27 March 2006
14. Unnecessarily Animated TV Commercials
There is a long and storied tradition of animated tv commercials. We have fond memories of Knight Rider being interrupted by a rambunctious conga-line of snack foods marching to the tune "Let's go out the kitchen and have ourselves a snack." Most cereal commercials from our youth also were animated to great effect. Dig 'Um, Toucan Sam, Tony the Tiger, all as familiar as old friends. These characters were all dreamt up by market researchers, then drawn by artists. They are entertaining mascots for easily differentiated products.
Nowadays, however, there is a strange trend afoot where companies produce animated commercials for no apparent reason other than to employ animators.
For the life of us, we cannot understand why the new Charles Schwab ads are animated. Stock brokering seems a fairly staid occupation--or is there some aspect that lends itself to whimsy or cartoons? One would assume that Schwab employs this technique to somehow set himself apart from other brokerage firms. We are no business maven, but would it not be more sensible to improve and/or differentiate one's product rather than simply roll out flashy commercials for the same product that everyone else sells?
The animation technique used in these Schwab spots is called "roto-scoping," which sounds like a knee operation, but is actually a sort of high-tech tracing. The effect is a creepy and puzzling realism that traps the viewer between real and cartoon worlds. Perhaps not unlike the adventuresome world of brokerage, with its scandals and scoundrels and hypothetical profit margins.
We have rended many garments trying to divine the wisdom behind having humans act out a commercial--to audition, cast, rehearse, and then film the scenes--only to then hire high-tech cartoonists to trace their features and movements using elaborate computerization, and then animate them. Especially when one of the commercials stars famous actor Matt Servitto, who plays Agent Dwight Harris on The Sopranos. Perhaps they are trying to stimulate investment in the roto-scoping industry? Greater minds than ours will have to grapple with this great question.
Nowadays, however, there is a strange trend afoot where companies produce animated commercials for no apparent reason other than to employ animators.
For the life of us, we cannot understand why the new Charles Schwab ads are animated. Stock brokering seems a fairly staid occupation--or is there some aspect that lends itself to whimsy or cartoons? One would assume that Schwab employs this technique to somehow set himself apart from other brokerage firms. We are no business maven, but would it not be more sensible to improve and/or differentiate one's product rather than simply roll out flashy commercials for the same product that everyone else sells?
The animation technique used in these Schwab spots is called "roto-scoping," which sounds like a knee operation, but is actually a sort of high-tech tracing. The effect is a creepy and puzzling realism that traps the viewer between real and cartoon worlds. Perhaps not unlike the adventuresome world of brokerage, with its scandals and scoundrels and hypothetical profit margins.
We have rended many garments trying to divine the wisdom behind having humans act out a commercial--to audition, cast, rehearse, and then film the scenes--only to then hire high-tech cartoonists to trace their features and movements using elaborate computerization, and then animate them. Especially when one of the commercials stars famous actor Matt Servitto, who plays Agent Dwight Harris on The Sopranos. Perhaps they are trying to stimulate investment in the roto-scoping industry? Greater minds than ours will have to grapple with this great question.
20 March 2006
13. Bizarre Car Nomenclature
It is one of our favorite pastimes while driving to observe the other vehicles on the road in order to keep current with car stylings, and to see how long it takes a vehicle to appear on the road after seeing a TV commercial for it. What we have really noticed recently is that car names are becoming more and more inscrutable with each passing model year.
It used to be that car names were simple. Easy to pronounce and remember, and representative of some tangible object or creature. Comet, Maverick, Pinto, Charger, Falcon, Gremlin, Roadmaster. Naturally, there were some curious exceptions, like the Ford Granada or the Buick LeSabre.
Nothing like today, however. Nowadays America's roadways are crowded with the likes of the X5, a BMW SUV* that sounds like an experimental aircraft Chuck Yeager flew into sub-orbit back in the 60s. And Toyota has a hybrid car called the Prius, which sounds like some kind of ancient Roman statesman. Prius Maximus. Or perhaps one of Socrates' argument opponents from Plato's Republic. We half expect to start seeing commercials introducing the 2007 Toyota Glaucon.**
Buick has a new model out called the Lucerne. Our best Google efforts have turned up only that Lucerne is a city in Switzerland. What that has to do with Buicks--or cars in general--is beyond us. The word Lucerne is not evocative of speed, or high performance, or any other sensual quality automakers typically shoot for when naming their vehicles. It is, however, quite evocative of Glucerna, a milkshake that is formulated to be safe for diabetics.
The word cobalt comes from the German kobalt or kobold, meaning evil spirit, the metal being so called by miners, because it was poisonous and troublesome (it polluted and degraded the other mined elements, like nickel). And the Cobalt-60 isotope is used as a cancer treatment. So, does Cobalt seem like a good name for a car? If one simply must, under severe compulsion, name a car for an element in the periodic table, we suppose one could do worse than cobalt. Chevy Calcium, for example.
