Ronald McDonald
So I was walking back this evening from the legendary "Shop Rite" in Hasbrouck Heights New Jersey to my hotel room, at the more infamous than legendary Holiday Inn on Rt 17 south, and I passed a McDonalds restaurant.

It's not surprising to pass a fast food restaurant on Route 17, in fact the surprising thing is that there is only one in the three blocks between here and the Shop Rite. But I digress.

The thing I couldn't help but notice, in my hyper-awareness of McDonald's marketing tactics, is that in New Jersey anyway, those wacky cartoon like characters who used to frolic with Ronald McDonald the clown, are still being used here. You know the ones, the Hamburgler, the Fry Guys, and of course the large amorphous purple blob known only as...

Grimace.

Sometimes these things write themselves.

An Open Letter to Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors
Rick, buddy.
Maybe it's time you sat down and had a little 'mano a mano' with the super geniuses in your marketing dept.

For instance I was watching the '80's era movie "Quest For Fire" tonight, and couldn't help notice that your Pontiac division was sponsoring the closed captioning of the program.

Now, I don't know if you saw this movie when it was in theatres, or any of the 1000 or so times it's been on late night tv, but Rick, there isn't a whole helluvalotta dialogue. In fact, my Dad, Brother and I used to mock the 'dialogue' in the movie when my brother and I were kids, by slapping the back of our hands on our foreheads and grunting...which is pretty much the closest thing to dialogue in the movie.

In fact I took the rare step of actually turning on my closed captioning to see what I'm sure was your $1000's of dollars bought you.

I am happy to report that your investment has bought you the word [grunting] quite a few times this evening. Way to go!

Now, when I last checked, you guys were in a bit of a...how to word this delicately...financial situation. If I were in your shoes, I would be asking my marketing gurus to measure their ROI pretty darned carefully.

Consider it a little advice from out here in the blogosphere. No charge.

Love and Kisses,
Jason Allen
Smartass.

Too much time in a call centre

Thank you for fussing at your parents.

Your fuss is important to us, and we are making every effort to respond to it in a timely manner.

Your fuss has been placed in priority sequence, until the next parent becomes available.

Please continue to fuss, a parent will be with you shortly.

Onward Minion!
So Isaac has started doing this thing where he walks up to you, leans up against your legs, and raises his arms, basically demanding to be picked up. This seems cute at first until you realize that it's because he wants something that he can't get to from his 2' 3" or so vantage, and you are a means to an end.

So once he is in your arms, he then points in the direction he wants you to go...usually towards the thing he wants....and looks at you expectantly. Noelle calls this his "Onward, Minion!" pose. I.e. "Your purpose is to serve...move quickly in the indicated direction."

Once there he gestures at the item he wants, which is usually a) a cookie, b) some other form of baking, or c) something else he can't have, like my cell phone (what is it with that kid and cell phones? Sheesh). So then after demanding to be picked up and toted across the room, and then thwarted in his efforts to aquire said contraband, he rewards you for your parental dilligence by howling.

He's gotten pretty good at it...screwing up his face and crying like we are denying him even the smallest morsel of food after days of starvation. The reality is that he actually has quite the little pot belly, so we know he's not starving, he's just very very determined to have sweets minutes before he's supposed to be sitting down to dinner. Don't even talk to me about what happens when he doesn't get the cell phone.

We, however, have gotten equally good at distracting him. He starts howling, and within minutes, the Fisher Price Little People are playing on their little musical playground, or caring for horses in their little barn, or...not sure about this one...washing animals in the pet store. Anyway. That's usually enough to get him to stop fixating on "forbidden objects", but I'm wondering how long it will be before he gets wise.

Also, Isaac has turned into quite the little Parrot. Especially silly sounding words he isn't used to. I had some nonsense word I was using in the bath tonight (I think it was WOOSH-Bonk!), and he copied it back exactly. This wouldn't be so bad if we weren't in the process of packing for a move.

For me, and I think this is true for most men, packing and moving is kind of like assembling Ikea furniture. I.e. a chance to curse openly and with impunity. Not so with Monsieur Parrot around.

In the course of packing a box two weekends ago, I tangled up a piece of packing tape quite nicely, and muttered one of my choice "bon mots", and totally forgot that my son was standing between me and the box.

Forgot, that was, until he started going "Tshht, tshht, tshht."

It could have been alot worse, and in retrospect I got off easy, but I do know now to be a little more cautious.

We'll see if I can get through the next month of packing and moving without significantly expanding a) his vocabulary, and b) child welfare's caseload.

Now what am I going to do now that I don't have my favority Speech Pathologist to tell these stories to? Hope you guys are doing well down there.