Caught another idiot this morning. About 6:45am at the junction of 3A and 53 in Quincy, MA (seems to be a popular place for these classless clowns to throw things out the window!).
Red Ford Taurus, MA Plate 662JFZ. Driven by a trashy looking 60-ish redhead with glasses. She looked like the lunch lady that used to spit in my food when I was in 2nd grade.
Please catch this criminal!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Watch Out for Burning Objects: Deviant Behavior of Cancer Stick Suckers—Part I
When a tree falls in the forest, does it make any noise? Why are manhole covers round? Or to paraphrase one of the questions asked during the Jewish holiday of Passover: “Why do we eat crappy, stale cardboard tasting unleavened bread on this night, while we eat tasty, fluffy, cholesterol-filled bread on all other nights?” (At least the Matzah is better than eating nothing during Yom Kipper—but at least on Yom Kipper, we get to eat lots of Chinese food as soon as the sun goes down).
Ah, these are life’s important questions. Not questions that I am going to undertake in this entry—but stay tuned. However, the question I do wish to address in this post is equally important:
Why can cancer-stick sucking morons throw their fucking burning cigarettes out the window with seemingly no consequences, while I get fined for littering for throwing my McDonald’s wrapper on the ground?
Now I am not advocating littering of any kind. I learned my lesson the hard way. And I will have much to say about the stupidity of smokers in future posts—how they are ruining the world not to mention my lungs. How their median IQ trails that of the general population by a wide margin. How the faster they all finish killing themselves—preferably before they procreate—how much better the world will be. We’ll get to all of that later. But in the meantime, if you do smoke, I FORBID you from reading my blog. You are not intelligent enough to understand the concepts we cover here. Go away. Here is a link for you: www.iamastoopididiot.com.
But today, I just want to focus on the littering. When did it become acceptable behavior to throw cigarette butts on the ground? I must have missed the memo. Because it definitely isn’t acceptable to throw anything else on the ground. The only possible explanation I can think of is that because cigarette butts are smaller in size than other litter, it must be OK. This is the kind of shoddy logic I would expect from low IQ cancer stick suckers. The way I see it, cigarettes are among the worst things that people could throw on the ground. First of all, they are on fire. That doesn’t sound very safe. Further, while I do not portend to know the relative biodegradability of cigarettes vs. other pieces of litter, given all of the nasty poisons that are in cigarettes, I’m thinking that a cigarette butt must be less biodegradable than a simple paper hamburger wrapper. Maybe this wasn’t the case when McD’s used to serve the burgers in those cool Styrofoam eggshell cartons, but since they went green and switched to the wrappers, there is no doubt those wrappers are safer than the burning cancer sticks.
Yes, it is easier to catch someone throwing away a big wrapper than a small cancer stick, but we all need to unite to hold these morons accountable for their behavior. To that end, Grumpy would like to enlist your help in shaming these idiots into submission. We can do this by reporting these terrible criminals—to your local police, to your Congressman, or at least to this blog!
I will start: The other day I was at a stop light on Route 3A in Quincy, MA (the one after the bridge at the junction of 3A and Route 53), and the clown driving a white Dodge RAM pick up truck, MA Commercial license plate # F98112 threw a cigarette butt out the window.
A few days later, again in Quincy, on Newport Ave. at Constellation Ave., an unattractive brunette, late 30s, driving a Gray Toyota Corolla, MA license 5349 LY, committed a similar crime.
If you see infractions in your travels, please post the car, license plate number and location of the crime (as well as any physical description of the perpetrator) to this blog. Together we can get these dangerous people convicted.
Eventually—I am too lazy today—I will set up a separate site (http://www.cancerstickfuckers.com/ perhaps?) for you to turn people in. But in the meantime, please use the Grumpy MBA blog.
Moral: Cancer stick suckers are morons. So it should come as no surprise that they find it perfectly acceptable to throw their burning, smelly sticks out the windows of their cars. This is not acceptable behavior to be endured by a sophisticated society. Just like it is our responsibility to report the suspicious behavior of terrorists to the TSA at the airport, it is OUR responsibility to report these clowns too. Join Grumpy MBA’s army (unofficial endorsement by Smokey the Bear) and report them to this blog and your local law enforcement.
