Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Click and clack...

Is there any business more rife with abuse and dishonesty than the auto sales industry? It’s all about lying, misrepresenting, fraud, inflated prices and more lies as they mistreat you when your car is serviced.

Speaking of customer service, at car dealers, it is anything but. I have a car under warranty, with a steering problem, and they tell me the best diagnostic tool is a 4-wheel alignment. But, I have to pay for it…? I don’t get it. My car is under warranty, the steering is failing, and they have a diagnostic tool that may help solve the problem, but they want to charge me for it? That’s like a doctor telling you that you might have lung cancer, but they can tell for sure if you have an X-ray, that you need to pay for, even though you have health insurance! GMFB!!! So I have to pick a fight…its always a fight. But of course, if you stand up to them, they back down. You see, the only point in telling me I had to pay for the alignment was so they could rip me off for $89,because they’re getting paid a lesser amount on all the warranty work, so why not try to rip me off so they can make a few bucks. Also, why not try to make more by telling me the only way to make the handling better is by selling me 4 tires at $140.00 each!!! Thieves!

Feel free to share your stories…I could go on forever.

Random thoughts…

I was reading my favorite blog, www.bykenlevine.com (see his link on the side column), and it got me thinking about TV theme songs. They really have gone downhill. To me, the theme song was helpful in establishing the story line, or at least the tone and tenor of a show. Some of these songs had a real impact, and I still know the lyrics to some of my childhood favorites. Now, it’s just a quick hit of a few bars of a song, and then to the commercial break. Come back, and the show is on, but with the credits rolling along the bottom for 5 minutes. Bring back the days of the set-up, the song, and the show. I miss the old songs; I have a few current favorites (like “The Sopranos”), but here’s my list of some of the all-time greats (in no particular order):

Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, Green Acres, The Andy Griffith Show, Chico and the Man, All in the Family, The Jeffersons, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, White Shadow, Lou Grant, Rockford Files, Gilligan’s Island, Love Boat (doing my Isaac Washington, “your bartender”, double finger point right at ya…), Cagney and Lacey, Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, F Troop, The Beverly Hillbillies, Cheers.

People who choose to be stand-up comedians HAVE to know the life isn’t unending adulation. Platypus Man, Richard Jeni, just never caught on and killed himself last week. The ultimate punch line, I guess. Sometimes, life isn’t funny.

The sound Mark Burnett is hearing is people turning off their televisions when either The Apprentice or Survivor is on. You know a show is being sent to the scrap heap when they put it on at 10:00pm Sunday night (The Apprentice), which will be up against “The Sopranos”, or when they don’t run the “bring you up to date” episode of Survivor on the Wednesday before the tournament. Those shows have a limited life span, and I am surprised Survivor has lasted this long. Some of the half-naked contestants might be a reason…they might want to incorporate that into The Apprentice somehow, as long as it isn’t The Donald.

Rocky VI is out on DVD now. If you watch it in HD, you can see some Botox leaking out of his face. Can’t wait for Rambo IV-Last Blood/VA Hospital!

You been a great audience…don’t forget to tip your waitresses…enjoy Supertramp.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Survivor has gone completely downhill. They used to get people on the show that applied, not they cast. The past two seasons most of the contestants have been from the LA area which means they were all mactors (thats model/actor).

And friggin Apprentice has gone totally overboard with the tent living situation for the losers. The board room has turned into a survivor tribal council. Trumps ploos the losers about who they would fire and then he fires the top vote getter.

Anonymous said...

Not sure that the TV theme is done and gone. Rather, its the sitcom itself that is gone . . . and the themes with it. You noted "The Sopranos" theme. Similarly, I can't walk through the gym without hearing the "Grey's Anatomy" theme. All the MTV shows ("The Hills", "My Sweet 16", etc.) have recognizable theme songs. Its "Yes Dear" and the "The World According to Jim" among others that you don't connect to themes, in large part because the shows suck.

Give me The Munsters, Dobie Gillis, McHale's Navy and Gilligan's Island and their respective themes instead of what we're stuck with today (and I don't care what anyone says, that Friends knockoff with Doogie Howser is not that great).