Sarkozy insulte un agriculteur au salon de l’agriculture
Posted by admin - 14/01/09 at 03:01:22 pmComment la vidéo de 45 secondes qui montre l’accrochage entre un visiteur du Salon de l’Agriculture et le président de la République a-t-elle été réalisée ?
(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)
Opérateur vidéo âgé de 30 ans, cofondateur du collectif Youpress, qui regroupe neuf personnes (sept journalistes-pigistes, un photographe et lui-même), Stéphane Puccini et certains de ses confrères se sont rendus au salon dans le but de réaliser des sujets sur les exposants à vendre, ensuite, à la presse régionale. Ils ont notamment suivi le parcours du chef de l’Etat pendant 35 minutes.
A l’issue du tournage, Stéphane Puccini est allé visionner ses cassettes dans la salle de presse du parc d’Exposition de la porte de Versailles.
«Sachant que Nicolas Sarkozy inaugurait le salon, on voulait le filmer en train de serrer des mains d’exposants, pour nourrir nos sujets, puis interroger ces exposants, en fonction de leur région d’origine».
Une heure après leur arrivée, le président de la République est annoncé. La sécurité se met en place: un double cordon canalise la foule de part et d’autre de Nicolas Sarkozy, du ministre de l’Agriculture Michel Barnier, et de leurs collaborateurs, et un deuxième groupe de garde du corps dessine une ronde autour du président. Stéphane est en amont du flux, coincé par la foule, caméra dans les mains. «Nicolas Sarkozy s’est dirigé vers moi, raconte-t-il. J’ai braqué mon objectif vers lui. Il s’approche, serre des mains».
Concentré, Stéphane tourne malgré les badauds qui le bousculent. Il filme sans réellement entendre l’échange : «il y avait un bruit de tous les diables». Fin de la scène. Nicolas Sarkozy emprunte des escaliers roulants et se dirige vers la sortie. Puccini lui emboîte le pas. «Quelques minutes plus tard, je suis allé visionner mes cassettes et là j’ai entendu ce qui se disait».
En début d’après-midi, Stéphane Puccini propose son sujet à l’équipe du Parisien.fr. Le montage est réalisé au journal, avec un journaliste du parisien.fr, puis mis en ligne dans la soirée. «Je me suis retrouvé dans une bulle d’air, je ne pensais pas que ça allait prendre une telle ampleur, souffle Stéphane. A Youpress, on n’est pas abonné à ça, on a couvert les mouvements étudiants, on est allé en Haïti… On a saisi le moment sans le chercher».
Intro To Obsessions & Compulsives
Posted by admin - 04/01/09 at 12:01:02 pmYou can start by looking into Obsessions and what they mean and how they affect people. Read more about what Pure “O” means, how everyone has Violent and/or Sexual thoughts to a certain degree and so on…
Then look at how Compulsions work. Read more about why rituals are repeated, which actions might be repeated and so on…
Now that you understand those 2 elements of OCD, you can look at how they interact or counteract each other by looking at the OCD- Cycle.
Someone with OCD will often feel as if their obsession or ritual is different than those of others with OCD. However this isn’t the case at all.
There are so many different types of OCD- Symptoms that although slight differences may occur, there most likely will be 1 you will be able to relate to. Hopefully this knowledge will lead to you feeling less alone.
OCD- Aspects got their own page, since although they are OCD- symptoms, they are also amongst the less known 1’s. Most people have heard of people with OCD who wash, count or check, but there are a few aspects of OCD such as Hoarding and Hit- and- Run that could benefit from being given just that little extra attention.
SOME OCD FACTS & FIGURES.
What was once thought to be a rare mental disease is now known to be a more common 1. Approximately 2.3% of the population between ages 18- 54 suffers from OCD, which out ranks mental disorders such as: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or panic disorder.
In the U.S., approximately 3.3 million people have OCD, of which you have 0.3 to 1% of pediatric population and 2% of adult population.
So about 1 out of 200 adults have OCD and twice as many have had OCD at 1 point or another in their life.
