Supersize my TylAdvAllevenol please.

A fur'ners look at life in America.

If you've been to my "Come To Britain" page, then you'll likely be wondering if I've got any views on our new home in America. Well of course I do. The fact is though that the advantages of living here still massively outweigh the disadvantages. We're over the honeymoon period of living in a new country and the nitty-gritty is now evident to us. Even so, I'd find it hard to write something about America that is quite as venomous as my page about Britain. Of course the only wrinkle in the ointment here is skirting around the issue of Dubya and how he's doing on the world stage. But there's a million websites and the excellent Fahrenheit 9/11 out there that already have that story.
Instead I'm going to concentrate here on things which seem very odd to Europeans living in America.

First things first.

America != The World.

The truly odd thing is that some Americans are very insular. It's not unusual to find people who've never in their life travelled more than 100 miles from where they were born. Some people have never been to another state, let alone another country. For these people, what happens one state over, or in Iraq, or in Europe has no consequence to them. As far as they're concerned, their local city is the entire world. The problem is that this attitude gets amplified up through the ranks and classes, in to officialdom. Whilst Uncle Edner has never been more than 20 miles from his farm, and thus considers Podunk Idaho to be the entire world, his cousin Richie has been all over America, and thus considers America to be the entire world. Richie got rich one day and invested in motorsport, and called it the World Racing Championship. And so on and so forth.
From there, you can now see the reason why some classifications used in America are just wrong. For example The "World Series" in baseball involves teams from all over America and nowhere else. The "World's best pickup" (according to their commercials) is manufactured by Toyota is only sold in America. The "International" House Of Pancakes is an American-only franchise. The Baja-1000 is not the "World's toughest desert rally". The Paris-Dakar is. In fact the only reason our airport at Salt Lake City is called "Salt Lake City International Airport" is because it has one flight a day from Mexico.
Thus the adventurous American has travelled outside America to Mexico or Canada. They are now international and so the "World" is now the North America continent and the Mexican peninsula. The truly broad-minded American has been to Europe, and thus the "World" is now North America and Europe. Sometimes, they mangle nomenclature and call this the "Western" hemisphere. Well the planet's hemispheres are north and south, which is one problem. And the other problem is that the Greenwich Meridian slices through the middle of Europe, so by their own naming convention, only half of it can be in the West.
What truly amazes some of them when they travel is the concept of "history". To the average American, something can be considered old if its been around for 20 years. A centenary is a cause for celebration - a 100 years is a long time. But they have a true eye-opening when they travel to Europe and discover, for example, that France and England have castles, streets and infrastructure that are older than the entire country of America. It's a shock to them that anything existed before 1692. Let alone that it existed beyond American shores.

Making up words - speaking the American "language".

Americans seem to love making up words which just sound completely wrong, as well as mis-using perfectly good words. Some examples:

What they sayWhat they mean or should say
HealthfulHealthy
FlavourfulTasty / full of flavour
BurglarisedBurgled
SicktySixty
PedorthicallyOrthopedically
AxeAsk
AluminumAluminium
AcrossedAcross / over
WinningestMost-winning
KillingestMost deadly

"So I axed the guy what happened when he was burglarised. He said the healthful guy acrossed the street from him didn't see nothing because he was tending to his sickty year old mom."

City folk versus bumpkins.

Whilst a lot of Americans live in big cities, huge swathes of the country are very rural and spotted with little outposts and towns. Whilst 24-hour commercialism saturates life in the city, the country folk lead a very different life. In Cache Valley, north of where we live now, there was nearly a revolution when the town council decided to put in a traffic light (singular). It would have put a stop to the idle 15mph drift down the middle of the road that those folks classified as "driving". The problem with a traffic light was that it was too much like a big city vice. Too commercial. To technically oriented and scientific. A black metal box with different coloured lights in it? That's magic, witchcraft or wizardry to some of these people. Best raise a barn so they have somewhere to have a meeting to discuss this matter.

Rampant commercialism, sponsorship and the never-ending sale.

Leaving aside the country life (because I'm a city-dweller so I only have experience of the cities), when it comes to commercialism, America does seem to lead the world. Here, not only do we have to pay for our TV programming (fortunately there's no TV License!), but that programming is so full of advertising that it's hard to find anything to watch. Such is the acceptance of TV advertising here that during the biggest sporting event of the year, the Superbowl, the game takes a back seat to the commercials. Companies pull out all the stops on Superbowl Sunday to produce funny, memorable commercials that are shown during the game. This year, advertising spots were $2.5M for 30 seconds. So much do the commercials run the day, that if you actually attend the Superbowl, you'll see the players milling around on the field for 4 minutes at a time doing nothing. Why? Because the TV networks have 'gone to commercial'. Watch for the guy with the 4ft-long pink foam glove. When that's up in the air, they can't play because the TV channels are away. When he puts it down, play will continue. True. The TV networks run the Superbowl. Actually, to be more correct, the sponsors run the Superbowl. And every other sporting event for that matter. The winner of the Indianapolis 500 race has to change hats 5 or 6 times during his post-race interview so that all the sponsors can have the photo opportunity with their hat and logo on the winning driver. Can you imagine football (notice the distinction) or Formula-1 coverage being run like that? Sponsorship rules in print, in the shops, stores, on TV, on the radio - everywhere."This segment of Diet For Life is brought to you by..... (change of voice) ...Gluco-Bomb Doughnuts. Why diet when you could be eating a Gluco-Bomb. Gluco-Bomb, from all good supermarkets."
Frankly I'm surprised that sponsorship hasn't reached into all our lives in America. The Homeland Security Advisory system is ripe for sponsorship.....



Given the 24-hour all-advertising all-the-time nature of America, it is odd then that we watch adverts for drugs and booze on TV, yet guns and cigarettes can't be advertised there. Surely the freedom of the press covers that doesn't it? Apparently not. It's okay to drink yourself into a stupor, or become a drugged-up zombie-hypochondriac, but for the love of all that's holy, don't advertise cigarettes or guns on TV. It's all very quaint.

