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Delightfully Anachronistic Package De– Wait, No, Nevermind!
As you know, when I happen across a product with delightfully anachronistic package design, why, I just feel as though I’m going to bust, I get so excited, and–You know, if I’m ever going to win the respect of the rest of the internet, I’d better play by the rules, and in this case that means joining hands in solidarity with my online peers, my sister sites, you might call them – Wikipedia, and Reddit, and all the rest, sure – and louvering the site today. I was going to say “shuttering” but I know you hate that term as much as I do.
…And yet, I have to ask: Doesn’t it seem odd that on Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard Day, we celebrated Betty White, and now today, we’re going black?
Will we ever go back? They say you don’t.
But I think we will.
You’re probably wondering what all of this is about. It’s about SOPA. Which, if I remember my decades-old junior high Spanish, as well as my right-now living-in-Southern-California Spanish, means “soup.”
I think that about says it all.
So I hope that all five or six of you that may visit the site today understand that this is bigger than just some delightfully anachronistic package design (every example of which I find makes me more giddy than you can possibly imagine).
This is about Spanish – or quite possibly Mexican – soup.
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Honoring A Great American.
LIKE every other American citizen – from the important President Barack Obama to the lowliest writer-comedienne – I set aside time today, Monday, January 16, 2012, to reverently celebrate the life and achievements of a White person.
And that White person is of course Betty.
So tonight, as I befolded my laundry, I watched a little something that NBC put on for all of us called “Betty White’s 90th Birthday: A Tribute to America’s Golden Girl.” (Or, as it was originally supposed to be called, “Betty White’s 90th Birthday: An Hour and a Half of Our Foundering Monday Night Lineup We’re More Than Happy to Preempt.”)
It was a delight, of course, watching Betty’s aged co-stars from decades past take the stage to say a few loving words, and seeing just how ghastly they all looked. Equally wonderful were the younger stars, on hand to appeal to a more desirable demographic, who spoke likewise glowing words of praise about Betty in an effort for NBC to not-so-subtly push its comedies.
Betty White has that certain something, or as the French say, zat certain somesing, that no matter how much she’s overexposed (and brother, she’s overexposed), you just never quite get sick of her. Ah, that someone could determine exactly what that elusive quality is, bottle it…and then make Jane Lynch and Neil Patrick Harris drink it, so that they, too, might not be so offensive to all of us everywhere when every freaking time we turn around, there they are again. Jesus!
Or Drano! I suppose they just as easily could drink that, right? No, no, as my attorney cautions me to note, I’m kidding, of course.
Now, like I said, we all love Betty White, every last one of us, but like me, you kind of thought 2010 was The Year of Betty White and…well, that was going to be the end of it. But here we are two years later and she’s still in the spotlight. And good for her, right? Sure.
But in 2011, just last year!, it seemed that America was starting to rediscover another similarly beloved and prolific living comedy legend – Mr. Dick Van Dyke. Dick published his (exquisitely bland) autobiography, he was popping up on late-night talk shows, he had that song-and-dance stage show that, eh, unfortunately he had to bow out of after the first performance. (Though to be fair, I don’t think he was physically able to bow after that first performance.) Oh, and then perhaps most significantly, as you know, I started watching “The Dick Van Dyke Show” on Netflix – so, yeah, 2011 was shaping up to be the year of Dick Van Dyke. But sadly, it never seemed to pick up steam nor go anywhere.
So now we’re back to Betty White again and much like Happy Hour at Moonsisters, Dick is all but forgotten.
But I have an idea that might just make things right.
Remember that time I took our dog Fritz and our neighbor’s dog Wilhelmina and “married” them in the backyard?
I say we do the same thing with Betty and Dick!
Can you imagine how cool that would be? The two biggest, oldest, most beloved celebrity comedians alive, and we marry them to each other! It would be amazing! All of America will love it!
And I can perform the ceremony because I remember most of what I said when I married Fritz and Willie, but instead of “do you take this boy-dog” and “do you take this girl-dog” I can change it to “do you take this man” and “do you take this woman.”
First order of business: luring Betty and Dick into my backyard! Does anyone know if they like Snausages?
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Congratulations Janet & Dan!
IF IT’S MONDAY, and Ted’s got nothing more substantial for us (thank Christ), why, it must be Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week…Day! You’re saying to yourself! Sure!