There is no discrimination as to who has OCD, since it is found in all ethnic groups and both men and women are equally struck by the disorder, although in children OCD seems to be prevalent in boys.
Nearly 1/3 to 1/2 of all sufferers will find that their OCD has it’s roots in childhood, some will even show signs in their pre-school years. Cases of OCD have been reported in children as young as 1.5, needless to say it’s hard to make the diagnosis at such a young age (Lack of development of speech being 1 reason.). Around the age of 6 the linguistic abilities of the child make it easier to find out the existence of OCD, this co- relates with the age where most children show their first real signs of OCD.
In most cases however, symptoms will start to show while being a teenager or in early adulthood.
The age of onset is typically reported as 6 - 15 for males and 20 - 29 for females and is usually by the age of 40. Although many people suffer from OCD, many are also still hiding their symptoms and surveys estimate that less than 10 % of those suffering are currently in treatment.
The presence of any aggression or oppositional defiant disorder has been said to indicate a poorer prognosis.
Typically OCD and it’s symptoms will worsen due to Stress, Illnesses and Fatigue.
Treating a child with OCD is very important and all delay will only cause the child more harm and more chance of it missing out on certain aspects of her/his development and life. Same goes for adults, the earlier professional help is sought the greater chances are that some real progress will be made. OCD is a disorder that can be difficult to treat, but you can get your life back if you find the right help and are open to what is being suggested to you.
The longer 1 waits to act upon it and look for help, the more the system finds a place in the person’s life and the harder it will be to fight it.
OCD will evolve throughout a person’s life. Some will experience moments where their OCD almost disappears or becomes milder. For these people the anticipation of knowing it will or might come back is very distressing. Others will see how the OCD takes over more and more of their lives and will eventually take over completely making it impossible for them to function normally in life/society, this of course if left untreated or when no serious effort is made to fight back. So treatment is crucial.
There have been successes that involve surgery, but this treatment is however left to those who previously were not responsive to other types of treatment that are known to work very well for people suffering from OCD.
MISUNDERSTANDINGS& MISCONCEPTIONS.
There are 2 distinctive parts to OCD: the Obsessions and the Compulsions which is explained clearly by the name Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. But it seems the clarity often stops there. While the medical world is finding out the why’s and how’s of OCD, there are also still many Misunderstandings. Even in this day and age of greater awareness concerning Mental Health problems, many people still aren’t properly informed about the many mental disorders that exist and this leaves much room for assumptions and speculations. Both those who have OCD and those who are dealing with someone who has OCD may believe in such misunderstandings.
Misunderstandings concerning Possible Cause.
One of the first misunderstandings research has been able to take care of is the 1 where people assume that a neglecting or unbalanced upbringing was possibly at the basis of OCD behavior. With the use of PET- scans (Positron Emission Tomography) experts were able to find clear evidence that the brain of someone with OCD does function differently than that of a person without OCD.
With these finding a great deal of shame and guilt has been taken off the shoulders of the parents who felt they were directly to blame for their child’s suffering. This is not to say that certain events in a person’s upbringing/life may not have contributed to the onset of the OCD, just that OCD is now considered to be triggered by a biochemical disbalance in the brain.
Read more about the Possible Causes of OCD or on how the brain or Serotonin work.
General Misunderstandings Within Society.
By far one of the most painful misunderstandings for a person with OCD are the ones they encounter in their direct surrounding and society in general.
Who should be held responsible for informing the world about OCD? Partly the medical world and the media who should actively be trying to bring the facts to the public and partly the general public itself. But the public’s fear of the unknown, their intolerance and lack of understanding, which still exist when it comes to mental disorders, make OCD yet another one surrounded by its share of misunderstandings.
This is why talking about the disorder is so helpful since it will actively and constructively add to the acceptance of a common yet misunderstood disorder.
However as someone who might have OCD you aren’t free of part of the responsibility either. Stop feeling ashamed for having a disorder that isn’t a weakness, but as true and real as having a Heart condition.
If you can’t show acceptance and understanding to yourself, how can you expect others to do so? Start with yourself and lead by example.
