At work yesterday, we were actually discussing those public service ads that run on cable TV. Like the one where the fish tank slowly loses water talking about asthma, or the one where the guy walks into the store to buy a wallet and he gets a really tiny wallet for the really tiny money he’ll be making as a high school dropout.
And then there’s one ad that, among the people in our group, that kind of creeped us all out a little bit:
Nobody likes me. Nobody. Maybe it’s because I like to attack people. Men. Women. Kids. I can leave them as stammering, confused, scared imitations of their former selves. If they don’t stop me, I just might leave them that way for life. I am a stroke.
A little creepy, because he looks like a pretty rough character there, with the wrinkled face in the shadow. But still, it’s a very memorable way to get the message across. I think we’ll all understand the seriousness of a stroke now if we didn’t before.
I think it’s kind of nice to see these ads on TV. If nothing else, it keeps us from having people constantly pushing products at us. Here, BUY ME! Then another one, NO, BUY ME! I’M BETTER THAN THE LEADING POTATO CHIP! A moment to be reminded about the things that matter a little more than the paper plate that wouldn’t be disposable if it was any more durable.
Meanwhile, I’m trapped downstairs, after the stairs guy applied a coat of polyurethane, preventing me from going upstairs. And then Greta’s also going off for some unknown reason. Who knows what her deal is this time. I don’t see anything to bark about. Maybe this is her way of saying, “Hey, I’m here.” Who knows.
Anyway, though, I’m going out again before work. Where, I don’t know, but by the time I get out of here, I’ll have about three hours to burn. I actually enjoyed my newspaper time at the rest areas, so I’m probably going to do that again, grabbing a local paper on the upswing, and then catching the McPaper (USA Today) on the way back. That was nice, being out in the breeze like that, reading the newspaper.
And then I just can’t wait for Saturday to come by. Washington… And who knows? I might see something like I saw last time. Last time I saw a six car train on the Yellow Line that was a mixed consist. That in itself isn’t as much a novelty as what the car types are. It was like this:
Rohr-Rohr-CAF-CAF-Breda-Breda
Two Rohr cars, two CAF cars, and two Breda cars. Metro cars are in permanently coupled pairs (“married pairs”), and as such, you can have no less than two of any car type in a consist. Still, that was an interesting sound to hear together. I’ll have to post the movie clip of it soon. When the train leaves the station, you first hear the Breda and CAF brakes release. That sounds like a whip cracking. The first thing I then heard was the CAF motors start up, followed soon after by the sound of the Rohr motors starting up. Didn’t hear the Breda motors, making a much lower sound, until the Rohrs and the CAFs were already in the tunnel. Still, neat.
And now, I am off to get some news, and fight the breezes for control of the newspaper.