While today’s offering is not outrageously overpriced…
…it’s still something that you and I are betting not a whole lot of people are willing to shell out three bucks for at a thrift store.
What is it? you ask.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…
Our Children’s Wedding: Janet & Dan’s parents’ wedding album…for Janet & Dan’s wedding. If you follow all that.
And what’s more…? It’s empty. No photos inside! None!
Wedding pictures are notoriously uninteresting to everyone but the bride, but even so, if you’re going to put this out on the sales floor, Goodwill, why not leave the photos in it?
Yes, yes, I know: Likely whoever donated it pulled the photos first and gave the thrift store an empty album. In this case – here’s a suggestion, Goodwill: It’s personalized! Without the pictures it’s even more worthless than it would be with them! And you can’t get much more worthless than worthless! And it was already worthless!
So now it’s completely worthless to everyone everywhere!
Unless…!
Unless – through a rather unlikely set of circumstances – some person just happens to have a son named Dan or a daughter named Janet and they just happened to have married someone else named Janet or Dan (whichever the case may be!), and they did so on May 23, 1981; and somehow, over the last thirty years, this same person, the parent that is, never got around to buying an album to put their copies of the wedding photos in, and this very person just happens to be shopping in the very Goodwill that I found this…and comes across this in the bric-a-brac section!
If that’s the case, and you are this person, by all means, buy the album. Buy the album, sure!
And then you contact me because I’m going to have you go out and buy me a lottery ticket.
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Delightfully Anachronistic Package Design: Sesame Crunch!
AS YOU KNOW, there’s something about anachronistic package design that sets my heart racing.
It’s the idea that here is a product, usually food and often (but not always) sold at the 99¢ Only Store, that seems to be saying proudly, “I had my last packaging update prior to the Carter administration (or maybe much earlier) – and you’ve found me. So treasure me, do, because for all either of us know, right now, at this very moment, the manufacturers who made me could be contemplating updating my package so I look ’contemporary’ (whatever that means!) as though somehow my current typeface and color scheme and design hasn’t served me well for forty, forty-five years. But for now, friend, you’ve found me, and I’m all yours.”
…That’s what America means to me.
–Oh, no, wait. That’s what the product, whatever it happens to be that week, seems to be saying to me.
Anyway, here’s this week’s product with delightfully anachronistic package design:
Why, it’s Sesame Crunch!
And despite its name, and despite that it hails from New York City, no, it is not affiliated with the Children’s Television Workshop. (Don’t feel bad – I thought so, too!)
What’s even cooler than their gloriously early 70s brown and orange color scheme, their little beturbaned mascot (surely soon be a victim of idiotic political correctness at the hands of the evil, anti-American, terrorist-funding organization CAIR – the Committee for Advertising Icon Repeal) or those big, groovy letters spelling out “Sesame,” is the fact that I’ve finally found someone who has a website less interesting than mine! And yet they probably get more hits than I do.
I’m kidding; I’m kidding. It’s the best website in the whole wide world.
Oh, as to the product itself? You’re not going to find a more delicious sesame seed candy bar out there anywhere, I don’t care how hard you look – I guarantee it!
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The Mother of All Endcaps!
Is there any question why Hostess is filing for bankruptcy when this is your competition?
I’ve lived in apartments smaller than this. In fact, my first place was a Charmin display at the end of Aisle 6 in my local A&P. It was so small it didn’t even have a bathroom, but as it turns out, that wasn’t a problem.
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What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store: Shasta Diet Grapefruit Soda!
LIKE YOU I’m a big fan of Fresca. Have been since I was a little boy, sure.
Here’s some Fresca Fun Facts you might not know:
• According to Wikipedia, “according to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Fresca was the favorite drink of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had a button installed on the desk on his Oval Office desk which would summon his military aide to bring the drink.”
• It used to irritate Ladybird Johnson to no end when Lyndon would toss his empty Fresca cans out the window of the presidential motorcade especially because she was knocking herself out doing that whole “Beautify America” campaign.
…Actually, I made up that second Fresca Fun Fact, because as it turns out – and I had no way of knowing this when I started this blog post – I could only come up with one real Fresca Fun Fact.
Anyway, I was very happy a few years ago when they brought back Fresca – even more so than when I found out they brought back Steak-Umms.
