Noodling on Name Brands

As I was making my first cuppa tea this morning I started making a grocery list. I've thought about it before but something about the list triggered a repeat morning musing on the use of name brands in our vocabulary.

My list has "Tide" on it, "Kleenex", and a few other name brands. I do use some of the name brands on the list, but in most cases I'm happy with whatever is on sale, or I am attached to a new brand. When I go to the "Kleenex" aisle, for instance, I buy Puff with lotion. Before I settled in on Puff I usually bought whatever was on sale. I like Kleenex, but cost usually rules. I got stuck on Puff's with lotion when I had a lingering cold, the kind that keeps your nose red and raw. It was the best. I will also grab a few boxes of a store brand or something on sale to keep in the closet for those who could care less or prefer no lotion.

We also use Tide. I grew up in a Tide family, ditto for my hubby. I had long since moved away from sticking with the brand before we got married, but not so for my husband. I'm fine with using it because that's what he prefers, even though there are others I've found that are less expensive and do just as well. When it's on sale I stock up.

Many of us simply go down the aisles and pick up the name brands. We do it for a number of reasons. It's what we grew up using and we don't even consider changing. We trust the brand. We like it better than others. We get good coupons. We believe the commercials. I guess there are probably some studies that have been done with more insightful and scientific reasons, but those are the ones that popped into my head during my morning tea fixin'.

It is interesting though that whether we actually buy or use the name brands some brands are forever identified with a type of product. Some people don't think peanut butter, they think Jiff and that's what they say.

Soda is 'Coke', 'Pepsi" or... pop, cola or any other number of names. In the south though, home of Coca-Cola, your more apt to hear "gonna grab a coke" even when they're reaching for a Kroger brand knock-off.

I've found that many have loyalty to their mayonnaise brand. It's not real unless it's Helmans... or Duke... For some it's not mayonnaise at all, it's Miracle Whip. Toilet paper? Oh, man, I could probably write a dissertation on toilet paper attachment!

In this day of having a store-full of choices for sneakers (Keds?) it has to be hard if not impossible for a company to garner the kind of loyalty they did in days past. We've gone from one to three TV stations to having hundreds and hundreds. We've learned to ignore advertising because it's in and on everything. Great commercials stick in the old brain, but many times we remember the commercial but the brand doesn't stick. Marketing has become a science.... and a very expensive venture.

Check your vocabulary. How many name brands are a part of your day-to-day thinking and speech? Have your kids picked up the same habits? Do you still use many of those name brands?

Comupter love...

Reading the article I've posted below on being able to interact more with computers sparked this ramble...

Every day the future gets closer and closer, faster and faster. If you think back in history it is like time was just meandering along, things were being invented but at a slow pace. Things sped up with the advent of better communication. Things sped up as we became more civilized. You can't invent when you're hunkered down waiting for the next bomb or band of marauders.

Now hardly a second goes by where someone isn't coming up with an innovation that completely changes our world and future. I know there are some who fight it tooth and nail, and there are some who embrace it whole heartedly.

Me? There's good and there's bad in almost everything. Bad people will twist anything to serve themselves at the expense of others. Good people do their darnedest to keep on the right track but sometimes make mistakes. I believe in the basic goodness of most people and I remain optimistic about our future. I love these innovations and discoveries. I get a kick out of reading what's on the horizon.

On the flip side, I am concerned about a future where everyone is interacting with computers instead of each other. Computers are replacing televisions as the working parent's babysitter. Neither is good, although at least with computers there is some interaction with others, unlike TV.

I dislike television. But I'll save that for another ramble.

Wave to the PC! It's paying attention
LAS VEGAS - Nintendo Corp.'s Wii game console is a breakout hit in large part because users control the play by waving around a motion-sensing wireless controller. Many new gadgets are taking the idea of such an intuitive interface several steps further. Soon, you may be able to control computers, television sets, even cell phones with hand gestures alone.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080110/ap_on_hi_te/gadget_show_touch_and_wave

Boy glues hand to bed to avoid school

I can relate.