Thinking That Having OCD Is a Character Flaw or an Excuse.
Some people might assume OCD is simply being used as an excuse for not having to do certain things, that character flaws such as laziness or weakness are what are really causing this behavior, but this is yet another misunderstanding. Just look into all the things the individual with OCD isn’t able to do that would possible provide them with possible.
Besides, it is always easier to motivate yourself to do things you like doing. Having to deal with the counting (or the not counting) will seem more worthwhile with things that give a greater sense of satisfaction or pleasure. Motivation is the key, accusing and personal critisicsm aren’t.
OCD may look like laziness or just another excuse but it is a true and debilitating disorder.
Thinking That Having OCD Equals Being Crazy.
Another misunderstanding occurs when people assume, including those with OCD, that having OCD equals someone who is crazy. So, is a person who has OCD crazy? Of course not! Someone with OCD has besides possibly strange looking rituals and disturbing obsessions also the capacity to see them as such. Maybe it is this conflict between the constant “urge” of OCD and common sense that makes people with OCD feel as if they are going crazy. The ability to see your own beliefs and actions as being unreasonable is extremely confusing but also a good sign to know you aren’t crazy.
Unless we are talking about OCD with poor insight, people will at some point recognize that their obsessions are from their own mind and not excessive worries about real- life problems and that their rituals are also excessive and unreasonable. So the answer to “Is a person suffering from OCD crazy?” is very simple: NO.
Mistaking the Obsessions With Someone Who Is Obsessed.
A man once asked a woman with OCD whether she would start focusing on him and become obsessed by him. Of course not! Although the word Obsession is for some linked to characters portrayed by “Robert De Niro” in the movie “Cape Fear” or “Glenn Close” in “Fatal Attraction”, this has nothing to do with someone who suffers from OCD.
People with OCD don’t have their rituals and obsessions result in the harm of others. Actually, people with OCD are said to be “perfect citizens”. Which brings us to another misunderstanding but this time 1 which works in “favor” of the person having OCD. Of course this is just a generalization since having OCD doesn’t take away from the fact people with OCD are all still humans and therefore will have their obvious fair share of flaws.
But it does seem that most people with OCD have a greater sense of righteousness.
Maybe it’s more the fact of being afraid of doing something wrong which is making them act in the most “acceptable” way. I won’t start a debate on what can be considered right or wrong, if only for the fact that this is a monologue and the debate might become really 1- sided.)
The conclusion is that it’s important to see this disorder in a larger context and more importantly only form an opinion after having at least read about it in a serious way.
Best Wishes and Lot’s of Love,
Arthur Buchanan
From Darkness to Light
400 Steeplechase Dr. Apt. G
Bellevue, Ohio44811
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GUIDELINES FOR FAMILIES COPING WITH OCD
Reinvigorate My Site
Posted by admin - 30/12/08 at 04:12:49 am
I signed up for an reinvigorate account last week, and received a registration code a couple days later, much sooner than I expected. Now that I’ve tested it for 3 days, so far so good. Thanks dancemoon for the information.
Google Analytics had been the only tool I use for tracking and analysing my blog. It takes more time to load every page, and its 24hours+ delay for the statistics is one thing I cannot tolerate. Compared to GA, reinvigorate is much more light-weighted and it hardly delays! They even provide a WordPress plugin so you don’t need to mess with your themes. But people’ve been saying that reinvigorate is not gonna be free after it’s done with the beta.
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Why American Kids are Fat
Posted by admin - 29/12/08 at 11:12:56 am
Afshionados,
I like to drive faster than the speed limit. I don’t drive NASCAR-crazy-fast, but I do go 5-10 MPH above the speed limit because I am an American, I’m impatient, and I’m pretty sure there’s something in the Manifest Destiny about being an American and it being my duty to drive fast. Or maybe that just applies if I am driving west.
