Scooter Nation—

Subliminal messaging or subliminal persuasion has been used in advertising for a long time. No matter what the product, even the slightest subliminal suggestion can have a huge effect on the consumer according to some. Here is a sample of a classic Yellow Pages ad:

A simple ad but once turned upside down, it appearS to be morE than you’d eXpect. It even has the word “laid” right there in the headline! This ad ran for a while until it was brought to the attentionS of the EXecutive powers that be at Yellow Pages, who promptly brought the ban hammer down on the “offensive” imagery.

Subliminal messaging has long been used within advertising, but it wasn’t until 1974 that the FCC adopted guidelines stating that although subliminal advertising might not be effective, they still felt it was a deceptive practice. If any broadcaster of TV or radio signals uses a subliminal message, they can be subject to fines from the FCC. But that doesn’t seem to have stopped a lot of them from using it intentionally or unintentionally, with hilarious results! Here are some more interesting SEXamples:

BODY PARTS

"Grab a Heine" literally in this Heineken ad.

Though small and housed within an ice cube, there's another oral pleasure besides feeling the curves and enjoying your Coke®

Some of these don't even need to be pointed out, I mean seriously how could you not see the tongue in this hot dog ad.

Bread may or may not be life but you'd be hard pressed not to see what's in this photo!

The ad that launched the saying "double clicking her mouse"

Why do men love Dodge trucks? Is it because they're "ram" tough?

THE WORD “SEX”

Not only sex but a sexplosion.

OH PEPSI

Governments are not above slipping SEX into their paper money! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

THE ACT OF SEX

Sugar Ray should be so lucky.

This one is very disturbing, especially now that there have been high-profile child sex abuse cases in the media lately. But there's definitely a fetish website in there somewhere.

*Tell me* that you don’t see SEXual acts on these labels. Tell me!

Until next time!

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Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you read that title right! It’s a Christmas tree delivered right to your door with a PULLED PORK SANDWICH! BOO-YA!

How many times has THIS happened to you?

Or this?!?!?!?!?!?!

WELL NO MORE! Local Baltimore business Pork N’ Pine Tree Delivery Service is (was*) here to save the day!

Seriously though; this isn’t a joke. It might seem a little strange to pair Christmas Tree delivery with pulled pork, but think about it for a minute. Are you thinking? Are you smiling now? Yes, yes you are. God damn, what a brilliant idea! And it was just $45.00! I live on the 4th floor of a walk-up and they lugged that thing up my 4 flights of stairs. Not only that, but to my surprise, when I opened the door, the guy had a boom box playing Christmas music and had a Santa suit on! Yes, that man lugged a 7 foot Douglas Fir up four flights of stairs in a Santa suit carrying a boom box and a pork sandwich, on second thought, maybe it was Santa. I don’t know. Anyway, it was freaking awesome! One of the most impressive things to me (other than the obvious and the fact that they showed up on time) was the way they packaged the sandwich. The pork was in a small Tupperware and the bun was in aluminum foil; nothing was soggy!

The whole experience was pretty magical. Anyway, here’s the tree I got with my sandwich.

*Pork n’ Pine, being brand spanking new, had a very limited range of service this season. No orders can be honored beyond December 4th, which was two days ago unfortunately they’ve extended their orders until this coming Thursday! Check out their Facebook page for more. And be sure to Like them on Facebook for next season!

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And so it was, 2.5 years ago when the world was at the height of its almost irritating obsession with bacon when someone emailed me the apparent existence of a product – J&D’s Bacon Lube. Known for their oddball bacon products like Bacon Salt, Bacon Mayonnaise and various other bacon-related foods (but no actual bacon) it appeared as though J&D Foods was moving into the adult lubricant market. My general reaction was something like “WHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY” but it seemed almost entertaining enough to try out, if for no other reason than to add to my Museum of Unusual Products Involving Food (MUPIF) – which actually exists – but it was later revealed “unfortunately” to be an April Fool’s prank by the pranking pranksters at J&D’s.

