Tag Archives: Amazon

Amazon.com “Pick” of the Day – The Bacon-Scented Car Freshener

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As many readers of the site know, before I landed a job as an “ad man” in Manhattan I had the wonderful misfortune to work in one of America’s most giant factories, the Amazon.com processing warehouse in Breinigsville, PA. Working 10-11 hour days 5-6 days a week, I got a first hand look at the unbelievably pointless and sad things that many Americans are buying on Amazon. I didn’t just look, though. I judged. I’ve been running a Twitter called AmazonEmployee for a while now, calling people out on their poorly made purchasing choices.

I’ve written a bunch of longer, even more judgmental blurbs on YeahHeDid about it, but it’s been a while since my last (the biggest reason being that I don’t work there anymore). However, one sect of Amazon.com has been on my mind constantly since I left those walls for good, and it’s time to bring it out into the light…. Amazon’s ‘gag gifts’ section. I have one particular example to share with you, just a taste of the idiocy that is available to you to purchase for people who won’t be your friends for much longer.

The purpose of gag gifts are simple, almost impossibly so: to get a cheap laugh out of someone if you don’t have the sense of humor to do it on your own. It’s undoubtedly a multi-million dollar industry, as we’re all well aware of just how many unfunny people we’ve met in our lives (so many). If you can sit a moment and try to comprehend all of the things that those millions of dollars could purchase that would be so much better and more beneficial than a gag gift, well… it wouldn’t be a moment at all… it’d take a lifetime to think of all of the better ways to waste your money. In the interest of time and your attention spans, I’m going to stop being vague and get right to it…  the bacon-scented car freshener:

Asking price? $3.29. Chump change to most… a few easy George Washingtons to throw to the wind. But what are you really getting for $3.29? Or, more importantly, what are you losing? Let’s imagine a man, Timothy, to explore. Timothy was born with one of the most unfortunate faults one can be born with – no sense of humor. Timothy has never made anyone laugh using material he didn’t steal. His DVD collection includes, and is limited to Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, and the first two seasons of King of the Hill. Over the years, friends who entered into a relationship with Timothy hoping for a few laughs (not asking much) have since moved on. Timothy only has one friend left… Marcus, who has a difficult time keeping friends himself, mostly because he works 60 hours a week in the kitchen of a seedy little burger joint and smells of hamburger grease far more often than not.

Marcus’s birthday is coming up, and Timothy, as usual, is out of ideas. More than likely, he never had any to begin with, but let’s not speculate. Timothy decides, in a final moment of desperation just 2 days before the “big” party (it will be Timothy, Marcus, and Marcus’s parents), to head to the Amazon.com gags section. He browses for a few minutes before his mouse rests on the bacon-scented car freshener. This is the one. Barely able to contain his gut-splitting laughter as he puts in his credit card information, Timothy places his order and stakes himself out by the mailbox until it arrives. Two days and a very short, awkward party later, Timothy has lost his friend Marcus… not to sickness, violence or plague, but defriending. You see, Marcus may have trouble making friends, but he does not have trouble knowing what a good friend is, and, more importantly, what a good friend is not.

Think I’m being a little harsh? You’ve probably never received a “gag gift” before. The sheer amount of pain that comes upon you when you force yourself to smile and laugh for a few seconds after opening something like the bacon car freshener is, by itself, more than enough cause to leave wherever you are right then and there and cut off ties with your “friend” completely and for all time. Now, I love bacon, and I imagine every other meat eater on earth feels the same way. In fact, I bet it’s not uncommon to catch your vegetarian friends eating it either, coupled with a vehemently argued excuse like “I didn’t know this counted.” Bacon is great on literally anything. Its possibilities are only limited by imagination. However, there is a time and a place for bacon, and every waking moment you spend in your car driving is neither. In my experience, smelling something for hours and hours every day makes you either hate the item or place the smell belongs to or become opinion neutral to it. And I can’t imagine having any other feeling for bacon but love and admiration. I wouldn’t want to meet the man that would do that to me. And he wouldn’t want to meet me.