So it really bothers me when I get behind school buses. They’re like big yellow road blocks designed to annoy. Not only are these monstrous, twinkies on wheels slow, but they stop at every block. No, this is not an exaggeration. The buses really stop every 20 yards or so and let off only a handful of kids. Why can’t the bus stop at one block, let ALL the kids off at once, and then let them walk to their houses? Maybe then the kids wouldn’t look like miniature versions of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Instead, It’s like a private limousine service. And why does it take so damn long for the bus to stop, turn on its flashy red lights and stop signs, and let the chublings off?
I’d complain more, but it’s time for me to get on my Segway and ride to McDonald’s for a double quarter pounder with cheese, some large fries, and a Coke. I wish they’d let me order over the phone and deliver, though. And I wish I could find someone to dial for me.
It’s Not Graffiti… It’s Marketing!
Posted by admin - 27/12/08 at 07:12:40 amThe seat back in front of me on the train the other day was covered in gang graffiti. Cryptic symbols and letters, some of which were backwards, some upside down…
photo credit: srboisvert
It looked more like some ancient variation of cuneiform which was forgotten long ago, than English. But then again, it’s supposed to look like that to me… I’m old. It wasn’t written for me. I’m not the target demographic.
Which got me to thinking. Graffiti isn’t vandalism… It’s marketing.
Essentially the gangs are attempting to achieve brand recognition in a targeted market demographic via strong visual imagery and short memorable tag lines. The problem is whoever heads up their marketing department really sucks at it!
Granted it’s not like gang members can hand out branded promotional pens and mouse pads, but what about branded drug baggies and syringes? Or better yet… An affiliate program. For every new gang member you recruit you get a cut of their profit from all theft and drug sales for life? Really the possibilities are virtually endless…
photo credit: sunblock
So Chicago street gang leaders if you are really focused on brand awareness and expansion of your market… Give me a call. Together we can implement fundamental changes to your core marketing program and bring about some real improvement to your overall market share… Oh wait… Sorry, let me translate that for you…
“Damn homey together we’s can recruit a whole lot o’ new gang members fo’ sho’, an’ make uh ton o’ money from slangin’ rock an’ rollin’ ho’s and shit… Peace Beeeeotch!”
One thing though… Pull your fuckin’ pants up douchebag!
I’m just sayin’…
If you liked that…
MappedUp
Posted by admin - 25/12/08 at 05:12:47 am
Mappedup, the geographical rss feed aggregator.
Zeax put forward this website some months ago, but he didn’t tell me about the launch of its public beta. I discovered the ‘news’ last night but was disappointed enough to find that only 25 new registrations are accepted per day. So I set the site as the start page of my firefox, and thank God I managed to get my account this morning.
Be sure to check out its download page. You won’t want to miss the coolest screensaver and active-desktop in the world!
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The Grass Really Is Greener
Posted by admin - 12/12/08 at 06:12:10 amI’ve been working at my new job with Avenue A | Razorfish for about 2 weeks now, and thought it was about time I spoke a little bit about it.
The difference is amazing, coming from a small new media department to an international digital agency highlights many of the things that are wrong with your average small agency. The structure here is amazing, the work is spread so granularly, it really helps ensure that peoples talents are utilized to the full. The culture is brilliant, it’s a million miles from what I had before, and the caliber of work is stellar.
I’m going to touch on some of the larger more important differences in a bit more depth, but there are so many other smaller difference which I probably won’t be able to cover, like having dishwashers, team meetings in the pub and so on, but first a little history lesson.
History
The company I work for was originally called DNA, a very well respected and highly talented multi-discipline design/build agency. DNA were approached by many large companies looking to merge with them, but the board felt that these offers were always because of either their design strengths or their technical strengths, but never both.
About a year ago now, Avenue A | Razorfish (a merging of Avenue A, a massive design and marcoms player and Razorfish, a massive tech player) approached DNA to merge, the directors (Neil and Chris, who are great guys) felt that AA|RF cared about the same things they did, and let the merge happen.
So now DNA is a part of Avenue A | Razorfish, which is owned by aQuantive. aQuantive own two other companies; Atlas and Drive PM. Atlas is an advertising network, and Drive PM is a mechanism by which to target advertising to an amazingly specific level. So aQuantive is 2/3’s advertising driven.