Prior to that, however, they included an email signup form for those interested in “testing” the lubricant. Which apparently, like myself, over 3,000 signed up for because shortly before the holiday I received an email literally titled “Baconlube is here” with this lil’ paragraph right in the middle:

After 3 years of development and countless lives ruined, baconlube is REAL. So who’s responsible for this creation coming to life? An intern named Martin, who sacrificed and offended his taste buds on sample after failed sample, and the barrage of emails we got from the members of the Meat-Flavored Lubricant Society. OK, that society is not real. But we assure you that baconlube is.

Welp, here we are folks. Bacon Lube. I guess if you love bacon and the use of lubricant for your …activities this is the perfect product for you! Me personally, I still have that bottle of bacon salt someone gave me three years ago so I’ll just dump that into a vat of Vaseline and mix it all up real good. Savings.

Related posts:

1. Alright J & D’s, we get it.
2. “That Bacon Guy”
3. Great Product? Or Greatest Product?

Here’s something you don’t see all that often – a post on another blog about etiquette referencing a Baltimore area restaurant by way of its waitstaff not at the restaurant, an incident in which an employee of said restaurant jacked a cab the reviewer/writer was hailing:

It turns out that the place she so desperately needed to go, to the point that she needed to steal our cab, was a vegan cafe just north of campus that was only a five-to-ten minute walk down the street. She was wearing the cafe t-shirt and was obviously waitstaff, and most likely late for her shift. But with the morning traffic the drive probably took as long as the walk would have!

Granted, the incident in question was some time ago (over a year), but the most important point comes at the end of the entry:

To this day I refuse to eat at that particular cafe, which is notorious for having mediocre vegan food and rude, slow service. Go figure!

Normally the “I refuse to eat/patronize that establishment ever again” is a direct result of shitty service on site, but this one is interesting to me as it demonstrates the importance of not being a jack-off while in work attire as an employee, something most wait staff would never really even consider unless, unlike this particular cab-thief, you take your job remotely seriously.

This kind of nail-in-the-coffin conclusion for a bad experience almost never ends there either, does it – I know plenty of people who have sworn off of X restaurant or YZ bar, and make *very* sure they tell absolutely everyone they know and complete strangers, should they hear a mention of such places, and certainly the copy/pasting of negative reviews everywhere on the internet is nothing new.

I guess the lesson here is three-fold: 1) if you’re going to steal someone’s cab, don’t wear your work attire that clearly indicates where you work, 2) don’t steal someone’s cab, that’s totally a dick move, and 3) if you’re forced to share a cab that you attempted to steal and you intended to ride the cab to work, *maybe* get dropped off like a block away so the people don’t know for absolute certainty that that’s where you work.

(Vegan cafe name redacted by etiquette article author)

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Consumerist is running one of its most treasured annual routines until October 16th, the Worst Ads Awards, where readers get to vote for, well, the worst ads in America broken down by category (Creepiest, Worst, Most Annoying Performance By a Human, etc.). This year has had a slew of television ads worthy of scorn, some of which *really* suck, others not so much, and still others that should have made the nominee listing but didn’t (I’m looking at you, Kegasus). Check out the full listing via the link above and cringe at the awfulness of my personal votes for Worst Ads in America 2011:

ABSOLUTE WORST AD

The selections were kind of weak in this category as I could easily think of several ads worse than these (any and all Miracle Whip ads) – but this Luvs commercial featuring cartoon babies shitting themselves in a shitting themselves contest to the tune of “Whoomp There It Is” is truly inspired. And by inspired, I mean goddamn awful.

Most Grating Performance By a Human

It’ true, Flo from Progressive is annoyingly exuberant about insurance (in fact, all insurance commercials as of late seem to share this quality), but the chick featured in this ad for Metamucil gets my vote because of her annoying exuberance concerning fiber AND her smarmy back-and-forth with coworkers in those hellacious eSurance ads (see below). The AT&T Flashmob guy is definitely close, but he’s only in one spot.

Group That Ought to Go Its Separate Ways

UGH SHUT UP STOP MAKING THIS SHIT JUST GO BACK TO THE CARTOON LADY SPY THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH INSURANCE

Most Irritating Animated Actor

I’m going rogue on this one – though not nominated, I say The General Auto Insurance has not only the worst, but the shittiest-ly animated character in all of television, and A PENGUIN. I don’t know why or who or what thought that pairing up a penguin with a general and putting them on the beach would somehow turn you the consumer onto auto insurance, but this is horrible garbage.