I know what you’re thinking… “but gag gifts like this aren’t meant to actually be used. they’re for entertainment only.” Well, the last time I had the attention span and appropriately aged mind to enjoy something like this for even ten seconds was my 3rd birthday. I think I’ve come a long way since then. It’d be nice if my gag-gifting friends had as well. Timothy, we’re only a few years away from android beings that will be able to do a pretty decent job of being friendly. Start saving up.

Notes on the Friend Zone: How to Tell When You’re in it, and a Surefire Way to Stay There

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The story I have to share today is an important one. It’s one that I was fortunate enough to watch unfold completely at Panera Bread today while I was eating my Asiago Roast Beef sandwich and Steak Chili. It’s one we can all take lessons from, whether or not we’re the kind of person who typically finds themselves in the “friend zone.”

The friend zone, much more often than not, is a terrible place to be… at first, anyway. The word is synonymous with a failure on the man or woman’s part to either make a move at the right time or a failure to understand that he or she never really had a shot in the first place. It’s a place characterized by sadness and defeat, and is a place harder to escape from than Alcatraz Island in its heyday.

Sometimes the hardest thing to figure out about the friend zone is whether or not you’re in it yet. Such is the case with the young college student at Panera today. We’ll call him Troy. Troy is a well-intentioned, average-looking guy looking for love in the form of a young girl he’s invited to Panera for coffee. Troy has no idea that he’s in the friend zone with his “date” that he brought to Panera for coffee (we’ll call her Ashley).

So how do I know that Troy is in the friend zone? After all, I was not privy to any of their conversation; everything I’ve assumed so far is based completely and only on what I saw with my own eyes. Before we get to that, it’s important to note that Ashley wears Vibram Five Fingers Shoes. You know what I’m talking about:

Why is this an issue? Well, it’s the middle of winter in Pennsylvania, and Ashley clearly wasn’t using these to run (the only reason you would ever want or need to buy these “shoes,” and this is arguable, anyway). She was wearing them to show off to the people of Panera Bread. I’m pointing this out for Troy’s sake. Troy: the kind of girl that buys and wears these monstrosities (of all things) to be cool is not the kind of girl you want to be chasing after in the first place. So it’s not a big loss.

Back to the friend zone. How do I know he’s in it? This one’s impossibly simple. Ashley and Troy were at Panera to, among other things, exchange Christmas gifts… on December 28. Classic friend zone move by Ashley. If the girl or guy you’re chasing after does not have time to exchange gifts with you before (or even on) Christmas Day, you’re a “priority” who’s… pretty far down on your crush’s list of priorities. With each succeeding day after Christmas that you’ve not exchanged gifts with your “the one,” you effectively move deeper and deeper into the friend zone.

I know this because I’ve experienced countless post-Christmas gift exchanges with girls I’ve liked in the past. Back when i was young and stupid, I didn’t see this as a sign. After years of creating friend zones not only all over Pennsylvania, but all over the country (and even the world), I’m a smarter person now. I see these signs as clear as crystal. Troy, I’m not judging you. I’m sympathizing, because I’m right there with you.

Normally, at this point, I’d reach out to Troy and tell him there’s little hope. If he doesn’t know he’s in it yet, he’s long set himself on a course bound for eventual humiliation and tragedy. However, let’s give Troy the benefit of the doubt for a second. Let’s say that Troy knows he’s in the friend zone, and is using this gift exchange to get out of it. I’m skeptical, but I’ll entertain the idea for a minute for Troy’s sake.

If Troy is indeed in the situation in which he is using the gift exchange to try to catapult himself outside of the friend zone and into what he thinks will be a pretty awesome relationship, he’s probably picked out an awesome gift that will blow Ashley mind so much that she will immediately realize she’s been dating those “bad guys” for too long and instantly fall in love with Troy. This would be nice, right? Unfortunately, Troy struck out on the first pitch with this train wreck of a Christmas present, one I saw her open with a grimace she could not help but… grimace:

Now, I don’t know a lot about Ashley beyond (like I said) what I saw with my own eyes. However, I have a pretty good idea that this is the most terrible Christmas present of all time. Ashley’s “I have no idea how to even respond to this” expression that followed doesn’t hurt my case. Troy: sure, Ashley loves her little Dachshund “Johann” to death…. so much so that she talks more about it than even you. And sure, sometimes she shops at Whole Foods to try to live a better lifestyle. She might even enjoy cooking. And you know all of this.

