I could be accused of being an idealist,
though I fancy myself more of a realist. It's the old
"hope for the best but expect the worst" scenario.
Let's face it, the world is a ridiculous place, and we
have no one to blame but ourselves. After all, there are
no rules. No one told us to create our society the way
we have, we just did it. We could have made a fair and
equitable society where everyone got along and helped
each other out and worked for the advancement of all mankind.
Rampant idealism? Socialism? Communism? No matter, it's
pretty damned obvious that a utopian society just ain't
gonna happen, not in my lifetime anyway, in spite of the
sensitive-new-age rubbish Gene Roddenbury preached. Especially
when you consider we ignore trivial things like feeding
people or cleaning up the environment in favour of immensely
important things like these little treasures for instance:
Razors
Nothing will get me reaching for the
remote control faster than a commercial for razors. We've
got razors with 2 blades, 3 blades, 4 blades, even - I
kid you not - 5 blades! We have battery operated
razors that shoot out micro pulses, razors that spout
foamy goo, razors with pivoting heads, ergonomically designed
handles, Teflon coated blades, Titanium coated blades
(Kelly Johnson must be rolling in his grave seeing the
fate of his beautiful SR-71s). There are razors with little
teeth that yank the hairs out before slicing them off.
Razors that come in designer colours. Razors that do just
about everything short of singing Ethel Merman show tunes
while dancing the Rumba, and I'm sure that's just a matter
of time. Amazingly enough, pretty much all these things
come with the claim that they're the closest shave a man
can get!
Note to razor companies: Please try and get a grip on
reality. Why the hell do we need 15 titanium coated precision
ground blades in an ergonomically designed, vibrating,
goo spouting, pivoting, all-singing, all-dancing handle
that comes in 97 designer colours and plays "The
First Cut is the Deepest" every time you slice off
a zit?!? It's just f*cking facial hair!! Shaving is a
banal, boring chore we have to go through every morning
before we leave for our banal, boring jobs! Aaaaarrggghh!!!
Diapers
Okay, I lied, diaper commercials will get me reaching
for the remote control even faster than razor commercials
will. Yeah, yeah, I know. Everyone just loves cute gurgling
little babies. And cute gurgling babies that leak mysterious
blue liquid (the same mysterious blue liquid that women
leak on those feminine hygiene ads) are a marketer's dream.
Where do they find these little tykes? Been feeding yer
kid antifreeze again?? Hmmm....
Hey, guess what? Babies don't really care if they're wearing girl diapers
or boy diapers. They're not interested whether mum thinks they need diapers
for active babies, or diapers they can pull off and on all by themselves.
Babies are completely ignorant of the team of engineers, scientists and
marketing executives that have spent millions of dollars and countless hours
making diapers from space-age polymers that are more leak proof than ever
before, or have better adhesive straps, more padding for greater comfort
or special fabrics that suck that waste away from baby's tender bottom.
And babies most definitely do not care how much these technological marvels
they have strapped to their butts are clogging up our landfills, which of
course they are.
Oh, one more thing: Is it really necessary to show naked
babies crawling all over the place and plopping their
pudgy buttocks on every space-age polymer they can find?
I'll be quite happy to see a similar video when she's
20+, but I'd really rather not see her 6 month old squidgy
baby butt on my TV when I'm trying to eat my dinner, thank-you-very-much!
Reality Television
Who are we trying to kid here? These
shows are so far removed from reality they make a trip
to Walmart to buy a toaster look like an opiate fuelled
orgy in a hot tub filled with Lime Jello. I can't think
of anything more mind-numbingly boring than watching a
bunch of painfully uninteresting, talentless, backstabbing,
whining, personality-deficient wanna-bes sitting about
in a house doing parlour tricks for food, or pathetic
washed up C-list celebrities running about in a jungle
trying desperately to get into the pants of the aging
bleach-blonde bimbo with the plastic tits. I'd sooner
carve an extra head on Mount Rushmore with a cocktail
straw than waste my time watching that mindless rubbish.
Fancy Gadgets on Cars
Electrically heated mirrors, headlights
with wiper blades, computer controlled suspension, electrically
operated seats, ergonomically designed controls, Sat Nav
systems, intelligent wipers, obstacle avoidance systems,
on-demand four wheel drive, hands-free car phones, power
sun roofs, cruise control, drinks coolers, microwave ovens,
lane departure warning systems (You need a computer to
tell you you're veering into oncoming traffic? Really??)....
Give me a freakin' break! Most drivers haven't even mastered
the lowly turn signal, let alone all these needless gimmicks.
Is it any wonder road deaths are on the rise when we're
more concerned with driver comfort and convenience than
driver intelligence?? The most intelligent vehicle in
the world is no match for plain old human stupidity, and
personally I'm getting rather tired of having to jump
out of the way of some dickhead in a suit talking on his
cell phone whilst sucking back the half-decaf latté
he's just nuked in the glove compartment microwave, and
playing with his Sat Nav when he should be watching the
road.
Toothbrushes
Like the razor, the ubiquitous toothbrush
has undergone a drastic upgrade since the days of my youth.
Back then, (and I'm talking the '70s here, not the dark
ages) you had a choice of 2 kinds of toothbrushes: synthetic
bristle or natural bristle. You could have different coloured
handles of course, but that's pretty much it. Nowadays,
the lowly toothbrush has been escalated to the lofty heights
that our technologically transfixed society demands, or
so we're led to believe anyway. Not content with the up
and down brushing motion we were taught as kids, the modern
dental hygiene appliance rotates, gyrates, vibrates, exfoliates,
defoliates - hell, probably even levitates if you try
hard enough. I'm mesmerized by the choice every time I
buy a new toothbrush, and not in a good way. And hey,
guess what? We still have to go to the dentist every six
months to have the petrified plaque scraped off that the
toothbrush couldn't get.
Ridiculous Research & Surveys
We've all read about them and I'm sure we've all been equally baffled
as to why oodles of time and our money has been spent on them. Most of it
is self-serving market research of course, the results of which can then
be manipulated any way the sponsor likes. For every government study that
says smoking is bad for you for instance, there's a study that says it actually
isn't quite as bad as we think. Funnily enough, all of the latter studies
seem to be sponsored by tobacco companies. Go figure. Why, just a couple
of months ago I heard a revelation on the radio that said a recent study
had shown that most people live for the weekends so they can go out and
get pissed and forget about their horrible jobs for a while. No shit Elwood.
Gee, was that one sponsored by alcoholic beverage companies by any chance?
Of course we musn't forget the endless streams of government reports telling
us what a great job they're doing and how poverty and crime are falling.
Never you mind all those other surveys telling us both are on the rise.
Forget about the 92 year old lady who was beaten up and robbed of her pension
cheque and the fact that the police didn't turn up for an hour and a half
because what few officers they have left after budget cuts are so mired
in paperwork they can't get a cup of coffee without filling out form 32691CF-Z
in triplicate. Nosirree.... the surveys have spoken. All is well with the
world, and there's more than enough money in the coffer for a bit more research.
So how often does the average citizen blow his or her nose anyway? Let's
put a research team together to find out.
So sit back and revel in these marvels of our little world. Now think
of all the time, manpower and cash wasted on them and where we might be
today if we had spent all those resources on something worthwhile like the
basics of a decent society: food, clothing, shelter and clean air &
water for its citizens. Or at the very least, we should have spent it on
a spaceship capable of transporting the human race to another planet. Then,
when we've made this place completely uninhabitable, we'll have an escape
and we can start ruining a whole new planet. Perhaps I'll run a survey to
find out how many hair salons the spacecraft should have.
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