The Ford Fusion, like the Cobalt, seems to trade on a sort of generic association with science. The name implies the joining of two concepts into a new idea. Hence, one would expect the Fusion to be a hybrid vehicle: the Fusion of gas and electric engines. Or perhaps on of the so-called crossover vehicles, the Fusion of car and truck. Or (ideally), the Fusion of rock and jazz, like the group Weather Report in the 1970s. But it is none of these things. It is just a sedan.
Infiniti[sic] names its vehicles as if they are ballistic missile prototypes. G35, Q45, QX56. Is it not impossible to conjure these vehicles' characteristics up in one's mind, or to differentiate them in any way? Imagine yourself at the dealership: "And here we have the QX56. This baby really lit up the salt flats. Wait till you see next year's version, the QX66PL306J, which comes standard with anti-lock brakes, power steering, and Plan 9 From Outer Space!"
___________
*Not to be confused with the X3, the X5's smaller cousin.
**Socrates takes Glaucon to the metaphysical cleaners in Book II of the Republic in the classic dialogue about justice.
It used to be that car names were simple. Easy to pronounce and remember, and representative of some tangible object or creature. Comet, Maverick, Pinto, Charger, Falcon, Gremlin, Roadmaster. Naturally, there were some curious exceptions, like the Ford Granada or the Buick LeSabre.
Nothing like today, however. Nowadays America's roadways are crowded with the likes of the X5, a BMW SUV* that sounds like an experimental aircraft Chuck Yeager flew into sub-orbit back in the 60s. And Toyota has a hybrid car called the Prius, which sounds like some kind of ancient Roman statesman. Prius Maximus. Or perhaps one of Socrates' argument opponents from Plato's Republic. We half expect to start seeing commercials introducing the 2007 Toyota Glaucon.**
Buick has a new model out called the Lucerne. Our best Google efforts have turned up only that Lucerne is a city in Switzerland. What that has to do with Buicks--or cars in general--is beyond us. The word Lucerne is not evocative of speed, or high performance, or any other sensual quality automakers typically shoot for when naming their vehicles. It is, however, quite evocative of Glucerna, a milkshake that is formulated to be safe for diabetics.
The word cobalt comes from the German kobalt or kobold, meaning evil spirit, the metal being so called by miners, because it was poisonous and troublesome (it polluted and degraded the other mined elements, like nickel). And the Cobalt-60 isotope is used as a cancer treatment. So, does Cobalt seem like a good name for a car? If one simply must, under severe compulsion, name a car for an element in the periodic table, we suppose one could do worse than cobalt. Chevy Calcium, for example.
The Ford Fusion, like the Cobalt, seems to trade on a sort of generic association with science. The name implies the joining of two concepts into a new idea. Hence, one would expect the Fusion to be a hybrid vehicle: the Fusion of gas and electric engines. Or perhaps on of the so-called crossover vehicles, the Fusion of car and truck. Or (ideally), the Fusion of rock and jazz, like the group Weather Report in the 1970s. But it is none of these things. It is just a sedan.
Infiniti[sic] names its vehicles as if they are ballistic missile prototypes. G35, Q45, QX56. Is it not impossible to conjure these vehicles' characteristics up in one's mind, or to differentiate them in any way? Imagine yourself at the dealership: "And here we have the QX56. This baby really lit up the salt flats. Wait till you see next year's version, the QX66PL306J, which comes standard with anti-lock brakes, power steering, and Plan 9 From Outer Space!"
___________
*Not to be confused with the X3, the X5's smaller cousin.
**Socrates takes Glaucon to the metaphysical cleaners in Book II of the Republic in the classic dialogue about justice.
13 March 2006
12. Barry Bonds
In the end, history will remember him more for his colossal steroid consumption than for his colossal circuit clouts. Next week Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams will publish Game of Shadows, an analysis of Giants slugger Barry Bonds' Senior Biochemistry Seminar thesis "On Baseball: I Took Cattle Growth Promotion Hormones and Ovulation Induction Drugs So I Could Hit More Home Runs than White People."
If even half of the claims made just in the excerpt of this new book are true, then Bonds should be forced to leave the Giants and move in with Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro at the Jose Canseco Home for Disrespected Athletes in Butztown, PA. Once they finish arguing about what color to paint the den and where to put the couch, they can reminisce about their Trenbolone highs, their Deca-Durabolin lows, and that one time they all took a bunch of Norbolethone and went to the Pink Floyd laser show in downtown St. Louis.
Baseball is the most interesting of our American sports, and the most difficult to play well. So difficult, in fact, that many players resort to taking steroids and other substances in order to gain an unnatural strength advantage, or to enhance mediocre or declining skills. If a player is willing to slather himself with hormonal unguents or inject himself with narcolepsy stimulants, then today's long fly-ball out can become tomorrow's home run.
