It's Back

I think that I said a while back that if things like the "bling" in the picture below caught on that we were all doomed. 

Well, it's happened again.  Welcome to doom.  Behold! 

Since he has sunglasses on, I can't tell if it's the same guy or not.  It could be.  And if it is the same guy, I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse.  In a way, I suppose that it would be better because it's just one asshat who is out there with Bedazzled boxes of cereal draped around his neck.  And in case you were wondering, yes, his pants are on backwards.  I guess he's trying to make a Kriss Kross komeback or something. 

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Crunchberries Aren't WHAT?!

Brace yourself. Are you sitting down? I hope so. I don't know if you'd be able to take this one standing up. If you're not sitting down and you continue reading, you've been warned.

Ready?

Crunch Berries are not real berries. Dun-dun-DUNNNNNNNNN!!!

I know!! Can you imagine my surprise when I read that? Oh, that's right. I wasn't surprised. That's because a) I'm not four and b) I'm not an imbecile! Now while a one Janine Sugawara is not four either, she is, quite possibly, an imbecile.

That is because Ms. Sugawara sued, yes sued, sued the folks who make Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries cereal when she learned that the 'berries' in Crunch Berries were not berries at all! They were just delicious little colored balls of corn and oat cereal! The nerve of those people calling them berries! So due to the "lack of redeeming fruit" she sued.

Fortunately, the judge in the case, my hero for today, a one Judge Morrison England, Jr., used two of the many functions of the human brain, those being logic and reason, and was able to determine that this was not a lawsuit that should go any further than the nearest trash can. You think?!

I must say that I do love it when just a hint of sarcasm is evident in the writings of judges when they rule on frivolity like this which is allowed to seep through our court system. Our federal court system, no less! Judge England wrote, "This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a "crunchberry." ... A reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that the Product in the instant case contained a fruit that does not exist. . . . So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world." Well said, Your Honor! Well said indeed!

I loved the part about "a reasonable consumer", as the Plaintiff clearly is not one. And while there obviously is no 'crunchberry' growing in the wild anywhere, wouldn't it be cool if there were? Crunchberry farmers and their plots of land with row upon endless row of the delicious crunchberry poking up out of the ground (or blossoming on the vines. I haven't quite worked out the particulars of this fantasy). They could have undocumented workers harvesting the crunchberries that Americans won't harvest (and for half the minimum wage, paid under the table) for the rest of the nation to crunch and enjoy!

But here's the part of the ruling (in which the case was thankfully dismissed) where it became obvious to me that this woman who filed the suit was a moron, but not because she thought that Crunch Berries were an actual fruit. No, it's painfully obvious that she's a moron because she must have thought that she could get away with this. That revelation after reading, "Plaintiff did not explain why she could not reasonably have figured this out at any point during the four years she alleged she bought Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries in reliance on defendant's fraud." What?

Four years? FOUR years?! FOUR effing years?!?! So what exactly happened there, ma'am? One day, you're just sitting at the breakfast table, eating your alleged 'berries' when suddenly "crunch-crunch-crunch"...."Hey! I don't think these are berries a'tall! I think I've been had! Lawsuit!"

No, I don't think that's what happened at all. I think that she figured that the Cap'n would rather just pay a fair sum, maybe ten grand or so, just to make this all go away rather than to spend the money to fight it. That's what our legal system has come down to, you know. It's so expensive for corporations to fight accusations and lawsuits that a lot of the time they just settle the case for some sum of money that would end up being less than if they had to pay lawyers to defend the case. Sad, but true and all thanks to scumbags like Ms. Sugawara who, incidentally, had also filed a previous lawsuit against the Froot Loops folks because.....wanna guess? That's right. Because they contained no froot. ::: sigh :::

You can read the entire opinion/ruling here if you feel the need. I read it simply to find out if this woman had represented herself or if she had a scumbag lawyer who represented her and filed her frivolous lawsuit. Turns out, she had a scumbag lawyer. The lead attorney was a one Harold Marion Hewell of Hewell Law Firm, APC, located in San Diego, CA. This is what this man has chosen to do with his law degree. He has chosen to use it to represent people to try to legally extort money from companies by abusing the United States legal system via frivolous lawsuits. If you ever see this man on the street (and I have no idea how you'd know who he is), please feel free to have the brakes on your vehicle fail, preferably when traveling at a high rate of speed. And as far as I'm concerned. Ms. Sugawara can be the very first MILP. No, not MILF. MILP. Mother I'd Like to Punch. Hard. (Yes, that would be MILPH, but then it would just sound exactly like MILF and that would likely only serve to perpetuate confusion between derogatory acronyms and I can't see how that would help anyone at this point.)

