If I Patronized Companies Based on Their Advertisements

There are some really stupid advertisements on television. But some are good. If I were to choose certain companies or brands based solely on their advertising:

Transportation: I would purchase a Ford truck F-150. Their advertisements are visually appealing, with just enough humor. Good colors, good font, not sappy. I do not like car advertisements that are sappy.

Insurance: AllState. I really like the AllState guy. Are you in good hands? His voice is just so pleasant, and it is a good catchphrase for an insurance company. (Traveler's comes in a close second, but they have not had advertisements here for as long, and at the endings of their commercials, a person reaches out of the frame to pull up an umbrella out of where the text is, and that annoys me. But the rest of it, very visually appealing.)

Soda: Coca-Cola. I love their commercials. There are few that I have not liked over the years. This one is probably my favorite. I also especially like one of their most recent ones, which encourages recycling. The ending is precious. (I can not find it on youtube, though.)

Alcohol: Budweizer. I strongly dislike Bud Light's advertisements, but the ones for Budweizer almost always make me smile. I love the ones with the horses especially. Like Coca-Cola, they tend to put out "feel good" commercials, and those work for me. Or, they would, if I were the sort of person who purchased according to what I liked on the television.

Jewelry: Kay Jewelers. With the exception of their recent "In all the years I've been coming here, I've never seen a storm this bad" advertisement, which is just too rediculous for me, their commercials make me tear up. It is all right to be sappy when you are advertising jewelry - they do so without going over the top. Also, Every Kiss Begins with Kay is a clever slogan, and one that they have had for a long time. I do not like it when companies change their slogan, so this puts them even higher in my opinion.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

Whatever happened to "Read a good book this summer!" or "Have fun and be safe!" on school reader-boards? For the month leading up to Independence Day, the reader-board on the middle school I drive by on my way to work read, "Fireworks are Illegal. $513 fine in Spokane." At first I laughed, but in retrospect, it makes me sort of sad. Yes, fireworks are illegal in Spokane County. Yes, we can get them very easily because we are about twenty minutes from Idaho. Yes, middle-schoolers probably should not play with fireworks even if they were not illegal. But is it the responsibility of the school to warn them against that? Is such a warning even effective? I feel like the kids who are likely to acquire and play with fireworks are the ones who are also likely, in general, to do whatever the school says not to do. Signs like this seem to me to, at worst, aggravate the problem, or, at best, have no effect whatsoever. I very much prefer those signs which encourage good behavior, not discourage negative. After all, while the message is essentially the same, "Read Read Read" or "Have fun in the Sun!" are much nicer than "Stop being a couch potato!" or "TV rots your brain!"

