Questionable truck marketing choices

Apparently modern televised football wouldn't exist without the pickup truck. This is what I'm forced to conclude after drowning in truck ads during this weekend's pigskin onslaught. While it has cemented in me an abject, unwavering hatred for John Mellencamp, it has prompted a moment or two of curiosity.

Ford's latest advertising campaign features the Black Eyed Peas song "Let's Get It Started." Why? First, taking the lyrics at face value, it sounds like the musicians are encountering a tremendous amount of trouble starting their vehicle, a procedure which normally requires no foresight or actual effort, much less an entire song. Compare and contrast with "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" -- thirty years ago it was mourning sailors lost in treacherous storms, and now it's probably a problem with the spark plugs. But then, I thank Holy God that nobody's trying to use Gordon Lightfoot to sell me something I'm not going to buy anyway.

Worse, "Let's Get It Started" is the radio edit of the song called "Let's Get Retarded," which you'd think would be poison to a marketing campaign. Unless you want to assert that your vehicles are so simple that you could be mentally challenged to operate them, which, judging from some of the traffic I've been in lately, makes quite a bit of sense, really. Either way, it was an actually apropos song to punctuate the Seahawks/Broncos game, wherein veteran Broncos QB Jake "The Snake" Plummer was replaced in the lineup by rookie Jay Cutler, and Cutler...well, let's just say he did not, in fact, get it started.

Warren shows us the way

As usual, it takes an outsider to make the American political system firmly congeal. Via warrenelliscom: "From a certain point of view, John Kerry could not win because he looked a bit like Boris Karloff with a badger nailed to his head."

You must also read the article for his comparison between 2008 candidate and Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack and a potato. Remember, vote Potato '08.

Also, Kansas's Brownback is running. Don't hold your breath, folks. On the upside, it's less time he'll be in the state.

Picspam, pain edition

My plan for tonight? Two naproxen, two diphenhydramine, one flecainide, and a partridge in a pear tree long sleep. But first, picspammage. ( 65 pics below.... )