| What a Waste of Time & Money |
| 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
it a really neat place 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 teflon, pivoting
heads, ergonomically designed handles, 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 hair out before slicing it 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! Aaaaaaaaggghh!!!! |
| 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 and 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 naked pic when
she's 20, but I'd really rather not see her 6 month old squidgy baby butt
on my telly 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 an appliance shop 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..... 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 twat in a suit talking on his mobile 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 mesmerised 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 that
the toothbrush couldn't get scraped off our teeth. |
| 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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