Can't Escape the Buffyverse

So...after about a 6 year hiatus, I finally got around to finishing my 7th season of Buffy a few weeks ago. Thankfully, I wasn't left with the empty feeling I was afraid that I was going to have for so long...it was more satisfying that anything...as in, "Hey! This thing I've been watching for years! There's a conclusion!"

 

In order to continue on my quest through the Buffyverse, I added Angel to my Netflix queue. After watching the first disc on Thursday...I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. I began to wonder...how am I going to get through the weekend on only these three discs?

 

A trip to Target was made, hoping season one would be there and be on the cheap. Lo and behold...Season 1 and 2 packaged together for $19.99...as were Seasons 3 and 4. Obviously, I bought all four.

 

Five days later and halfway through the second season...I think I've realized that I'm somewhat of an addictive personality when it comes to things like these.

Spam Spam Spam

So...I got a notice over the weekend from The Man (aka Blogger) that my blog had been tagged as a spam blog, inappropriate, etc.
 
My three posts have been:
1) A somewhat negative book review.
2) A sarcastic response to people who think I read because I have to.
3) A highly critical analysis of a radio commercial about a air conditioning service company.
 
Obviously, my first thought upon stumbling across this blog would be, "WOW! THAT'S SPAMTASTIC!"
 
Apparently, I'm selling a new anti-Leigh Montville air conditioning system that only operates on the power of the written word.
 
I mean, it should be obvious.
 
My next post was going to be about how I gave up cable...but I don't want anyone to think that the new anti-Leigh Montville written word-fueled air conditioner with rabbit ears and a digital converter has been perfected.

Adventures in Badvertising: Rich Heat & Air

I hear it every single morning and it drives me up the wall...

 

If you don't live in Nashville, you're spared the pain of this one, but you still have your own wherever you live...

 

There is a commercial on the radio for an outlet called Rich Heat & Air. Just to illustrate how classy this joint is, I googled their company name to link to their website...and they don't have one.

 

Anyway, back to Rich Heat & Air, a company that has apparently spent all of their big advertising bucks on the precious radio slots and cannot afford to have either good actors who know who to read copy or an Internet presence.

 

The commercial goes a little like this. Paraphrased, but you'll get the substance...both people have painful, painful, not-for-radio Southern drawls...not the good kind...more like the kind you would find around Tuscaloosa...

 

Lady: "Well...they came to fix the air conditionin' and it ain't good."

Man: "How bad is it?"

Lady: "$700"

Man: "Seven hunnuhd dollas? What's it made of? Gold" (Note: apparently there is no "dre" in "hundred"...and you can get a solid gold air conditioner for $700.)

Lady: "I don't know, but it's getting hotter by the minute." (Aside from her answering the question honestly...just your average radio commercial...then it takes a turn...)

Man: "I don't care how hot it is. I'm not paying seven hunnuhd dollas."

Lady: "I heard on the radio that Rich Heat & Air will give you a second o-pin-yun free." (Opinion is very long and drawn out...that staccato reading by a person very clearly having trouble reading the copy out loud.)

Man: "Now you're cooking with butane." (Who says that?)

Lady: "I-heard-it-on-the-ra-di-o. A-sec-ond-o-pin-yuhn-free. All-you-have-to-do-is-ask." (This one is just painful. First off, you've already told us you heard it on the radio. Why does this need to be repeated? The key to advertising is repetition...and generally the first point is the only point that is taken away from an ad...which is why a lot of bad ads load you down with way too many selling points. The main selling point in this ad is that it's something heard on the radio...which is absolutely pointless to be emphasized since the COMMERCIAL IS ALREADY ON THE RADIO. The second problem is with the woman's clear inability to read copy. You would think they would at least give her a couple of run throughs so that she didn't sound like the 2nd grader trying to sound out the words in Charlotte's Web.)

Man: "I'm gonna call Rich Heat & Air right now!" (A logical next step...I wouldn't want to keep talking to that woman either.)

Lady: "You better get me some air!" (This is the worst part of the whole ad. She says it so gratingly, so hickishly and so annoyingly...but more to the point, it doesn't follow the plot of the rest of the ad. All he is doing is calling for a second opinion. If it still costs $700, you're not getting air. It's really hard for a 30 second commercial to have a major plot hole...but this one does...he never said he was getting air...as far as I know, all Rich Heat & Air is doing is coming out to your house, looking at your busted AC and telling you how much they would charge to fix it.)

