You ever see those commercials for the company BASF? They don't have a store and you can't buy anything from them. But they proudly declare, "At BASF, we don't make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better." The positive feedback on my ideas to fix yellow lights, and thus making driving everywhere safer, as well as my solution to increase revenue for the Post Office --shameful plug alert-- (in "Meet The Press This Ain't" & "Saving the Post Office One Tooth At a Time", respectively), has gone to my head. So why stop there? Why not make like BASF, and make some other things better?
New Jersey Driver Licenses- There is a battle brewing in the Garden State between the DMV and its happy drivers. Apparently the DMV is the New Jersey equivalent of Disney World, as people can't seem to wipe the smiles off of their faces. Smiling however, is frowned upon these days. Such an exaggerated facial expression confuses their facial recognition software, which is used to check their database of 19 million drivers and ensure each driver is who they say they are and that they have only 1 driving record. Yeah, sure the software is being used to stamp out fraud. Come on, New Jersey! We've all seen The Sopranos.
Anyway, some New Jersey drivers take umbrage with this. They prefer to save their mug shot pose for when they actually have their mug shot taken. Both sides are unyielding, as several drivers have walked out without having their photo taken. This whole song and dance can be easily avoided.
New Jersey, you need to create an uncomfortable atmosphere where even the happiest of smiles will surely die- like a real DMV. First off, turn up the heat. Regardless of the season, make sure it is always stuffy in there. Place a clock on each wall and make sure none of them are synchronized because that is both confusing and irritating. Have the same song playing on repeat, for example Alanis Morissette's "Ironic". And adorn your walls with creepy clown paintings. Not scary clown paintings, with fangs and knives, but just weird and not happy. And just artistically poor.
Train your employees that they must wait at least a full two minutes before seeing the next person. Two minutes in real time is equal to 19 minutes in DMV time, even in New Jersey. Make sure drivers are seated in front of a neutral backdrop. Remove any normal chairs and replace them with stools with bicycle seats. Instruct your employees to get up and leave for at least another 2 minutes once the driver sits down. When they return, the driver should have heard Alanis sing "Its like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife" for the third time by now, and may actually find the song to be ironic, as they also are wishing for a knife right now. Regardless, there will be many more looks of contempt than smiles.
And in reality, the facial recognition software will become even more efficient, since it will have a database full of murderous glares. So your welcome in advance, New Jersey.
**I don't want to come off as a killjoy or government stooge, but my kids who may one day want to visit New Jersey and I'd rest easier knowing this software was helping catch criminals.**
Local News- Okay, listen here news producers, I am well aware of how the tease works. And for the most part, I'm okay with you creating a little suspense in your broadcast. But a great number of your viewers are tuning in solely for the weather. Not everybody has time to wait until the 17 minute mark for the full report. It doesn't matter what time of day it is - morning, noon, or night. Just give us the damn weather report already.
Not the dew point. Not the time of the sunset. Don't show me a map with red and blue lines all over it. Show me a screen with the 5 day forecast - high & low temperatures and chance of precipitation and that's it- in the first 3 minutes of every broadcast! No exceptions.
Listen, people have to get the kids ready for school, make dinner, spend half their day in the DMV. We don't have time for this. Sure local weatherman Tad Whitley or whoever your local weatherman may be is as handsome as he is paid. Why wouldn't you put him on camera, especially with those cheekbones? But he'll have to wait until later to stand in front of a green screen and bore us with things like pollen counts and how many names of clouds he knows.
Your Vacation Photos- I'm afraid I do have to single out one group of people in this instance, and I'm not going to sugarcoat this at all. White women (although this does apply to some men as well), do not get vacation cornrows. Ever! Cornrows are not meant for you. What better time than to do something uncharacteristic of you than on vacation? But ladies, if you get vacation cornrows, they will always haunt you. Trust me. Lets flip through your photo album and see how this plays out.
Photo from Day 1- You and your significant other, arms around each other, are on a gorgeous beach, both smiling widely. Awww, you guys. Its so nice you two finally went away.
Photo from Day 2- There you are, with your vacation cornrows in place. Look at you. Same beautiful beach, the love of your life by your side. Now look a little closer. You have a tan face, braided hair, and streaks of blinding bright white scalp. Your head kind of looks like a backgammon board. Your significant other never wears sunglasses, ever, but bought a pair just before this photo was taken. And is that a moth flying around your head? In the daytime?!
Photo from Day 3- There the two of you are again on the beach. The sun has really taken to you. You have acquired quite a nice tan on your face and body. But there isn't an SPF high enough to protect that albino-like scalp, as your vacation corn rows alternate with strips of your beat red, sun scorched skin. Your significant other has his arm around you, but he isn't really touching you. He is smiling, but is also holding a very large alcoholic drink and looking down the beach at something...or someone. And look closer. The people in the background in the water are not actually engaged in a splash fight, but rather laughing at you so hard they can't help but flail about in the water.
On the Randomalities scale of Bad Ideas, with a 5 being "Giving Monkeys Blowtorches Bad", vacation corn rows rate a 3 ( "Green lighting the Movie 'Glitter" Bad). The regret may not be immediate, but you will never want to see them again.
And that friends, is what the BASF is up!
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