However, to assume that you can merge all of these things into one idea displays complete lack of experience in gift buying. Merging everything you know about your lady friend into one single present does not always create something awesome. After all, just because she loves Red and Green (Christmas colors of course), doesn’t mean she wants them merged together to create brown.

Ashley doesn’t want to spend her free evenings cooking extremely expensive biscuits for her little dog who will more than likely get very sick from the rich ingredients anyway. This book is not going to get you out of the friend zone. In fact, the book has more than likely spawned more barriers to a future relationship than you’ll ever be able to comprehend.

I’m not saying you’ll never get out, Troy! I hope we both get out someday. But from one friend zoner to another: you’ve got to step up in the gift giving department. You’re already in the red exchanging them on the 28th of December. You need a “black Friday” intensity level gift to bring you into the black, and into a relationship. Good luck next year, Troy! I have a feeling 2011 will be my, and maybe even your year. Took a long time to come.

Amazon.com “Pick” of the Day: Mr. Potato Head Dolls that Look Nothing Like the Characters They’re Supposed to Look Like

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Mr. Potato Head owes his life to Toy Story. Without his coveted lifetime spot in the Franchise, it’d be difficult for you to find these things anywhere but the bottom of a dirty toy barrel at your local Salvation Army (the one you used to go to for cheap, ironic t-shirts when you were young and didn’t know any better). He had that spot though, and Mr. Potato Head (along with his lovely wife) has taking advantage of every second of the spotlight since.

At first, it was innocent, like every fledgling toy franchise is. It started out with just the male version of the doll, but quickly diversified to add a female, probably due to sheer demand… not very different from the story of Pac-Man and his girl… even Adam and his woman, Eve, much longer ago. A man eventually needs a wife, after all. And it was good.

Smart companies know when their franchise has reached its peak, and know when to stop. Mr. Potato Head had a chance to do this, especially after the popularity of Toy Story. It didn’t really need to change its recipe ever again. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head could meet and fall in love over and over again in children’s rooms all over the world for eternity, and everyone would be happy. Unfortunately, Hasbro got greedy, and decided to turn popular franchises into Potato Heads, creating the grotesque, unidentifiable “creatures” you’re about to see.

1. The Star Wars Potato Head Doll

If I didn’t tell you this was a character from the long-running, beloved ‘Star Wars’ franchise, I’d challenge even the greatest of Star Wars fans to be able to identify this disaster… and I’d throw a lot of money on the table for the person who could do it. Even if I did tell you that this was a Star Wars character, many would still have difficulty. I see a big smile, pretty dark skin (even for a potato), a decent-sized blaster, a long, manly cape, and some kind of strange, poorly designed, unidentifiable utility belt. Huh. Uh… Lando Calrissian I guess?

Nope… we’re looking at Princess Leia. Now, I never thought Carrie Fisher was particularly attractive, but this is an insult. When the only thing you can get right is the shape the actor’s hair (not even the color), you need to take a step back and really think about the following question: If we realistically cannot make this look anything like the real person, should we still go on and make hundreds of thousands of them? My guess is… probably not. Star Wars fanatics have standards, too… just like normal people.

2. The Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Potato Head Doll

When you’re planting one of your new Potato Head Dolls on the foundations of a franchise that decided to fast-track a sequel and sacrifice literally everything to get it out early (literally everything… acting, storyline, special effects, continuity), you never really had much of a shot in the first place. Still, stranger things have happened, and it could have maybe been successful. But not this time. Riding the coattails of a doomed movie franchise, the intelligent folks at Mr. Potato Head decided to turn ‘Bumble Bee’ into a Potato Head Doll, to horrifying effect:

Think back to a Halloween you may have had as a child… a Halloween you were extremely ill-prepared for. It was Halloween day, you hadn’t made a costume yet, and all of the stores were sold out of costumes in your size. There were only two hours to go until prime trick or treating time, and you were desperate. So you went into the basement, scoured through old, moldy boxes of broken glass, torn clothing and old Tupperware containers, and you put together a Halloween costume with what you found.

