Adventures in the USA, Round 2

[tealin]

Funny 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.

Comments

[beckychan.livejournal.com]

Wow... what they won't think of next.

See ya soon! ^__^

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Wheee!! i am expecting a thorough indoctrination in all things Avatar!

[chainedwind.livejournal.com]

Hm, you're in the US? Where?

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

See: location tag

[chainedwind.livejournal.com]

SeaTac... SeaTac... o_O

*click*

Ah. Partial comprehension.

[vertigoranger.livejournal.com]

This is such the essence of what makes American TV absurd, their commercials and their current events programmes are a source of constant fascination. Hee.

[jolly-kraken.livejournal.com]

And how. I live here, and even I think the vast majority of it is utterly stupid. The best channel is the Game Show Network. XD The fact that I've grown up on American TV explains my obsession with foreign TV. (The Japanese have the best goddamn shows, period.)

[fani.livejournal.com]

OMG AMERICA, HOUSES. DON'T PANIC BUT THEY ACTUALLY COST MONEY. MORE AFTER THE BREAK.

I wonder why nobody ever says "No shit, Sherlock" to a news announcer who says things like this.

Reminded me of an Air Farce episode that parodied CNN. They went, "THIS JUST IN, NOTHING IS HAPPENING!!.....(silent).....MORE ON THIS, NEXT ON CNN!!"

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Haha, contrast that with the 'BBC Has No News' segment on Time Trumpet (I think it was Time Trumpet) where they just sort of stare expectantly at the camera...

[plottwist13.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh sometimes my country makes me laugh so hard I cry. Then I just cry. D:

The coal commercial shows ALL THE TIME here and I get so sick of it. I don't like coal, okay?! WANT MOAR WINDMILZ. -.-

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear I wasn't hallucinating!

... I think ...

Seriously, that commercial simply leaves no room for satire. I wonder if satire can sue for territory infringement.

[ardys-the-ghoul.livejournal.com]

I get so disgusted with my dad sometimes. He claims that global warming isn't a problem and is blown all out of proportion.

He works at a coal-burning power plant. Go figure.

I think he's just in denial. And he's afraid that if coal becomes obsolete he'll lose his job.

My dad has issues. Although, I think even he would say that commercial is stupid.

[lilyson.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the world of American television. Explains a lot, don't it? ;)

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

One must ponder whether it is a symptom or a cause ... though it's more likely some sort of perpetual feedback loop (or downward spiral).

[lilyson.livejournal.com]

I'm more of the opinion nowadays that it is a vicious cycle.

(Did you enjoy SeaTac? It's one of the prettier airports in the US. Maybe I'm biased, though. Seattle is awesome)

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I used to be in the habit of spending the night there around Christmastime because of annoying itinerary gaps, but it's been a while since I've been there. It is nice – I like the varying types of brass salmon in the wavy pattern on the floor and the Sky Wall (is that new?) ... I was disappointed in Ivar's though. Terry Pratchett swears by Seattle clam chowder so I though I'd try some and the soup was okay but the bread bowl was ... not. I keep forgetting about American food. Good thing I've learned how to cook. :\

[lilyson.livejournal.com]

The brass salmon is one of my favorite parts; it's one of the surest signs I'm in Seattle, and makes me happy when I arrive and depressed when I leave. I don't know about the Sky Wall or Ivar's, since I've only been in the city a handful of times to visit my boyfriend. The thing I like most about SeaTac is that it's never seemed overwhelmingly crowded like Newark or LAX, but we'll see how I brave the holiday traveling rush this year.

About American food; I have a classmate who's from Kenya and lived in England for a few years before coming to the US and said he couldn't eat for the first three months he was here because the food just didn't taste natural to him. This has only convinced me that I need to branch out my culinary horizons beyond the ethnic food available in America and Taiwanese food.

Damn. Now I'm hungry.

[rblake77.livejournal.com]

Check out FOX News if you want a real laugh. But try not to stare at it too long.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, there's a constant drip-feed of it into my parents' house so I'm familiar with its ... well, I can't even say laughability because it's too annoying to laugh at. Doesn't make CNN less funny, though.

[dried-frog-pill.livejournal.com]

As soon as you mentioned a continuous loop of CNN I started laughing. I hate that channel so, but it's so fun to laugh at it.

[ally-gormasch.livejournal.com]

The last time I was in the US, a gunman ran into the CNN building and someone got shot, but this piece of news that was going on directly below the newsroom was preceded by an item about a chiuahua (sp?) that had been rescued from a dumpster. I mean, really.

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

Coal! Of course! Because even if global warming doesn't bother you, that power source isn't going to run out in the foreseeable future!

We've been getting that mortgage thing over here as well. First they're complaining about how the interest rates are rising out of control, then when the damn things actually start falling, it spells doom and gloom for the economy.

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

(anyway, I've always thought of coal as more of a Welsh or Belgian energy source than an 'all-American one'.)

[ardys-the-ghoul.livejournal.com]

Clearly, you don't live in Indiana. Coal everywhere.

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

Nah, I live in Scotland. Closest coalfield's the one under Prestonpans, I think.

[ardys-the-ghoul.livejournal.com]

Where I come from (southern Indiana) there are strip mines all over the place.

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

I think most of the mines in Britain are pretty defunct, though.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I didn't know they had coal in Belgium! Wow, the things you learn from the Intarnets.

I'm assuming this coal is All-American because it was dug up in West Virginia or something. It's probably more American than most Americans, having been here for a few million years at least...

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

Yup - the Franco-Belgian Coalfield's one of the biggest in Europe. We did a unit on the Sambre-Meuse area in Geography.

Life in an Airport

[thefordmustang.livejournal.com]

Fun post! Since I spend so much time in them, they provide never ending amusement for me, though I H-A-T-E the security lines and their overall feeling that the USA has become a police state. I know everytime I come back to the USA from Scandinavia I feel really this awful sense come over me that I have stepped back into some sort of polluted cage.

You are right about TV. I have become such a Luddite, but I do not watch US television mostly because it assumes the viewers are dumber than we really are- we are kind of always being told what to think. I am glad I have not seen that Coal commercial.

I liked the "Bless its little cotton socks" reference... how Going Postal!

Interesting point about wireless in your other post. It is nice to see some airports in the USA like SMF are offering free internet! BWI you have to pay for it :-(. It is free, still at Boston Logan, at least where Icelandair is. They just started to offer free wireless at KEF in Iceland, which is a great move.

[jimmythescratch.livejournal.com]

There used to be a commercial of sexy ladies and hot guys working in a coal mine with something like "Coal Mining, We've made a few...changes." after it. I have not seen that commercial in a couple of years, however.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! I wonder if that followed on the coal mining scene in Zoolander...

[jimmythescratch.livejournal.com]

Ha, seriously! I wish I could remember how long ago that was...

Mortgage crisis

[(Anonymous)]

Alas, there IS a crisis. Mortgage companies are crumbling at a rate unseen, loans are folding faster than laundry workers on crack. The bottom line, my landlords are feeling the pressure and are working their best magic to forcibly evict us. They can no longer afford a second house and wish to sell it. It's more complex than that, obviously, but no one needs to get mired down in the details. I might be homeless soon...