And as I so often feel the need to do, I'm going to have to issue a heads up for the softheads out there who might be thinking about pulling something like this on their own. So, for the record:

• General Mills? Not a real general!
  
• Lucky Charms? Not going to make you more lucky!
  
• Quaker Oats? Not made by real Quakers!
  
• Cocoa Pebbles? Not real pebbles!
  
• Dr. Pepper? Not a real doctor!
  
• Cheerios? Not going to make you more happy!
• King Vitamin? Don't let the crown fool ya, not a real king!
• Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Not pieces of toast!
• Trix? Not made by hookers!
• Sprite? Does not contain an elf!
• Hoots? Nary a breast to be found!
  

Are we clear now? Good. Because in my final bit of Crunch Berry commentary, I offer you this: Several years ago (OK, I was 33) I sent an email to the Crunch Berry folks, as my box of Crunch Berries had an Olympics theme on the back of it, but there were stickers covering parts of the scene and I wanted to know why. I also wanted to just throw out the brilliant idea that I had of doing a limited edition of Crunch Berries called Crunch Berry Classic where all of the berries would be red like the Crunch Berries of yore instead of the blue and purple and green and red that they are now and that I greatly dislike. I miss the basics, what can I say? They emailed me back. A company like this should never, ever be sued. Their response:

RE: Cap'n Crunch's Crunchberries Cereal , REF.# 025902572A

Ahoy Mary!

The Cap'n and crew worked pretty hard to put those stickers over the word Olympics because we did not want any confusion with the Winter Olympics that were running at the same time.

Cap'n had been pacing his cabin for a while trying to puzzle out why you hated multi colored Crunchberries, after all they all taste exactly the same even though they grow in almost every color of the rainbow. But I finally pointed out to him that as his philosophy has always been "Crunch and let Crunch", he should not get too upset if some people have fond memories of the classic red Crunchberries.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Mary. Fair winds and safe voyage.

Michael

First Mate, S.S. Guppy

Long live Crunch Berries. And their PR Department. (I really liked the 'Ahoy!' Nice touch!)

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The Guitar Hero Effect

Mock all you want. You know who you are. (Yes, YOU.) So go ahead and mock. All you want (as I just said). Mock, mock, mock. But there won't be any mocking of the facts. That's right. The facts! And the facts are, the Guitar Hero franchise is a freaking money making machine! Ah-HA! I knew it! I knew I wasn't the only one who played that damn thing. (How many hours of my life have I spent on that thing? Who knows? All I know is that it is time I will never get back. Ever. It's gone. And was it worth it? Hell, yes.)

I knew the whole Guitar Hero thing was huge, but I didn't know just how huge. In the past 12 months, the sale of music video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band hit $1.9 billion. Yes, billion with a 'B'. Billion. 1.9. Holy crap. And get this: According to the pop culture folks over there at PopEater, "Aerosmith made more money off the June release of "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" than either of its last two albums." June. Of 2008. That's six freaking months ago! Man, if the Federal Government could figure out somehow to weasel their way into the video game industry, that budget problem we keep hearing about? Solved! And not just solved. Solved and fun!

And the revenue fun doesn't stop with just the sale of the game. Oh, no. There have been 55 million times that game-playable songs have been downloaded to the tune of about $1.99. Each. And with all of this cash and the fame and glory naturally comes the bitching and the lawsuit filing. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily by the same person.

In what was quite possibly the stupidest lawsuit ever brought by a band against a video game maker (and I have no idea how many there have been, but it doesn't matter because this will continue to the the stupidest lawsuit of its kind (ie, band v. game guys) from now until the end of time. It's that ridiculous.), The Romantics sued Activision for infringement of rights. (Now, I know The Romantics were an 80s band, but was there really that much fringe?) Oh, they had licensed the song from The Romantics, sure. Activision was given permission to have a cover band do the song "What I Like About You" for the Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s game. The problem? The Romantics said that the song that the cover band recorded sounded too much like The Romantics did, thus allegedly infringing upon the group's rights to its own likeness.

Sure, you can record our song! Sure, make it sound like our song! Hey, wait a minute! Not that much!! That's not us!! We don't sound like that! We sound like this! Yes, we know they sound the same. But they're different! That's the point! Different is supposed to be different and that different is the same and it can't be the same because it's supposed to be different! You buying any of that? I didn't think so. A judge didn't buy it either and tossed their suit out. (The only thing that would have made it better is if the judge had tossed The Romantics right on out along with the suit.)

