Archive for December, 2011

Sift & Toss Litter Liner — A Marketing Review

A brief flash of movement catches your eye.

Low and moving silently, you catch a glimpse of a familiar shape making its way to a plastic box in the corner of the room.  Although it has now moved out of sight, your ears catch the faintest of sounds:  barely audible crunching of a gravel-like substance followed by a brief outburst of flatulence and then a sense of relief.  More soft crunching is heard—almost like an item is being buried.  A moment later the furry animal slowly waltzes back into view.

The cat lazily flops down in the center of the living room, basking in the sunlight pouring in through the window and acting like it doesn’t have a care in the world.  Looking so soft and fluffy, you can’t help but smile at the now lounging feline.  Its tail casually swishes as it looks upwards, gazing back at your face.  Staring into your eyes.  Waiting for your reaction.

And then it hits you.

HOLY &#%$!  I mean, DAMN!  It stinks!  Wow!  What in the hell did that thing eat today?

A remarkably foul odor that originated deep within the bowels of the cat has now arrived at your sensitive nostrils.  The stench quickly infiltrates your nose, soaking deep within the scent glands and nearly bringing you to tears.  You gag on the heavy odor.  The potency of the stench is nearly overpowering.  With a flash your hand reaches up and pinches your nose closed, hoping to keep the extreme fecal foulness from causing permanent damage.

It’s too late!  You can nearly taste the cat’s fresh pile of excrement as your senses go into overdrive, trying desperately to block this foulest and most toxic of odors.  Bile creeps up the bottom of your throat.  Thoughts of puking are forced away as, more determined than ever, you get up and attempt to remove the source of the odor.

Watching from the floor, the cat’s eyes open slightly wider as you climb off the couch and stagger to its litter box.  There’s a hint of a smile on the cat’s face as it watches you stare disgusted at its massive pile of feces in the tiny plastic box.  Its furry tail swishes again as the cat watches your horrified reaction.

Shouting a non-stop tirade of profanity at the now mildly entertained cat does nothing as you hold your nose closed with one hand and use the other in an attempt to scoop the still fresh and quite massive pile of cat poop out of the box.  Kitty litter and pieces of excrement spill everywhere as you fling the individual cat turds across the room into a waiting trash can, missing at times and hitting the wall and floor.  Oh, if only your aim was better!  If only the cat didn’t eat prunes today!  What an awful mess!

In the end, the cat has only learned that you will always clean its poop.  How YOU do it is up to YOU, but YOU will be the one responsible for keeping that litter box clean.  The cat just lies there and casually licks its paws, deciding now to take a bath as you begin scrubbing the carpeting around the litter box and trash can.  With any luck the foul stench and sickening brown stains will be gone before dinner.

Okay, maybe there was some exaggerating with that scenario, but the cat was inspired by my girlfriend’s cat.  The question constantly going through the minds of hundreds of thousands of cat owners is this:  Is there a better way to remove cat pee and poop from a litter box?

One option involves eliminating the litter box and training a cat to use the toilet.  Good luck with that one!

Sift & Toss Litter Liner website — www.SiftandToss.com

Another option presented is something called Sift & Toss.  According to its website and TV commercial, this is a simple way of scooping cat poop out of a litter box.  Take a look at the TV commercial and see for yourself. Read more…

Christmas — Good Will To Man

Christmas Eve has finally arrived.

Later this evening children will be tucked into bed, trying desperately to sleep before the arrival of Santa Claus.

Tomorrow morning will involve the unwrapping of presents and watching as joy is spread between families and friends.

In today’s modern times, it’s easy to forget just how fortunate we are to be able to celebrate such a holiday.  Here in the U.S., times are peaceful.  It’s not like artillery barrages are flattening buildings, or massive armies of soldiers are sweeping through the countryside, killing everybody who stands in the way.

One of my favorite examples of humanity and the Christmas spirit dates back to December 25, 1914 in Belgium. Read more…

Christmas — A Forbidden Word

Take a look or listen to advertisements on TV, the radio, and throughout the Internet from late November through late December.

Notice in particular how most companies and organizations refer to a certain holiday on December 25th, but oddly enough, such a major and worshiped holiday, and its appropriate greeting, are rarely mentioned these days.

You’ll hear all about “holiday” sales, “holiday” meals, “holiday” trees, and “holiday” everything else, but in virtually all of the talk and advertisements, it’s obvious that those companies and organizations aren’t talking about Hanukkah or Kwanzaa.  It’s all about Christmas.  But thanks to our overly sensitive and very politically correct society, mentioning “Christmas” or merely wishing somebody a “merry Christmas” is taboo.

Forbidden.

Eliminated.

Rejected.

It’s all “Happy Holidays” these days, and not “Merry Christmas.”

Can it be true?

Have we become so overly sensitive as a society that the mere act of wishing somebody a merry Christmas could make said person cower away in fright? Read more…

Aluma Wallet — A Marketing Review

When it comes to wallets and money holders, normally you think of something made of leather, squarish in shape, and a device that folds open in a variety of ways.  They’re usually stylish, comfortable and easy to carry, and they do a great job holding a number of credit cards and large quantity of cash.

What happens when you radically change the shape of a wallet and give it an aluminum skin?

The answer, my friends, is something called the Aluma Wallet.

Aluma Wallet website — www.AlumaWallet.com

I first saw the TV commercials for this product almost a year ago.  The commercials stopped and I actually forgot about it until a new version of the TV commercial began airing.  The Aluma Wallet is back for more!

Original version of the Aluma Wallet TV commercial.

Didn’t that TV commercial just make you want to whip a credit card out of your pathetic excuse for a wallet and get this new fancy one instead?

Or not really?

