Blog Number 72

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Tonight as the wife is reading a book, I am watching back to back episodes of the 2006 World Series of Poker on ESPN.  I just can't stop watching it!  I don't know why.  I don't play poker, I have never played poker.  I am not much of a gambler really although I did occasionally gamble on my bowling skills.

I don't think I am the target audience of this show though.  I only say this because I am not at all interested in any of the products advertised on the commercials.  There are ads for the typical poker websites (all with fine print saying that they are NOT gambling sites, somehow I don't believe this).  There are ads for beer (Milwaukee's Best).  These ads (like most beer ads) are pretty entertaining.  I don't know very many beer drinkers, but of the ones I do know, none of them choose the brand based on the funniest commercials.  There is an ad for a video game version of the World Series of Poker (available for XBox, PlayStation, GameCube and PC).  This could be the subject of a whole other blog really, people who actually buy a poker game for their XBox.

All of those commercials don't bother me (other than the fact that they interrupt the show).  But there is one commercial that has actually turned me off of a brand name.  There is a commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken.  They have this sandwich called the KFC Snacker and evidently it is only $1.  The commercial is specifically for the Ultimate Cheese KFC Snacker which appears to be the normal snacker with cheese on it.  So this commercial is really just to tell you that they took a sandwich that they already made, and (gasp) added cheese to it.  I am not sure how you could apply the title "Ultimate" here since it is just normal cheese.  I remember that Hardee's used to have a sandwich called the Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger.  Now THAT was a sandwich!  It was on a hoagie style bun and had 3 different kinds of cheese on it and 6 strips of bacon.  It was hard even to finish one.  This wimpy chicken sandwich pales in comparison.

Also, the premise of the commercial is asinine.  There are several cars in line to pay a toll on a toll road.  The front car has no change since the person's last dollar was spent on this "ultimate" sandwich.  Now instead of moving to a line where you could pay by other means, they simply yell to the cars behind them that they have no change due to the purchase of this sandwich.  The 2 cars behind them are not mad but are now interested in more information about the sandwich.  Then a semi driver a few more cars back uses his CB to notify his fellow truckers of this sandwich.

Anyway, I am not going to KFC anymore.  This commercial should have never been made.  The same guys that made this commercial were probably the same guys that thought adding cheese to an existing product made it "ultimate."

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon