Brown Thursday? Are you kidding me?

I mean, what makes it brown? The shadiness of forcing minimum wage part timers away fro their families so the rich can get richer? That is shady, to say the least.

It's been a big item in the news and on social media this last week.
Boycott Walmart -- after you start a riot over a tv.
Don't shop K-mart, Target, Big Buy, Best Guy, etc --make sure you bundle up while you wait in line even before Thanksgiving.
Other news stories about how more people than ever will be eating out. Well, they wouldn't/couldn't if the damn restaurants were closed, could they?
Unless they want to line up two frigid nights ahead of time.
Oh, gee, if I want to wait for a meal I can just go "Home" for the holiday and spend it with family!
Silly me.


I would love to blame the media.  Heaven knows they feed the frenzy. Out interviewing the idiots waiting in line on Wednesday. In the stores , with cameras and publicity and regalia and rigmarole on Thursday.
But, in this case, they are doing their job, somewhat. They are reporting on the news.
Not that there is anything "NEW" going on -- this is the fourth or fifth year for this nonsense.

I think they could help.
They don't need to report their precise location when they are broadcasting the Idiot's Lineup.
They don't need to tell everyone which mall they are covering.
They don't need to reveal sale items.

People want to be on tv (and You Tube) and they want to be known for getting good deals.
The stores want all the free publicity they get, and the News Outlets give them that in spades. They don't have to pay a penny.
It's all profit for them.

And that's all you are, if you are foolish enough, or maybe desperate enough (if you happen to be one of the slave wage laborers.)
You are profit.
You are dollar signs.
You are dollars.

You are not a person.
You are not a parent.
You are not a valued ... (customer, consumer, member of the team, part of the staff-- you choose.)

You are profit.

So -- how do you see yourself?

And did you spend your Thanksgiving stuffing your face or stuffing their already bulging wallets?

They Think You're Stupid

One of the worst things about not working has got to be daytime TV.

One of the worst things about daytime TV has got to be the commercials.

Lately, these seem to have gotten worse. Many of them sound like they are talking down to you, some just use bad grammar -- and bad English, too!
There are some, I'm sorry to say, that seem to be actively looking for stupid people as their main source of customers.

This may even be true; I don't know. Maybe that is who they look to for a customer base. How hard can it be to confuse stupid people and get their money,after all?

The worst offender, commercial-wise, is LoanMax. This is a company that makes title loans on cars. Their main clientele, I think, is people who can't get a bank loan, even using their car as collateral. Banks don't want to make small loans, for one thing, and for another, they don't like older cars.
Title loan businesses know two things banks refuse to acknowledge. 1)People will generally pay to keep their car when it's all they have and 2) if it runs, they will likely get their money back at auction, if it should go that far. Maybe not all their (outrageous) interest, but at least the original loan.

The procedure is similar to a bank loan.  You get a loan using the car as collateral. If you ever try to sell the car, you have to pay off the loan/lien first.

Loan Max ads feature a woman who was just so relieved she didn't have to give them her car!  She got to keep her car! Imagine that!
Lady, if you didn't get to keep your car, it would be a/k/a selling your car, NOT a loan. How the blankety-blank did you ever get a car in the first place?

There's also a man who can't keep driving on tires with 'plugs' in them -- I was told 20 years ago they don't make tires you can put plugs in anymore. If that's still true, this man is driving around on excessively old tires, and I don't want to be on the road with him anyway. (I could, however, be wrong and someone somewhere did figure out a way to make plugs for modern tires. In that case, I'm the stupid one.)
There's a woman who doesn't want to drive around on bad rotors. I guess she can't plug her tires anymore and has no wheels.
And there's a guy who got a loan to get tattoo training -- not so bad, but you'd think they might go for something classier in the eyes of society as a means of going into business. And a fellow who buys storage units at auction. Maybe he'll be on TV someday!

There's a lawyer who "Gets answers done." Okay, I want answers, and I want a lawyer who gets things done. I don't want my answers done.

Then there's one of those infernal schools, with one-class-a-month, or one-subject-at-a-time classes. These people are really annoying. It's too bad the schools have no better representations than people who can't speak properly.
These women have their dreams accomplished.
How the hell does that happen?
I (or they) can accomplish a dream, but the dream doesn't accomplish. This person needs to speak with the lawyer who gets answers done.

This woman also talks about how the school 'accomplished' or 'created'  "new dreams for me and new opportunities for mySelf."
Only you can accomplish or create things for yourself.
The school can create or accomplish things only for itself
Only I can do things for myself.

Do intelligent persons want to go to a school that doesn't see basic communication skills as a selling point?

Do you? Will you?

I don't.
I won't.

Not even to get away from the inanity of daytime TV commercials.

Thanks Giving

We all have a lot to be thankful for. What's "a lot" to me may be only a little to you, but it's the size of the thankfulness that counts more than what the thankfulness is for.

I bring this up for several reasons.
1)A Facebook friend posted a 'month of gratitude' status.
2)We have, mostly, survived a natural disaster. It could have been so much worse. Those where it hit the hardest and are still being hit -- one horror after another -- are a reminder to those of us not afflicted.
3)It's November. Halloween is over. It's time for Thanksgiving here in the US.

Do you hear that, people? Media? Advertisers?

Halloween is over. It's time for Thanksgiving.
Not Christmas.
Not "the Holidays"

Thanks Giving.

Yesterday, a commercial for a local station's news had a cheery voiced woman announcing "Halloween is over. Time to gear up for the next holiday. This years must have-toys for Christmas. See our story at five."

I don't watch that station's news and very little of their programming anyway, but really? How many stories will they be doing four weeks from now on "Thanksgiving, the forgotten holiday?"
Hypocrites.

I tried to post a protest on their Facebook page -- it wouldn't take. Tried several times. Tried liking/friending to be able to post, still couldn't post. I undid that pretty quick, you can bet.

The media will all do/make/have big stories about the "rush to Christmas." I've already seen a few. The problem is -- they are a large part of the problem. If they didn't do stories on the top ten must-have toys. If they didn't preface miracle/ goodwill stories as early Christmas.

Imagine if the news (local, national, or its own private network) didn't run ANY Christmas stories until after Thanksgiving. The holidays wouldn't be so rushed in and pushed into our consciousness, and the stories themselves would be more special, more effective. They would have their own place to sparkle and shine and move people if they were treated as the seasonal treats that they are meant to be.
To help explain -- candy corn is available year-round, but it doesn't taste the same in April as it does in October. Jelly beans aren't the same in October. Because that is the time and the place for them.

Oh advertisers are more obviously guilty, but how would it benefit the advertisers if the media ignored their pre-emptive extravaganzas, such as top-ten lists? If those news people weren't attending these events, the advertisers would lose money and maybe even actually have to pay out for their ads.
Isn't that what they are supposed to do?

And the fourth item on my list has to be
4) Us. People.
We need to take this time, to make this accounting of our lives, our families, our things. We gripe and complain, true, but what effect can there be when we watch and buy anyway?

It is OUR power to change things. Let's stop talking and start thanking before we shop.