Annoying Print Ads

Fruit of the Loom has a plus size line of undies and they are doing an ad celebrating the fact that some women are curvaceous. (I think that's a nice way of saying chubby)

Here are two of the ads you'll find in magazines everywhere.





There's no doubt that these women are both beautiful, however, if we are celebrating curves, why do we have to airbrush them to give them the appearance of having a flat stomach? It defeats the purpose of the ad in my eyes. Celebrate the women for being beautiful the way they are. Stop airbrushing!

I Hate You Hating the New Facebook

I Hate You Hating the New Facebook

There's a time I dread every year, a time of great trepidation in Internetland: the roll out of this year's Facebook redesign. And unlike the 5 billion groups that pop up two days later, I don't hate the new designs. No, what I hate is constantly hearing how much everyone else hates it.

I get an average of two group/fanpage invites a day the first two weeks of the new Facebook roll out to the effect of "Thousands of children are homeless in Haiti, but the new Facebook is the worst tragedy of the year." And I promptly delete them. Why? Because - gasp! - usually I like the Facebook redesigns. When I don't, I suck it the fuck up and get used to it.

The thing I hate the most is the barrage of status updates bitching about the redesign. Most of these are folks under the age of 25 going "Waaaa I can't find ANYTHING!" The reason I hate this so much is because these are the exact same folks that say, "OMG, old people (read: anyone older than them, median age of old = 23+ I wish I were joking) don't know NEthing about the internet! LOL!"

Hey, bitching people! Pot calling the kettle black much? The first day your Facebook profile updates to the new design, they have a fucking tutorial that tells you exactly where everything moved or changed. Most of the changes are cosmetic and don't have a huge impact on your user experience, too. So either clam the fuck up or have a little sympathy when someone older than you (usually your parents, but also reserved for the nameless faceless Olde People) doesn't immediately know how to upload photos on their computer or use Twitter.

Caveat: This is mostly reserved for youngins and mombies who live on Facebook. If you have a for really realz job or actual grownup responsibilities, you get a free pass because, God forbid, you don't log onto Facebook every 12 seconds.

PS Rant-within-a-rant: Hey, same group of people that clogs up my newsfeed with this bullshit? STOP MAKING ME FEEL OLD. Seriously, one of you saw the Phantom Menace when you were in SECOND GRADE. There is a very appropriate Garth Brooks song title I could wax poetic about if I didn't want to stab everyone of you in the eye socket right now.

John Tesh is a fear monger and needs to be stopped.

John Tesh is a fear monger and needs to be stopped.

The only time I ever listen to the radio is on the drive to work in the mornings. And the only reasons for that is because it's only a ten minute drive, and as out of it as I am in the mornings, it would take longer than that to locate and hook up my iPod. I can listen to Bob & Sheri, who are pretty amusing, get a dose of news and weather, and only have to listen to one shitty pop song. (And I swear, 80% of the time it's Kelly Clarkson's "Miss Independent." Could be worse.)

The problem with this is that I leave the station tuned when I get out of the car, and it's still on when I go home for lunch or at the end of the day. The rest of the day, there are copious amounts of commercials for the John Tesh Radio Show, "Intelligence for your life."

Now, full disclosure, I tend to hate any sort of motivational speakers. Growing up with a mother who listened to Tony Robbins all the time, I got seriously worn out on people who make a living telling other people how to run their lives.

That being said, it is entirely possible John Tesh is the devil. The thing I've noticed is that while I suppose he purports to be helping people, all of his well-meaning advice is more mean than well. All of the advice is basic common sense. And I know that common sense is not so common these days, but his brief advice snippets focus solely on the negative and rarely have any useful info.

I decided to sacrifice a few brain cells and check the website out for some examples.

Make Your Next Vacation As Stress-Free As Possible. The bullet points? Check your health insurance. Save your skin. Protect your valuables.

Because the only things that could possibly happen on your vacation are that you'll get sick, sunburned and robbed. How about ... buy a map! Plan ahead for the attractions you want to see. Become familiar with the general road structure/public transportation.

Secrets of The Airline Industry.
* Airport luggage scales are often wrong.
* The air in the airplane cabin could make you sick.
* The flight crew is totally exhausted.

They're maliciously overcharging you on purpose! You're going to get pneumonia and die! The pilot is going to fall asleep at the wheel and we'll all burn in a fiery disaster!

Make Your Date Like you in 90 Seconds or Less.
* Floss your teeth.
* If you want her to pay attention to you-- notice the color of her eyes.
* If you want her to like you right away-- Mirror her. If she scratches her nose, rub your eye. We gravitate toward people like us.

The first two make sense, but WTF with #3? Mime her movements? That's just creepy. Haven't we all seen enough romcoms to know that if you scratch your nose and he follows suit, you're going to be paranoid that there's something on your face and you'll both be doing a twitchy dance until you sneak out and get to a mirror and realize you look just fine?

We're Eating Too Much Sugar
* Research suggests that sugar makes your body less effective at fighting CANCER.

What research? Hmm? I like that they pick out the big killer and make sure you notice it by putting it IN CAPS.

But the one I heard on the radio the other day was the last straw: Beware of Canine Flu. Obviously, the commercials on the radio are not going to give you all of the info on the subject he's promoting for the full show. But does the commercial basically have to say, "could your beloved pet be dead within the week?!"

And did we ever stop to think that maybe the reason common sense is dying is because we depend too much on stupid people like John Tesh (or Oprah, Dr Phil, Tyra...) to tell us how to live our lives instead of figuring it out on our own? Sigh.