Technically, neither product ever went away, I just didn’t see them for years. But for our purposes here, let’s just say they brought back Fresca. (I think they’ve always made Boo Berry cereal, too, but did anyone actually see it in a store from about 1978 to maybe 1997? No. I rest my case.)
So recently I started re-drinking Fresca, and it brought me back to my boyhood years, when I used to drink the stuff, oh my, by the canful and then throw my empties out the back window of the family station wagon as we’d head down the Interstate on family vacations.
“Give Ladybird something to do,” I used to laugh to myself, imagining our First Lady at the side of the highway wielding a stick with a nail at the end of it, spearing cans and putting them in a burlap sack slung over her shoulder like someone sentenced to 120 hours of community service, all of this despite the fact that I was probably born after Johnson had left office, I think. (How the hell would I know – who do I look like, Doris Kearns Goodwin?)
Okay, at this point, I don’t know where I was going with any of—
Oh!
So Fresca’s good, sure, but I’m telling you, this stuff…?
Diet Shasta Grapefruit…? It’s like ten times better!
I like Fresca, sure, but it’s a little too goddamn sweet. The weird thing about Fresca is that it’s a “diet” soda, but it doesn’t make a point of telling you that on the front of the can. I guess you’re just supposed to know.
Shasta, however, makes regular grapefruit soda and diet grapefruit soda, and this diet stuff, I’m telling you, it kicks Fresca’s ass. And I don’t mention this lightly: I’m a big fan of Fresca – you know this!
Oh! I’ve come up with another Fresca Fun Fact:
• The only place I’ve ever seen Fresca on tap is at California Chicken Café in Woodland Hills. Every time I’m there, I get it, because how often do you see Fresca on tap, right?
Anyway, they sell this Shasta crap at the 99¢ Only store, so I guess that makes this this week’s What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store? entry. You should pick up a four-pack! (It’s the 99¢ Only Store. They sell them in four-packs. For 79¢. Don’t try to make sense of it – it’s the 99¢ Only Store, for God’s sake.)
Tell ’em Ladybird sent you! Or Lyndon; I guess that would make slightly more sense.
No! Wait, wait, wait! Tell ’em Doris Kearns Goodwin sent you! That’ll liven things up!
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Six Dollars My Ass!
SOMETHING struck me the other day when I was looking up at the menu board at my local Carl’s Jr., and no, it was not an enormous cockroach erratically fluttering down from a damp and stained acoustic ceiling tile, causing me to run out the door and into the parking lot, shrieking like a little girl and knocking over an old woman with a walker in the process. (I said Carl’s Jr., not Arby’s.)
No, what struck me was not something physical, but a thought. A realization, to be more precise.
Remember back in 2001 when Carl’s Jr. – and for those of you lucky enough to live in the good, God-fearing regions of this country, Hardees – introduced their signature sandwich, the Six Dollar Burger, that would soon become their signature sandwich? Of course you do – why, we all do.
The whole concept behind that particular menu item was that, why, it was just the sort of burger you’d expect to pay the lofty sum of $6 for at a sit-down restaurant – you know, at your Applebee’s, your T.G.I. Friday’s, your Jazzburger’s, and so on.
Well, here we are ten blessed years later and as you can see by this coupon Carl’s Jr.’s Six Dollar Burger is still a staple on their menu. One might even say that over the last decade it’s become their signature sandwich.
And just how much is the Six Dollar Burger today?
$5.69.
In Los Angeles, where sales tax is king (yet is completely impotent in bailing out the sinking bankrupt ship that is circling the drain of this disgusting toilet of a city, to mix a few metaphors) you’ll pay a total of $6.19.
Six dollars and nineteen cents!
So, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll be paying more than $6 for their signature Six Dollar Burger, so-named originally because, why, it’s the kind of burger you’d happily pay $6 for at a sit-down restaurant. Happily!
My advice to you?
Oh-my-God go out right now and get their Six Dollar Steakhouse Burger. Right now!
Brother, if you like crispy fried onions, A-1 Steak Sauce and crumbled blue cheese not to mention Swiss cheese (!) plus everything else that goes on a decent hamburger – a real man’s hamburger! – like I do, and I know you do, get your fat ass into Carl’s Jr. now and get one. Hurry! It’s only there for a limited time.
And don’t worry, we’ll get started on our class action lawsuit about this “[Actually More Than] Six Dollar Burger” nonsense they’re trying to pull just as soon as this Steakhouse Burger promotion of theirs is over.
