Monday morning miscellany

[magid]

Cambridge-local
Cambridge parking fines will be increasing. Not huge jumps, but it acknowledges that it's currently sometimes cheaper to get a ticket than pay for parking.

T ads
There are ads plastered all over the T for Axe, but I still haven't figured out what they're advertising. I've seen short statements ("One passenger per seat," something about being fully clothed, etc), and images (a fridge wholly filled with whipped cream, a sofa, other photos of apartment furniture), and have no clue. Do they expect me to Google them? Or have seen TV ads that make things clear? Or am I just hopelessly unhip, being unable to figure this out?

Shabbat food

• multi-grain challah (four kinds of flour, plus other additions)
  
• roasted mustard-and-marmalade chicken
  
• steamed green beans (surprisingly sweet)
  
• curried potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and peas (not nearly enough spice)
  
• green salad

further marmalade notes
Even ungelled, or perhaps especially ungelled, it's excellent over vanilla bean ice cream. The part I hadn't canned Wednesday was canned Friday, with the addition of almost two bags of cranberries for their pectin, resulting in an additional four pints. Another idea for marmalade use: make a sweet yeasted citrus bread. Or perhaps a quick bread (where the sugar couldn't put the yeast in overdrive).

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I think, after days of puzzling, that Axe is some sort of deodorant product. All I could tell about the product was that it was something *I* was never going to buy. Have you ridden an iPod shuffle train yet?

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

A quick web search reveals you to be correct. And here I thought it was some sort of sex product and that's why they were being so coy about it. :)

[ckd]

The Axe ads, and the "entire car full of alcohol ads" syndrome as well, really irritate me. The T refused to sell ads to a group advocating marijuana legalization, but "use this deodorant and you'll wear yourself out getting laid" is no problem for them....

[magid.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard that the T refused ads about marijuana legalization. I can see refusing ads advocating things that are illegal (though it doesn't bother them that selling alcohol to kids is illegal), but refusing ads about changing the law/advocacy seems another matter altogether, one that should be fine.

And of course, the only way to sell products is using sex. What else is there, after all?

[magid.livejournal.com]

That was my assumption, too, though I couldn't figure out what exactly it would be.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thanks for solving the conundrum. The print ads plastered over Harvard make more sense now, but I still don't get the fridge filled with whipped cream.

And yeah, not something I'm going to buy either.

I haven't been on an iPod shuffle train yet; which line have you seen it on? (And isn't "iPod shuffle" a great name for a dance? Perhaps for a Sesame Street character?)

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

Well, I think it is supposed to be for men and not women, although it's not to say that Old Spice doesn't remind me of a female ex or two.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a deodorant for men that causes skanky young women to leap on them as soon as they walk outside, if the ads are to be believed. The TV ads are knowingly over the top; there was one that showed the "life cycle" of a spritz of the stuff, which ended with a shot of worms copulating after they feasted on the corpse of a satisfied elderly customer who died during sex with one of the aforementioned SYW.

I understand the visual gags in some of the posters (shock absorbers under the couch) but not in others (dozens of cups of water(?) beside a bed). They clearly are all supposed to be things found in the home of an Axe user who has sex constantly with an ever-changing line of partners, so they all have the same punchline, but I have no idea what they're thinking in some of them.

[magid.livejournal.com]

OK, the worms sound a bit too over the top for me. Worm sex... *scrubs brain with soap*

And I'm amused that deodorant would be such an attractor for SYW, compared to, say, money or clothes or something.

Y'know, I hadn't even noticed the shock absorbers under the couch. Though I'm not the target audience, after all.

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a deodorant for men that causes skanky young women to leap on them as soon as they walk outside

Not to self: buy Axe.

[fj.livejournal.com]

I agree with your misspelling.

It's been around for decades in Europe, and it is wholly uninspiring.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Any idea why they'd choose "Axe" for a deodorant name? Heck, if it's supposed to attract SYW, why not "Hammer"?

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

I wonder why the big advertizing assault these days. The guys at TKD have been swearing on Axe for years.

cups of water

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Because you'll be so hot and long-lasting that you don't to make a trip out of the room to get a drink. Or something. (See, that one I got. The shock absorbers, not so much. Because it took a while for me to figure out what the hell those weird couch legs were.)

Re: cups of water

[prog.livejournal.com]

But why wasn't it one or two big icy pitchers of water, see? Why all the individual cups?

I'm sure you're right that it's what they were trying to do, but it just doesn't work as a joke. *shakes fist at poster*

I was coming up with some less likely but more entertainingly disturbing explanations involving the need to constantly re-medicate oneself or one's partner, but I'm just gonna let it drop.

Re: cups of water

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

A lot easier to just grab a cup, down it, and drop it on the floor? Or maybe just a better/more obvious visual.

At least it is not as revolting as the Fridge O'Whipped Cream. Gack.

Re: cups of water

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

My impression of that (and the reason I thought the product was some sort of sex-endurance thing) is that it makes it look like a set-up for a water station at a road race. People fill many cups of water and hand them out to the runners as they go by. It gives it a much more athletic feel than a water cool or picher.

Re: cups of water

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

I don't know about you, but I always need a glass of water after sex.


I might be the only person, though

[ceo]

When I was in high school, the standard Cambridge parking fine was $5. Parking at Alewife was $4, and round-trip T fare was $1.50. So it was actually cheaper to drive into Harvard Square and park and not pay the meter, even if I got ticketed. Cambridge wised up to that one pretty quickly. :-)

Yeah, the carloads of Axe ads are annoying, though no nearly as much so as the Bud Light ones.

[magid.livejournal.com]

$5 parking tickets... wow. Even now, it's going to be $20, which isn't bad, depending on how long you plan to park for.

I think I missed the Bud Light trains, and I don't regret it at all. If there have to be ads, I prefer a mix, actually; it's more interesting to have a variety, plus then there are ads for odd or non-commercial things (like Arisia :-).

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

There are occasionally ads for the game Set, which can keep one busyh for a while.

[ceo]

I like the ads from the Clay Mathematics Institute, which explain some mathematical concept (e.g. the Fibonacci series) in a catchy and interesting way.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

Some jurisdictions have countered this by allowing cars at unpaid meters to be ticketed every half hour.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

Ungelled marmalade or jam is also good in breakfast cereal (hot or cold).

[magid.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I could add it to oatmeal! Yum. Thanks.
(I'm more likely to remember to add it to hot cereal than cold, partly because I rarely have cold cereal at my house.)