One of the more amusing aspects of commercialism that I've encountered is the never-ending sale. The large stores and car dealerships here never sell anything at full price. For example, we'll start to see adverts for the pre-Independance Day sale around the last week in June. Then that's followed by the July 4th holiday weekend sale. Then that is always such a success that they carry it over for another week. As I type this, we've just had the post Presidents-Day weekend sale. That followed the Presidents day sale, which of course was preceded by the pre-President's Day sale. The fact that the talking heads in the adverts are standing in the same place, wearing the same clothes, for all three sets of adverts, of course means the stores had no intention of just having a one-day sale. It was planned to be a 3-week extravaganza from the beginning.

Another amusing feature of these never-ending sales are the lures to get you in. Free hot dogs and soda. Free slice of pizza. Free this, free that, Free Willy? Of course if you go expecting to get your free hot dog and soda, you'll be sorely disappointed but at least you're now in the store. There's a slight chance you might buy something.
The same holds true for car dealerships. They advertise that you can get amazing deals. Toyota Tundras for under $19,000!. Watch the fine print at the bottom of the screen. To be able to make that claim, the dealership need only have one vehicle that matches that price. The stock number will be on the bottom of the screen. So you actually could get a truck for under $19,000 if you went to the dealer and asked for that exact truck listed by the stock number. Of course once you're there, it will have "just been sold" or be "not what you want". But now you're there, you might buy something else.


It's free*

Ok so this isn't really just about America - you find it everywhere. But somehow, the asterisk in an American advert is so heavily weighted that if you could tear it off the page and throw it at someone, it would be more deadly than a ninja throwing star. Take the following offer for example, in July 2005, from Papa John's pizza:

That little asterisk is a massive pre-condition. From the small print, blown up so you can read it:
Consumers will commit to a new 2 year voice and data service agreement for $74.98 per month which will consist of an email data plan at $34.99 per month plus a voice plan for $39.99. Customer will pay $150.00 and will receive a $150.00 Mail-In Rebate with the device. Offer may vary by market and is contingent upon service provider credit. See order page for complete details. Not valid for upgrades. Offer good only in the USA and may not be available in all markets. Early Termination fee applies. Activation fee and applicable taxes extra. Orders fulfilled by InPhonic, Inc.

So to break down this "free" offer, first off you have to pony up $150 up front. Then you have to sign up to 24 months service at a bankrupting $74.98 a month. Then you have to pay an activation fee and the applicable taxes which are all conveniently left out of the fine print. It's about 6% sales tax, and about 12% in telephony taxes every month. If you cancel early, the termination fee is $150. The maths then:
$150 + tax up front = $159
Activation fee = $50
$74.98 +12% per month for 24 months = $2015.46
So this fabulous "free" offer will cost you $2224.46, or another $150 if you get into it and suddenly decide to cancel. At the very minimum, if you signed up, got the rebate and then cancelled, you'd be $150 out-of-pocket.

We've got a drug to treat that.

The next most prevalent commercial on TV after the uber-cheap car and the never-ending sale, is drugs.

Do you stand upright. Do you breath in and out. Do you walk, talk and behave normally? You might have a serious medical condition known as Being Human. We've got a drug to treat that.

Here in America, there is a drug to treat every known human ailment, and a lot of drugs to treat fabricated ailments. It's the same old advertising adage. Create a demand, usually using fear and uncertainty, then provide the solution. There's an advert going around at the moment for "Social Anxiety Disorder". The soothing voiceover tells us that the symptoms they just described might, in some cases, be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. At the bottom of the screen, the text tells us that these statements haven't been evaluated or endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration. Interestingly, the following also appears on-screen for all the drug adverts: This product is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. Which begs the question : if it doesn't do anything, why buy it? But I digress. The voiceover then goes on to counter that last statement by tell us how in fact their drug can be used to treat this problem. Hmm. But if "in some cases" it "might" be caused by a chemical imbalance, then how can you manufacture a drug to treat that? Of course you can't, but by this point, anyone who's of nervous disposition and who once had a problem speaking to a group of people is so convinced they've got Social Anxiety Disorder that they'll buy just about anything.



Drug commercials always come with a list of side-effects. They have to by law. So the typical drug advert is about a minute long. They spend 10 seconds making up symptoms, then about 10 to 15 seconds showing the product. Usually the advert then cuts to slow motion shots of elderly people playing with dogs in fields, or young nubile women running in slow motion along the shore with their dogs (what is it with drug companies and dogs?). This slow-motion action lasts for about 40 seconds and is accompanied by soothing music and an equally soothing voiceover describing the side effects.



These are the actual published side-effects of a particular drug which is supposed to treat basic allergies like hay fever : Viral Infection, Nausea, Dysmenorrhea, Drowsiness, Dizziness, Dyspepsia, Fatigue, Headache, Upper Respiratory Tract Infection, Back Pain, Coughing, Fever, Pain, Otitis Media, Headache, Sinusitis, Carcinogenesis, Mutagenesis and Impairment of Fertility. Bear in mind that these things sell for $300 for a bottle of 90 and according to the adverts, we all suffer from allergies, so we should all have a couple of bottles handy.



I kid you not, there's one commercial out there right now where the side effects include hyperactivity and increased sleepiness. Eh? Hyperactive and sleepy, both at the same time? The commercial tells us that some of the side effects happen when you stop taking their product, and that because of that, you should seek doctors advice only before coming off the pills. Another advert tells us that it's not our fault we're fat. Apparently, stress in the modern world causes us to be fat. Of course there's a drug to treat that. And for the first time ever, in July 2004, I heard these words in a TV commercial for some new drug (and I quote, because I looked it up on their site):

"Side effects include but are not limited to an allergic reaction (difficulty breathing; closing of the throat; swelling of the lips, tongue, or face; or hives), a new or a worsening irregular heartbeat pattern, wheezing, coughing, chest pain, or chest discomfort, yellowing of the skin or eyes, changes in vision, blurred vision, or decreased vision, cough or shortness of breath, fainting, tremor or involuntary movements, skin rash, dizziness or tiredness, upset stomach, vomiting, decreased appetite, or diarrhoea, changes in taste, poor coordination, numbness, or tingling, and bluish-gray discoloration of the skin. Side effects other than those listed here may also occur. Talk to your doctor about any side effect that seems unusual or that is especially bothersome. In some cases, amiodarone has been associated with serious and even fatal side effects."