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

Itsy-Bitsy Pieces of My Life

Esmeralda is shedding, which always frightens me a bit. I have a rough spot on my neck from scratching it while I had a cold last week, and wondered this morning if I were due to shed, as well. When I was at the optometrist's office today, there was a girl in the waiting room named Esmeralda, and it startled me when they called her. I jerked my head up, and ended up making very awkward eye-contact with her for a few seconds. This was the first time in my life, in all my many years of eye exams, that the assistant was able to perform the glaucoma test on the first try. I hate that test. The blue light coming toward my eye and pressing against it, even though the drops numb the nerve endings so I can not feel it, terrifies me. I was quite pleased with myself for making it through this time. Being there made me keep thinking about Blindness, which I finished reading last week. An excellent book, perhaps the best I have read in a long time. I was fascinated by the author's use of punctuation, which did as much for the pace of the book as the plot itself did. I miss reading a lot. I used to read several books per week, and now it takes me a week to read one. But I am trying to continue reading new books, rather than becoming one who only reads books she has read before. My other new book that I finished recently was If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, which I liked decidedly less. But it seemed to me that part of the author's intent was that the reader should feel the unease I felt at it, so that was somewhat consoling. Next is The Master and Margarita, which my sister has wanted me to read for several years. I had no time or energy to do so during school, but I plan to pick it up starting tomorrow. The trouble I find with reading a lot is, of course, that which so many discover they have. That is, I do not lack time, but I do not feel like reading during that time which I have. I am working eight hours a day, and while I am not working I would like to be mindless. Television is more attractive for that reason, although I dislike television in general. I do not want to lose that mind which was cultivated so carefully over the past four years. My job is horrid at times. We are still in training, having just entered the second week. The hours are awful, and it is a noxious environment to be in. But I have hope that things will improve after training is through, when I am actually in a small, colorless box answering and selling phones. Hard to imagine that that would be a step up, is it not? My soul aches, here. I had thought that I was doing so well, finally getting used to being here again, but tonight after work, my soul started hurting for California again. For my friends, for the places and people I love so much. Oh, how I dislike change, when it is change away from what is good. But I can see ahead. This is not the end. This horrid position is a means to an end, and I will not be there forever. All my applications to graduate school are in, and now I have only to wait. Some say that is the hardest part, but I think it is much easier than agonizing over essays. It is out of my hands; there is a certain ease that comes from that, a sigh of relief. I hope to get into Fullerton. I hope to move back, to finally live with Adria, to study and relax with friends once more. I have few friends here. I hope when I return I will still have many friends there. I am so awful at staying in touch, I fear I may be losing people. My main problem is that I never know what to say. So I say nothing, and they do the same, and we fall away in our respective silences. The underlying issue here is that it is not the conversation that I miss, but the silent presence. I miss most those with whom I can sit quietly, or walk quietly. I miss those with whom there is that quiet understanding that silence is okay, and the silence of not being in contact is so very different than the silence of two people sitting and reading, knowing that the other is there if something does need to be said. I miss that so very much. That is all I can write for now, not because there are no other small pieces of my life I can think of about which to write, but rather because that last bit can not very well lead into any of them.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

Post-Script Edit: In re-reading this, I realized the ambiguity of one of my sentences. In the sentence I miss reading a lot, a lot should not be taken as the amount that I miss, (eg, reading. I miss it a lot) but the amount of reading I miss (eg, reading lots of books. I miss that).

2. Gatorade

I have decided to start writing intermittently on those topics listed below. I am starting with Gatorade, because it is easy and unemotional. Mostly amusing observations. Right now, I am on my laptop in a lovely little cafe with free wireless. I don't particularly like using my parents' computer. It is an old PC, with awkward keys and an old internet browser. I don't have administrative privileges, so I can not download any programs, and my dad won't...I think that he thinks it will slow the computer down more. Which may or may not be true. Anyway, it is always nice to be somewhere where I can use my own computer. This cafe is especially nice. There is a large television with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade playing, which, while distracting, is rather fun. Good movie.

Anyway. Gatorade, yes? I never have cared much for the drink. But two things are on my mind about it. First is a series of commercials that was on television a while ago. I do not remember when...it may have been a few months, or a few years. Each commercial would have one or several athletes being athletic, and they would be...oozing neon liquids. It was strange. And then, at the end, it would say on the screen, "is it in you?" And all I could ever think was, "Oh goodness, I hope not."

The other thing was more recent. One day, when I was collecting recycling, I came across an energy drink can. This is not at all uncommon. In fact, it is tragically very common. I do not understand how people consume these things, really. There was often one half-full in a trash can, which I would have to dump out, and I simply can not imagine drinking something of that color. Anyway, this particular can had written on it, "By the makers of (Gatorade symbol)" If you don't know, the Gatorade symbol is an orange lightening bolt. So a normal person should have read it as "By the makers of Gatorade." But I, of course, read it as "By the makers of lightening." And then my associative mind jumped to Zeus, and the idea that he would make energy drinks, which suddenly made sense of them, considering all of games the gods always played with the mortals.
My mind? Random.

Blessings on your travels.
Emily