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Extra whipped cream please! - Xer Thoughts
Posted on December 4, 2007
I have been brought up in a society that lives for the moment. It has been this way since I was a child, and the consumer marketplace has been providing goods and services that bring that “moment” closer and closer. It’s because of this that I struggle with regularly thinking about and planning for the future. I have trouble accepting that the food I eat will be making me heavier tomorrow. I can’t even think that far ahead when it comes to indulging. If you took gaining weight out of the equation, I would probably stay at the same level of eating because I am barely limiting myself anyway. Skills like eating, drinking and saving money were not taught to me at any level, and it is really something that I have to work on. These are all things that I don’t ponder on for very long, and if I don’t get better, I will be fat, drunk and broke. As appealing as that is, I just can’t stomach that as my future. I have begun to overcome my bad habits, but I will always struggle with keeping my hands off the Godiva brownie with extra whipped cream from The Cheesecake Factory, even though it is packed with cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.
The initial thrill of indulgence- Echo Thoughts
Posted on December 4, 2007
If I could eat cupcakes, pizza, brownies and waffles, and drink sugary lattes at Starbucks without gaining a pound, I definitely would. For the most part, the reason I eat healthy is to maintain my current weight, or to lose a few pounds. I know I should be concerned about my future health, but I’m in my early 20s. High blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and similar health issues really aren’t things I think about. If gaining weight were not a side effect of my diet, after the initial thrill of being able to eat whatever I want was gone, I hope I would think about the health risks (besides weight gain) of eating high-fat, high-sugar foods. But right now, as I munch on my celery snack, I’m thinking that a no-weight-gain life would be great!
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It’s all a balancing act- Boomer Thoughts
Posted on December 4, 2007
As someone who has a thin-to-medium build and is in relatively good health, I take into consideration all factors that affect my daily diet. I look at my diet as a balancing act and understand that there are multiple health risks, and the most serious ones, like heart disease and high cholesterol, must be avoided. I have always been able to eat all the junk food I want and never gain more than two or three pounds, but I always maintain an 85-90% balance of good food along with the 15-10% of junk food.
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You bet your bippy!- Mature Thoughts
Posted on December 4, 2007
You bet your bippy it would! (That phrase alone would tell you how old I am!)
I may not be the ideal person to answer this because for approximately
50 years (the Adele Davis generation) I have been very aware of the benefits of
good nutrition as well as a full regimen of vitamins. So take it from
me, the correct nutrition would be a very definite influence on my way
of eating. It’s kept me going on all “fours” for 90 years!
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Local Radio- Mature Thoughts
Posted on November 13, 2007
A few thoughts on how advertising affects me. I am a great fan of radio at home and in the car. But I have a very limited listening range. And as much as I love these stations, I am annoyed by advertising in them.
For AM I like WGN in Chicago. Recently they changed their format to break up the time into even smaller sections. It seems to me that they are about fifty percent advertising. I notice this especially on Wed. AM between 7 AM and 8 AM. At that time Spike O’Dell has his featured guest Paul Green, professor at Roosevelt
I also like FM stations, mainly PBS and WFMT, the classical music station in Chicago. The annoying factor here is pledge week. This also applies to WTTW, Channel 11, the public television channel. Each channel has its own annoyance factor. When I turn into WFMT, the ONLY CLASSICAL MUSIC STATION IN CHICAGO, I want to hear classical music, or perhaps jazz or an interesting talk show. What I do not want to hear is an hour of appeals for money. The same annoyance applies to WTTW, Channel !!. I watch these unending appeals, and I want to shout; ” I am a member, I contritute, Just stop it!”.
Perhaps the most annoying commercial intrusion is the category of political commercials. So far in this seemingly unending presidential primary campaign, we in Illinois have not yet been bombarded by commercials. It will come, I know, and I feel for the people in Iowa who are enduring this commercial assault.
But I remember the last election campaign in which there were judges on the ballot. There was a commercial on TV for a woman running for judge, an Irish name, Margaret Mary something. Ordinarily I would be interested in voting for her. But these commercials were so frequent and so annoying that I decided that even if she was the most qualified person on the ballot that I would vote against her simply because the commercial was so very annoying. In this case, the ads had the reverse of the desired effect on me. I don’t know how many others were similarly affected or whether she was elected.