Let’s take a closer look at the Aluma Wallet TV commercial and see just what they’re saying. Read more…

Book Review — Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Today I had the pleasure of finishing what has been deemed by many as one of the greatest war books ever written, Erich Maria Remarque‘s classic tale, All Quiet on the Western Front.  Specifically, mine is the English translation of the German novel.

Primarily taking place in the French countryside and trenches used by opposing armies, All Quiet on the Western Front follows the story of Paul Baumer from enlisting in the German army near the start of the war to his tour of duty ultimately ending several years later in October of 1918.

In All Quiet on the Western Front, the readers are given a detailed look at the horrors of what faced the infantry soldiers during the first World War.  From machine guns to snipers to artillery to rats to starvation to the incredibly high death rates in the hospitals, life for the average soldiers was close to being a living hell.  Throw in the countless number of attacks and counterattacks across No Man’s Land, accomplishing little apart from killing enemy soldiers, and you get a better understanding of how little the average soldier’s life was appreciated.

The war zones of World War One were massive killing fields, slaughtering soldiers by the hundreds of thousands.  It was a blend of the classic style of warfare with million-man armies supported by artillery mixed with modern weapons such as the machine gun, poison gas, flame throwers, and airplane attacks.  Many generals and commanders learned the hard way that horseback cavalry and infantry assaults could easily be defended with a few crews manning machine guns.  Those soldiers who weren’t killed instantly by artillery shells or enemy attacks faced even more horrors from amputation-happy surgeons and deadly infections in their wounds. Read more…

Best Buy’s War on Santa

The Best Buy advertising campaign for this year’s Christmas season is a bit disturbing.

And arrogant.

And just plain mean.

While the famous store is trying to show off its supposedly low prices for certain items and price matching guarantee, the way that the shoppers rub it into Santa’s face in the commercials is downright awful.

Best Buy TV commercial — Game On, Santa — Gifts Under $100

The commercial starts with a shopper and Best Buy store worker talking about all of the trendy gifts priced under $100.  No problems there.  But once the store worker mentions that, “Santa better watch out,” things take a serious turn.

The commercial then cuts to Christmas Eve and Santa arriving in the shopper’s home, surprised to find that the stockings are already filled with presents.  Standing in the doorway and watching is the same woman we saw shopping in the store.  Instead of greeting Santa and being glad that he’s paying her home a visit, she instead becomes a bitch and belittles him, commenting that she didn’t leave any room for his presents in her family’s stockings.

Oh, but she does offer Santa some advice.  Her little puppy is holding a tiny stocking, and she tells Santa that he’s more than welcome to fill his little stocking.

What . . . a . . . bitch!

It’s a wonder that Santa didn’t rip her stocking off the mantle and fill it with reindeer droppings. Read more…

CitiKitty Cat Toilet Training Kit — A Marketing Review

Have you ever thought about toilet training your cat?

Believe it or not, but such a concept is possible.  Doing so can eliminate purchasing those bags of kitty litter, or even spending money on fancy litter boxes.  Imagine!

The concept of potty training cats and dogs really isn’t anything new.  People have been doing that for ages.  Over twenty years ago I knew of a friend’s family that trained their dog (a big golden retriever) to use the toilet.  The only trick, besides having a pet smart enough to learn about it, is knowing how to train your pet.

A few nights ago, my girlfriend and I saw a TV commercial for CitiKitty, a cat toilet training kit.  The thing is, the TV commercial looked so hokey that we both thought that it was a joke product, something like a fake product being used to sell a “real” one.  But sure enough, the CitiKitty is very much a real product.  And apparently this particular product has been on the market since 2005.

CitiKitty website — www.GetCitiKitty.com

The company’s website looks neat and informative.  It’s much better than those other “as seen on TV” cheesy sales pitches.  The pages here are informative, the pictures look good, and since it’s a rather simple product, it doesn’t leave the customer confused or asking unanswered questions.

The product’s TV commercial, however, is a different story.  Take a look and see just how poorly it was put together.

CitiKitty — TV commercial

Wasn’t that so informative and exciting that you’ll want to whip out the credit card and place an order?

Or did the commercial feel more like, well, crap?  Cat crap to be specific.  A big, heaping, steaming pile of it.

Let’s take a closer look at the TV commercial and see how it could have been improved. Read more…

The Santas of Northern Atlanta’s Shopping Malls

It’s that time of the year again.

Time to take those darling, never misbehaving, always polite children to the shopping mall to get that precious picture with Santa.

But with all of the Santas throughout the northern metro area, how do you know which malls have the best displays for that all-important and holiest of holiday photos?  Just which mall (or store) should you visit?  (DISCLAIMER — Those are all just Santa’s HELPERS as we all know the REAL Santa Claus is busy monitoring the toy factory in China, err, the North Pole, and he’s also checking that naughty list one more time)

The other week my girlfriend and I visited many of the Santa locations in northern Atlanta.  We couldn’t hit every single one, but dammit, we saw plenty of malls, a$$hole drivers who can’t back out of parking spots, and plenty of self-centered, ADHD parents pushing their way through stores.  Our pain is your benefit.

Get ready.

Here we go.

“Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus Lane . . .”

Town Center Mall;  Kennesaw, GA

Right off the bat, this is by far the absolute WORST Santa meet-and-greet in northern metro Atlanta.

What kind of crap is this?  Semi-translucent, color changing trees?  WTF?!?  A wide open area of, well, nothing?  Wow.  Maybe next year the people will actually TRY to have a pleasant Christmas display that Santa would be proud to call a temporary home.

Town Center is still a busy and lively mall, too.  It’s better than Gwinnett Place and safer than Cumberland Mall.  It’s just amazing that so little effort went into Town Center’s utterly craptastic Christmas display. Read more…