Then there's Axl Rose. Axl has spent the last 13 years working on a Guns N' Roses album titled "Chinese Democracy". That's correct. Thirteen years. It was finally released at the end of November to much less fanfare than it would have been released to if Axl had finished it about 12 years ago. And he's apparently built up quite a head of steam over the folks at Activision and what he claims is unauthorized usage of Guns N' Roses songs in Guitar Hero III (which featured Slash, the awesome guitar player for Guns N' Roses back in the day. "The day" being when the band was together and Axl and Slash could actually stand to be in the same room with each other and shoot up heroin together.).

Axl got a little bloggy with it the other day and penned this missive: "[Slash] being Guitar Hero’s fine but not when Activision in using Jungle, having Yahoo use Sweet Child unauthorized, claims no involvement with Slash, his or anyone's image or VR or anyone or anyone's music in either camp in promotion or commercials etc. I wasn't broadsided. I read about it as it moved along but Activision continually denied it right up to the release. That’s some low life chicanery on all their parts." Wow. I was just reading that in my head and it felt like my tongue was all fuzzy trying to get through it. (He does get points for the use of "chicanery", however. Very nice. I like a vast vocabulary in my nearly forgotten rockers of yester-year.) He continued (Yes! There's more!) with: "Yes Slash was in Guns and on Jungle (and the whole I came to him for his riff is as much crap as him saying he brought Locomotive and Coma in as complete songs) and he has rights to perform it but not to be represented in this context in association with Guns. And since they weren't granted the license it’ll take some sorting." I see. (My tongue's all fuzzy again.)

Axl also claims that he is the "only member" of Guns N' Roses that is left. Um, wait. If you're the only one left, that means that everyone else is gone, correct? Thus, wouldn't that constitute the band being dismantled and having, thusly, NO members? I found that amusing. It's like saying, "Our band broke up, but I'm still here." That doesn't mean you're still the band! But here's the thing: This is the first time that Axl has voiced his displeasure with the whole dealio. Just now. December, 2008. Guitar Hero III was released in December. December 2007!

Seriously, Axl, how upset can you be? It's been a year. Is this news to you? I can't imagine that it is. I guess now that the ol' album is finally done you have plenty of spare time to bitch about stuff, is that it? Perhaps spend just a few moments learning a tad bit more about the English language and how to compose a sentence. Don't get me wrong, all of your words made sense...independently of each other. But stringing them together in an attempt to form some sort of a coherent sentence? Not so good. Might want to work on that....right after you get over yourself.

And while Axl has no reason to bitch, I do. Sometimes things that are successful also get a little full of themselves. Just like Axl. And while I'm not comparing the two or justifying either one, I just have to ask, what in the hell were the folks over there at Guitar Hero thinking when they made all of their advertisements for the game center around Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" and then did not include the song in the game?! What is wrong with you people? What good does that do? Yes, it's a catchy tune! Yes, a lot of people like it! Yes, a lot of people will hear that and want to buy the game! But do you know why they would want to buy the game after hearing that song? Because they will think the song is IN the game!! What part of that concept got lost over there, Guitar Hero guys?

What if you went to the grocery store and you bought a box of Cheerios because those toasty oaty O's on the front of the box looked really tasty. (OK, for this example, I suppose you might also want to pretend you haven't eaten in a few days, because I really can't think of any other reason that Cheerios might look appetizing, let alone desirable.) And then I get the box home and I open it up and I'm all excited for the Cheerios and I go to pour them in my bowl and nothing comes out! By not putting "Old Time Rock and Roll" on the actual Guitar Hero World Tour game, it's exactly like not getting any Cheerios. Exactly. Well, minus the toasty oaty goodness of the O's. But other than that? Identical.

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And The Eighth Marshmallow Is.......

It's finally happened! For the first time in over ten years! For ten long years there were seven. Just seven. And for ten long years, those seven yearned for the eighth. And they yearned. And they yearned. And then they yearned some more. But those days of yearning are finally over! Because the day has come! The moment is here! It is time to confirm that the rumors are true! And the truth will now be revealed! Lucky Charms cereal has added an EIGHTH marshmallow charm!! Wait. What?

Correct. General Mills announced that Lucky Charms will be adding a new marshmallow charm to it's rather oat-y, definitely whole-grained cereal. According to General Mills "The new charm will join seven other signature charms and be just as powerful." (To quote Chandler Bing, "There are seven??") Wait a minute. "Just as powerful"? "Just as powerful" as what? The leprechaun? That can't be it. Have you SEEN Lucky the Lucky Charms Leprechaun? Just look at him over on the right. See?