Chances are, it turned out looking like “Bumble Spud” up there. And it was the worst Halloween of all time. Most of the houses probably didn’t even give you candy, because they were too embarrassed of your weak attempt at a franchise costume to even open the door. Mr. Potato Head recreates that awful Halloween for us with “Bumble Spud,” the most disappointing thing any child will receive this Christmas. It’s biggest virtue, perhaps, is that it looks nothing like the Transformers in Revenge of the Fallen. You’d garner even less respect if anyone knew you bought a toy celebrating one of the worst franchise sequels in cinematic history.

3. The Toy Story Potato Head Doll

I know what you’re thinking… “whoa, wait, you’re gonna make fun of Toy Story Mr. Potato Head Doll?!” Don’t worry, friends. I respect the Toy Story Mr. Potato Head more than I respect a lot of human people in this world. What the folks at Hasbro have done in this final segment stands among the greediest things anyone at any company has ever done. Even the good, honest people from Enron would shuffle uncomfortably on their jail cell benches at the sheer amount of greed Hasbro displayed with their newest Potato Head:

Woody. Apparently, having two of the most popular, classic, and nostalgic versions of the Potato Head franchise in your movie isn’t enough. Hasbro wanted to see how much money they could squeeze from Toy Story fans by changing its most popular character into a Potato Head… It really doesn’t get more cocky than this.

I’m not saying that this doesn’t look like Woody. Any self-respecting Toy Story fan would recognize him instantly. That’s not the problem. The problem is that Hasbro is willing to disrespect Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head this much to make a little extra money. Hasbro’s basically coming out and telling Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, “I’m sorry, classic, traditional potato heads that were so funny and awesome in the movie: you’re not enough for us. There are bigger fish in the Toy Story ocean… and we can make more money from them than from you… even if we use your bodies to do it.”

Hasbro, shame on you. Parents: don’t buy your kids these embarrassing, and sometimes even greedy, versions of the potato head dolls. Chances are, your kids won’t even know what they are anyway. Stick to tradition. It’s timeless for a reason.

Amazon.com “Pick” of the Day: Whatever You Ordered Too Late

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Today brings you a special edition of the Amazon.com “Pick” of the day posts you’ve seen on here so often. It involves a form of Christmas “gifting” that has gone on in my house for years, and is one I’m sure at least some of you have faced yourselves on the more forgettable, regrettable Christmases of your pasts.

We’re going to move right into a scenario for this post, as it seems the best way to get where I’m going with this without writing 1500 words like I usually do. You’re the parent of young Cindy Lou Michaels, an adorable 6-year old girl with a very modest Christmas list. You see, Cindy Lou lives and breathes Dora the Explorer, the wonderful TV show in which, through an entire season, Dora explores the world and teaches you 3 or 4 arguably useful Spanish words along the way.

All Cindy wants for Christmas is a Dora doll that she can play, eat and sleep with 24 hours a day… one that will utter a few encouraging phrases every once in a while to keep things just interesting enough. Problem is, it’s December 22… 5PM… and you haven’t ordered it from Amazon yet.

You knew you had to order it by 9am on the 22nd to ensure that Amazon’s two-day shipping would bring it to your doorstep by Christmas. Problem is, you went out with some old friends last night and drank… oh I’d say about 6 too many martinis. With your tendency to be hit hard by a hangover after a night of hard drinking, there was no chance you’d wake up before 3PM. In fact, it was a Christmas miracle you made it home at all.

So you start scrambling, trying to figure out what to do. Dora’s all that Cindy wants for Christmas, and you couldn’t even come through on that. You spend the next two days making calls to local stores that might have it, but the wells are dry. Everybody loves Dora. There was never a chance. Christmas day arrives, and Cindy Lou pulls the Dora-sized box (carefully calculated by you, the parent) out from the back of the tree in unmitigated excitement. She tears the wrapping off, opens the box, and sees it.

