Rob, the Galleria of Blogs

by Robison Wells

Quite often, I'll start writing a blog post only to discover that the topic I wish to speak about doesn't warrant an entire a post--in fact, it often only warrants one or two sentences. When I run into that problem, I'll tuck those short thoughts away, hoping that I'll have some future opportunity to pull them out and dust them off. (This may surprise those of you who assume that I'll post any old piece of crap.) (Because, usually, you're right.)

The sad news for me is that these short little snippets of blogs very rarely ever see the light of day, mostly because I always forget that I ever wrote them. However, today you're getting a whole bunch of them, with nothing to tie them together other than bullet points.

• I'd like to file two official complaints with the following company: Jared The Galleria of Jewelry. First of all--and this is the more minor complaint--a galleria is defined as a roofed or enclosed space containing a variety of shops. Obviously, this is dumb, because Jared is just one shop, not a variety of them. However, I can forgive this, I guess, because lots of stores call themselves silly things, like the Auto Mall (which is just a big dealership), or The Dollar Shop, my barber, where a haircut costs a whopping four dollars, not one! If you can imagine!
  
  No, my real beef with Jared the Galleria of Jewelry is that there is absolutely nothing prestigous, classy, expensive, appealing, or sophisticated about the name "Jared". On the contrary, people named Jared tend to be boring doofuses. For example, Jared, the Subway guy. For more information about people named Jared, I consulted Professor Wikipedia and discovered that there are no other notable people named Jared. (I'm defining "notable" to mean "people I've heard of".) (Granted, I didn't read the whole list of Jareds, because it was long and boring.)
  
  Also, the commercials for Jared the Galleria of Jewelry are terrible. Based on the commercials, here's my guess of how the conversation went between the marketers:
  
  Marketer 1: We need to find an untapped jewelry market, some demographic that other jewellers haven't already discovered.
  
  Marketer 2: Well, so far, it looks like jewelry stores have been mostly focused on romance, prestige and quality. What if, instead, we went after the stupid people?
  
  Marketer 1: I'm intrigued. Tell me more.
  
  Marketer 2: What if we have unfunny commercials that depict obsessive, panicky nutjobs?
  
  Marketer 1: So, instead of actually discussing our products or services, we'll effectively be shouting "Jared! Jared! JARED!"
  
  Marketer 2: And I'm naming the company Jared, because I can't think of anything clever, and my name is Jared.
  
  Marketer 1: And our target customers are too dumb, apparently, to notice our apathy.



• Along similar lines, I have a message for Olive Garden: you, sirs, have never had a single funny commercial in the history of your bland institution. This would not be a problem, except for the fact that all the characters in your commercials are laughing. Please write this down and tape it to your computer monitor: if the characters are laughing, but the joke is not funny, your audience will not be fooled. (Unless they're the type of people who shop at Jared the Galleria of Jewelry.)



• Living on a college campus, I have noticed that moon boots are coming back into fashion, particularly among the trendy lady folk. One has to assume, as I do, that these stylish young women are trying to emulate the fashionability of myself as a nine-year-old nerd, or, perhaps, the chicness of Napoleon Dynamite.
  
  I also have to wonder what these girls are thinking: "These boots make me look SO HOT, especially since they make my feet and calves look SO ENORMOUS."
  
  Disclaimer: I don't want anyone to post comments here claiming that they wear moon boots because the boots keep their feet warm. You're only allowed to say that if you purchased and wore the boots back before they became trendy and hip, which you didn't. Liar.



• A few words about some Christmas songs:
  
  First, "I'll Be Home For Christmas" is a very pleasant song, even though it contains the phrase "Christmas Eve will find me where the love light gleams", which means absolutely nothing. But then it ends with ""I'll home for Christmas, if only in my dreams", which is truly sad indeed, and it makes me cry.
  
  Second, I have some serious complaints about The Little Drummer Boy. The original song is fine, I guess, except that if the ox and lamb are truly keeping time, then why do you need a little drummer boy? Isn't that redundant? Or, is the drummer boy playing jazz?
  
  The Little Drummer Boy has been remade again and again by pop groups, and when they get to the line "I played my drum for him/I played my best for him", they launch into a big drum riff. And I like to imagine the little drummer boy hauling his drum kit up to the stable, setting up the bass, snares, and cymbals there in the serene quiet, and then: "BAM BAM BAM BAM BIDDIE BAM BAM BIDDIE BIDDIE CLANG BAM BAM BAM BIDDIE BIDDIE BAM BAM BAM." And then the little drummer boy throws the sticks across the stable and shouts "I've got blisters on my fingers!"
  
  And then He smiled at me, pa rum pa pum pum.