Worst Abuse of an Existing Song

This one was *excruciatingly* difficult to pick, since three out of four of these picks are just horrific. Old Navy rewriting Sister Christian to be about football is unforgivable, Value City using Queen (at least they didn’t rewrite the song) to sell furniture is god awful – but this Swiffer commercial wins hands down because the premise of dirt and dust as lonely women aching so very badly for a GODDAMN CLEANING PRODUCT to the tune of What About Love is so rage inducing I’m having a difficult time not launching this monitor through the bay window of my office.

Original Jingle That Should Be Junked

Good Mood Food isn’t even as bad as those Education Connection commercials, but it gets my vote because I feel as though the Education Connection commercials should actually be in the Worst Ads Ever category (in all history).

Creepiest Commercial of the Year

Despite Penis Pumps being nominated, I’m going rogue again in this category and nominate the “I’ll snort/lick Doritos dust off of anything” guy because that shit is gross, creepy AND annoying simultaneously.

Celebrity Who Could Probably Use A New Manager Right Now

Come on Claire Danes, really? I mean the other people on this list (Montel Williams, Hulk Hogan, Jamie Lee Curtis) are fairly past their prime, this is just lazy. You’ve got chops! Don’t pimp weird, bizarre side-effect having pharmaceuticals aimed at women with tiny eyelashes! It’s dumb! You’re dumb! Get a new manager!

Trends That Need To Stop Being Trends

Men are lunkheads who somehow manage to put up with their harpy wives and girlfriends.
(As seen in ads for AT&T, McDonald’s and Klondike) – this trend is so pervasive and ubiquitous in advertising right now, along with its kissing cousin “Men are dumb as dogshit about everything and the woman will fix it with her knowledge while rolling her eyes” it makes me want to hide in a coffin. MEN AMIRITE? WOMEN AMIRITE? COHABITATING SURE IS ZANY! WHO ATE ALL THE YOGURT!! THE DOG DID!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ADVERTISING!!!

….Anyway those are my picks.

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That’s right folks, 98 Rock DJ Don (aka Cap’n Don) wearing one of our “PRESS START” t-shirts, hand-in-hand with sports legend Earl Weaver.

I could just puke, this picture is so awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I’ve decided to give those shirts a deep discount! All “PRESS START” shirts are now $13 (<—click – a $10 discount!) from now until I decide to end the discount. Remember, $5 from every shirt goes to BARCS! You can’t pass this up people! Be like Don and look awesome!

Cap’n Don can be seen DJ’ing his butt off at Towson’s Rec Room (512 York Rd., Towson), Angel’s Rock Bar (10 Market Place, Inner Harbor) on weekends, so check his wonderful self out. And while you’re at it, check out his “Shipwrecked With Cap’n Don” t-shirts he’s selling on Swag Dog, a portion of the proceeds go to The Life and Breath Foundation, who raise funds and awareness to fight Sarcoidosis, a very serious respiratory affliction.

Related posts:

1. Buy one of these rad shirts and support BARCS

For a while now, I’ve had a small run of t-shirts going in the Baltimore area in an effort to raise a little extra cash here and there; an embracing of the entrepreneurial spirit, “beer money” if you will. But then a little while ago I read this …article published in City Paper regarding some individuals’ disappointment in the fund raising capabilities and/or facility quality of one of the area’s most prominent animal shelters – BARCS – and decided “Screw it, I’m going to raise money for BARCS.*”

And so without further ado I present to you these two t-shirt designs, both fabulous in their own right. They’re $23 a piece ($20 for the shirt, $3 for fees/shipping) and $5 from EVERY shirt goes to BARCS. In other words, for every 20 shirts I sell, I will PayPal a $100 donation to BARCS until I run out of t-shirts. And these t-shirts look and feel pretty awesome. They’re available in men’s and women’s cuts, sized medium to xtra large. If you have questions about sizing just email them or check out these sizing charts (Men)(Women), but for reference a 5’10″ male of average weight would be a men’s L, while a 5’3″ female of average weight would be a girl’s M, depending on bust.

