{"id":4398,"date":"2009-05-14T05:53:35","date_gmt":"2009-05-14T09:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=4398"},"modified":"2009-05-14T09:30:27","modified_gmt":"2009-05-14T13:30:27","slug":"bars-on-every-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/bars-on-every-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"Bars on Every Corner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AT&T<\/a>I worked for AT&T, late 1970s through sometime in the early 1990s (depending on where you want to place the marker). And I was a loyal customer, too. When less costly competing services came along, from MCI and Sprint, I never gave them a glance. I never considered buying a phone or answering machine that lacked the stylized bell logo (or later, the stripy globe). Even my first real home PC was an AT&T model.<\/p>\n

In more recent years, the loyalty has faded. It’s pretty much just the brand name now which gets acquired by new corporate scalphunters. (For people I worked with back then who remain with the company, such as it is, working life must feel a little surreal.) My cell phone now comes from Finland. It operates on a cellular network belonging to one of those “inferior” competitors. I’ve moved on.<\/p>\n

All of which is by way of saying (you were wondering, admit it): I don’t have any particular vested interest in recent AT&T cellular service ads on TV… except as a TV viewer.<\/p>\n

And as a TV viewer, I’ve started to become obsessed with those ads. Those frigging ads<\/em>…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The first one to trigger this obsession in me is called, apparently, the “Sweet Pea” ad. A father is going on a business trip, and his little daughter packs her stuffed-monkey toy in his briefcase. As the father travels here and there, using his AT&T phone he takes photos of the monkey in various amusing poses. For example, he holds up the monkey so that it seems to be climbing up the side of a skyscraper (hello, King Kong). And he then sends these photos (with his phone’s email feature) back to his wife and little girl.<\/p>\n

Where the first little blip fired in my subconscious was at 7 seconds into this video:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

See those skyscrapers in the skyline as the man’s cab drives by? What city is that<\/strong>?<\/em>, I wondered. Where are there five buildings arranged just that way, from shortest to tallest?<\/em><\/p>\n

(Hint: nowhere.)<\/p>\n

And then I got to the 10-second mark: five stacks of newspapers alongside a newsstand… short stack to the left, then a little taller stack, and so on to a waist-high monster. (In a real city, that stack would have fallen — or been pushed — over way before the first one got whittled down to ankle height.)<\/p>\n

And so it continued:<\/p>\n