Yes, folks, one of the "side effects" of that drug is death. In fact, a lot of the side effects bear the hallmark of impending death - blue/grey discoloration of the skin, decreased vision, numbness.......Hardly what I would call a "side effect", but I'm not a drug manufacturer.



You can tell the drug companies make up 99% of what ends up in their commercials. There's an advert now for a pregnancy test that can tell you if you're (and I quote) "a little bit pregnant". Now I'm not an OBGYN and I didn't pay too much attention in biology at school, but I was under the impression that pregnancy is a binary affair - either you are, or you aren't. But apparently now you can be "a little bit pregnant" as well. There'll be a drug along shortly to treat that.

Drug use is so endemic in America that I think it's part of the American psyche. Some people get up in the morning and pop a handfull of pills. Others chug down painkillers at the merest hint of discomfort. Do you know it's actually possible to get painkillers in tubs of hundreds and even thousands of tablets here? 500? 1,000?? I think I've taken 30 painkillers in my entire life, and most of those were post-op when I had my wisdom teeth out. Who the hell needs 1,000 pain-killers? Well, Americans I guess, because these big ole' tubs of pain relief keep walking off the shelves. The commercials tell the tale. Now you can get by on just 8 Tylenol™ tablets a day apparently. 8 a day? Oh come on...
The government are on the side of the drugs companies here. The ADA can change their specifications of what does and doesn't constitute a disease. In fact now you can have a "pre-disease" which means you're not 100% healthy, but you don't 100% have the disease itself. Most American adults now fall within the guidelines for at least one "pre-disease", and many meet criteria for several. That's because in 2001, a change in federal treatment guidelines meant that more than 104 million Americans, or 50 percent of all adults, are now considered to have either high cholesterol or borderline high cholesterol. The American Drug Administration also recently lowered the fasting glucose test's standard for "pre-diabetes" from 125 to 100 milligrams per decilitre of blood, instantly doubling -- to approximately 40 million -- the number of people in the United Stated who are generally recognized as pre-diabetics. That theoretically means double the profits for the drug manufacturers.

Then there's all the vitamins and supplements. I can't complain - I'm taking an A-Z supplement at the moment to try to boost my phosphor intake. But again, these things fly off the shelves in king-size doses and people chug them like candy. Amusingly, the anti-pill commercials are even better. There's some old codger who's selling a juicer in 30 minute infomercials that will puree all your fruits and vegetables together for a "healthy drink" any time of day. What's wrong with just eating the fruit or veg' on its own? Does it need to be pureed into a green goo?


Selling it. Making stuff up just to sound clever.

In 2004 a new phenomenon happened in TV advertising. Because most products can't stand on their own merit, the companies started just making stuff up in the hope someone would think "wow - that sounds really clever". How else would we have been given a skin-firming lotion containing Boswelox. Or a moisturising skin firmer that has Botafirm in it? These things don't exist - they're made up! What the hell is Boswelox? Does it make you look like Bosley off the old Charlie's Angels show? And Botafirm? Why not just advertise it as what it is : pig ass-fat. There's nothing clever about it. Then there's the breath mints, that according to the commercials, now have an extra drop of Retsyn in them. Well thank God for that - I wasn't getting enough Retsyn in my diet!
I think a lot of it is the Keeping-Up-With-The-Jonses syndrome. Martha across the street is drugged up on a cocktail of uppers and downers. Kelly just can't have that - her drug cocktail must have the edge - she has to be taking something with HyperTrepinium-X (with added MagicRoundaboutium), simply because Martha doesn't have that yet.



American magazines - finding the magazine amongst the adverts.

American magazines are abyssmal. Truly truly terrible. To start with, they're chock full of these stupid pieces of card that drop out as soon as you open them. Then there's the pieces of card that are part of the printing process, which you have to tear out. Then there's the entire pages made of card which prevent the magazine from folding properly, and prevent you from being able to riffle through the pages. All these cards are there for one reason : advertising (again). So you tear out all the cards and throw them away. Then you start to read the magazine. Well not quite. You see American magazines are so full of advertising that there's barely any room left for the articles. As a good example, I give you my current edition of FHM magazine. It has 4 full-card pages. It has 14 drop-out cards, 5 of which are asking me to subscribe to FHM. It has 224 pages, of which 155 are adverts, leaving only 69 pages of actual content. Of those 69 pages, 30 have half-page adverts, and 10 have quarter-page adverts, leaving a total content the equivalent of a measly 50 pages. It's so bad that you have to go through an average of 18 pages of adverts just to get to the contents page now! And the contents page itself is a half-page of ads. The worst problem with this style of magazine is their complete and utter inability to provide the reader with.....

Unbiased opinions

American magazines are so buoyed up by advertising that they can't be subjective or unbiased any more. For example MCW magazine (motorcycle world). They recently gave a glowing review to a bike which, in every English magazine I read, was torn to shreds for being one of the worst bikes ever to hit the road. So why would the American magazine mislead its readers so badly? Well because if they told the truth, and showed the bike in a bad light, it would irritate the bike manufacturer, who coincidentally has 18 pages of adverts in the magazine. If they pull their advertising contract, the magazine loses money. The same is true in England of course, but the advertisers are a little less anal over there.

Gotta be fit! Jogging in the road.

Broadly speaking, Americans are obsessed with personal fitness. Which makes it all the more questionable why some of them are the size they are. The TV is full of commercials informing us that $150 for a bottle of 30 diet pills isn't too high a price to pay if you're desperate to lose weight. Or extremely gullible. Or how about buying the Super BowWeight BlasterFlex MasterGymTreadAbRoll CrunchThighMaster 8000? Tony Little (America's favourite fitness guru) shouts at you from the TV and tells you that for only 60 easy payments of $49.99, you too can have a mechanical monstrosity take up your entire basement that you'll never use.
Some Americans seem to believe that the reason they get fat is because they're not taking the right drugs (see the previous entry). It's so difficult to get them to see the obvious - eat less and exercise more. And the absolute King of the weight-loss fable is Jared Fogel - the guy on the Subway commercials. If we're to believe him, a diet of nothing but Subway sandwiches caused him to shed an astounding 200lbs. No, Jared. An expensive doctor with a liposuction machine and $20,000 of stomach reduction surgery is what caused you to lose 200lbs. Think about it. If the guy has lost so much weight and is in such great shape, why does he always wear long trousers and a baggy shirt? It's because if he appeared in shorts and bare from the belt up, you'd be able to see the surgery scars.

