Angels. Anything to do with frigging angels. Little angel sculptures, books about talking with angels, “Touched by an Angel” . . . it just all makes me want to kick puppies.
pldennison: I’ll see your angel aversion, and raise you the commercials selling the latest Egg Wave/Knee Pillow/Kraftmatic Adjustable Bed/Twirly Turban whatever. Who in the world buys this crap? Makes me want to hurl chunks.
pugluvr: I’ll agree, most of that stuff is crap, but what’s worse is the new twist the junk marketers have come up with to scam people. (Maybe it’s not really that new, but it’s a variation I haven’t seen before.)
Some dumb cluck sees the Egg Wave, or the Euro-Grind veggie spinner, or the Click Lights, or whatever. Cost is usually about ten bucks, though some are less, and a couple are free. Sounds like a bargain, right? Even if it sucks, you’re only out a couple of fins at most.
But wait, there’s more! On most of these offers, you also get to sign up for a month’s free membership to a marketing alliance (or some such). You get a catalog full of similarly useless crap.
Then, a month later, you find a hundred-dollar charge on your Visa. What the hell? you think. Clearly, you didn’t read the fine print as it flashed by at .5C during the ad.
The “club” you agreed to join, in order to receive the Flowbee/Bedazzler/whatever, has an $8-10/month fee. If you didn’t cancel it during the first free month, you get hit for a full year’s membership, billed in advance. Go ahead and cancel now, but they get the first hundred as a lesson fee. Sorry, sucker!
Okay, so this isn’t exactly the sort of thing the OP was asking for, since it’s just the latest in a long line of irritating would-be scams, but it’s still pretty damn grating…
YES! YES! Reading this thread while lurking at work the angel craze was the first thing that popped to mind.
Itty-bitty angel lapel pins; the endless, soppy cheapo books about angels guiding love lives, diets, the minituea of everyday life; people “channeling” and identifying their angels. Shit, this pop syndrome sure doesn’t argue in favor of living a good life in accordance with accepted religions.
Or maybe it does: purgatory=pop angels? Screw up in life and get stuck trying to guide a whiney, passive-aggressive twit.
Veb
What about the obsession lately with all things Anti-Bacterial? Anti-Bacterial soap, gel, lotion, sponges, makeup, etc. If I didn’t know better I would think it is a marketing ploy. (snicker)
Back in my day, we had all the bacteria we could handle and we liked it…by god we LOVED it!!
Who decided it was the war on germs all of a sudden?
Angels.
Thomas Kinkade “Painter of Light”.
The View.
Those damned scooters!
I firmly believe that Thomas Kinkade is the closest thing to an Evil Genius in the world today. Like a James Bond villian (or maybe The Brain from “Pinky & The Brain”. Bonus points if Kinkade talks like Orson Welles).
To the list I’ll add:
Sprite commercials. How stupid do they think we are? (I admit I did like the slug one though)
Wired magazine. I had a subscription once, about 6 years ago, and it was cool then. A few months ago, I picked one up, and I think there were 20 pages of ads before the table of contents (and there was suprisingly little content in that table)
People complaining about reality TV. Sure theres plenty to complain about, but I’m tired of hearing about it over and over and over again.
Ditto people complaining about shortened attention spans and desensitization because of information overload from the internet.
I don’t know how much of an actual fad this is, but Collector’s Plates. My dad went nuts over them. I think he wanted to collect them all. He died a few months ago, and now my sister and I have to figure out what to do with about 1600 painted plates. We estimate that he spent over $60,000 on them. Probably more when shipping and tax is figured in.
My dad was a surgeon. A very logical and creative person. Extremely intelligent. But boy, when this compulsion got a hold of him, there was no stopping it!
By the way, anyone wanna buy a plate?
You forgot Hairorgami,poneytailer,EZ braider etc. Hair styling stuff that is impossible to do with four hands much less two designed to enable even you “to achieve perfect hair in seconds”
My son reminded me, one day as I fumed over one of those “Psychic Ab Roller” idiot ads, that every single dollar that gets spent by idiots on “Making Millions on Real Estate – With No Down Payment!” is a dollar which does not compete with my dollar in the market for food, and clothing.
So, get your Psychic Energy Crystals! Quartz is only the second most common compound in the Earth’s crust! Pay premium prices while supplies last! Call 1-900-RIP MEOFF and get put on hold at $4.99 a minute! Your life will never be the same.
Tris