I just got a new pair of Adidas Samba OG indoor soccer shoes. They don't have the annoying overly long flip-over tongue, so they cost an extra $30. I guess that's like when Fender used to charge $200 more for a fretless bass because then they wouldn't get to have to go to the trouble to measure, fret, and add inlays to the fingerboard, and not doing stuff like that costs money, don't you know?
I wonder if the "OG" in the name stands for: "Own Goal"? (An own goal is when a soccer player accidentally scores a goal against their own team.)
Friday, August 31, 2018
Barbasol Jurassic World Collectors Can
In cleaning out my bathroom recently I ran across an old collectors edition can of Barbasol shaving cream branded for the Jurassic World movie. It has pictures of dinosaurs on it. I remember thinking, when I bought it: "I want to use the shaving cream dinosaurs use."
But of course there was a Barbasol shaving cream can in the original Jurassic Park. That duplicitous dweeb guy used it to smuggle out the dinosaur DNA. But that can didn't have dinosaurs printed on it or it may have caused suspicion. As if a guy who can barely grow facial hair bringing a can of shaving cream to his desk at work isn't suspicious enough already.
It may seem strange that a shaving cream company would be involved in a corporate espionage scheme to steal dinosaur DNA from a high-tech theme park, but I remember reading once that scientists claim shaving cream was way better 100 million years ago when it was in a more primordial state. Of course, because it was so good, the dinosaurs used it all up, causing their extinction. Barbasol's thinking when they tried to steal the dinosaur DNA was likely that if they could clone a dinosaur with the stolen DNA, maybe they could ask it how to make shaving cream like it was back in the dinosaur era. That way they would save the money it will cost to send Duck Dodgers to Planet X to wage war against the Martians for control of its vast natural resources of the shaving cream atom Illudium Phosdex. (It is said that on Planet X, shaving cream deposits are in a primordial state similar to how it was on prehistoric Earth.) But then the dinosaurs will obviously conquer the planet in order to get back the shaving cream supply they lost so they can use it up again. They just never learn, with those teensy brains.
It's pretty funny that there are collectible cans of shaving cream commemorating movies. Do people actually collect them? I wonder if Barbasol made commemorative cans in 1931 for the movies Dracula and Frankenstein? Dracula would have been in the original red can, and Frankenstein in the soothing aloe green can, obviously. I'd be interested in having those cans, maybe, if they exist, which they don't. I kind of doubt Jurassic World will be remembered as fondly 85 years from now as those movies are, but of course, I could be wrong.
But of course there was a Barbasol shaving cream can in the original Jurassic Park. That duplicitous dweeb guy used it to smuggle out the dinosaur DNA. But that can didn't have dinosaurs printed on it or it may have caused suspicion. As if a guy who can barely grow facial hair bringing a can of shaving cream to his desk at work isn't suspicious enough already.
It may seem strange that a shaving cream company would be involved in a corporate espionage scheme to steal dinosaur DNA from a high-tech theme park, but I remember reading once that scientists claim shaving cream was way better 100 million years ago when it was in a more primordial state. Of course, because it was so good, the dinosaurs used it all up, causing their extinction. Barbasol's thinking when they tried to steal the dinosaur DNA was likely that if they could clone a dinosaur with the stolen DNA, maybe they could ask it how to make shaving cream like it was back in the dinosaur era. That way they would save the money it will cost to send Duck Dodgers to Planet X to wage war against the Martians for control of its vast natural resources of the shaving cream atom Illudium Phosdex. (It is said that on Planet X, shaving cream deposits are in a primordial state similar to how it was on prehistoric Earth.) But then the dinosaurs will obviously conquer the planet in order to get back the shaving cream supply they lost so they can use it up again. They just never learn, with those teensy brains.
It's pretty funny that there are collectible cans of shaving cream commemorating movies. Do people actually collect them? I wonder if Barbasol made commemorative cans in 1931 for the movies Dracula and Frankenstein? Dracula would have been in the original red can, and Frankenstein in the soothing aloe green can, obviously. I'd be interested in having those cans, maybe, if they exist, which they don't. I kind of doubt Jurassic World will be remembered as fondly 85 years from now as those movies are, but of course, I could be wrong.
Thursday, August 30, 2018
The Hanoi Hilton
With the passing of American hero and Arizona Senator John McCain last weekend we've heard a lot about the "Hanoi Hilton", which was the prisoner-of-war camp John McCain suffered in for numerous years during the Vietnam War. I've often wondered how much the Hilton Hotel company paid Ho Chi Minh for the rights to name it the Hanoi Hilton. They must have had a bidding war with Hyatt and Holiday Inn over who got to add their company's name. Nowadays corporations like to sponsor sports facilities, but back then I guess it was stuff like prison camps that were available to name. Maybe the Hanoi Hilton is the earliest example of such a corporate sponsorship in exchange for naming rights.
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