Let’s go into a little more detail about these shirts, shall we? (ordering is done entirely via PayPal’s Cart service. You can change quantities and buy multiple sizes et cetera using their handy interface!)

BALTIMO’
	First up, it’s the classic you know and love in its 2nd print – this time, without logos on the back and printed on super soft ring spun cotton, it’s Movember Baltimore’s official shirt, featuring the iconic mustaches of Baltimore. Show your love of facial hair and Baltimore at the same time! Size Medium Large Xtra Large Gender Men’s Women’s
PRESS START
	Do you like old school Nintendo and local sports teams? What if you had a shirt that could adequately express your appreciation for both, like this shirt? This shirt does those things, so you should wear this shirt! Size Medium Large Xtra Large Gender Men’s Women’s

So here’s to hoping we can raise some money for BARCS, while making the city of Baltimore just a little more fashionable. If this print goes well, I’ll add them permanently to the site and produce more designs with charitable ends. Tell your friends!

*again. Tried before and it resulted in suspended Google Ads account. Remember that?

Related posts:

1. Local DJ wears awesome shirt with baseball legend
2. These BaltiMO’ shirts have got to BaltiGO’!

So’s I caught wind of a tale of woe the other day, regarding what should have been a really fun slash amazing party fun time courtesy of Baltimore’s Living Social bureau. It was a $60 ziplining slash open bar special, in which purchasers of the excursion would park their vehicle at the Port Covington Walmart (RED FLAG) and be provided transportation to Sandy Spring Friends School where frolicking, ziplining and climbing would ensue for two hours. Following that, an hour of libations at Federal Hill’s own Muggsy’s Mug House – sounds like a pretty rad time, doesn’t it? Of course it does!

Being the responsible fun-time arrangers that they are, Living Social did their due diligence in clearing the whole parking lot situation with the Port Covington facilities, and everything looked as though the good times were rolling.

…unfortunately, once the buses had been loaded and the trek had begun, phone calls came issuing that every single person’s car at the Port Covington Walmart was in the process of being towed. Whether via a dumb manager who didn’t know about the deal or whatever excuse Walmart came up with, dozens of cars were towed within minutes, leaving a bunch of really pissed off people sitting on a bus without a car. And we all know how understanding those tow companies are, very courteous and kind-hearted folk who would gladly take part in owning up to the mistake and return everyone’s car without hesitation, yes? Yeah well not really. The Living Social rep I spoke with referred to it as “an awful mess” and essentially they’re on the hook paying for all of the headaches generated by the snafu, despite the fact that Walmart is essentially to blame. I smell lawsuit! Or maybe not, hopefully the two enterprises can work out the issue and Living Social will have a parking lot to use for their future expeditions.

Speaking of the Port Covington Walmart, I’m going to go right ahead and make a wild guess that it will close its doors riiiiiight around the same time as the Remington Walmart opens, for a myriad of excuses which are all bullshit, leaving the destroyed wetlands of Port Covington with their very own gigantic wasteland of empty warehouse buildings and sprawling parking lots. Perfect place to hang out after dark! (and then the inevitable redevelopment featuring mixed-use retail/condos, amirite?)

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See that immensely attractive t-shirt down there? It’s one of our leftover shirts from this past Movember, which despite being a wildly fantastic success left us with a few extras. It features some (most) of Baltimore’s Most Epic Moustaches, and would make a great gift/workout/housepainting/dishrag shirt for you! They’re only a measly $12.50 (+$2.50 shipping), and 100% of the money goes to 2011′s Movember fund (The Prostate Cancer Foundation and Livestrong Campaign). 2011′s design will be even better and more than likely we’ll have them on nice, soft American Apparel shirts.

Here’s what we’ve got left:

• 4 3 2 small left! ( up to 5’3″ 120lb)
• 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 medium (up to 5’9″ 160 lb)
• 7 6 5 4 3 2 ONLY ONE LEFT!! SOLD OUT large (anything over those)

If you’d like to order one, go ahead and select your size and put in your mailing address (form’s below the photo)! You know you want one, and besides it’s for a great cause. SO DO IT!

Related posts:

1. Local DJ wears awesome shirt with baseball legend
2. Buy one of these rad shirts and support BARCS