A while ago the market was heating up with talk of online advertising, the big players were all trying to buy up companies that would let them flex this muscle, Microsoft approached the darling at the time (DoubleClick) but they said “no” and sold to Google (becoming Adsence) so Microsoft thought “fuck it” and decided to try and buy Atlas (the largest ad network). The result is they decided to buy the entire company, not just Atlas, for around $6billion. So Microsoft own aQuantive, but it really doesn’t filter down into everyday life at Avenue A | Razorfish.
Structure
The structure of a company is always going to be better / more defined when you have the number of employees we have. But the point is not how many people you have, rather do you have the right level of separation?
At my old place we had 4 members of staff sharing about 10 different jobs; We had department managers selling and not managing the department, project managers managing the department while the head was out selling, and then having to manage projects as well, designers doing IA, programmers doing design, flash designers doing interaction programming, everyone doing QA, the boss doing SEO and ad campaigns and the board chipping in on design direction.
The lack of separation caused a lot of confusion and misplaced resources.
At AA|RF we have a lot more people (about 160 and growing) so we can afford to spread the staff into very distinct teams such as: Creative, Design, Interface Architecture, Information Architecture, Flash Animation, Flash Interaction, Rich Internet Application, Java Developers, .NET Developers, Database Designers, Motion Graphics, SEO, QA, Search Research and probably a whole load more I have yet to meet.
Apart from the skill based teams we also have teams created to cater for specific clients, when a large job comes in PM’s, Producers, Account Managers and Resources will get together and allocate members of staff in certain ‘Skill Teams’ to join a Project team.
Overall the structure of both the ‘workers’ and the auxiliary is brilliant, the overall company structure is brilliant also, having a proper HR team is great!
Getting “it”
The thing that got me so excited about this job and working for AA|RF was the fact that after my interview with Paul and James I got a real sense that they “get it”. I expected that once I start it will be different, and there will be a lot of people that don’t get “it”, but man was I wrong!
Every member of staff in this company gets “it”, they all understand the best way to run a Digital Agency and the benefits of doing this versus that, every member of staff, every PM, every Producer, Every Account Manager even the Directors (especially the Directors) get “it”.
It’s a part of the company interview system, people are judged against wether they get “it” or not.
It’s amazingly refreshing to finally be working for a company that truly understands the industry, best practices, emerging technology, client needs and staff needs.
AA|RF knows this industry so well, it reflects in everything they do, the way projects are approached, the way clients are handled and (more importantly) the way staff are treated (which is very well as it happens).
Culture
Culture is a difficult thing to get right in a workplace, and I know only of two places that are internationally regarded as having an amazing working culture, and they are pixar animation studios and google. Apart from being the “Search King” google is (especially in tech circles) known for being an amazing place to work.
After my experiences in average small companies I was definitely looking for a more google-esque working culture, but had resided myself to the fact that unless I get some sort of obscure degree, or could borrow arfon’s brain I would probably never get a look in google (which is a shame, they feed their staff free gourmet food)
Luckily for me AA|RF has an amazing working culture, I’m literally blown-away by it.
First there are the official ‘benefits’ such as flexi-time, health insurance, pension schemes, gym-membership and the opportunity to work abroad. All very lovely, and a million miles away from what a smaller company can offer, but pretty standard for most ‘proper’ agencies, especially in London.
But it’s the culture driven benefits which are amazing, take for instance the policy on overtime; in our industry you are never ever ever ever going to get paid full overtime, so don’t even ask. What AA|RF do is different, they realise that we all work our butts off to get stuff done, because we are all passionate about this industry, so we can claim overtime as LILO or Leave In Leu of Overtime. Another great culture driven aspect is the way meetings are handled, AA|RF know’s we hate meetings so any meetings involving ‘workers’ are kept brief, taken on the roof-garden and last no more than 15 minutes.
Another great thing is the company policy on things like stress and breaks, we are all encouraged to take frequent breaks, and chill out for a bit if we feel stressed. In previous jobs management have tried to ignore stress, but in this job people are taken over the road for a coffee or a smoothie if they are stressed, this company really cares about their staff.
