re: FutureShop: the straw that broke the camels back

On my theory of why capitalism doesn’t work:

User-Unfriendly at LAtimes.com

(via Signal vs. Noise)

I was silly enough to go to the FutureShop today and I got a creepy feeling as though I was in Rome at the peak of Roman excess and gluttony. I was overcome by 5 foot tall TVs (the picture quality of a TV signal will only stretch so far) and stereos that look like totally x-treme moon landers. Egypt, Rome, Maya, and now America. I smell a civilization ripe for collapse!

This got me to thinking about a critical failing of capitalism (NOTE: this not constructive criticism, it’s just plain criticism). Companies exist to make a profit. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this but it does have dangerous side effects. One of these side effects is that products are designed to make the sale in the showroom rather than actually perform well in day-to-day use. For example the automatic seatbelt in old Saturn cars. It was so cool on the lot, but two days later once you had bought the car it was like fingernails on a chalkboard. I should note that Saturn is the only car company I know of with a 30 money-back guarantee (GM deserves a nobel prize for mass consumer manipulation for the Saturn project).

The FutureShop salesman (or “associates” as they call themselves) may as well have ‘I get paid commission’ written on their foreheads. The company has overlooked the fact that generating more sales in the short-term is less profitable then creating long-term relationships with customers by being helpful rather than pushy. The sad truth is that I may be wrong about this.

My appendix was infected. Did I get it fixed? No. Getting sh*t fixed is weak. My appendix let me down, so I tore it the f*ck out. I rock hard.

I was on an operating table shaped like a cross – with my arms out (cause they was full of tubes and wires and sh*t) like I was being crucified. So, if I were Jesus I would have been crucified on Christmas, not Easter. I’m way ahead of Jesus. I rock hard.

I had a lot of morphine. I had so much morhpine they put a tube in me so they wouldn’t have to find a vein every time. I rock hard.

I have a giant wound in my belly. I have not one or two, not three or four, but five staples keepings my guts in. But not my appendix, they tore that m*th*rf*ck*r out. I rock hard.

Unlike all you weak suckers out there, I have one less crucial organ. I have no appendix. I rock hard.

Merry Cristmas,
Matthew

Note: Swearing has been carefully edited as Christmas is no time for swearing. There will be no exceptions, especially none for me.

Right now, Matt is sitting in the architecturally bewildering Queen Elizabeth Hospital, sans-appendix. With 2/3 of the aov geniuses now in the hospital (don’t panic, everyone is ok), I fell like there is some kind of karmic crosshair on my forehead. Perhaps, due to our cunning wit, God sees us as formidable adversaries and is playfully striking us down. Play fair dude.

Now, a few who do not deserve your pity: one of my co-workers is basking in the glow of the southern-hemisphere summer in New Zealand and two other co-workers are basking in the glow of communism in Cuba (check out the CBC’s interview with Castro) for the holidays.

I’m going to Sherwood for Christmas.

I should clarify. I don’t mind going to Sherwood for Christmas. That’s where Christmas has been for the last 22 years. Actually, that’s kind of what Christmas is as far as I’m concerned.

I hope you appreciate these seasonal dwellings. While they may seem stark and joyless, they are really quite admirably jolly, considering I generally find Christmas to be little more than a promotional gimmick for the wrapping paper industry (I’d make a Grinch reference, but he has been co-opted – God rest your soul, Ted Geisel).

To everyone, Merry Christmas (in the ‘talk to your family for once’ way, not the ‘buy things for people you don’t really like’ way) and to my fellow aov geniuses, get well soon, the world needs you and I need someone to play Tony Hawk Pro Skateboarded 2 with.

One of Today’s featured excite links:

Super-Cute Kitten Photos

If that isn’t confirmation that the average person has all the intelligence of a potted plant, I really don’t know what would be. Super-Cute Kitten Photos? Who the hell are these people who spend their time looking at pictures of other people’s pets on the Internet? There isn’t even anything particularly insulting to say to these people as any insult of appropriate venom would simply be above their intellectual understanding. Kittens, for God’s sake!

And while I’m venting . . . if the bastard who lives above us continues banging on the floor/ceiling like he’s digging for gold, I will be forced to throw him in front of a train, even if it means dragging him all the way to the mainland.

P.S. Go to ExplodingDog.com. It is probably the best thing on the Internet that isn’t Anna Kournikova. Some personal favorites are “that boy ain’t right,” “he was angry,” and “is this love? that i’m feeling?”

Formerly of IslandEdition.com, currently pursuing fortunes in the big city, Kirby Ferguson lives and he’s setup a radio station at Live365.

If you can stand being swamped with ads (I recommend hiding the window behind other windows), you can listen to Kirby’s fine music picks including:

“Steve Earle, Radiohead, Wilco, Vic Chesnutt, Moby, Richard Buckner, Dandy Warhols, Aimee Mann, Lucinda Williams, and Elliott Smith”

The quote of the week comes from Signal vs. Noise. Commenting on the alleged impending downfall of eToys and the subsequent collapse of online retailing, they wonder:

Ah if only they had spent all of their money on a weather control device instead of advertising…

Re: no big loss. I never did like Shake ‘n Bake much.

Fudge replies:

Miracle Whip, Shake n’ Bake, Jell-O, Maxwell House, Kraft Dinner, Kool-Aid,
Raisin Brand, Miller Beer…Why are people buying tobacco from a food
company?

All are really popular products, most are actually not that bad (try adding
hot-dogs to the kraft, breaks up the taste). Why boycott these products?
Tobacco revenues are falling yearly and the lawsuits are mounting. Fairly
soon most of these companies will likely give up on the tobacco side of
their business and focus more on other things. Maybe if people spent some of
their tobacco cash on jell-o it would be a good thing no matter who makes
it. Let them make all the cigarettes they want, if no one is smoking them it
won’t last very long anyway! Some places are currently asking for
legislation that limits where people can smoke outside! If the price of
pants goes up to $300 and when I buy them I’m told that I can’t wear them in
restaurants or downtown, and when I do wear them people stare at me and
shake their heads, and they make my breath smell, and they have this picture
on the side of some guy who wore pants all his life and his legs are all
white and pasty…pretty soon I say “Fuck pants!”, gimme some of them shorts!

Who the hell reads Harper’s anyways?

As to your pants parable, in theory you may be correct. Unfortunately, in reality most people are not as wise as you are – many do continue to smoke, likely due to the fact that, unlike wearing pants, smoking is rather addictive whereas pant-wearing is merely a matter of style and comfort.

Cigarette companies advertise, they do not simply produce a product. They advertise to “young people,” a demographic which has not abandoned smoking as readily as others. I would prefer if the money I spent on groceries did not end up financing an ad campaign for a product which kills approximately 1200 people a day in the US alone.

If I might make an analogy of my own, let me cast tobacco companies as a criminal, a mass-murderer. If said murderer becomes more inept and bumbling with age, unable to knock off people in the record numbers it has previously (7.2 million in the last 20 years), I still don’t think I’m going to buy Popsicle-stick sculptures from the guy because his profits (431 billion in the last 20 years) are diminishing somewhat, no matter how attractive his art might be.