These are the various ways in which I am annoyed by advertising. I leave it to the experts to analyze and hopefully to change it. I wish all political advertising could be banned. The money candidates need to raise and spend on ads is scandalous. The ads tend to be so simplistic, polarizing, not to say expensive. Couldn’t a candidate say something like “We are not doing commercials. instead we are giving the money to: ( and list the various worthy causes to be the beneficiary). But that will never happen.
I really hate political advertising, and the pressures it puts on candidates to raise money.
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Being My Own Buffer- Boomer Thoughts
Posted on November 1, 2007
We live in a world filled with advertising. We are bombarded on a daily basis with thousands of carefully crafted messages designed to sway us into purchasing Product X from Company Y. Born into a world that has always had TV, the Boomer Generation was indoctrinated into this culture of marketing from birth. My mother still tells the story of her trying to feed me dinner while competing for my toddler attention span with a nightly commercial for Doublemint gum. I suppose that in the early ‘60s, when a television in the living room was a status symbol, it never really occurred to her that she might turn it off during my dinner hour while she was waiting for my father to return home from work.
As an adult for whom television or radio has always been a part of my daily routine, I am accustomed to this ritual that is played out countless times each day. I like to think that I have learned to play the game. That I am a savvy consumer with discriminating taste. The truth is more likely that you can at least get my attention with clever or funny advertising. I can be swayed – in fact, I want to be convinced at times that I absolutely must have whatever it is that is making those people on TV or in that print ad look as if the moment they are having right there in front of the cameras is real and can be transferred to me via a simple financial transaction.
There are times, though, when I get annoyed by advertising. I can’t stand billboards of any kind. I don’t think I have looked at one in the past 25 years and had a positive thought. To me they are an ugly blight on the landscape; “sight pollution” was the term used in the ‘70s, and I think it still applies. As a kid, I may have wanted to wander 25 miles off the highway to see Big Jim’s Snake House, but those ads were probably only captivating because they promised to give a small child a break from the tedium that was a six-hour car ride in the days before personal listening devices and fold-down DVD players.
“Infomercials” are another pet peeve. Besides the fact that somebody has invented a word that should never have existed, why am I paying the $65 per month for the privilege of watching a half-hour show on how to get rich working 15 hours a week from the comfort of my home using somebody’s “time-tested 17-step program for succeeding in real estate”?
Most annoying and invasive is almost all prescription drug advertising. I don’t want to see advertising for toenail fungus relief, impotence cures or irritable bowel syndrome. These are not subjects that I would bring up in daily conversation with anyone except my doctor. I don’t like watching TV in a room full of adults and children then having some handsome devil talk about his inability to complete a night out on the town without his favorite blue or purple pill. Why should advertisers feel they can talk about these delicate subjects any more freely than you or I would while at a dinner party?
At the end of the day, I suppose I don’t actually feel violated or invaded by most of the advertising I have been exposed to. I’ve grown so used to it that I have developed my own filters to buffer out the unpleasant messages and tune in the smart, cleaver, funny ads that I actually enjoy. But I do have to draw the line at physical confrontation. Telemarketers are on a short list of people who, in my opinion, should be excommunicated and sent to a desert island somewhere. I’ve been known to simply not answer my door if I suspect it is a door-to-door salesman. Outside of a business environment, I don’t like being sold to personally. When you knock on my door or ring my personal phone, you have crossed the line.
That sounds a bit antisocial, but I’m going to blame TV for that.