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LOOK at that! New for 2012, we actually have a little logo for this feature now!
You’re probably saying, “Uh-oh – quality like that cost ol’ Ted plenty – it’s only a matter of time before he starts charging me for access to his site, not unlike the many premium porn sites I’m a member of. And he’d be right to do so, Ted would, to charge me a bi-weekly fee, that is.”
Don’t you worry: The site is still free. (Well, for you it is. But me, I’m hemorrhaging cash just keeping this thing online – my hosting company charges me six dollars per post, and if it features a photo or an inordinate number of letter V’s, hoo boy – that’s when they really stick it to me!)
No, despite the expensive look to that logo, believe it or not, I crafted it myself with nothing more than a camera and a free online photo editor website. And a little bit of elbow grease, and a small stack of Chips Ahoy! for snack.
Anyway, to celebrate all of that, and the beginning of the new year, we’ve got a special Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week for you!
What’s more timely for the beginning of January than an Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week…that’s a calendar…?
Well, I’ll tell you what’s more timely: A calendar that isn’t a decade old. Three ninety-nine they want for a completely useless calendar from 2002!
The entire cast of “I Love Lucy” would be rolling in their mass grave if they knew about this thrift store outrage; that is, if they were buried together – but it turns out they weren’t. (I looked it up.)
And I think I speak for all of us when I say that when you have a show that’s so beloved as “I Love Lucy” continues to be some thirty years after it originally went off the air, you want to think that the cast, Lucy and Ricky and Fred and Esther, each one hilarious and unforgettable in his or her own way – Lucy with her hare-brained schemes, Fred with the wacky things he did, and all the rest – were as close off-camera as they were on-camera, and that they stayed in touch with each other until the end of their days, going out to lunch, perhaps shopping, attending each others’ kids’ bar- and bat-mitzvahs, spending holidays together, rollerblading and whatnot.
So taking that to its logical conclusion, wouldn’t that mean that even if they hadn’t agreed to some sort of mass suicide – which I reiterate they didn’t! – wouldn’t that mean that they were so close, that when the time came, they’d all just want to be buried together for all eternity? I think you’ll find comfort, and a measure of wisdom, in these thoughts.
My attorney, however, thinks we’ll be hearing from Lucie Arnaz.
I’ll tell you what Lucie should do, though – she ought to call Goodwill and demand they remove this thing from the salesfloor.
Three ninety-nine they want!
¡Ay yi yi!
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Welcome to MY Gym, Muthabutlers!
I THOUGHT we’d cleared this all up the other day, but I can see after today’s workout that we haven’t.
To review: The gym I go to…? Where I got these guns…?
It melded with another gym, and now what used to be LA Fitness is now Ballys or vice-versa, or something – who can really say for sure? The upshot of all this is that people who used to go to some other gym now feel compelled to come to my gym, when really there’s no reason for this whatsoever.
So about that: I had a good thing going at my gym, a regular routine, a way of doing things, with no problems. Now with all you people coming there, you’re liable to queer the deal.
To make this an easy transition for all of us (even though I shouldn’t have to transition anything, since I’ve been going here for years) I want to let you know what’s expected of you at my gym, so there’s no problems later. Follow these guidelines, and your (wholly unnecessary) changeover to my gym will be as smooth as the balls of that guy who shaves them at the row of sinks in the men’s locker room.
• Parking: The signs say it’s an unsecured lot and the gym’s not responsible for loss or damage to your car or your belongings, but you’ll want to go ahead and leave your valuables in plain sight on the front seat. That way, during the at-least-once-weekly break-in, they’re targeting your car, not mine.
• Reception: Don’t stop to flirt with whoever scans your card if I happen to be behind you. You’re not getting anywhere with her (or him); there’s a hundred better looking, more built guys who work out here, and one of them is losing his patience trying to just get in the gym.
• Cardio Room: All of our Precor elliptical machines are fairly new and in good working order except for the one on the far right of the room by the door which makes a sort of shuddering thump if you push it up beyond Level 4. This is the Precor elliptical machine you may use.
• Men’s Lavatories: Make sure to throw your used toilet paper into the toilet and flush it along with whatever bodily waste you’ve expelled. Throwing filthy used toilet paper on the floor behind the toilet is a privilege reserved solely for our members who are recent transplants from nearby nations with primitive or non-existent plumbing facilities. Look, we’re as surprised as you are that they can afford gym memberships; regardless, they were here before you. I mean in this gym, not this country.
