By Request!

You know, my buddy Duke's been putting up some pretty damn good blogs lately, ones that make me laugh. He's done his food blogs, about hot dogs and barbecue in different places, and now he's on to movie blogs. His talk of the "embiggened bug" and the "rubber suited monster" (RSM) genres had me rolling in my seat.

A couple of his blogs have tweaked my memory, and one of his early requests was "just stuff about your everyday life or your take on the latest crummy TV commercials." So Duke, this week's request blog goes out to you, there in that state beside mine.

Now, one of Duke's more recent blogs was about shoppers, and how there were two kinds. Grazers and Darters. The Grazer goes in to look, ponder, compare, contrast, write an essay, read it back, sleep on it - there in the aisle - wake up, read the essay again, then make a choice. The Darter knows what the purchase will be beforehand, where it will be from, at what price, and darts in to get it.

I'm a Darter. And I once went shopping for a get well card with my cousin Jacob, who is a Grazer. Jacob stood in the aisle of a Hallmark store for upwards of 45 minutes picking out a get well card for a co-worker. And while I don't fault Jacob for this, I mean, it's certainly to her credit that she wanted to pick the exact right card that said the perfect pre-written, pre-thought hokum in it, I, as a Darter, wanted to take a match and set fire to every damn get well card in the store.

Grazers and Darters should never shop together, unless each is wearing a watch and they split up to shop separately, then meet at a central point later. That way they can meet up after 3 hours, where the Grazer will show up with a nice pair of shoes and the Darter will show up with 4 books, 2 CDs, a DVD box set, a television, and a good buzz where there were 2 ½ hours left over after the Darter's shopping and he found a bar.

However, there's another little wrinkle mentioned in Duke's shopping blog, and that is the "buying in bulk, thus getting a better value" conundrum.

And this is what caused Mr M and I to nearly come to blows, and I mean knock-down drag-out physical brawling, in the B'burg Kroger one Saturday afternoon.

See, Mr M had to go to the grocery to buy some ingredients for a meat loaf he was making us. And one of those ingredients was mushrooms. And so along we loped to the mushroom aisle, carrying our little tote basket provided by the store, and Mr M suddenly started poring over the mushrooms. Yes, my friends and blogees, Mr M, a Darter from way back, had transformed in a minute's time into a Grazer.

Now, on his behalf, this was when he went back to school for another master's degree and was a lowly poor student instead of an unhappy wage-earner, but still. He stood there varying back and forth between two containers of mushrooms. The glass jar and the small can. The small can was very cheap. The glass jar was more expensive. But somehow Mr M became transfixed on the fact that the more expensive jar had more servings, and therefore, a cheaper PPM©. (Price Per Mushroom, a phrase I coined right there in the aisle and would come to use so often in the conversation passersby were ready to stuff giant portobellos from the produce section into my mouth.)

OK, I'll readily admit to being kind of obnoxious about it, now, anyway, but at the time I was incredulous. Mr M was making one meat loaf - he needed the mushrooms for nothing more than that loaf. Why would he want to buy the larger jar of mushrooms just because it had a better PPM© when he could save money by buying the small can with the worse PPM©, but it would be all the mushrooms he would need anyway?

There was a point where, because he's a pacifist, not a gentleman - ie, it's not that he wouldn't punch out a lady, but that he wouldn't punch out anyone - that Mr M turned from me and walked away. And every time I caught up to him he turned and walked in the opposite direction. It became a game, almost. I caught him hiding behind the suntan lotion display, crouched in the bakery with rolls on his head, anything to escape me.

One of our more fun grocery store jaunts. And I was a little much that day. I was right, but a little much.

Oh well, such is our happy friendship. Let's go on to commercials now.

Duke mentioned my take on the latest crummy TV commercials, and there are a lot of those out there, Sham-wow, are you listening, but I thought I'd mention some commercials I like. This is because I've been thinking a lot lately about one of my favorite commercials of all time, and how I can't find it on the internet.

I'm completely enamored of all the Frosted Mini-Wheats commercials. You know them, you should, anyway, because last year or so I blogged about them. They're the commercials with the little mini-wheats helping people do better at school or in their jobs, and I blogged about how I wanted my own little wheaty friend to help me through my day. After that blog they introduced all kind of new flavored wheats, and little bitty kid wheats, one of which still makes me laugh when he falls over because his back pack is too heavy. The latest one is a wheat helping his human friend who works at a coffee shop.

If you go to the Mini Wheats website, you'll see the wheats everywhere. In fact, as the site opens, it's a hoot to see a wheat walk out and pat his foot impatiently. But if you go here, you can view a couple of their commercials. Prepare to fall in love.

(An aside: I'm trying something new in my quest to learn a little more html. Hopefully, all these links will open in a new window so you can go there and not worry about the cumbersome back-and-forthing from commercial to blog. Because I care. No, wait, because I'm trying to learn some more html. And I care.)

There's a commercial I like that's current, I don't really know why. It just makes me smile. It's for Shredded Wheat, not the frosty good kind but the hay bale, unsugared kind. It's a man who asks what progress has done for us, and his answer is "nothing." He goes on to name every crappy thing about progress in the last hundred years, then tells us that's why Shredded Wheat has remained the same for a century. And he declares that Shredded Wheat put the "no" in "innovation." What makes me laugh is that he's in his big open office space and in the background you see someone at a 60s era desk playing solitaire. Not on a computer, on a big green board. If you haven't seen it, you can here.

Now, I'm going back to Duke's blogs, because when he wrote about the rubber suited monster (RSM) movies, it immediately made me think of a commercial from a few years ago I adored.

There's some council out there, the Why Don't You Get Off Your Lazy Ass And Be a Halfway Decent Father Council, who make commercials about how you don't have to be a superhuman to be a good dad, just spend time with your kids. Problem is, a dad who won't get off his lazy ass to spend time with his kids ain't gonna be moved by one of these commercials, cute as they may be.

However, here are two rubber suited monsters (RSMs) having a nice father-son outing. Love it!

And speaking of which, the WDYGOYLAABAHDFC has put out another commercial that's probably my favorite commercial in the last few years. You may have seen it, and therefore know the punch line already, but I can remember the first time I ever saw it and the total warm fuzziness that came over me at the end when all was revealed. I think it's adorable, and you can view it here.

And finally. The commercial I fell in love with at Christmas some years ago, that my Dear Nephew and I quoted like mad for years after, that was on You Tube at one time but has now vanished because of copyrighting. Boy, do I know what that's like.

Anyway, it was the Staples Sno-bot commercial, where a robot has been created to help people with their Staples Christmas shopping. He tells a shopper of several great buys and the shopper shows interest in a printer. The robot tries to steer the shopper in a different direction, but the shopper's mind is made up. Then the robot blurts out, "You can't have her - I love her!" As the commercial ends the printer is bought, and the robot says, in his monotone machine voice, "Weeping - weeping."

Boy, I miss that commercial.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Finishing this up on my afternoon off, and now headed to B'burg to work a little more on the Comfy Chair movie. Might come off, might not. Wish me luck.
* Remember, anyone, anywhere, anytime can make a request for a blog!