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Oh the HORROR! - Gen- X Thoughts
Posted on November 1, 2007
Advertising……like disgruntled people, global warming, and higher taxes….it’s everywhere and not going away anytime soon. Like a NASCAR sponsorship gone bad, it seems that nowhere is safe from some sort of product message that begs attention. I am amazed at the products tied to new movie launches….who knew that you could get a Harry Potter toothbrush…as if Harry even brushes his teeth. And just when you thought you could escape to the last known sanctuary of ad-free bliss…DISASTER! The movies, like most politicians and big companies, have sold out to the trappings of money and have welcomed ads into the theatres before the show starts. I remember when I saw my first ad at the movies…one phrase came to mind, like the ending of a Joseph Conrad novel: THE HORROR! Is there no place safe? It’s as if ads are following us. The Horror indeed!…
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Sneak Attacks- Gen-X Thoughts
Posted on November 1, 2007
I tend not to be overly sensitive to what others might perceive to be “invasive” advertising. Even when my four-year-old daughter informed my wife and me that we need to buy a national brand of insomnia medication so that we can sleep better, I thought of it as an opportunity to talk with my daughter about advertising rather than worry about its influence on her future purchasing habits. I don’t even mind every statistic, football down and piece of athletic gear being sponsored when I’m watching college football (“We’ll now turn to the Acme Health Insurance Halftime Injury Report”). I will even go so far as to say that product/brand placement can add a sense of necessary realism to much of my favorite entertainment (e.g., Staples and Office Depot references as the competition of Dunder Mifflin on “The Office”). The only truly invasive advertising examples I have witnessed are the “sneak attack” advertisements on many websites. The first type typically appears seconds after a web page has loaded, when it expands from a banner ad at the top of the page to fill the entire web page. The second type, and my least favorite, is the “mouse-over” ad, which suddenly starts playing a video or expands to fill the screen simply because I have accidentally moved my mouse over the ad (without clicking). These ads give a “clickable” option to close them, but we’ve all been burned by trying to close an unwanted ad only to find our computers infected with spyware. So 30 seconds of my time is wasted while I reconsider wasting my time with the sponsoring brand ever again.
All publicity is good publicity-Echo Thoughts
Posted on November 1, 2007
I have a love/hate relationship with advertising. I appreciate a good TV commercial, and I’ve been known to laugh out loud at commercials when everyone else is tuning them out. Once I even cried over a certain Jif peanut butter commercial (it’s true!). Though we are inundated with advertisements every time we turn on the TV, flip through a magazine and drive down the highway, there is something about these traditional forms of advertising that don’t bother me. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up surrounded by advertising, and I’ve cultivated an ability to tune it out. These advertisements aren’t calling me on the phone, overloading my inbox or sending me text messages. That is when it becomes invasive—when it’s no longer just on a billboard or a page in a magazine. I’ve gotten several text messages from a cell phone company advertising picture text messaging, and they bother me. A certain bank calls me about their credit cards (even though I don’t bank with them or hold any of their credit cards), and I get a ton of emails every day from random businesses soliciting their products and services. This type of advertising is much harder to tune out, and it is invasive. However, I’m not sure that it really impacts my purchasing decisions. I don’t remember thinking, I’m not getting a credit card from them because they email me too much. If anything, their emails make me more aware of their business, and I am more likely to think of them first when I consider getting a new credit card. While I don’t appreciate invasive advertising, maybe it follows the “all publicity is good publicity” rule.
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Life in Acadiana - Mature Thoughts
Posted on October 2, 2007
As I contemplate writing about how illegal immigration has affected my life, I look around in the area of Louisiana that I live in, known as Acadiana. There are relatively few Mexicans here, legal or illegal. As of late, we have seen a few at our supermarkets and such. Their demeanor is out of the ordinary only because they are not very friendly compared to the Cajuns and the English-speaking natives of the area. Our public and private facilities, rural or urban, have not been overwhelmed by their presence. Even our colleges and universities have not been figuratively buried by their numbers. Seemingly, their numbers are not so great as to affect our society—yet. Therefore, up to now, our jobs, wages and culture have not been adversely affected to the point of creating financial or cultural adversity to our society.
However, I feel there is an enigma surrounding the comparison between Mexican immigration and the immigration of my ancestors. I am of Canadian/French and Acadian/Cajun descent. My ancestors were forced to immigrate to Louisiana but entered this country LEGALLY. Mexicans are NOT forced to immigrate to the USA, but many are entering this country ILLEGALLY. It seems that Mexican immigrants, legal or illegal, are saturating our nation. For example, when automated telephone menus ask me to press “one” for English or “two” for Spanish, implying that Spanish is the only other language we should acknowledge, I am offended. What about French, the well-established language in this area? If this continues and we become a super-saturated nation, then we are in for a long haul.
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