Joe's Thought of the Day (or Week or Month)… – Page 7 – Or…stuff I find interesting, annoying, edifying, perturbing, thought-provoking, or downright silly.

Commercials I hate, vol. 2

The GM Hot Button commercial. It starts with a shot of the space shuttle with some really cheesy, high school AV quality graphics, intercutting between stock footage of Mission Control. “Five – four – three – two – one – ignition….ignition….ignition.” A big red “ignition” button sits there as a badly dressed mission controller hesitates, then gets up and walks away as the voice-over says “waiting for something really important before pressing the hot button?”

Poor graphics, cheap sets, bad acting and really bad concept. Like you’re not gonna launch a space ship so you can push a GM onStar button?

Commercials I hate, vol. 1

“TD Waterhouse has people you can talk to.”

You gotta love this one with the actors and spokesman shot while looking away from the camera.

If TD Waterhouse people talk to you, why won’t they look at you?

Listen to the sounds of Titan…

Yes, Saturn’s moon Titan, not the LA Latino band. It’s only a matter of time before some remix artist finds it and we hear it on a dance floor!

Listen here.

Blue vs. Red, Gay vs. Straight, Right vs. Wrong…

The same state that brought you “evolution is a theory” stickers for textbooks, now seeks to set civil rights back decades as well. Georgia’s Republican representative Earl Ehrhart (incoming Chair of the House Rules Committee, no less) sponsored a bill to repeal a section of Atlanta’s city ordinance that protects same-sex couples. “You have a true philosopical divide between the state Legislature and the City of Atlanta” he was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the Illinois House sent a bill banning discrimination against gays and lesbians to Gov. Rod Blagojevich who has said he would sign the measure into law. “This message sends a clear message that we will not allow our citizens to be discriminated against,” he said.

Perhaps they should send that message to their friends in the South.

Things you can do on the Internet…

Any yes, Internet is capitalized! OK, perhaps I spend too much time online these days. But hey, it’s my job! Wanna pretend you’re far away? Try this (they’ll open in a new window)…

Click here to visit a laundromat somewhere in the world…and live!

Check out the goldfish here…in Japan.

Name this place…a river and many bridges.

Stop by and play a game of Mah Jongg.

Find your car in a Swedish store parking lot.

Buy a TV.

Or my favorite…check out old MacDonald’s farm.

To really enjoy these, have a fast connection and use Firefox or Mozilla as your browser. Most are passable in Internet Explorer, some in Safari.

07 Jan 2005 : 10:07 AM PST

The green stuff is rain. The yellow stuff is lots of rain. The white stuff is snow. The pink stuff is either lots of snow, or Hostess Snoballs…in which case, those folks in the mountains are gonna need some milk to wash it all down.

After the party…

The last shrimp. If no one’s looking, I’ll eat it. But wait, someone else has spotted it and is moving in. Will they be too polite to eat the last one? “Oh, is that the last one? Were you going to have it?” Feign disinterest. “Oh, I guess not…go ahead, you have it.” “No, I couldn’t!” Pause for a nanosecond. Grab it with a slosh through the cocktail sauce. Yum. “Thanks!”

World AIDS day…

Some of the day’s headlines…

Health specialists urge rethinking AIDS fight
U.S. Urged to Help Women With AIDS
HIV Infection Rates Unchanged in U.S.
S Asia rallies on World Aids Day
Brazil to break Aids drug patents
AIDS in India, China and Russia Nears ‘Tipping Point,’ U.N. Says
HIV, AIDS Cases Rise Among U.S. Gay, Bisexual Men
Sex workers join Sri Lanka’s AIDS awareness drive
Asia Marks World AIDS Day Amid New Warnings
Swedish HIV vaccine due to be tested in Tanzania next year
Iran’s growing AIDS crisis shifts from the needle to the bed
Health officials blame insurgency for spread of AIDS in Nepal
Southern African leaders call for mass action on World AIDS Day
Experts deny HIV drugs ‘hold-up’
Botswana Leader Warns on AIDS: Abstain

And on a personal note, it was 11 years ago this month that my dear friend Darryl succumbed to the disease. His laugh and smile are missed to this day.

Cow tipping…

Where I grew up, the kids would play a game where they would sneak up on a sleeping cow and tip it over. Never played it myself, though we did have cows in the field right next to our house when I was very young. At that age, even if I wanted to, I don’t think I was big enough to tip a cow.

Thanksgiving…

I remember sitting on the floor of my grandmother’s house in Roselle, New Jersey, on Thanksgiving morning watching the parade. Back in those days, we had Underdog, Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog. In all the years I lived in Manhattan, I never went to the parade. On a few occasions, I did go up the night before (in the freezing cold) to watch them inflate the huge balloons.