But one of the truly idiotic pastimes that Americans indulge in is jogging. In itself, not idiotic, but as practiced by Americans, truly mind-boggling. Every morning, all across this great nation, you'll find thousands of people out jogging - in the road. Not at the side of the road, mind you, but actually in the road, in traffic. Quite what chemical imbalance has caused these people to think this is safe is beyond me, but you can absolutely sure that if I was to start using the pavement (sorry - sidewalk) to drive on (because all the pedestrians are clogging up the road), people would be up in arms and I'd be arrested and put away. Similarly, if I mow down one of these iPod-wearing fitness freaks in the road itself, I'd be the one going to jail.

The culture of fear

Americans, as a whole, are afraid. It's one of the reasons the drug companies do so well out of them. (but conversely doesn't explain their penchant for jogging in the road amongst 2-ton boxes of steel doing 40mph). They're afraid that a simple sneeze means the onset of West Nile Virus. They're afraid that Al Qaeda has infiltrated their local bar and is poisoning the beer. They're afraid that their neighbour might be just waiting to slay them in their sleep on night. Fear is one of the reasons that President Bush is doing so well, because he knows how to make his people terrified. Proof of that was the 2004 elections, where he had people so scared that they allegedly voted for him again. These scare tactics included constant news reports about Al Qaeda and the barricading of monuments and public buildings in Washington and other key capitals (because they didn't want terrorists to affect the election). In fact, by dictionary definition, President Bush himself is a terrorist. From Merriam-Webster's dictionary : Terrorist :: One who governs by terrorism or intimidation. A radical who employs terror as a political weapon.. Bush is keeping is people terrified by intimidation, and using the threat of harm from abroad as a political weapon. Fear is the reason gun ownership is up, and correspondingly, gun-related crime and gun-related death. Fear is the reason the NRA do so well. Fear is the reason he got 4 more years.
It's all a bit of a problem though, because truly, people involve themselves in everyday activities, which, if they cared to do a bit of investigation, are far more worthy of fear and dread than Al Qaeda and tainted beer. For example:

So Americans should be less afraid of terrorism and plague and more worried about tripping over that stuffed bear on the floor whilst wearing high heels on the way to work in the cube farm in their SUV. They should be more worried about President Bush. They should be more worried about the distortion of facts and science coming from the current regime.
Pink Floyd had it right with The Wall - a nation dissolving into fear and intolerance. Conform. Obey. Be afraid.


You just don't have the time any more

In today's hectic lifestyle, who has the time to eat breakfast / put on makeup / drink their morning coffee? You need to be on the road / on the train / in the office.
Many companies tout this line. Normally they have some time-saving device like a whole breakfast in a candy bar, or a dietary supplement that means you can skip breakfast altogether.
Here's an idea : get up 10 minutes earlier.....then you'll have 10 minutes for breakfast.....
Yes, America is the land of the Infomercial....

Infomercials and the Hideous Jewellery Network

When it comes to advertising on TV, the infomercial is at the top of the heap. When there's nothing else on to watch, we like to do the whole Mystery Science Theater 3000 thing with infomercials, and watch them whilst pulling them to pieces. Seriously, it doesn't take half an hour to sell a Dutch Oven. Or a set of knives, or a "set it and forget it" convection oven (you know the one I mean). The tech shows are the most entertaining, where they try to sell the heck out of cameras and PCs for 30 minutes at a time. It's clear after 4 or 5 minutes that they've run out of things to say. When they resort to phrases like "Just look, this PC has millions of colours!" you know things are going horribly wrong. We've had S-VGA graphics cards for what? 10 or 11 years now? But apparently, this PC they're selling is special because it can show millions of colours. And don't forget the design. It's so sleek and silvery that when our cosmetically-enhanced model rubs her boobs against it, they just slide right off. Actually, from a bloke's point of view, you can't argue with using attractive models to sell something, but I digress.
A couple of the channels peddle nothing but jewellery. Some don't even do that, some just sell the stones that go in the jewellery. We've nicknamed one of these channels HJN - the Hideous Jewellery Network. They sell the most revolting, crass, over-the-top jewellery you've ever seen. Not even Liberace would have bought some of this stuff. But it's entertainment enough to watch, and even more so to hear the leagues of housewives phoning in telling us how marvellous the last $4,000 rock was that they bought.

But wait!

During every infomercial, the price crops up and will be something like "just 5 easy payments of $24.99".
5 payments? That's an odd number. Of course it's always followed by this :
But wait! If you call in the next 5 minutes, we'll take one payment off. That means just 4 easy payments of $24.99.

Now that's better. 4 is a round number, and the price is nicely rounded at a hundred bucks now. But that is a curiously blank space on the TV screen over there. Looks like something should be filling it....

But wait!. Not only do you get the slicer, the MitsoHakoShumiKomo knife, the paring knife, the scoop-n-slice, the two boning knives and the sharpening stick. We'll include this beautiful carrying case absolutely free.

Hmm. A carrying case too you say. Tempt me some more!

But wait!. As part of this once-in-a-lifetime special TV offer, we'll include this complete set of 12 steak knives absolutely free!

No! More free stuff. Could this get any better?

But wait!. As a special offer to you viewers at home, we'll also include this plastic fruit-shaping device, our flavour injector, three bottles of miracle-shine car wax, Tony's guide to vacuum-sealing anything, four flying lures, 8 chrome fish hooks and a book of coupons worth another $500, absolutely free. And if you call right now, ask our operators about our blue-flag phone-in special where we'll double your order for only $1 more!. That's right. You'll get two slicers, two MitsoHakoShumiKomo knives, two paring knives, two scoop-n-slices, four boning knives, two sharpening sticks, two carrying cases, twenty four steak knives, two plastic fruit-shaping devices, two flavour injectors, six bottles of miracle-shine car wax, two copies of Tony's book, eight flying lures, sixteen chrome fish hooks and $1000 in coupons. All for just 4 easy payments of $24.99!!!!!

