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Sometimes I go online to watch highlights from the late night TV talk shows. When you do, you have to watch these little commercials before you can see the snippet of content you want. You also see them over and over.
So after I saw one recently for the umpty-umpth time, I was able to finally read the small print. It was interesting to me, especially in these gas-challenged times.
The commercial was for a Chevy Tahoe. The writing on the screen said the Two-Mode Chevy Tahoe Hybrid gets 50% better City Fuel Economy than the Non-Hybrid Tahoe. Now that’s original, I thought, a car company comparing one of its cars to itself in a different version.
Can’t be too full of praise or why would you ever want to buy the other one? But you still want to sell the first one too. A delicate commercial challenge.
In any event, the commercial video featured a guy riding a bike through the woods. No picture of the car at all. And the audio of the commercial left the impression that the gas savings would leave you money to enjoy the outdoors you were supposedly saving by buying green.
Then there was the small print I finally saw. It said the Tahoe Hybrid got 21 miles a gallon.
Oh my god.
And that’s 50% better than the non-hybrid?
You mean people were paying for a car that got only ten miles a gallon? So I’d be paying $3.50 just to drive one way to work? That’s a vente macchiato. A half dozen donuts.
3 bean burritos at Taco Bell. Where I’d probably get more gas.
These people driving big SUVs getting only 10 miles a gallon have got to be mad! It’s a wonder they aren’t doing an Exxon Tea Party in outright revolt over the price of gas!
You got hand to Chevy for coming out with a hybrid. But man, what an advertising challenge. Better make sure you only advertise where the people who already bought a non-hybrid aren’t likely to watch. These people are on the edge.
That “Chevy, an American Revolution” thing just might come true.
America, ya gotta love it.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
#731 Energy Cents
Recently I heard a news report on the price of gas. Amid all the negative economic news is the fact that if you had diversified your portfolio and invested some of your nest egg in energy stocks you’d be better off now.
Not that a skosh of a slice of a smidgen of energy stocks in a mutual fund will offset the gaping hole in your pocketbook chewed out by the gulping goblin at the pump but, you know, every little bit helps.
Perhaps if the folks at Bear Stearns had been a little more perceptive in that regard. Offset a touch of that sub-prime greed with a little crude behavior.
Every salad dressing needs oil to balance the vinegar.
In any event, the price at the pump is now 73 cents a gallon more than it was at this time a year ago. 73 cents a gallon in just one year. Now, prone to math as I am, I did a little calculating. If I were to drive my relatively gas efficient car a normal amount every week, I would need to put in about 15 gallons.
I drive my car 52 weeks in the year. That means that the extra 73 cents I pay a gallon, if it were to hold from this point forward, (which, you know, me and Bear Stearns have nothing else to expect), means I would spend .73 times 15 times 52, which would be $569.40.
Damn.
That pretty much shoots my $600 economic stimulus tax rebate. But hey, I’ll still have $30.60 left.
I’ll put it in a savings account at my bank to help bail them out on their sub-prime mortgage meltdown.
So I was thinking of Priuses, or Pri-ie, or whatever, and it occurred to me that the one car salesman I heard a while back that scorned them because the cost of replacing their batteries was more than the savings they got on gas, probably missed on his prediction.
Because that was back when gas was in the 2’s. At $3.60 and climbing, we’ll should congratulate Prius owners for showing amazing Prius Prescience.
Whodda thunk it? Wall Street Bankers crashing and burning. And persnickety Prius owners?
They’re the prophets that profit.
America, ya gotta love it.
Not that a skosh of a slice of a smidgen of energy stocks in a mutual fund will offset the gaping hole in your pocketbook chewed out by the gulping goblin at the pump but, you know, every little bit helps.
Perhaps if the folks at Bear Stearns had been a little more perceptive in that regard. Offset a touch of that sub-prime greed with a little crude behavior.
Every salad dressing needs oil to balance the vinegar.
In any event, the price at the pump is now 73 cents a gallon more than it was at this time a year ago. 73 cents a gallon in just one year. Now, prone to math as I am, I did a little calculating. If I were to drive my relatively gas efficient car a normal amount every week, I would need to put in about 15 gallons.