Ah, these are life’s important questions. Not questions that I am going to undertake in this entry—but stay tuned. However, the question I do wish to address in this post is equally important:
Why can cancer-stick sucking morons throw their fucking burning cigarettes out the window with seemingly no consequences, while I get fined for littering for throwing my McDonald’s wrapper on the ground?
Now I am not advocating littering of any kind. I learned my lesson the hard way. And I will have much to say about the stupidity of smokers in future posts—how they are ruining the world not to mention my lungs. How their median IQ trails that of the general population by a wide margin. How the faster they all finish killing themselves—preferably before they procreate—how much better the world will be. We’ll get to all of that later. But in the meantime, if you do smoke, I FORBID you from reading my blog. You are not intelligent enough to understand the concepts we cover here. Go away. Here is a link for you: www.iamastoopididiot.com.
But today, I just want to focus on the littering. When did it become acceptable behavior to throw cigarette butts on the ground? I must have missed the memo. Because it definitely isn’t acceptable to throw anything else on the ground. The only possible explanation I can think of is that because cigarette butts are smaller in size than other litter, it must be OK. This is the kind of shoddy logic I would expect from low IQ cancer stick suckers. The way I see it, cigarettes are among the worst things that people could throw on the ground. First of all, they are on fire. That doesn’t sound very safe. Further, while I do not portend to know the relative biodegradability of cigarettes vs. other pieces of litter, given all of the nasty poisons that are in cigarettes, I’m thinking that a cigarette butt must be less biodegradable than a simple paper hamburger wrapper. Maybe this wasn’t the case when McD’s used to serve the burgers in those cool Styrofoam eggshell cartons, but since they went green and switched to the wrappers, there is no doubt those wrappers are safer than the burning cancer sticks.
Yes, it is easier to catch someone throwing away a big wrapper than a small cancer stick, but we all need to unite to hold these morons accountable for their behavior. To that end, Grumpy would like to enlist your help in shaming these idiots into submission. We can do this by reporting these terrible criminals—to your local police, to your Congressman, or at least to this blog!
I will start: The other day I was at a stop light on Route 3A in Quincy, MA (the one after the bridge at the junction of 3A and Route 53), and the clown driving a white Dodge RAM pick up truck, MA Commercial license plate # F98112 threw a cigarette butt out the window.
A few days later, again in Quincy, on Newport Ave. at Constellation Ave., an unattractive brunette, late 30s, driving a Gray Toyota Corolla, MA license 5349 LY, committed a similar crime.
If you see infractions in your travels, please post the car, license plate number and location of the crime (as well as any physical description of the perpetrator) to this blog. Together we can get these dangerous people convicted.
Eventually—I am too lazy today—I will set up a separate site (http://www.cancerstickfuckers.com/ perhaps?) for you to turn people in. But in the meantime, please use the Grumpy MBA blog.
Moral: Cancer stick suckers are morons. So it should come as no surprise that they find it perfectly acceptable to throw their burning, smelly sticks out the windows of their cars. This is not acceptable behavior to be endured by a sophisticated society. Just like it is our responsibility to report the suspicious behavior of terrorists to the TSA at the airport, it is OUR responsibility to report these clowns too. Join Grumpy MBA’s army (unofficial endorsement by Smokey the Bear) and report them to this blog and your local law enforcement.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Earlier Springs, Milder Winters: Free Marketing Advice for the Appalachian Mountain Club
Last weekend was my 5th wedding anniversary. Now I know what you are all thinking: How the hell has my lovely wife put up with me for five years and what did she do in a past life to deserve this fate? In fact, that’s something we talk about almost every day.