Well, clearly that's a deal to be had, isn't it? I mean who can resist that sort of an offer. Just think. Instead of paying $95 for a good kitchen knife, for only $5 more I can have all that. I hope they're good quality......

Video late fees

This is something which is absolutely unique to America. Not the fee for returning a rental movie late, but the fear of God of that fee itself. It's so powerful that its used in advertising to sway people to use different schemes. (check Google if you don't believe me) For example Hollywood Video claims that for $14.99 a month, not only do you get "thousands" of free movies, but there's no late fees. Wow! So apart from the fact that no new movies, none of the games, and almost no popular movies are included in their MVP scheme, should you choose one of the duds that is covered and forget to return it on time, the $1.00 late fee is covered by your $14.99 a month subscription! Bargain. This fear of the late fee is preyed upon by mail- order rental companies who's catch is that you pay $17.99 a month, and just tell them what movies you want. They send you the DVDs in the mail, you send them back when you're done. No late fees. MovieBeam is another company, this time with a box you put on top of your set. They beam new movies to the hard drive every week, you pay-per-view and what's this? No late fees. But MovieBeam is $29.99 a month for "unlimited" new movies.
I don't get it. What's so difficult about returning a rented movie? Most places give you 5 days to do it, and even more have drive-up drop-boxes so you don't even have to get out of your car. It really can't be that difficult can it? Well apparently it is, because it seems most video rental places make a fair proportion of their monthlies from late fees. In November 2004 I was standing in line waiting to check out a movie, and the woman in front of me was trying to rent 5 DVDs. The girl behind the counter was explaining to her that because she had $181 in outstanding late fees, they couldn't rent her any more movies. $181???? Jebus! Was she retarded? How in God's name do you rack up $181 in late fees?? I didn't think that level of laziness was possible!
Apparently, it's very easy to spend 10 minutes searching out a movie and renting it, but it's near impossible to spend 10 seconds dropping said movie in the drop box the next day. I guess that's why so many movies have a $1 credit for next-day return. It's an incentive which they know they'll nearly never have to pay out on. Unless, of course, you're a Demon.....

Angels and Demons - how the US stores see you, the consumer

I classify as a Demon. Why? Because I return my rented movies the next day for my $1 credit. I also mail-in all my rebates to get money back, and I use coupons when they come around in the mail. Whilst I see this as being a wise consumer, the stores secretly hate me. Why? Because they lose money on me hand over fist. When I was buying a printer over here, I asked the sales guy why they didn't just take the price off in the store instead of making me mail in the rebate. He didn't know so I got to speak to his supervisor, and astonishingly (to me) he said that less than 1% of mail-in rebates ever get fulfilled because people simply forget. So they're drawn into the store with the promise of $50 back, pay full price, then forget to send in the rebate. Those consumers are the Angels. I on the other hand sent off my $50 manufacturer rebate and my $30 Best Buy rebate and six weeks later got $80 in cheques for a $110 printer. ie. it cost me $30. I've had rebates for movies, PC hardware and software, food, electronic goods, car servicing and car rentals. I must have had nearly $1000 in rebate cheques in the last three years.
You'd think that this is a total no-brainer, but it seems that 99% of people who shop for rebates are idiots. Best Buy even print the damn rebate form on the receipt they hand to you at the checkout. How difficult can it be?

Not surprisingly, the big stores detest Demons like me, and in some cases are now actively trying to prevent wise consumers from shopping there. They do this by making the stores less appealing by offering fewer coupons and discounts and different selections of goods. For example if they discover a lot of Demons shopping in one particular store for high-tech office gear, they'll phase out high-tech office gear and replace it with full-price DVDs or something.

Inappropriate gifts - every day is a holiday.

Valentines Day. Mothers Day. Fathers Day. Birthdays, Christmas, Hannukah - every day is a holiday as far as the advertisers are concerned. And for those holidays, you must buy gifts. If you're a man, you must buy your wife diamonds and jewellery. If you're a woman, you must by your husband a large-screen TV or a home theater outfit. I kid you not. Last Father's day, a certain large department store was telling us that "it's not too late to do that last-minute shopping for father's day. We still have a wide selection of computers, home theater equipment and big-screen TVs!". Hmm. When I was a kid, I couldn't afford a $2,000 big-screen TV for my dad every year. I presume then that the idea is that the wife buys the father's day present.
In the Christmas 2004 season, Jaguar and Lexus were actually advertising their cars as gifts. "The Unwrap A Jaguar event. Come in now and from only $70,495 you can make your partner faint with happiness come Christmas morning," Apparently some people actually buy entire cars as Christmas presents. Who knew? I don't know who can afford to drop $70,495 on a Christmas present but whoever they are they have some serious issues with the entire concept of gifts. A car is not a gift. It's a motor vehicle designed to get you from A to B.
Small keepsakes and presents that are well thought out and from the heart seem to escape the advertisers over here. It's just not Valentines day in America if you didn't get your wife a reasonably-priced solitaire diamond ring for only $3499.





Credit in the land of confusion

A statistic which amazed me when I first heard is was to do with credit cards. Apparently, the average American has 14 credit cards, with an average of $4,000 on each card. I don't know how true that is, but I'm prepared to believe it now I live here. What with the diamond ring and big-screen TV for every holiday, and the three cars, it's totally possible that this is a true statistic. It was getting like this in England before I left, and it seems to be a commonly-accepted practice here in America to live in debt. Not just the debt of owning a house, but chronic, multi-credit-card debt that you can't get out of.

There's a lot of debt-management agency adverts on TV here. These are the places that roll all your monthly payments into a single higher interest rate loan so you have only one payment. The adverts are full of people telling us that they couldn't afford to even pay their minimums each month, but with ProfitCo's debt-management solution, they'll be debt free in as little as 8 years.
There's also a lot of adverts for lawyers who specialise in bankruptcy. That's when you've mismanaged your money so badly that the only way out of it is to be declared bankrupt. They make it sound like a valuable solution that everyone should consider, but conveniently leave out the part about a ruined credit rating that means a lifetime of being raped blind for insurance premiums in your post-bankruptcy life. And buying another house? After bankruptcy? Erm, no. Doesn't happen, for the simple reason that not even the shadiest loan shark is going to lend you money to buy a house after you bollocksed it up so badly once already. Speaking of lawyers....