Attire, there is barley a suit in sight, everyone from the workers to the MD’s dress how they feel, no matter what that is, people are more comfortable, there’s no authority issues and it’s just nicer.
And the parties! Oh my the Parties! There are two ‘big’ parties every year, the christmas party and the summer party, I unfortunately just missed the summer party but apparently london zoo was hired for the afternoon, then everyone went back to work to have a barbecue in the roof-garden, then AA|RF took everyone to a club they had hired.
But that’s not all, AA|RF like to party, so there is a party every month after the monthly company meeting, the way this works is every team takes it in turns to spend £500 on the months party, which is used to cover things such as games and prizes, the company foots the bill for food and (lots of) drink.
This month it’s HR’s turn and they are throwing a mad hatters tea party on the roof, we’ve all been given materials with which to make a mad hat, the winner recieves an iPod Touch, 5 2nd place winners get a new iPod Nano, and there are 20 3rd place prizes of a crate of beer or something.
The culture at AA|RF is amazing, and it works, the MD’s can see that we all work really hard, and have tried to create a fun, relaxed and positive working environment, and they instantly win people’s loyalty. You end up looking forward to going to work no matter what.
Working in “The Big Smoke”
Working in London is both brilliant and annoying, having a plethora of lunch options, entertainment, fashion, shopping and night-life on your very doorstep is wonderful. And trust me, you never get bored. Never. London is the heart of everything, it’s the center of the world.
The only annoying thing is working in London and living in Kent, it’s difficult but not too bad, you get used to it really quickly and you look forward to your 1.5hours of down time at the start/end of the day.
The benefits far out-weigh the drawbacks, and I can honestly say that now I’m here I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. At my old place 4 out of 6 members of staff left to work in london, and all are very happy. As easy and comfortable as it may be to work in this industry from the comfort of Kent, only a few miles from home it doesn’t compare to being on the pulse, in the heart of it, where it happens.
The companies are better, the staff are treated better, the pay is better, the clients are (way) more interesting, the buzz is amazing, the people rock and you will likely find that your boss is just like you.
The grass truly is greener on the other side, take my word for it.
money that’s not worth making
Posted by admin - 10/12/08 at 07:12:04 amI found a gig on Craiglist for a “mystery shopper” assignment, one of those deals where you visit a local business, complete some transaction, and report on how it went. I wasn’t 100% convinced I was comfortable with it, but that soon changed once I got the store list: Wal★Mart and one of those check-cashing outfits.
Hmm, I won’t set foot in a Wal★Mart, and certainly not to act as a spy for their less than stellar employee policies. And those check cashing joints give me the creeps: they take advantage of people who can ill afford it, and I don’t want to be part of that.
It was never so clear what these companies — the mystery shopper outfits — are about: they enable absentee owners to keep an eye on things without having to actually be in the store. The whole customer experience is boiled down to some reports on how fast things move, how accurate, and in some cases how patient (one of the later assignments is to try to get the employee to lose their cool: how uncomfortable would that be?). Some holding company in a distant state or country is hiring these companies and making decisions based on those reports.
You would never see a locally-owned and operated business using these services, as the owners are there. You can assume that the money paid to an outside consultant is money that doesn’t go to training or raises or any incentives to make the experience better: it’s really about finding the lowest cost per transaction, with a certain standard of quality. One more dehumanizing aspect of capitalism, perhaps?
Not for me. I’d rather dig ditches.
Google Reader
Posted by admin - 09/12/08 at 02:12:25 amGoogle Reader isn’t really that new of an obsession for me, but I don’t recall writing anything about it. And since I am such a big fan, I figured I should at least mention it.
I was pretty late to the game with RSS and RSS Readers. I knew what they were and how they were supposed to work, but I tried one several years ago and it was clunky, so I never really tried it again. Several months ago while I was messing around with the BlackBerry, I downloaded Google’s Mobile Pack. Google Reader was part of the update. I logged in just to check it out. The rest is pretty much history.
