Some Pictures of Things

Gosh darn it I'm running out of blog titles it would seem. Well good ones anyway. But moving hastily away from that completely dry heading I have some pictures I'd like to share with you and discuss. I took these photo's so that I could share some humour with you and hopefully bring some cheer into your joyless lives. There's no time quite like the present so let's just jump right in.

In my line of work (gosh I'm a wanker) I am exposed to a wide variety of products. This first picture is of a product I find particularly fascinating. Not because I love knitting or shawls or anything else that makes me sound like a geriatric homosexual. No I'm fascinated by the unorthodox advertising strategy in place here. Just look at this woman. Does she look happy with her shawl? Does she look happy with her life? Does this glittery, hand knitted gift make her feel anything even a notch above suicidal? The answer to all is "no". I haven't a clue what is going on with this picture. Was this really the best the marketing group could do? My best guess is that this lady owed someone a massive favour and was forced to pose in an outfit she deemed hideous but failed to muster up any enthusiasm for the photoshoot. Either that or she literally has a gun to her head. It's the brutal honesty of this advertising that fascinates me most of all. It's like everyone at the company is well aware the old ladies are going to be using these patterns to humiliate their grandchildren and decided to just run with the "spreading misery" angle.

This last picture depicts a shopping list I found in a carpark after work one night. I was strangely drawn to it's rustic look. The overly cursive writing and yellowed paper again put me in mind of a knick-knack filled grandparents home. As sad as it is to admit this, I actually picked this up and immediately said to myself "if I put this on my blog then I'll be like a real blogger." Then something else slightly amusing caught my eye. Written in urgent, block letters accross the top are the words "COFFEE" and "CIGARETTES" apparently written by the resident addict during a stage of desperate withdrawal. It's funny to imagine this washed out middle-aged man sharing a house with his nan who kindly hands him an ugly, hand-knitted jumper to wear. Suppressing frustrations the man then storms out of the room to look for coffee and finds only a wide selection of jams in the cupboard. Massaging his brow and exhaling loadly the man then goes for his cigarettes and, upon finding only an empty box, grabs the shopping list and aggressively adds his required items; screaming out "COFFEE! CIGARETTES!" through his clenched teeth as he does so. Although the list also has vintage cheese in capitols, so maybe I'm just full of shit?