Paul Merrill
In our desire to provide suitable entertainment for our fathers or family, we watched Pendragon.
It was pretty much a C-grade movie. The acting was OK, in some instances. None of us thought the heroine was beautiful enough. But the thing that killed it for us was the American accents. Somehow we have been conditioned to expect that any historical film reflecting that era should have actors and actresses with English (British) accents.
(Image courtesy of the film production company’s site.)
As I have traveled to different places in the world, I am always amused when people claim, “We have no accent.” It’s true – if they have never lived anywhere else. But my contention is that we all have accents.
I admit that there are standard accents. In England, there is the BBC broadcaster’s accent, which is a kind of measuring stick. The American equivalent would be what one can hear on the national nightly news. In Kenya, national radio broadcasts are spoken in a standard baseline Swahili that is most easily understood by the largest majority of the listening population. But those are still accents!
Another factor is saturation. If we are used to hearing a particular voice on a long-term basis, we put their voice into our accent-less category. In high school, my friend Bryan’s mom was from Quebec. She had a wonderful French-Canadian lilt. He thought she had no accent. My dad grew up in Texas. Bryan claimed he had a southern accent. I thought he had none.
The lovely model for today’s photo is my daughter Rachel.
Car magazine has a section at the back that lists all the new cars sold in the UK. That could be a boring list of facts and tables.
No.
They injected it full of life and fun. Each car is categorized as being either “Good”, “Bad” or “Ugly”. Read the fine print here. Each brand (or UK-speak, “marque”) is described as if it were a rock band. And the descriptions of each car can be hilarious. (These are two random cars in a row.)
They make it very easy to pick a good car. If you trust their judgement.
Takeaway: How can you inject life and fun into what might otherwise be a boring aspect of your job of life?
By the way, an interpretation for those of you in America… A “Zanussi Twin-Spin” is a washing machine.
This appeared in the American edition of the new Honda Crosstour ads. (That’s a new car that is basically a bloated Honda station wagon. I like it on some levels and hate it on others. The same footprint could yield far more utility than the Crosstour delivers.)
Incidentally, the ads are really unappealing, design-wise. (My suggestion? Use regular color when visually describing a product.)
And by the way, there is a much cooler Honda in a similar vein that one can buy if they live in Japan: the Stream. It doesn’t have America’s unfortunate SUV aspect in its flavor mix.
The little things add up.
I shared this tip before but there are enough people who didn’t see it that it’s worth sharing again.
One way to save time and money is to cut your toothpaste tube – just as you finish. Then you can dip out about 5 more brushings’ worth.
Money? About 1/150 of the cost of a tube. Time? You won’t have to rush off to your toothpaste seller as quickly. Environment? If millions of others join us in this habit, we will be helping tons of fewer tubes to be manufactured and then thrown into landfills.
Bustedtees sells this shirt. I thought it was pretty funny. (They sell other funny tees too.)
And of course Threadless has some very creative shirts – along with the fact that you can submit a design that may be printed! (I got my brother a Threadless shirt for Christmas.)
Stihl makes chainsaws. The recently ran this ad campaign trumpeting the fact that they do not sell their products at Home Depot or Lowe’s (giant DIY stores for those of you outside the US). They sell exclusively through independent dealers and want to keep it that way.
When the iPod was introduced, it was only sold at Apple Stores or online through Apple’s Store. Maybe a year later, they opened it up to just about any retailer. Good choice. Stihl? Pay attention.
You gotta check out my son’s video. It’s hilarious, if you want my completely unbiased opinion.
When this coin was minted in 1971, it could buy a lot more than it will today.
I will never understand world economies. Why does the price of petroleum go up and down? Why does the stock market dive when there is a the slightest whiff of a rumor about some economic change, even if it is fully unsubstantiated? Why do the supermarkets drop prices on staple foods all at the same time when if they kept the prices higher, they would profit more?
I think the real answer is that no one knows except God.
Saturday, a salesperson for a security company came to our door. I cut him off after about 2 sentences – but felt guilty doing so. The guy was a bit worn-around-the-edges, and he looked like he could have used the sale. But we cannot afford to pay the monthly fees for such a system. And thankfully, our neighborhood has low enough crime that we really don’t need it. (Nor do we have that much a thief could fence easily – except the computer I am typing this on.)
Should I have felt guilty? Or should I have felt good about not wasting his time in presenting a pitch that would have fallen on deaf ears?
One way to kill the guilt has been this… When it’s hot outside, we offer door-to-door salespeople a cold drink. But I didn’t think to offer him a hot cup of tea.
