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Adventures in the USA, Round 2
Dec. 5th, 2007 03:01 pmFunny things about the USA from within the last two hours:
In line for the security checkpoint, I was treated to a video telling me 'You know you're not a threat, so pack your luggage in a way that the TSA can know it too!' I wonder what the TSA will think of the animation disk, percolator, and two pounds of chocolate in my suitcase...
I come to the boarding gate and on the screen that pipes CNN to waiting passengers is a six-way split-screen of drive-by footage of houses, as if they were involved in some sort of one-sided low-speed chase. At the bottom, on a bright red bar above some urgently scrolling text, was 'NEW DEVELOPMENTS.' I thought there had been some sort of terrorist attack or random shooting in a posh neighbourhood back East somewhere, but no – it was just the mortgage crisis. OMG AMERICA, HOUSES. DON'T PANIC BUT THEY ACTUALLY COST MONEY. MORE AFTER THE BREAK.
Then, later, there was a commercial ... I don't know what it looked like because I was sitting behind a pillar at the time. It started out with a fairly serious voiceover by a guy reading off something like 'imagine an all-American energy source' bla bla bla jobs and families and apple pie, then – cue 'Celebration' – COAL! It heats our homes and powers our cities and isn't bought from shifty-eyed swarthy foreign types, bless its little cotton socks! I am not making this up though I am paraphrasing.* This commercial would not be out of place on The Now Show, and here it was on serious national television. I don't know whether to be endeared or appalled, but it did make me laugh out loud.
And there's someone talking in a very penetrating voice on his cell phone about high-def ESPN.
This will be an interesting six weeks...
*I'm not making up the part about 'Celebration' though.
In line for the security checkpoint, I was treated to a video telling me 'You know you're not a threat, so pack your luggage in a way that the TSA can know it too!' I wonder what the TSA will think of the animation disk, percolator, and two pounds of chocolate in my suitcase...
I come to the boarding gate and on the screen that pipes CNN to waiting passengers is a six-way split-screen of drive-by footage of houses, as if they were involved in some sort of one-sided low-speed chase. At the bottom, on a bright red bar above some urgently scrolling text, was 'NEW DEVELOPMENTS.' I thought there had been some sort of terrorist attack or random shooting in a posh neighbourhood back East somewhere, but no – it was just the mortgage crisis. OMG AMERICA, HOUSES. DON'T PANIC BUT THEY ACTUALLY COST MONEY. MORE AFTER THE BREAK.
Then, later, there was a commercial ... I don't know what it looked like because I was sitting behind a pillar at the time. It started out with a fairly serious voiceover by a guy reading off something like 'imagine an all-American energy source' bla bla bla jobs and families and apple pie, then – cue 'Celebration' – COAL! It heats our homes and powers our cities and isn't bought from shifty-eyed swarthy foreign types, bless its little cotton socks! I am not making this up though I am paraphrasing.* This commercial would not be out of place on The Now Show, and here it was on serious national television. I don't know whether to be endeared or appalled, but it did make me laugh out loud.
And there's someone talking in a very penetrating voice on his cell phone about high-def ESPN.
This will be an interesting six weeks...
*I'm not making up the part about 'Celebration' though.