• Weight Room: Our advanced weight training center can be pretty intimidating, so you’d probably best just stay out of here altogether. But if you insist on working out with the big boys, remember: We’re a pretty tight-knit group with a very specific pecking order and it takes a while for us to warm up to outsiders.
Your best bet is to show respect to everyone working out here, be they serious body-builders or smaller, skinnier guys like yourself. However, if I’m wrong here, if you yourself are particularly well-built, go ahead and beat the crap out of the biggest guy (Frank; usually there from 11 am to 2 pm, calls everyone ’bro’ and always seems intent on engaging me in a conversation about the goddamn Lakers) and we’ll throw our collective allegiance behind you. We may be fickle, but we’re not stupid.
And finally…
• Treadmill Area: I do a heart-pounding twenty minutes at a steady 7 mph at the end of my workout. When I have five minutes left, I will nod to you. Then you run next door to Jamba Juice and get me a 24-ounce Pomegranate Pick-Me-Up which you will hand to me as I step off the treadmill, paper wrapper still on end of straw, please.
What? You want to fit in here, don’t you?
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Alleged Arson Suspect Guy Allegedly Caught!
AS YOU KNOW, we’ve had a harrowing few days here in the disgusting cesspool that is Los Angeles thanks to some guy running around lighting fires!
Thankfully, he’s allegedly been caught but given the LAPD’s recent track record with alleged suspects (cough cough Dodger Stadium beating cough cough), who can really say for sure?
Now, the first thing they tell you in the continuing education class “Blogging: The Wave of the Future But Is It Right For Me And How Much Money Do I Stand To Lose Doing It?” at Oxnard Community College (best $145 I ever spent and definitely worth the two-hour drive to Ventura during rush hour on Tuesday and Thursday evenings!) is unless you’re specifically going to blog about local politics and news, stay the hell away from local politics and news, so’s not to limit your blog’s appeal.
See, the last thing you want is a blog whose content is so esoteric that it’s only relevant to a tiny percentage of everyone on earth who has internet access, insists our professor, Sylvia Haynes-Darden, of Random Musings and Ramblings of A Militant Christadelphian Organic Pistachio Farmer Who Collects Vintage 70s Dannon Yogurt Lid Inserts. And evidently, she should know!
Where the hell was I?
Oh! Anyway, I must have clicked on something accidentally last night and ended up on the website of Los Angeles’ worst newspaper ever, the cesspoolular, to coin a word, Los Angeles Times.
They had an article about “social media” and its role in this whole story:
Credit: The venerable Los Angeles Times
You’ll get the gist of the story from the quote I’ve included below, despite my attorney’s admonitions:
Above: A quote from the LA Times story by Matt Stevens and Richard Winton, and that oughta satisfy my goddamn attorney.And despite what you just read, I’m here to insist that the way Twitter is designed may have, in fact, prevented the cops from catching that guy sooner!
You see, two nights ago, yes, New Year’s Eve!, aware of the situation, I was extra vigilant, keeping a wary eye out for anything unusual. And as luck would have it, I did see something suspicious. So I got on my Twitter account (which you’d know if you actually followed me, which you don’t unless you’re User QuakerChewy or User Nevada, my two goddamn followers, and I love them both) and posted it immediately:
Or at least I tried to! That’s as far as I got before that ridiculous 140-character limit kicked in.However!
As it turns out – and I found this out later – the smoke wasn’t from a car fire as I suspected, but rather someone grilling fresh feral cat on a hibachi. (This was, after all, in the “Little Czechoslovakia” section of L.A. – enough said there!)
So, at least in this one instance, it was probably fortunate I didn’t waste the police or fire department’s time, and just as well that I was limited in my Twitter message (or “Tweet”) and never got the full address out.
But I want you all to know – Sylvia Haynes-Darden, the others in my class, my attorney, the attorneys for the LA Times, and the rest of you who have access to the internet all over our home we call Earth:
Even if I had managed to finish typing out the address, rest assured, I’d have made up for the mishap by treating all emergency personnel who’d have responded to this false alarm to the best feline kapustnika they’ve ever had from an unlicensed street vendor this side of Prague!
Ted Parsnips
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