At work I am expected to know pretty much every Internet fad. It is kinda hard to keep up with everything and get other real things done. I got to where my morning blog/news regiment took about an hour. With Google Reader, I was able to read the same sites and cut the routine down to about 15 minutes. I’ve since added a ton of new feeds so it still takes longer, but I am able to skim things much more quickly.
The best thing about Google Reader is the share feature. Once you add friends through gmail’s chat function, you can share articles with your friends just by clicking on a single button. It is really quite amazing. In the past couple of weeks, they’ve added a “share with notes” feature that allows you to comment on why you are sharing a particular article. Google Reader can even create a RSS feed frommy shared items. This is what I use to power the “What I Am Reading Online” section on the right.
Welcome to the future… Bitch!
Posted by admin - 07/12/08 at 05:12:58 amphoto credit: Afroswede
At this point in our evolution, weren’t we supposed to be habitating the moon, owning a flying car and residing in a house that cleans itself? Isn’t that what we were promised? Isn’t that what the new Millenium was supposed to bring? Not global warming, the shadow of terrorism and nuclear proliferation…
I was feeling seriously cheated until yesterday… Yesterday while picking up cat litter (God is my life depressing… I have become the crazy cat guy.) at the grocery store I saw it. I saw the future… And I had to have it!
It caught my eye because it was on an end cap display, otherwise I may have walked right past it as I’m sure I’d done so many times before… There it sat, as large as life, bright and shiny with all the promise of a brave new world beckoning me… Calling to me to take it home!
Of what modern miracle do I speak? What device has restored my faith in the promise of my future… Nay the future of all mankind? Why the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner of course!
I had to have it! They had me at “Cleans your shower with the touch of a button!”
Finally! This is what I had been waiting for! I snatched the box from the display and half ran half walked to the checkout counter hurriedly paying for my piece of the future and rushed home to install it.
When I got home I was like a kid at Christmas! I threw my bags down on the living room floor, not bothering to put anything away… Instead I grabbed my prize and tore open the packaging, fumbling with the latch for the batteries I was giddy with anticipation…
Finally a company that understands the promise, and a product that lives up to that promise… that promise of the future.
photo credit: Phil Romans
Quickly… positive end to positive terminal, negative end to negative terminal… Reclose the latch… Insert the bottle of cleaner with an extremely satisfying audible “POP”… And then dash upstairs to the master bath where…
In a moment of revery I hung the cleaner on my shower head and stepped back to admire it in all of its wonder and glory… It gleamed in the waning sunlight that shone through the frosted glass of the bathroom window. It begged to be inaugurated… To show its stuff! I stepped forward and pressed the blue button and heard a soft beeping sound much like a muffled alarm.
Immediately impressed I stepped back and shut the glass door that encloses the shower stall… The cleaner was emitting beeps at regular intervals, seemingly counting down to ignition. I waited… envisioning a massive spray of bubbles shooting out of the sprayer end… Expecting a cavalcade of foam and suds to explode at any second… Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep and then…
photo credit: alexik
The sprayer end spun around two and a half times and stopped… No scrubbing bubbles… No foam… No suds… In fact nothing at all came out. I frantically grabbed for the directions which I… Like all real men immediately threw to the side when I opened the package, never to look at again! I scanned down the page making mental notes in my head… Batteries - check, cleaning solution installed - check, bottle installed correctly - check… Aha! Apparently upon initial use you may need to push the button several times before cleaning fluid emits… Gotcha!!! Ok… Now I feel better. So I push the button again…
Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep… spins two and a half times and nothin!
Again… Beep… Beep… Beep… spins two and a half times and nothin!
Again… Beep… Beep… Beep…And this time it spins two and a half times spraying a wispy mist as it turns sputtering like a clogged aerosol can… What? That can’t be it right? I mean where is the spray… The foam… The suds… The future?
photo credit: limbte
Well guess what folks after several more runs… I have determined that the future isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be!
I still have hope though… I mean have you seen that Dyson Vacuum, That shit never loses suction!
I’m just sayin’…
If you liked that…
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