I drive my car 52 weeks in the year. That means that the extra 73 cents I pay a gallon, if it were to hold from this point forward, (which, you know, me and Bear Stearns have nothing else to expect), means I would spend .73 times 15 times 52, which would be $569.40.
Damn.
That pretty much shoots my $600 economic stimulus tax rebate. But hey, I’ll still have $30.60 left.
I’ll put it in a savings account at my bank to help bail them out on their sub-prime mortgage meltdown.
So I was thinking of Priuses, or Pri-ie, or whatever, and it occurred to me that the one car salesman I heard a while back that scorned them because the cost of replacing their batteries was more than the savings they got on gas, probably missed on his prediction.
Because that was back when gas was in the 2’s. At $3.60 and climbing, we’ll should congratulate Prius owners for showing amazing Prius Prescience.
Whodda thunk it? Wall Street Bankers crashing and burning. And persnickety Prius owners?
They’re the prophets that profit.
America, ya gotta love it.
#730 Eras of Age
Age sometimes divides people. Like in that old 60s maxim not to trust anyone over 30. I haven’t trusted myself for about 25 years now. And most of the time I’m right.
Although I question my judgment.
Anyhow, I saw this old recruitment commercial for the air force. One line in it was interesting. It said, “If you are between the ages of 19 and 26½ apply today.”
26½? Where did the get the ½? What possible difference could it make if you were 26½ or 27? Are your reaction times that severely impaired in just those 6 months that you couldn’t be a fighter pilot?
‘Cause after they retire, air force officers pilot commercial aircraft for decades.
But what was weird was hearing an official commercial voice saying “26 and a half.” Nobody says “and-a-half” after 19 or so. Everybody’s an even year after that.
Yeah, I’m 36 and a half. I can’t wait till my 37th birthday!
26½ is a year when young folks breed though. And it’s a particularly obnoxious year for rudeness as well. At least it seems to me when I’m in line behind one of them.
At my age, I hate lines. It’s funny, because I’m more patient about other things—the foibles of humanity, little kids stepping on my shoes, frisky dogs. But standing in line drives me up a wall.
Maybe because at my age you don’t want to waste what limited time you have left.
So I’m at the store and this 26-year-old jerk at the front of the line was holding up the whole process by talking on his headset. The clerk was gesturing for him to take his scratch ticket winnings and move on, but he was so wrapped up in his cell conversation he just stood there blocking the rest of us.
I suddenly felt better when I saw his main phone was stuffed in his front pants pocket. I’d just read this article about cellphones in front pants pockets causing sperm abnormalities.
With any luck, the rude bastard will wipe out his next generation of rude bastards.
Did I mention age has made me more cranky?
America, ya gotta love it.
Although I question my judgment.
Anyhow, I saw this old recruitment commercial for the air force. One line in it was interesting. It said, “If you are between the ages of 19 and 26½ apply today.”
26½? Where did the get the ½? What possible difference could it make if you were 26½ or 27? Are your reaction times that severely impaired in just those 6 months that you couldn’t be a fighter pilot?
‘Cause after they retire, air force officers pilot commercial aircraft for decades.
But what was weird was hearing an official commercial voice saying “26 and a half.” Nobody says “and-a-half” after 19 or so. Everybody’s an even year after that.
Yeah, I’m 36 and a half. I can’t wait till my 37th birthday!
26½ is a year when young folks breed though. And it’s a particularly obnoxious year for rudeness as well. At least it seems to me when I’m in line behind one of them.
At my age, I hate lines. It’s funny, because I’m more patient about other things—the foibles of humanity, little kids stepping on my shoes, frisky dogs. But standing in line drives me up a wall.
Maybe because at my age you don’t want to waste what limited time you have left.
So I’m at the store and this 26-year-old jerk at the front of the line was holding up the whole process by talking on his headset. The clerk was gesturing for him to take his scratch ticket winnings and move on, but he was so wrapped up in his cell conversation he just stood there blocking the rest of us.
I suddenly felt better when I saw his main phone was stuffed in his front pants pocket. I’d just read this article about cellphones in front pants pockets causing sperm abnormalities.
With any luck, the rude bastard will wipe out his next generation of rude bastards.
Did I mention age has made me more cranky?
America, ya gotta love it.
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