Anyway, to celebrate, we left the little tyrant otherwise known as my adorable 2 year old daughter at my parents’ house for the weekend and took off for a lovely trip up to New Hampshire to relax and take in the sights. One of the highlights of the weekend—and more exercise than we’ve had in a long time—was a 3 mile hike straight up a mountain. It was a significantly more ambitious undertaking than we set out to do from Crawford Notch that day. But we took a wrong turn somewhere along the way and refused to swallow our collective pride to turn back. The culmination of this knee-destroying hike was arriving at the top, at a rustic cabin operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club. We’re definitely not members, but it seemed they were willing to let us take a rest—and willing to sell us some mediocre potato soup (which tasted really good at the time, since we set out on the hike with no water, food or any of the other equipment sported by all of the other hikers we saw along the way). What I really wanted to buy from them was one of the really yummy looking loaves of bread, just out of the oven, teasing me from their prominent perch on the counter. They refused. Some kind AMC party that night for all of the crunchy hiker types that we were most definitely not invited to. I offered the cook $20 for a loaf of the bread, and she did not take me up on it. But I digress. This entry is not an economics lesson for the AMC—which I am sure they need—but a marketing lesson.
We sat down and started eating our soup—and our eyes were immediately drawn to a large poster on the wall. The headline said:
“Migrating New Hampshire: Earlier Springs, Milder Winters”
The wife and I turned to each other and said: That’s awesome! Where do we get us some of that? It’s too fucking cold in New England, we want to move back to California where it’s warm. How can we pitch in and help make this happen?
The poster then went on to explain that New Hampshire was on a path to have a climate like North Carolina by the year 2100. That sounds great we thought, but perhaps we could help move it along so that we can enjoy this warmer weather in our lifetime! But then we read the fine print and realized the poster was trying to tell us this was a bad thing. Something about how we all needed to stop driving Hummers and start using those goofy looking squiggly light bulbs that don’t light up right away and are not as bright as real light bulbs. Well that didn’t sound like fun. Maybe if we bought a second Hummer we could speed up the migration of New Hampshire to a place that isn’t so fucking frigid in the winter?
OK. Let’s be clear. Grumpy MBA and Mrs. Grumpy (who is actually quite cheerful and not an MBA) obviously realized—eventually—that this poster was about the threat of global warming. And I’m not setting out to debate or solve the global warming issue in this post. At some level, I understand that global warming is bad, and that there are probably things I could be doing better to pitch in for a solution. However, none of the things identified seem like they are a lot of fun (although recycling is OK because it saves me money at the dump).
But the real issue here is a poorly-executed marketing campaign. These folks at the AMC need to understand how to write good headlines and content that not only convinces themselves to take action against global warming, but more importantly convinces selfish schmucks like Grumpy and Mrs. Grumpy to care. The folks from the AMC all work there for a common reason: they care about the environment, appreciate nature and want to make sure the beautiful earth is around for future generations. That is a great and seemingly noble cause. But given that, they do not need to spend time convincing themselves to stop driving Hummers and start using the goofy light bulbs. They DO need to convince people like me. They need to think about:
How can they get my attention so that I even listen to what they are saying?
What can they say to help me understand why global warming is a problem?
What can they say to convince me to CARE about this problem?
What’s in it for ME if I change my behavior and conserve?
The AMC has not answered these questions.
The wife and I thought of some other headlines that may have won us over:
Migrating New Hampshire:
No more skiing! Hot sticky nasty summers!
UV rays to give your babies skin cancer (even when they wear SPF 158)!
Coastal flooding to sink affluent New England coastal communities!
Although we did have mixed feeling about the last idea, since we do live in an affluent New England coastal community—but we are about a mile from the ocean, so if the ice caps did melt, maybe we would end up with more valuable waterfront property!
We’re not sure what the right campaign is. But we do know that the AMC needs to work a little harder. The next day, we drove up the Mt. Washington Auto Road. I’m guessing all of the SUVs driving up and down in low gear at 6,200 ft. is great for the environment. Not to mention the train that burns 1 ton of coal each trip, filling the clouds with black soot.
Moral: In marketing you need to know your audience. Just because you think something is cool enough for you to dedicate your life to it, remember that not everyone thinks that something is as cool as you. If you really want to make a difference, figure out how to convince this (bigger) group of indifferent people why they should take the actions to promote the goals your (smaller) group really cares about.