I was fascinated with television when I was around 11 or 12. We had lived in England and television programming over there wasn't much of a draw. We had an old TV that wasn't all that great to begin with so even if they had happened to have any fun kids shows it wouldn't have been easy to watch them on the small screen.

When we moved back to the states we got a bigger, color television. The cartoons were cool. The early morning programs were fantastic compared to what I'd had before.

I'd stand in the door, half in, half out, watching the television and watching for the bus. Now we lived partway down a fairly large hill. When the bus would top the hill, I'd have to turn off the TV, grab my books and lunch box, lock the door and scoot across the street and up about three or four houses to catch the bus.

As you can imagine, I missed the bus a number of times.

We lived quite some distance from the grade school, really too long to think about walking. But walk I did. There was no way I was calling my Mom to come home from work (if she'd already left) to take me to school.

I cut school one day simply because one of my favorite movies was going to be on during the day. I was "sick." I curled up on the sofa and watched... gee, what was the name of the movie? It was the one where the guy met a little girl. Each time he'd see her she was older. He didn't figure it out until she was grown. Turned out she'd died in some sort of accident (hotel fire? circus fire?). He tried to stop her from dying again or something. I think her name was Jenny?

I haven't thought about that movie in umpteen years. It's going to drive me nuts until I remember the name! But I would have glued my hand to the couch to be able to watch it. Of course, we didn't have anything but school glue, so I doubt it would have done the trick.

Here's the story that sparked those memories:

MEXICO CITY - A 10-year-old Mexican boy dreaded returning to school after Christmas break so much that he glued his hand to his bed. Sandra Palacios spent nearly two hours Monday morning trying to free her son Diego's hand with water, oil and nail polish remover before calling authorities, police chief Jorge Camacho told The Associated Press from outside the northern city of Monterrey.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080108/ap_on_fe_st/mexico_hand_glued

Double Blob Blog

We had a double Blob Christmas this year. Somehow toward the end of the day, after stuffing our faces and filling a couple of bags with torn wrapping paper, we ended up in front of the boob tube watching movies.

We started out with one of my old favorites, Gods Must Be Crazy and ended with two Blobs. First the old 1958 version with Steve McQueen (then known as Steven) then we succumbed to watching the 1988 version.

Bad dialogue, bad acting, bad effects, bad everything... Aren't old movies great? The remakes usually stink, and the Blob remake definitely reeked. Both movies could have been one page short stories and a ten minute movie-short easily.

Regarding the plot for the remake: I couldn't help but picture a group of people at a party, high on something, sitting around coming up with wild ways to jazz up the original story. The '58 version is probably 90% dialogue. They couldn't do that in '88, they had to have something to grab attention. They completely changed the blob's origins (not that the first one really ever speculated much in that area).

This time somehow we created it and it escaped (or was set free) and flung from the sky to the earth inside a meteor. It was faster, meaner, and managed to leave behind body parts, tremendously upping the gory factor. The blob had tentacles, which in my mind takes away some of the blob factor. I rather liked the '58 version where it just absorbed everything instead of being picky about which body parts it chose to eat. The acid was harder to believe in some ways. If it was that corrosive then it should have just eaten through walls rather than having to slip, slide and slink through corridors and shafts.

There were evil scientists / military, bad guys turning good (Matt Dillon's little brother was an environmental disgrace, throwing cans into the wilderness!). Good guys dying, snotty nurses, girls flirting with guys, the list of cliches and stereotypes is too long to capture in one short double blob blog...

Neither movies has any redeeming qualities other than yuk-value. They also both capture the idea the producers and directors had of life during those times. Great time capsules, whether there's any modicum of the true reality of life during the late 50's and late 80's is another story. I certainly remember the 80's a little differently (even without the evil Blob).

I highly recommend watching both movies. Be sure to watch the old one first. Don't watch them alone, you must have someone to laugh with, the more the merrier.