Dewey, Beatem and Howe. 1-800-Injured, because it's not your fault

Tripped up because you were a little clumsy? For most reasonable human beings, that would classify as an accident. But for a certain breed of American, they're egged-on by lawyers adverts that basically explain the following founding principal:


No matter what you did, it cannot possibly be your fault


So you must obviously sue someone for compensation. These particular sharks live on the theory that the word "accident" should be removed from the dictionary, and that the concept of accepting blame is so alien as to be inconceivable. The adverts are normally laced with testimonials, some from actual real people, not actors!

I was sitting in my office staring out of the window. 24 floors below me, I saw the car hit the kerb and run over the cyclist scattering fruit everywhere. I was nowhere near the accident and Dewey, Beatem and Howe got me eighteen million dollars!.
Cut to Dewey looking stern with Howe looking like a gay 70's porn star in the background:
That's right. We got Joseph eighteen million dollars, and we'll work just as hard for you.

Of course you've all heard about the McDonalds lawsuit where some dosy bint spilled hot coffee in her lap and sued McDonalds because they'd had the gall to sell her hot coffee at a drive-thru. The key to that lawsuit was that there wasn't a sign which specifically told her that (a) the coffee would be hot and that (b) she would burn herself when she spilled it. Common sense would tell you or I that both (a) and (b) were given facts - you don't need to be told. But as far as the lawyer is concerned, we all need to be implicitly instructed and warned about everything.
The most recent of these off-the-wall lawsuits happened to Winnebago, the RV manufacturer. One of their customers bought a big RV, and on a road trip, he set the cruise control, got up and went to the toilet. It seems that the manual didn't specifically instruct him that cruise control only affects the accelerator, not the brake and the steering. Of course the RV careened off the road and as the chap was being hurled violently around his toilet, all he could see was the millions he'd make in the lawsuit. He won, and Winnebago now have that disclaimer in their manual.
As a general rule of thumb, when you see a disclaimer over here, no matter how obvious it is, it means that someone tried what is being shown, sued, and won. When a car advert shows the car driving underwater, which you or I would interpret as artistic license, the disclaimer pops up : "Do not attempt this stunt". You know what that means? It means someone did try it, it ruined their car (duh!), they sued the manufacturer.
And won.

News netwurkz wot get it rite all the tyme.

America is the home of the cable news networks - 24-hour networks that peddle information to the public about anything and everything. But when it comes down to it, there's only so much news to be told. So a lot of the networks now have become lazy propaganda machines that can easily get taken off-guard and can make embarrassing mistakes at the drop of a hat. Take CNN and the Columbia disaster for example. In the rush to get the news out first, they somberly told us that the shuttle broke up entering the atmosphere at 18 times the speed of light. Holy shit! No wonder the damn thing fell apart!
Another CNN trait is dumbing down. Sadly this seems to have come from the BBC who have decided that they should be broadcasting to the lowest common denominator. So with that in mind, during the swelling oil prices in early 2004, CNN announced that the only way the price was going to come down was if "the OPEC producing countries increased their output."
Hmm. "So that's the Oil Producing & Exporting Countries Producing Countries" is it?
A classic staple of cable news over here is Wolf Blitzer. This guy has the ability to whip America into a frenzied panic about anything. It doesn't matter how trivial it is, this guy is the über-newscaster when it comes to making a mountain out of a molehill:
"The air was filled with screaming. People on the ground panicked and were running left right and centre. New Yorkers, fresh with the memory of September the 11th must have thought it was happening all over again. Cab drivers were stopped in the blocked streets. Emergency workers battled for hours. Yes, folks, this latest shortage of coffee at the Starbucks on 57th and Elm has brought the entire neighbourhood to its knees! Join us at 9 for our in depth team coverage of 'Coffee Shortage On Elm', with our on-site reporters, Bob Smilingbutt-vacant and foreign correspondent Henschel Der Neesandtoes."

Here's a couple of the more notable mistakes in the last few years, captured for all time by people quick with their cameras:

nigger innis and shuttle 18 times the speed of light

Guns don't kill people - people kill people. Americans, guns and the NRA.

Actually, 40 grams of hot lead travelling at 341 metres/second is what kills people. But that's not nearly as catchy. A lot of Americans (civilian and politician) will instantly be able to tell you that the constitution gives them the right to bear arms. It gives them the right to defend themselves with guns.
Well - actually it doesn't. It's not in the constitution - it's in the 2nd amendment - part of the Bill of Rights. And if you read it, it does not give every citizen the right to own or carry a gun or even defend themselves with one:



In case you can't decipher the writing, it reads:

Article the fourth ... A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Hmm. Interesting eh? So in fact it has nothing to do with defending yourself, or civil liberties. In fact, by the letter of the second amendment, almost every gun owner in America is in violation of the fourth article. Why? Well because it clearly indicates that the right to bear arms will not be infringed if you are part of a well organised militia intent on maintaining the security of a free State. In other words, overthrowing the government. So to be a gun owner, you technically need to be in the NRA, and be marching on Washington.

Ah yes, the NRA - the National Rifle Association. A militia with a slightly skewed view of the world, who believe that everyone should be defending their houses with fully automatic weaponry. Well given that the second amendment makes no mention of self-defence, there's a problem right away. And given that a single well-aimed bullet can kill someone, the need for a machine capable of spewing hundreds of bullets a minute does seem a bit like overkill doesn't it?
The truly amusing thing is that a great many people who own guns are more likely to shoot themselves in the foot than shoot any potential attacker. Yet more Americans are killed because of guns than anywhere else in the world. The easy answer is to say "it's because there's so many guns". But the truth is that Canada has more guns per household and per-capita than America, yet their gun-related crime rate is a tiny fraction of that in America.
The sad part of all this of course is that kids find guns and treat them as toys, and they find their way into schools. There's pages and pages to be written on this subject, but Michael Moore's "Bowling For Columbine" does a much better job than I can.

