The Muse is Still AWOL...

...so the best I can do is assume my curmudgeonly persona and give you an EIP semi-regular feature, to wit:

Miscellaneous Moans, Groans, Bitches, and Complaints Dept: Just a few things that get my goat of late… Let’s begin with Irritating TV ads, Part Four (or is it up to Five?). Always a fertile field, here are two from the latest crop of ads that insult our intelligence.

“Philips TeeVees with Ambilight Technology.” This ad treats us to a TV that radiates pale green light from the back of the TV as the Incredible Hulk morphs from his regular human form into Hulkiness. Just what I need: a TV with a built-in light show. My initial reaction was, and remains, “how stupid.” But not everyone agrees.

“My Lil Reminder.” This ad opens with a shot of some poor befuddled white-haired old lady standing in a parking lot, wondering just where she left her car. Now I can sorta relate to that, me being of a certain age, and all. But I cannot relate to carrying around a small digital recorder and remembering to pull it out and record “Section L-6” before venturing off into the mall. If you’re that damned forgetful, just jot down your location on a piece of paper, nu? And imagine the confusion if, just by happenstance, you forget to record “L-6” when getting out of your car and you replay “C-13” from a couple of days ago. I can imagine police departments getting more than a few panicky stolen-car reports…

And as for recording shopping lists? Right…that’ll work. Let me see you cross off a purchased item on your handy-dandy MyLilReminder. I hope there’s no serious venture capital tied up in this exercise in stupidity.

Moving right along… we come to The Phalanx of Flags. While C-SPAN and I were waiting for yesterday's Democrat press conference announcing their new leadership, we were treated to the spectacle of low-level minions arranging NINE freaking American flags behind the podium. Some off-camera wag commented “Have you got enough flags?” The minion-in-charge replied “You can never have too many flags.” Well, I beg to differ. You can have too many flags. These days, more likely than not, you DO have too many flags. ONE flag does the trick nicely. Any more than that and you look like you took set decoration lessons from Joseph Goebbels.

It’s not just the Democrats, it’s seemingly everyone. Case in point: I watched Haley Barbour and Michael Chertoff address the 2006 Federalist Society this morning and there were eight American flags arranged on the stage behind the speakers (video on the C-SPAN site, RealPlayer required). And again: Anytime a foreign leader visits the White House and that visit is worthy of a press conference, Dubya and said foreign leader emerge from a hallway lined with umpteen soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, displaying the Phalanx of American and foreign flags. One each would do nicely. Any more is overkill and vaguely off-putting.

Stop it.

And finally, the strictly personal… My microwave is but a month (or so) old and the interior light has already burned out. Not a good sign. And, as best as I can figure, I'll have to disassemble the entire frickin' microwave to replace the bulb. What wonderful, user-friendly product engineering. /sarcasm.

And you know there may be more...