In the produce section of a supermarket this weekend, I saw a display of Pink Oranges. Um, no. Pink Grapefruit I can understand. I won’t eat it, but I get it. Kinda. But Pink Oranges? What part of the word “orange” do I have to explain? What’s next, Red Blueberries? By the way, if you buy pink oranges, you may not then continue purposely shopping only for foods labeled Non-GMO — or did you think the color change was natural and organic?
Speaking of words, “waitress” seems to have gone the way of “stewardess,” replaced by the supposedly gender-neutral “server.” But, wait. If changing the “-er” suffix on “waiter” to “waitress” is sexist, isn’t it also a problem at the end of “server”? I’m not suggesting we use “servess,” but “server” isn’t a fix at all. Perhaps we should just wait a few years until our robot “waitron” is programmed to take our orders and deliver our food. Now if I could just get the woman at St. Louis Bread Company to stop calling me “sweetie.”
I really enjoyed binge-watching the Netflix series “Russian Doll,” but it occurs to me it would be a much different show if Natasha Lyonne would simply watch where she’s walking.
How much of a sports betting addict did you have to be to wager on the opening weekend games of the Alliance Of American Football? How could anyone possibly create a valid spread for teams full of unknowns that had never faced any competition before?
Watching both the Netflix and Hulu documentaries about the Fyre Festival disaster, created by con artist Billy McFarland, I empathized most with the Bahamian workers who did all the building, driving, catering, etc. in the weeks before the target date, only to get the shaft instead of a paycheck. On the other hand, I have no sympathy for the team from Fuck Jerry, who should be held much more responsible for their exploitation of social media to attract victims — both concertgoers and investors. Because the Netflix doc was produced with their assistance, I recommend the Hulu version instead.
Before the movie started at an AMC theater the other night, we were bombarded with messages about the Noovie arcade app, which allows you to point your phone at the screen and play a game, a la Pokemon Go. Seriously, I counted 17 mentions in 20 minutes. It’s bad enough that I have to sit through the commercials and badly-edited trailers and other promotional nonsense, but I’m there to watch a movie, not play a game on my phone. Incidentally, this was before the Joni Mitchell concert documentary, where the audience isn’t exactly the target demographic for an augmented reality game. It’s stuff like this that makes more people say, “I’ll just wait until I can watch it at home.”
Memo to podcasters: during your show, you don’t have to use radio formatics such as reminding us what we’re listening to, who you are, or who your guest is. We had all that information when we downloaded your audio — and we’re not tuning in halfway through, so there’s no need to use the re-join rules we broadcasters applied. Just get to the meat of your topic, or guest, or rant, and make it compelling enough to keep us listening all the way through.