Major League Baseball has historically made a laughable effort to prevent or punish the abuse of these illegal drugs. After all, lots of home runs fill stadium seats. If that is an insufficient incentive to ignore the problem, the Major League Baseball Players Union also stood in the way. The MLBPA is a litigious juggernaut when the subject of testing or sanctioning its members is broached. It took an embarrassing intervention last summer by the US Senate to force MLB to think meaningfully about the problem. Bonds current predicament is a result of the much brighter light being shown on the game's elite sluggers.
A brief look at some of Bonds' statistics shows just how marked the difference is between his pre-and post-steroid accomplishments.* Bonds has been in baseball a long time--since 1986. He has always been a phenomenal player. In 12 seasons from 1986 to 1997 Bonds hit 374 home runs. That is an average of 31 per year, or one home run every 16th time he came to bat.
In the seven seasons from 1998 to 2004** he hit 329 homers, an average of 47 per year, or one dinger every nine at bats. By turning himself into a human science fair, as Fainaru-Wada and Williams allege, Bonds hit nearly the same number of home runs twice as efficiently in half the time. Better living through chemistry, indeed. Bonds is now six home runs shy of Babe Ruth's career total and 47 home runs behind Hank Aaron's all-time mark of 755.
It is hard for us to admit that there is a sad side to this story because Bonds is such a contemptible and spiteful person (and a cheater), but it is inarguable that had he simply maintained his average non-steroid performance until he retired, Bonds would have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot and regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. He was a complete player, a premiere defensive outfielder and base-stealer during his first 12 years. The vengeful jealously into which he sank during the 1998 McGwire-Sosa home run race led him to lay his own mortal greatness on the line for a shot at immortality in baseball's record books. Alas, notwithstanding his great accomplishments, he should never be elected to the Hall at all now, even if he surpasses Aaron's great achievement.
At any rate, however this plays out, it simply cannot happen soon enough that the teams break camp and start the season. Play ball, play ball.
____________________
*These statistics appear in similar form in the cnnsi.com excerpt cited above.
**Bonds played in only 14 games last season due to knee injuries.
If even half of the claims made just in the excerpt of this new book are true, then Bonds should be forced to leave the Giants and move in with Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro at the Jose Canseco Home for Disrespected Athletes in Butztown, PA. Once they finish arguing about what color to paint the den and where to put the couch, they can reminisce about their Trenbolone highs, their Deca-Durabolin lows, and that one time they all took a bunch of Norbolethone and went to the Pink Floyd laser show in downtown St. Louis.
Baseball is the most interesting of our American sports, and the most difficult to play well. So difficult, in fact, that many players resort to taking steroids and other substances in order to gain an unnatural strength advantage, or to enhance mediocre or declining skills. If a player is willing to slather himself with hormonal unguents or inject himself with narcolepsy stimulants, then today's long fly-ball out can become tomorrow's home run.
Major League Baseball has historically made a laughable effort to prevent or punish the abuse of these illegal drugs. After all, lots of home runs fill stadium seats. If that is an insufficient incentive to ignore the problem, the Major League Baseball Players Union also stood in the way. The MLBPA is a litigious juggernaut when the subject of testing or sanctioning its members is broached. It took an embarrassing intervention last summer by the US Senate to force MLB to think meaningfully about the problem. Bonds current predicament is a result of the much brighter light being shown on the game's elite sluggers.
A brief look at some of Bonds' statistics shows just how marked the difference is between his pre-and post-steroid accomplishments.* Bonds has been in baseball a long time--since 1986. He has always been a phenomenal player. In 12 seasons from 1986 to 1997 Bonds hit 374 home runs. That is an average of 31 per year, or one home run every 16th time he came to bat.
In the seven seasons from 1998 to 2004** he hit 329 homers, an average of 47 per year, or one dinger every nine at bats. By turning himself into a human science fair, as Fainaru-Wada and Williams allege, Bonds hit nearly the same number of home runs twice as efficiently in half the time. Better living through chemistry, indeed. Bonds is now six home runs shy of Babe Ruth's career total and 47 home runs behind Hank Aaron's all-time mark of 755.
It is hard for us to admit that there is a sad side to this story because Bonds is such a contemptible and spiteful person (and a cheater), but it is inarguable that had he simply maintained his average non-steroid performance until he retired, Bonds would have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot and regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. He was a complete player, a premiere defensive outfielder and base-stealer during his first 12 years. The vengeful jealously into which he sank during the 1998 McGwire-Sosa home run race led him to lay his own mortal greatness on the line for a shot at immortality in baseball's record books. Alas, notwithstanding his great accomplishments, he should never be elected to the Hall at all now, even if he surpasses Aaron's great achievement.
At any rate, however this plays out, it simply cannot happen soon enough that the teams break camp and start the season. Play ball, play ball.
____________________
*These statistics appear in similar form in the cnnsi.com excerpt cited above.
**Bonds played in only 14 games last season due to knee injuries.
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