Monday, December 29, 2008

Things that are bugging me...

I'm a Beatles fan, who isn't? I even enjoy all four Beatles' solo careers. To have a favorite Beatle is a difficult articulation of music and personality, and it changes all the time. Lately, I've appreciated John Lennon a lot lately. So does the charitable foundation One Laptop Per Child, an organization that wants to give a laptop to every child in a third world country. Honestly, I think money for laptops is kind of foolish since it can be spent on clean water and food. Yet, One Laptop Per Child will raise it's money any way it can. So they spent a boatload of money on this new ad



Yes, that is John Lennon asking you to buy a laptop for a poor child.

You might ask me-

"But Ryan, John Lennon has been dead for 28 years! How can this be?!"

Well, the answer is quite simple, they used a computer to catalog how John Lennon's voice sounds, then they used a computer to manipulate a video of John Lennon, a la Forrest Gump and they created a dialogue for him, asking for your donation.

Now I have a few problems with this:

1. It's one thing to use John Lennon as a cameo when he's been dead for quite some time like in Forrest Gump, it's another thing to use him as your spokesman.
2. If John Lennon was alive, how would you know that he would be a spokesman for your charity? He was a generous guy, but he didn't put his stamp of approval on every charity.
3. John Lennon doesn't even know what a laptop is.
4. John Lennon is Dead. Please get over it people, it's been 28 years, One Laptop Per Child needs to work on finding living spokespeople, it is much more convincing, believe me.

Oh, and one more thing.

While i was enjoying a nice Christmas day last week, my uncle was gifted an MP3 Player, and to the delight of my cousins they exclaimed,

"Dad got an iPod! hooray!"

OK, I added the hooray, but they were very excited. But there was just one problem

It wasn't an iPod, it was an MP3 player, a Sansa to be exact.

It grieves me to think that iPod is now synonymous with MP3 player, because frankly, they suck.

There are much better MP3 players out there, one in particular, and one I desperately want is the Zune 120, a far superior piece of technology.

Don't believe me? Listen to CNET, the authority on technology today.



I really hope we don't call MP3 players iPods like we call Kleenex for tissues. So next time your in the market for an MP3 player next holiday season, use your brain, and don't be another cow in the herd, think for yourself, and don't listen to dead rock stars tell you about laptops.

Until Next Time...

2 comments:

Ryan Johns said...

Love the post man.

Anonymous said...

Ah Ryan!

It is slightly ironic that you recommend the Zune in light of the little mishap that happened this week...

Looking forward to seeing you in a few days.