A-hunting we will go

One of the greatest outdoor pastimes, especially here in the mountainous states, is hunting. The week before hunting season begins, driveways are resplendent with polished off-road bikes, buggies and 4x4s. Rifle racks are loaded, the beer is placed in the cooler, and an assortment of snacks are loaded into the truck. Then, at the crack of dawn, they all vanish into the mountains for a weekend. As far as I can tell, hunting deer seems to involve finding a comfortable spot under a tree, breaking out the beer and snacks, and waiting patiently for a hapless deer to wander across your path. When it does, a 12-bore shotgun or military-grade rifle will make short work of it.
I suppose it's a product of being brought up in a country where hunting didn't exist, but I don't understand the fascination or need to hunt. Proponents tell me that it keeps the deer population in check, amongst other things. Well - so would air-dropped deer bait laced with poison.
The odd thing about hunting is that when the hunters are unlucky enough to come across an animal such as a bear, for which you really do need a bloody big gun, none of them seem to be able to retaliate. The news is filled with the odd report of hunters, complete with $8,000-worth of high-velocity artillery, being mauled half to death by a bear.
And harking back a moment to the previous paragraph on guns in general, in late November 2004, six hunters were killed when one of their hunting buddies wigged out and shot them all. So seven guys, all armed to the teeth, and six of them had so little knowledge of guns that they couldn't even defend themselves? That story tells you all you need to know about Americans, hunting and guns.

Energy-saving and the American Motor Car

I live in amazement at how energy-unconscious a lot of Americans are. The generation-X'ers aren't so bad, and well educated, well-informed people are just fine. But there is an underlying core of people, mostly in the pro-Bush "red" (ie. dumb) states, who don't understand that it's totally unreasonable to leave 3 TVs on all day, even when you're not at home, with the a/c set to 84°F in the winter and 60°F in the summer. We bought a house here and as part of the buying process, we asked to see the energy bills from the previous year. They weren't too bad - a little high I thought but do-able. A year on, I compared our energy bills for the same house. On gas, we were spending about half as much despite having had a gas water heater put in. On electric, about a third as much and on water, less than a quarter as much. This was for the same house! I'm at a loss to explain how the previous owners managed to burn over twice as much gas, use three times as much electricity and four times as much water.
Well not so much of a loss. For example, our garden has a pair of floodlights to illuminate it at night. Looks pretty and has a nice safety aspect. When we bought the house, there were two 400watt bulbs out there. I swapped them for low-energy bulbs rated at 19watts each and the light output is the same. From 800watts to 38watts. Lights are on for an average of 7 hours a night - longer in the winter, shorter in the summer. So we're down from 5.6Kw a night to 266w a night. Add it up, those floodlights alone save us 1.9Megawatts of power a year.

One thing I cannot understand though is Detroit's inability to grasp the concept of a fuel-efficient car. Or for that matter, a car that handles well. How is it that Japanese and European cars have better handling, and more power from smaller, more fuel-efficient engines than just about anything that the American manufacturers can produce? I know it's to do with energy costs and prevailing economies, and in Europe and Japan, the high cost of fuel necessitates great cars. But can't we have just one Ford or Chevy that handles well and has an engine that works? Just one? While Honda and the like are going headlong into multi-fuel and hybrid engines, Detroit continues to churn out massive SUVs with gloriously underpowered, inefficient engines. "The most powerful car on the planet" one commercial proclaims. Strange. There's 12 cars made in Europe right now that are more powerful than this particular one. Apparently Europe isn't on the planet though. It's all very amusing.
Then there's the Hummer, a military vehicle which was softened up (only slightly) for the public. That spawned the H2 which is in fact a GM Yukon with a clever body kit and some suspension and drivetrain mods. It is most definitely not a military vehicle. Both Hummers look ridiculous, have laughable single-digit fuel economy figures, heart-stopping insurance rates, and are so grossly oversized and impractical than whenever I see one driving around, all pimped out and posing, it just makes me laugh. I'm sure the intention is for people to stop in awe and point and stare. However, the overriding impracticality and sheer expense of these behemoths just makes me think "well the dealer saw you coming a mile away."

hummer 2 - not so tough

Supersized food means supersized people. A one-price buffet means....?

As I mentioned earlier, Americans are getting more obese. So is the rest of the world, but it's doubly true here. Why? According to one drug company, stress is making us fat so we're not to blame. Don't be an idiot. Stress isn't making people fat. Massive portions are making people fat. Everything is supersize-this, or biggie-that. What makes it worse is that the pricing structure in most eating establishments encourages massive portions. When I travel on business, I have my usual breakfast, which is cornflakes and some toast. Normally this is greeted by the restaurant staff asking "Is that all you want?". But the cost is invariably about $7 a breakfast. However, if I'd had the "special" which is 4 strips of bacon, two eggs, two sausages, hash browns,a muffin, coffee, water, toast and a stack of pancakes covered in butter and syrup, it would have only cost me $3.99. Hmmm. So a breakfast big enough to be two dinners is cheaper than a bowl of cereal and two rounds of toasted bread?
Another example. There's two of us at home - we don't need large pizzas. So I order a small one. Typically it costs about $14. But for $9.99 I could get two extra-large one-topping pizzas. Again, more food equals less money. Weird eh?

Something which irritates me is the abuse of the one-price buffet. It seems that given the choice of more food than they could possibly eat, some people do just that - take more food than they could possibly eat. Last year I was on business in Orlando and I saw the same couple at breakfast every morning for a week. Without fail, they'd go to the buffet. He'd get the full-on bacon breakfast, and leave about half of it on his plate. She'd get a huge fruit salad and a yoghurt, but only eat three slices of apple and one scoop of the yoghurt. Every morning, enough food was thrown away from their plates to make a good sized breakfast for a family of three. This sort of excess rubs me totally the wrong way. Why not get a couple of bacon strips, one egg and a slice of toast, then if you're hungry, go back and get a little more? After all, it's a one-price buffet?
Is this a trait of Americans in general? Probably not. That couple did seem to be exceptional in their wanton disregard for what they were doing. But it's behaviour that isn't moderated by the availability of enormous portions of food. The fact is that restaurants serve up huge portions, and then by default ask if you want a box to take away what you didn't eat. Why? Why not just serve smaller portions instead?