Just like all other leprechauns that I've seen, he looks remarkably similar to all of them, although the Lucky Charms leprechaun does appear to be a distant cousin of the Keebler Elf. Dressed in green....very small and thin....probably gay....definitely shifty....not seeming overly powerful. So I have no doubt he's actually a leprechaun, but I'm still a bit fuzzy on the "power" concept. How does that work?

Apparently, each of the marshmallow charms in Lucky Charms cereal have a magical power. This is the first I've heard of this. Granted, I was never a big Lucky Charms fan (gave the milk a rather saw-dusty taste), but my brother was and I don't remember him saying anything about these so-called magical marshmallows. (Trust me, if the marshmallows WERE magic, he would have used their magical powers for evil and I would have been turned into a frog. Or worse, a princess.) Well, I had to know more. And now that I do, I'm wondering why I "had" to in the first place. But here's what I now know:

• Pink Hearts. Not the name of the girl gang in "Grease", but rather the magical marshmallow charm that provides power. The power to bring things to life. (Like WHAT exactly? We're eating breakfast, remember? The only thing at the table that could be brought to life might be the bacon and frankly, I don't want to see that.)

• Shooting Stars. Not an astronomical extra-curricular activity, but instead the magical charm that invokes the power to fly. No word on when or how that happens exactly.

• Purple Horseshoes. Gay cowboys in some circles, but in your cereal bowl? The magical charm with the power to speed things up.
  
  
• Green Clovers. Now, this magical power, according to General Mills, will give you "luck, but you never know what kind of luck you're going to get." WTF?! So, you mean I could be eating a bowl of cereal that's going to give me BAD luck? Thanks, but I don't really want to take that chance first thing in the morning. Who would?! Shouldn't the box have some sort of disclaimer? You know, "This box contains green clovers and, while they're quite tasty, could really F-up your day."
  
  
• Blue Moons. Cute name, but rather than giving you something that almost never happens (as the name implies), instead they grant you the power of invisibility. Actually, I guess that is something that almost never happens. Huh.
  
  
• Multi-colored Rainbows. Sort of like the transporters on Star Trek, the rainbows enable instantaneous travel from place to place (and with gas at over four bucks a gallon right now, I'd rather fill my tank with rainbows than I would unleaded). Beam me up, Lucky!
  


• And finally, the Red Balloons. No word on whether there's 99 of them.. But the word on their magical power is that they make things float. OK then.

When did Lucky Charms become so multi-dimensional? Why is this cereal so freaking complicated? And, quite possibly, a threat to my having a lucky day if I get a box with Green Bad Luck Clovers in it! You need a flow chart to keep track of all of them! (And mind you, there were MORE magical charms at some point that have been discontinued. Those would include, but not be limited to, the "Swirly Whale". I have no idea who came up with the notion that a "Swirly Whale" would be a good addition to a bunch of magical "charms". But as if these seven weren't enough to keep track of, General Mills goes and crams another marshmallow charm in there to go with them. And the eighth magical marshmallow charm to join the other six lucky and one maybe lucky marshmallow charms is..........................

The yellow bow tie! Wait. What?

Oh. Sorry. I was looking at it sideways. Keyhole! The yellow keyhole! What? Dammit! Wrong again! Hourglass! The yellow hourglass and the power to control time! There! Finally! (This can't end well.) Behold! The newest Lucky Charms magical marshmallow:

(So you can see where I got confused.) OK, it took them TEN years to come up with THAT?! And the ability to control time? Control it HOW exactly? What if the magical hourglass is like that bastard magical clover? What if it controls the time so that you're always late? Or worse, what if it controls time so that you're always early?! (I have no personal knowledge of what that could ever be like, but it sounds just horrible.)

OK, let's review. Lucky Charms is a breakfast cereal that is extremely complicated. It's mascot is a little leprechaun that may or may not be gay, but it always wearing a hat. It has several different components, each one with their own little color and their own little power which may or may not be used for good. The latest magical marshmallow charm is the yellow hourglass. The yellow hourglass looks like and it often mistaken for a bow tie. If you would like all of these magical powers but do not have any Lucky Charms, a hit of LSD will suffice.

So did you get all of that? Good. But I have to tell you, that good luck-bad luck deal with the clovers really freaked me out. I'm having toast for breakfast from now on. No need to risk something so crucial to one's well being if you don't have to. I mean, seriously, if it weren't for luck, I'd be seriously screwed. And lately, well, a little "luck" certainly couldn't hurt things over here. And in some cases, it's really all I have to bank on, so I don't want to screw it up. Toast it is!

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