Are her eyes deceiving her, or is… is that a picture of a Dora the Explorer doll? Unfortunately, Cindy Lou has perfect vision and a sharp enough mind to use it. Yup. You figured the next best thing to giving her the real thing was to give her a picture of the real thing from Google images as a “promise” that the item was coming in the mail in the coming days.

The problem? This is the first Christmas Cindy Lou will remember, and you gave her a piece of paper… one you didn’t even print out in a decent quality… you chose fast draft, because you didn’t care. Sure, she’ll get the doll a few days later and will play with it for years. But it’s not the gift that’s necessarily the most important thing to Cindy Lou. It’s the entire experience of Christmas: the excitement of pulling out a tangible object from a box and being able to play with it incessantly for the remainder of Christmas Day, a historically unexciting afternoon if you don’t have new presents to toy around with.

Instead, she gets a poor quality photo of the doll she was dreaming about playing with the night before to put on the refrigerator so she can stare at it for the next four present-less days. The worst part? So often, parents lie about what happened. “Oh, Honey, the mailman was very sick and wasn’t able to deliver it” or “Oh, sweetheart, Amazon must have lost it in the warehouse” (they didn’t… we don’t lose things at Amazon).

Bang up job, Mom. You didn’t just ruined this Christmas for Cindy Lou. You tarnished the idea of Christmas morning for her, something she won’t ever recover from. Parents: if you’re going to give your kid an “it’s coming soon” picture gift to your child (we don’t recommend that… we think you should order things on time like the parents of happy children do), at least tell them the real reason they don’t have a gift on Christmas morning.

To the parents of Connor, a bright young boy whose only wish was Rock Band: don’t be afraid to mention your family’s troubling legal situation to Connor. Honesty is a better gift than a present somtimes:

To the parents of Sophie, your little superstar who desperately wants a convertible for Barbie, who’s never had a means of transportation around the living room before: don’t be afraid to share the little illegality you’ve been promoting for the past year and a half that finally turned around to bite you:

Trust me, parents: as difficult as it is to share your troubles with your children, they’ll learn a lot from it. And it’ll give them something to think about during the 8 grueling hours of nothingness they’ll deal with after Christmas lunch and until bed. Or, better yet, you can just avoid all of this and order your presents on time for once. Everyone wins!

Amazon.com “Pick” of the Day: ‘Kung Zhu’ Battle Hamsters

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The toys I played with when I was a kid (well over 10 years ago) were never very technologically advanced… It was the nineties, though, and nothing really was. I haven’t really paid great attention to the evolution of toys since those days, but I always assumed toys had gotten better… not necessarily in terms of creativity, but at least quality and technological capabilities. It just makes sense, right?

Apparently not. Enter the long-running fad known as Zhu Zhu Pets… We’ll be specifically focusing on the “Kung Zhu” world, a realm of Zhu Zhu Pets specifically geared towards the young male population. We’ll also be focusing specifically on the hamsters, since they seem to make up the majority of the populace in the Zhu Zhu world and since I have a very dark, dark past with the creatures that I’ve needed to face for years. Here are two of the suckers now:

First and foremost, It’s always important to very quickly let you know that Kung Zhu Hamsters trace their origins back to Industrial China… Now, I don’t want to start a rant on China, or the quality of items made in China, so I won’t say much more than this: while Chinese products are generally safe (sometimes), it probably wouldn’t hurt to put a pair of factory floor-quality gloves on your kid before he starts playing with them. Better safe.

To be quite blunt, Kung Zhu Hamsters are some of the most poorly put together toys of the last 30-40 years. Much more fragile than the lives of the real hamsters whose lives you heroically saved by buying your kids these instead, Kung Zhu Pets more than likely won’t make it through Christmas dinner. We recommend supplementing a board game with Kung Zhu Pets so your kid will have something to do the rest of the day after his Hamster has long gone “out of service.”

