You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?

[Skull]

Arrrrrrrrrr...

I've seen this [http://mypiratename.com/Pirate1-404/] and thought it might be fun to see what my pirate name could be... in the end they want your cell phone number and charge you $9.99 dollar [monthly charge] so you could join a club to find out your pirate name... [note it's setup to tell you without telling you... you need to look at the charges]

Gee that is very sneaky and evil.


I'd guess I'll never find out my pirate name 

[Sleepyskull]

Arrrrrrrrrr...

I've seen this [http://mypiratename.com/Pirate1-404/] and thought it might be fun to see what my pirate name could be... in the end they want your cell phone number and charge you $9.99 dollar [monthly charge] so you could join a club to find out your pirate name... [note it's setup to tell you without telling you... you need to look at the charges]

Gee that is very sneaky and evil.


I'd guess I'll never find out my pirate name 

Not trying to kick you when you're down, but I'm sure there are plenty of pirate name generators all over the internet for free.

BAM!!! Now I've kicked you. 

[dean]

It really grinds my gears when I rush to get paperwork ready for a meeting early in the morning, so much so that I stay up all night working, only to find out an hour before the meeting that my lecturer has called in sick, and I could've slept instead...

[Mr. DS]

I hate when a movie advertises itself as "The #1 Family Comedy In America" or "The #1 Horror Movie In America".  Its a polished way of say "We didn't even come near the #1 spot on the actual total box office but we need attention anyhow and you'll probably be too stupid to see that and think we are #1 overall".  

[Flick James]

I hate when a movie advertises itself as "The #1 Family Comedy In America" or "The #1 Horror Movie In America".  Its a polished way of say "We didn't even come near the #1 spot on the actual total box office but we need attention anyhow and you'll probably be too stupid to see that and think we are #1 overall". 

That's funny. That made me think of the blurb on the box for Shakes the Clown, "The Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies." Made me think "The #1 alcoholic clown movie in America."

[AndyC]

I hate when a movie advertises itself as "The #1 Family Comedy In America" or "The #1 Horror Movie In America".  Its a polished way of say "We didn't even come near the #1 spot on the actual total box office but we need attention anyhow and you'll probably be too stupid to see that and think we are #1 overall". 

That's funny. That made me think of the blurb on the box for Shakes the Clown, "The Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies." Made me think "The #1 alcoholic clown movie in America."

What gets me when a new TV show is advertised as "the hottest new show" or something similar, before it even airs for the first time. How can it be a hot new show when the audience is just finding out about it?

[Mr. DS]

I hate when a movie advertises itself as "The #1 Family Comedy In America" or "The #1 Horror Movie In America".  Its a polished way of say "We didn't even come near the #1 spot on the actual total box office but we need attention anyhow and you'll probably be too stupid to see that and think we are #1 overall".  

That's funny. That made me think of the blurb on the box for Shakes the Clown, "The Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies." Made me think "The #1 alcoholic clown movie in America."

What gets me when a new TV show is advertised as "the hottest new show" or something similar, before it even airs for the first time. How can it be a hot new show when the audience is just finding out about it?

Along those lines, audience reaction previews.  Kind of like what they're doing with the sequel to Paranormal Activity.  I find people way too jumpy in the theater anyhow during horror movies.  


I also can't stand previews that begin with "From The Producer Of..."  or "From The Director Of..."  I usually laugh  hysterically when its an M. Knight Shamalalalamamamadingdong film and they say that about him.  Yeah, see ya there.  

[Flick James]

I hate when a movie advertises itself as "The #1 Family Comedy In America" or "The #1 Horror Movie In America".  Its a polished way of say "We didn't even come near the #1 spot on the actual total box office but we need attention anyhow and you'll probably be too stupid to see that and think we are #1 overall".  

That's funny. That made me think of the blurb on the box for Shakes the Clown, "The Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies." Made me think "The #1 alcoholic clown movie in America."

What gets me when a new TV show is advertised as "the hottest new show" or something similar, before it even airs for the first time. How can it be a hot new show when the audience is just finding out about it?

Along those lines, audience reaction previews.  Kind of like what they're doing with the sequel to Paranormal Activity.  I find people way too jumpy in the theater anyhow during horror movies.  


I also can't stand previews that begin with "From The Producer Of..."  or "From The Director Of..."  I usually laugh  hysterically when its an M. Knight Shamalalalamamamadingdong film and they say that about him.  Yeah, see ya there.  

I'm calling him M. Knight Shamalalalamamamadingdong from now on, hope you don't mind.

The cheesy marketing ploys are more prevalent than ever before, but they've been around a long time. I remember the television campaign for Scanners when I was a lad. They showed brief clips from the movie, but also showed clips that were supposedly taken of theatre-goers jumping and squirming in their seats, to demonstrate how on the edge of your seat you will be. At least, I'm pretty sure it was Scanners.