 

The end result of this commercial? It leaves me thinking that if I ever had an AC problem, I would never call this place based on their advertising. The company doesn't have a web presence in 2009...when you can get a domain for like $5 on GoDaddy.com...and they apparently don't have the quality control to even hire actors with proper diction...

People Read For Fun. No...Seriously.

Any time I have a book sitting on my desk to read during my lunch or my break, someone inevitably asks me, "So...what class are you taking?"

 

I was previously unaware that the only instance a person should open a book would be when it is mandatory and assigned.

 

I like reading...and, it would seem, a lot of other people do, too. In fact, they have entire stores dedicated to people who read. Shocking, I know...but for such a niche market, Cool Springs alone has at least three stores that are more or less dedicated solely to readers. It probably seems a little overkill to have so many reading supply stores in one neighborhood, but perhaps Cool Springs is the headquarters of some reading-related industry.

 

There's also another spot deeper into Franklin where they let you borrow reading supplies for a certain amount of time for no fee. Crazy, I know...that's an idea that's bound to fail. I've heard rumors that there's an even bigger one in downtown Nashville.

 

Even the Internet is getting in on the reading supply market, because I've found one website that apparently caters primarily to readers who require reading supplies. Supposedly, that website does pretty well for itself, too.

 

One time, I even heard that sometimes movie producers will take a book and actually read it...and then turn it into a movie. Yeah...I didn't believe it either.

Book Review: The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf and Armed Robbery

The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf and Armed Robbery by Leigh Montville

 

As I perused Border's a few weeks ago, I passed this book in the new release paperback section. I had remembered being somewhat interested in the topic when a little blurb for it ran in Sports Illustrated...and I had a $100 gift card...so I figured, "What the heck?" and I bought it.

 

Leigh Montville has been writing sports biographies for several years now and has had two very celebrated books which I have yet to read, Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero and The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth. More importantly, he wrote the book on the definitive athlete of an entire generation: Manute: The Center of Two Worlds. I actually had no idea that any book on Manute Bol even existed...but now that I do, I have to own it.

 

Anyway, back to The Mysterious Montague. The book tells the true tale of Laverne Moore, a bootlegger from New York in the 1930's who (allegedly) fled the scene of a crime and went all the way to Hollywood where he went under the alias of John Montague and made friends with some of the biggest names of the time. He made his name in Tinsel Town as a trick shot golfer, knocking birds off of wires and beating Bing Crosby on a hole using a rake, a baseball bat and a shovel. Many big time celebrity names, including Grantland Rice, the premier sportswriter of the time, supposedly played with him and considered him the greatest golfer of a generation, despite his never having entered a tournament. Montague/Moore regularly broke course records at various Los Angeles-area golf courses, but very little was known about the man. He refused photographs...and it took a photographer using a telephoto lens in 1937 to actually get his picture and publish it, the police in New York recognized him from the picture...and that's pretty much where the story takes off. Or...at least, that's where the story should take off...

 

While a fascinating book, Montville runs into a problem. Once Montague has his trial and is acquitted...his fifteen minutes run out fairly quickly. He plays in golf exhibitions against the likes of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, enters into a pro tournament in the Phillipines, and tries twice to qualify for the US Open, succeeding in 1940, but missing the cut. And...that's pretty much it. Obviously, Moore/Montague wasn't going to succeed, considering I had never heard of him before the book came about...but it's interesting that the last quarter of the book or so focuses on the fact that after his US Open...Montague/Moore essentially did nothing. Thus, Montville really doesn't have all that much to write about. There is no story of redemption...no sympathetic failure...no fall from grace, since Montague never really was "in grace"...just the story of a local golfer who many across the country believed to be overrated...who turned out to be just that.

 

Montville succeeds in providing plenty of suspense in the story. He gets you to keep turning the pages and he takes a huge chance by essentially writing a rags-to-rags story. In the end, one could call it a success. While I was disappointed with the resolution of the book, the mundane end to Montague's life is not Montville's fault. There's only so much you can write about a quasi-celebrity who died alone. The fact of the matter is that it is well written and it is intriguing...but, once I was finished, the book left me largely unsatisfied...there was no "mystery" to the "Mysterious Montague".