My wife read a report to me a few weeks ago about the availability of fresh, quality food in some of the more needy areas of the country. It seems that the crappy, low-quality fruit and vegetables end up in the poorer areas of the cities, and are overpriced. Precisely where people need cheap, good quality food, there is none. But there are fast-food joints selling dirt-cheap breakfasts that could be advertised as the McArteryClogger. Meanwhile, across town in the high-end establishments, that couple from Orlando are piling their plates high with good quality, tasty food, then throwing 90% of it away.

Here's the deal. If you're fat, or overweight, or obese, you can do something about it and it doesn't need drugs or miracle diets, or drastic surgery. It's not genetics, and you weren't born like that. You ate like a frickin' pig for years and did bugger-all exercise. So eat less, and exercise more. If you don't, then don't complain about being fat.

The King of Supersizing : Carl's Junior

From a recent press release :
CARPINTERIA, Calif., May 26, 2004 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- If you want to indulge in a big, delicious, juicy burger and also feel the burn of working your biceps, look no further than Carl's Jr. Introducing The 1 lb. Double Six Dollar Burger(TM), the newest addition to the award-winning Six Dollar Burger(TM) line, that is certain to literally crush the competition in taste and size.
The 1 lb. Double Six Dollar Burger features two 1/2-pound charbroiled, 100-percent Angus beef patties topped with three slices of American cheese, bacon, bread-and-butter pickles, red onions, lettuce, tomatoes, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise -- all on a toasted, seeded bun. The result is a tasty mega-burger that requires two hands, a firm grip, a serious appetite -- and many napkins.
Participating Carl's Jr. restaurants will begin selling The 1 lb. Double Six Dollar Burger on Wednesday, May 26. The suggested retail price is $5.49.

Go on - guess how many calories that bad boy has in it.
From the Carl's Junior website - check this out - 2017 calories in a single burger. Did you know the recommended daily caloric intake for an average "muscular" male is 2000 calories - 1500 if you're a woman. You do the maths.

Facon - it's just not bacon.

If you were to order bacon and eggs at an American diner for breakfast, once you'd got past the 48 different ways they can mangle an egg, your plate will arrive with your choice of egg on it plus some strips of what look like dog treats. This was a shock to me, and despite having now acquired somewhat of a taste for it, I still would take English bacon over American bacon any day. You see English bacon is thick, succulent slices of bacon that are mostly meat, with some fat and rind on them. They're shaped like a pork chop - thin at one end, and fat with meaty bacon at the other. American bacon is a rectangular strip of fat with the odd spot of meat in it. English bacon is fried so that the rind becomes a bit crispy and the meaty areas get chewy. American bacon is fried into submission until it's so brittle that it shatters into hundreds of pieces if you try to stab it with a fork or cut it with a knife. In fact, I wonder if American bacon has ever seen the inside of a pig. I think it's an extruded pork product made of fat byproducts, trotters, lips and ass. It's fake bacon. It's facon. You just can't make a nice bacon roll or bacon sandwich with facon.

Drive-thrus. The good, the bad and Las Vegas

One thing I'm a total convert to over here is drive-thru ATMs and fast food. I love the idea that to get cash out of your bank, you can drive up to a cash machine in your car, and get it all sorted out. Back in England, cash machines are never anywhere convenient so you have to park your car (which costs money), then walk around and try to find a cash machine. There's nothing quick or convenient about it. Here, I can drive up, get cash, and drive off.
Drive-thru fast food - great for a snack on the go. Sometimes I have to fake an American accent to be understood through the tinny speaker/microphone they use, but in general it's okay. I have a new-found appreciation for something I thought was completely ludicrous before moving here : cup-holders. When I lived in England, the whole though of cup-holders in a car was just so laughably funny that I chalked it up to "daft, lazy Americans". Having lived here, I'm a total convert. But it's a cultural and infrastructure thing. In England, you don't willingly pile into a car and drive 7 hours to get anywhere. You'd sooner have a root canal than do that. With the shite roads, speed cameras everywhere and just appalling driving, 7 hours on the road in England would be torture. Over here, the roads are so widespread, that once you're out of the suburban sprawl, setting the cruise control and driving for 7 hours or more is just not an effort. Stop at the drive-thru, get a drink, pop it in the cup-holder and carry on.

Of course it's taken to excess in some instances. In Las Vegas, you have drive-thru funeral parlours and wedding chapels. That's right, you can get married in your car without that pesky inconvenience of, oooh, let's say, your family?

What do they do really well?

Despite my bemoaning of the rampant commercialism, for some things it works really, really well. Need to have some furniture delivered? You don't need to wait 8 weeks then have it not turn up. Not only is it likely to be available almost immediately, the delivery people can tell you within a couple of hours when they'll be there! Coming from England, where delivery of anything is the equivalent hassle of getting a man to the moon, this is a welcome luxury.
I've had the same experience with contractors. They turn up when they say they will. They do the work, they don't overcharge you, they clean up, and leave. It's great.
The service industry. This is something they do really well over here too. Shop assistants generally are pleasant and eager to help. Waiters and restaurant staff are quick and efficient. (But why only the call-ahead list and no reservations!?). Believe it or not, the larger car dealerships are undergoing somewhat of a renaissance and are actually pleasant places to have your car serviced. Of course there's the QuikFit equivalent over here, which is J*ffy Lube, but you're bound to get that sort of outfit anywhere I suppose.

The bottom line

So it's clear that I don't like England, and this page raises some questions about America. So what's the bottom line? Well, we like it here. Despite all the excess, debt, imbalance and the current President, you can work around it. We could have fourteen credit cards, but we only have one. We could have three gas-guzzling cars, but we only have one fuel-efficient one. We could be eating supersize portions of food, but we don't, and we could be pill-popping drugs at the merest sign of discomfort, but we don't. It's all about choices. I can take the infomercials, the commercialism, the constant questioning about whether we're from Australia. Why? Americans are truly amiable people. Some are a little misguided, but most will go out of their way to make you feel at home. I could go to almost anyone's house and knock on the door and strike up a conversation. In England, that would likely result in a call to the police or physical assault.
We choose to live the way we do, where we do, because life is most definitely better here in America than back in England. As long as it stays that way, we'll be here. If it changes, we'll move on. And that's the bottom line.