[AndyC]

The advertising for Scanners was misleading a lot of ways. The print ads had a picture of Michael Ironside at the peak of the movie's climactic duel, with the step-by-step description of the buildup to exploding. And then the trailers were a great example of bits and pieces from all over the movie cut together out of their original context - particularly Ironside at the end and the exploding head scene at the beginning. All of it gave a strong impression that psychics were blowing people up, painfully and graphically, throughout the movie.



I remember the TV spots scared the crap out of me when I was 10 or so. When I finally saw Scanners a few years later, I liked it, but it was not the action-packed gorefest I was expecting. Very talky suspense thriller, in fact.

Still, I forgive the marketing team behind Scanners, mainly because I have similar memories of Screamers (the retitled Island of the Fishmen), released about six months later with the outright lie about "men turned inside out." While finally seeing Scanners was slightly disappointing but also a pleasant surprise, seeing Screamers was pure "WTF?" Looking back at the timing of the movies' respective releases, the similar titles, and the style and theme of the advertising, I'm just now realizing the marketing campaign for Screamers had to be intended as a direct ripoff of Scanners.

Anyway, I've yet to see any ad campaign misrepresent a movie as much as that one. Odd how being so completely ridiculous and outright crooked, it actually makes Screamers a more interesting and memorable movie to my warped tastes. It's the one claim to fame of an otherwise boring movie.

[The Gravekeeper]

I still remember watching an ad for a comedy declaring that it was the "#1 Comedy of 2009." Not all that remarkable, except that the ad aired in late January/February of 2009. Did they really think their target demographic was that stupid?

[Chainsawmidget]

On the flipside of that stuff, I love movies that claim to be better than something the movie they're comparing themselves to wasn't trying to do in the first places.



"Funnier Than The Exorcist, scarier Than Young Frankenstein"

[Mr. DS]

School buses...I understand kids need to get to school and be safe fine.  I have three of them myself.  STILL, the crap I see in my town drives me nuts.  The bus stops in front of the kid's houses and waits with their lights on holding up traffic for the kid to run out of their house.  Sh!t man, back in my day if we weren't out at that bus stop at 6:55 AM your @ss was running up to the next one.  We waited in 10 below weather until our snots froze in our  noses man. 

And yes, I walked to school in snow uphill both ways dammit. 

[BTM]

Arrrrrrrrrr...

I've seen this [http://mypiratename.com/Pirate1-404/] and thought it might be fun to see what my pirate name could be... in the end they want your cell phone number and charge you $9.99 dollar [monthly charge] so you could join a club to find out your pirate name... [note it's setup to tell you without telling you... you need to look at the charges]

Gee that is very sneaky and evil.

I'd guess I'll never find out my pirate name 

I know how you feel, I got suckered into an ad that was supposed to tell me whether or not I qualify for any sort of grants or loans that I could use to go back to school.  Turns it was just a bunch ads for various online universities. 

As for your pirate name, try finding it here.
http://gangstaname.com/names/pirate/

[AndyC]

School buses...I understand kids need to get to school and be safe fine.  I have three of them myself.  STILL, the crap I see in my town drives me nuts.  The bus stops in front of the kid's houses and waits with their lights on holding up traffic for the kid to run out of their house.  Sh!t man, back in my day if we weren't out at that bus stop at 6:55 AM your @ss was running up to the next one.  We waited in 10 below weather until our snots froze in our  noses man. 

And yes, I walked to school in snow uphill both ways dammit. 

Agreed. Kids should be ready to get on the bus when it arrives. Around here, if nobody's standing there waiting, the bus doesn't stop.

What bothers me is the school bus drivers who don't give a crap about the traffic backed up behind them. This goes back a few years to when I used to have to drive newspaper flats to the printer, before everybody had broadband and we could just send PDFs. It never failed that I would end up driving 50 miles of rural highways and county roads right after school let out, with that delivery the last thing I needed to do that day, and a plant full of people waiting for the last thing they had to print that day. Traffic and sightlines were such that there were few opportunities to pass anybody at that time of day, and I always met up with a line of cars backed up behind a school bus that was stopping at about every second or third farm, dropping a kid off and not even getting back up to speed before stopping to let the next one off.

I appreciate that it is necessary to make these stops, and it's necessary to stop traffic. But when the bus has collected a parade of about a dozen cars that can't get around, would it mess up the schedule that much to pull onto the shoulder for a few seconds and let them go by? What made it all the more frustrating was that a few drivers would pull over and let people pass, proving that it can be done, there's no reason it can't be done, and the drivers who don't do it are just being inconsiderate.

Not as bad as city bus drivers though. When I had to contend with them, I was certain they weren't even aware of the presence of other drivers. When they need to move, they move, even if you happen to be occupying the space they're moving into.

[Mr. DS]

I may catch flames for this but don't really care.  I can't stand when people refer to their pet as "their kid" and if its a couple they call themselves "mommy and daddy" to the animal.  At no point did that dog squeeze out of you or any other human so please stop.