The idea behind the hamsters is this: you turn your Kung Zhu Hamster on, and it blindly moves around the room it’s in and maybe sometimes hits the other Kung Zhu pet he’s “fighting.” If he runs into something, he’s able to change direction (effectively running from any “fight” he gets in). It’s technology that would have maybe been impressive in 1992.

There is a button on each of the hamsters’ noses, too, a trigger for Kung Zhu Hamster “battle noises” when the Hamsters clash (if they clash… if the living room is big enough, these things may not meet until your child is halfway through college). I’ve heard the noises these hamsters make, and as competent as I think I am at describing things, you really have to hear the noises for yourself. Lucky for you, I recorded some of them (don’t ask me how) just for you. Enjoy:

It’s 2010. In a world of extraordinarily advanced audio capabilities, you’d think the folks at Zhu Zhu wouldn’t take their audio bites from a selection of the unspeakably awful mid-90′s PC games that were offered free with the purchase of a box of cereal. This is not how the people at Zhu Zhu think. Parents: imagine hearing these noises for hours upon hours upon hours upon hours while you’re trying to sleep off Christmas breakfast. I doubt you even made it through the entire 11 or 12 second clip I posted.

So is there any redeeming trait these hamsters have? What about their back stories? Surely this is an area the people at Zhu Zhu Pets spent a great deal of time and creativity working on, because it’s sure not anywhere else… right? Let’s take a look. Meet the three hamsters from above:

Okay, we’ve got a big of a back story here! This looks promising! It’s fairly repetitive, but it’s something. Let’s move down to Azer’s likes and dislikes, past all of the broken English and all of the poor ways of saying things (we’ll ignore the giant list of better and more sensible ways he could have said “not so happy day,” and the complete lack of clarity in whose day they’re trying to ruin). As you can see, Azer’s likes and dislikes include Spoiled milk, baseball, katanas of fire, sgt. Serge, sunny days and ice cream… not a random list of items at all. Thank God the writer adds these in. They really piece together the whole story for us. A+ so far. Let’s move on to Stonewall.

Well, the complete lack of a back story (compared to Azer) doesn’t really add continuity to the world of Kung Zhu hamsters, but who needs that? And sentence structure? Why bother? Stonewall doesn’t care about any of those things. As the 4th-5th grade level of writing indicates, “Pretty much if there’s a fight, just point him in the right direction.” That’s what these toys are all about anyways, right?

The likes and dislikes section is where we find extraordinary confusion… mostly because I’ve never met anyone who vehemently liked and disliked something as generic and neutral as a ladder at the same time. I’ve actually never met anyone with any kind of opinion on a ladder. Stonewall seems to be torn between two. I don’t know why the author decided to add such a meaningless contradiction into the story, but I guess it’s not really my place to judge him. He and the others at Zhu Zhu clearly know more about storytelling than I do.

You can explore more of these wonderful stories for yourself at http://www.Zhuniverse.com, but I think you get the idea: the back stories were more than likely written by the creative director’s 7-year old on take your daughter to work day. Such blatant lack of grammatical integrity is not only unprofessional… it’s offensive.

So am I telling you not to buy these parents? Listen carefully: no. Quite the opposite, actually. Buy them for every child you know! Why? Well, when I was a kid, my mom let me have a real hamster as a pet. Actually, she let me have 12… in succession. All named Peaches. You see, 6 and 7 year olds do not have the life skills and experience to take care of a living thing. And parents often don’t have the time to take care of their children and their children’s pets, resulting in the death of many small, innocent critters.

Regrettably, I neglected and let die 12 wonderful, wonderful hamsters. And I’ll never forgive myself for it. I can’t go back in time and fix it, but I can fight for the lives of future hamsters. Kids should not be allowed to buy and “raise” them. Instead, they need to be given fake versions of animals, ones they can abuse and ruin without sacrificing a life. Parents: save real hamsters by buying these. You’ll just have to forget about the incredibly large list of reasons Zhu Zhu Pets are a horrible waste of money. Go get ‘em, parents.