Three-fer

Three things that vexed me today, one with slight mitigation.

1. Vanity plate, MANOWAR. Being a progressive pacifist pinko, I probably would have just stuck to my initial thought--"Like, a giant jellyfish?"--and been on my way...but for the big clipped-to-the-window American flag also flying from the automobile. Then I was given to wonder. Man-o-war as in your car is an armed naval vessel? Man-o-war as in you're a veteran? Or...Man-o-war 'cause you just think war is...kind of awesome? There was some sort of pro-Dubya, God Bless the USA, bomb-Eye-Raq-now vibe hovering over the whole thing that unsettled me, war as a spectator sport. CNN, ESPN, quelle difference?

Though there were not any visible Bush stickers or magnetic ribbons. Perhaps he is just a proud patriot who also happens to be fond of the 80s metal band.

2. Safeway. They were piping in innocuous lite hits, as you do...but as I patrolled the aisles in search of my Fat Club-approved lean proteins and frozen blueberries, I gradually became aware that the song playing overhead was...the theme to the Mickey Mouse Club.

First, buh? That doesn't turn up on your average Time-Life compilation. If there was some sort of promotional tie-in going on, I missed it. Second? I'd never thought about it before, but that song consists primarily of CHILDREN YELLING. At ten o'clock in the freaking morning; what gives, Safeway?

3. Here at NerdCo we are subject to a perpetual onslaught of internal marketing. Lavish banners and posters appear in the night, urging us to check out this or that new Awesome Product TM; glossy fliers are thrust into our thousands of mailboxes. I've never understood this because nine times out of ten, I have been looking at/working on Awesome Product TM all damn day and I KNOW ALREADY, NerdCo! Just who are they trying to reach?

Anyway. New poster in the hall this week, touting something or other, with the bold, bright headline: More Firepower. Less Firedrills.

No, no, NO! Wrong! Bad! FEWER. "Less" goes with numbered items, "fewer" with abstract quantities. (Yes, I am one of those people who wigs out in the grammatically incorrect express checkout lane.) Perhaps they could have spent less dollars on posters, and tapped one of the HUNDREDS of NerdCo editors before this thing rolled off the presses, maybe?

So. Grumpy, I marched back out there with my red pen to correct/vandalize corporate property. Imagine my delight to find that someone else had beaten me to the punch! Editors--we are everywhere, bub, look out.