Anyway, to celebrate, we left the little tyrant otherwise known as my adorable 2 year old daughter at my parents’ house for the weekend and took off for a lovely trip up to New Hampshire to relax and take in the sights. One of the highlights of the weekend—and more exercise than we’ve had in a long time—was a 3 mile hike straight up a mountain. It was a significantly more ambitious undertaking than we set out to do from Crawford Notch that day. But we took a wrong turn somewhere along the way and refused to swallow our collective pride to turn back. The culmination of this knee-destroying hike was arriving at the top, at a rustic cabin operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club. We’re definitely not members, but it seemed they were willing to let us take a rest—and willing to sell us some mediocre potato soup (which tasted really good at the time, since we set out on the hike with no water, food or any of the other equipment sported by all of the other hikers we saw along the way). What I really wanted to buy from them was one of the really yummy looking loaves of bread, just out of the oven, teasing me from their prominent perch on the counter. They refused. Some kind AMC party that night for all of the crunchy hiker types that we were most definitely not invited to. I offered the cook $20 for a loaf of the bread, and she did not take me up on it. But I digress. This entry is not an economics lesson for the AMC—which I am sure they need—but a marketing lesson.
We sat down and started eating our soup—and our eyes were immediately drawn to a large poster on the wall. The headline said:
“Migrating New Hampshire: Earlier Springs, Milder Winters”
The wife and I turned to each other and said: That’s awesome! Where do we get us some of that? It’s too fucking cold in New England, we want to move back to California where it’s warm. How can we pitch in and help make this happen?
The poster then went on to explain that New Hampshire was on a path to have a climate like North Carolina by the year 2100. That sounds great we thought, but perhaps we could help move it along so that we can enjoy this warmer weather in our lifetime! But then we read the fine print and realized the poster was trying to tell us this was a bad thing. Something about how we all needed to stop driving Hummers and start using those goofy looking squiggly light bulbs that don’t light up right away and are not as bright as real light bulbs. Well that didn’t sound like fun. Maybe if we bought a second Hummer we could speed up the migration of New Hampshire to a place that isn’t so fucking frigid in the winter?
OK. Let’s be clear. Grumpy MBA and Mrs. Grumpy (who is actually quite cheerful and not an MBA) obviously realized—eventually—that this poster was about the threat of global warming. And I’m not setting out to debate or solve the global warming issue in this post. At some level, I understand that global warming is bad, and that there are probably things I could be doing better to pitch in for a solution. However, none of the things identified seem like they are a lot of fun (although recycling is OK because it saves me money at the dump).
But the real issue here is a poorly-executed marketing campaign. These folks at the AMC need to understand how to write good headlines and content that not only convinces themselves to take action against global warming, but more importantly convinces selfish schmucks like Grumpy and Mrs. Grumpy to care. The folks from the AMC all work there for a common reason: they care about the environment, appreciate nature and want to make sure the beautiful earth is around for future generations. That is a great and seemingly noble cause. But given that, they do not need to spend time convincing themselves to stop driving Hummers and start using the goofy light bulbs. They DO need to convince people like me. They need to think about:
How can they get my attention so that I even listen to what they are saying?
What can they say to help me understand why global warming is a problem?
What can they say to convince me to CARE about this problem?
What’s in it for ME if I change my behavior and conserve?
The AMC has not answered these questions.
The wife and I thought of some other headlines that may have won us over:
Migrating New Hampshire:
No more skiing! Hot sticky nasty summers!
UV rays to give your babies skin cancer (even when they wear SPF 158)!
Coastal flooding to sink affluent New England coastal communities!
Although we did have mixed feeling about the last idea, since we do live in an affluent New England coastal community—but we are about a mile from the ocean, so if the ice caps did melt, maybe we would end up with more valuable waterfront property!
We’re not sure what the right campaign is. But we do know that the AMC needs to work a little harder. The next day, we drove up the Mt. Washington Auto Road. I’m guessing all of the SUVs driving up and down in low gear at 6,200 ft. is great for the environment. Not to mention the train that burns 1 ton of coal each trip, filling the clouds with black soot.
Moral: In marketing you need to know your audience. Just because you think something is cool enough for you to dedicate your life to it, remember that not everyone thinks that something is as cool as you. If you really want to make a difference, figure out how to convince this (bigger) group of indifferent people why they should take the actions to promote the goals your (smaller) group really cares about.
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