Guerilla-style

Yesterday, I was at my brother's place. At some point during the evening, while heavy downpour was making its tumultuous point on the roof, we started watching television. Guerilla style, randomly zapping through the channels. A few things caught my attention:

(i) A commercial for dog snacks. Having spent a week in Bujumbura, only not too long ago, I suddenly found the very concept of advertising canine treats a bit strange. Living on this planet where hunger is unfortunately still the staple diet - and I am not talking about the uncomfortable feeling we all get on a late Saturday night, when the greasy scent of fried food is wafting into our drunken nose - it made me scratch my head and wonder where things went wrong. I also thought: what if Vietnamese people were to see this add? They'd probably be thinking "Ah, that's how you catch them! You just buy a bag of bait.".

(ii) A scientist on National Geographic, enthousiastically elaborating on what seemed like the biggest thing in years. The superlatives he used, the gestures he was making, the anticipating intonation in his voice: it all pointed towards a major breakthrough in engineering. "Oh my God, they finally did it", I thought, "they invented cars running on urine!". It turned out that the guy was talking about light bulbs. And I suddenly realized how wacky I must sometimes look to my students, (d)avidly trying to introduce them to the world of basic calculus problems...

(iii) Another commercial, this time for beer. A rather funny one I'd say - well, the standards where not that high - with the first man on the moon bringing his gay green fridge box, grabbing a cold beer, watching the earth from his foldable camping chair. Opening his rewarding bottle, only to hit the screen of his astronaut's helmet when he tried to drink. The thing is, I can't remember the name of the beer. And you want to know why? Because there was an obvious mistake in the commercial. When he opened his beer, liquid was bubbling out of the bottle - like Homer's bag of chips when he was weightless. Obviously, apart from two golf balls, there is also gravity on the moon. So yes, this bothered me: if you do the efforts to let your commercial take place on the moon, you might as well think the details over, right? Especially when the geeks are watching, because they focus on things like that. And forget the brand name...