Adventures in the USA, Round 2
Dec. 5th, 2007 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinFunny 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.
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 05:48 pm (UTC)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.