no riskier than waiting in line at the movies. Even Canadians, known for their advanced health care systems, found in a study done in 2000 that sipping from the same chalice carried probably less risk than air-borne diseases.

Be that as it may, churches in Mexico have shut down during the outbreak, and churches in Texas have cautioned parishoners about drinking from the cup and extending their hands in the greeting of peace if they exhibit any flu symptoms.

Whew! That seems reasonable. Don’t endanger other people if you are sick. In all this hysteria, finally something that makes sense. No need to stop normal activities or dwell on the relatively small spread of this strain of flu. Simply wash your hands before touching your face, and stay home if you are sick.

That’s too boring for the news. Now flying pigs with the flu — that will hold our attention until Britney Spears does something crazy again.

Tags: graduation, swine flu

Oprah vs. Omaha may just leave us all speechless

What’s that called when you’re having trouble understanding something and then, all of a sudden, it becomes clear to you? If you said, an “aha moment” you might just owe Mutual of Omaha or Oprah Winfrey some money, depending on who wins the lawsuit.

That’s right — insurance company Mutual of Omaha and Oprah Winfrey’s production company could be going to the U.S. District Court of Omaha to decide who has the rights to the phrase “aha moment.” Mutual of Omaha says it has preliminary approval of a federal trademark for the phrase “official sponsor of the aha moment,” while Harpo Productions claims rights to the phrase “aha moment.”

Seriously? This is what people feel the need to fight over these days? So whenever I have that moment of revelation (oops, got to pay a church for use of the word revelation – it is a book of the bible after all) I have to pay someone for it?

I can understand someone wanting to be paid for their creativity, but for “aha moment”? Shouldn’t Oprah and Mutual of Omaha be paying the ‘80s band A-ha? (To which the band might sing in court, “Take on Me.”)

It reminds me of how angry I felt when I heard about Paris Hilton trying to copyright the phrase “That’s hot” a few years ago. As if hearing it everywhere wasn’t bad enough, she wants to get paid for it.

But this isn’t a rant about the destruction of the English language (yes, kids, we do speak English, not American). Far from fearing that our language will erode because of blogs, instant messaging, and texting, I applaud innovation in language. Language is fluid; it changes with the times. As society has become more progressive in thinking, so too, has the language had to adapt and change.

After all, words give us a way to understand our world. Could we understand something if we didn’t have the words to articulate it? That’s what little phases like “aha” or “that’s hot” do; they articulate thoughts or feelings that we certainly have had, but needed the words or the common catchphrase of how to express that thought or emotion.

Who can say who really came up with the “aha moment”? My wife has been saying things like “redonkulous” for years and is shocked when it is in a TV show or movie (she swears she came up with it).

We contribute to language in our every day lives. While not all of us are Shakespeare (contributing 1700 new words by some accounts), we all dynamically interact with words, and change them to fit the time and situation. Let’s keep language out of the courts and free from being stifled by Omaha or Oprah.

Hey, that’s a pretty good idea. You might even say that a light bulb just went on in my head! But don’t tell Einstein! Or General Electric!

Interact with us! Which words or phrases are just too obvious to copyright?

Tags: Add new tag, aha moment, Einstein, Mutual of Omaha, Oprah

Popa’s Got a Brand New Blog

So the Bobcat Banner is blogging now, and I couldn’t help but get involved. I couldn’t sit by and let my students experience this new opportunity alone. My inner nerd was itching for the chance to express himself with rapid fire wit on the keyboard followed by the cathartic click of the “publish” button.

I had a million ideas. I fancy myself to be a regular Andy Rooney in class, poking fun at things that most people take for granted, while creating a character for myself that’s just a little more wacky than the real me. (Those not familiar with Rooney should check out clips of the famous 60 minutes commentator on youtube).

Of course, the difference between class and a blog is the instantaneous feedback. I’d be lying if my jokes weren’t helped over the years by ad-libs from the class. Plus, there’s the whole eight years of teaching many of the same classes. I’ve had time to hone my word choice, timing, and theatrics.

Writing – now that’s something that I hadn’t done in a few years. Even then, it was mostly on assigned material for my graduate degree. So when I sat down to actually write for this blog, I was sidetracked by many of the same roadblocks my students face.

Although I had a million ideas, I didn’t think any could be developed enough. Some thoughts went in and out of my head just as fast as I skip commercials on my DVR.

Then there was the thought of making sure that I still sounded intelligent – I am an English teacher, after all. What if the casual feel of the blog leaves my readers thinking that I have serious passive voice problems, comma contagion, and all the things I tell my students to avoid.

I’m always harping on my Newspaper staff that the class is what they make it. They come up with the content. They are responsible for writing, typically, only two articles a month. That doesn’t seem like a lot, does it?

Now, I’ve got a whole new perspective. I used to think that students who couldn’t come up with anything to write were lazy, but now I feel their pain. Writers face so many roadblocks, and student writers for publications face more than those in other classes.

What will people think of my article? Are my arguments well-reasoned? Did I get all the quotes right? What if my rough draft is so rough that I’m afraid to show it to anyone? Sometimes we are our own worst critics.

Here’s what I discovered: The writing finally came when I read an article in the newspaper (they still exist) and took it with me to my computer. Then, I started typing my feelings about it. I had scattered ideas, some of which I had to rearrange and add to as the article developed.

That’s the secret – just write it! You can’t improve on something that doesn’t exist. Had I followed this advice, I might have had countless blogs by now. True, some may have gone nowhere, but I would have known that after a few minutes of typing.

Of course, as a good model for my students, I’m going to ask them to edit my blogs, as I edit theirs. It’s only fair. What’s put down in one setting is not always gold, and other eyes will give me that kind of feedback that has helped me with in-class insights.

Even as I finish this blog, I cringe since it is the clichéd blog about blogging (hey kids, have you heard of a new thing called blogging?!), that I would most likely tear apart as a teacher. Be gentle. I promise I’ll have an original idea next week!