Merry Commercialmas.

Retail outlets are always looking for excuses to have sales. There are two holidays where they get something decent and overlay their commercially-fuelled bullshit over it. The first is Easter, Jesus' death and resurrection. While the Easter eggs can be viewed as a "sign of new life", they try to say that the Easter Bunny laid them. Bunnies don't lay eggs.

We're coming up to the second. Christmas. Jesus' birth. A jolly fat old man in a red fur suit doesn't have anything to do with it. Ho ho ho, merry Commercialmas. Let's just completely forget the Christian theme to it and make up some bullshit so we can sell our crap, shall we? What a fucking brilliant idea!

I'm going to attack a few ads.

Firstly, Kmart. They have an ad with a slogan: "where christmas starts" (or something like that). What a crock of shit. Everyone should know that Christmas started in Bethlehem. At least they have a better chance than these guys...

Next up, Harvey Norman. I fucking hate their ads. In my opinion, Russian pharma spammers make better ads than these guys. At least they have imagination... "Take the blue pill, and I'll show you how far the rabbit hole goes..."

If I recall correctly, they claimed that they were a one-stop shop for Christmas. Here's a few basics. Firstly, can you buy a Bible? Considering that a co-owner of Harvey Norman, Gerry Harvey, has an estimated Australian $1.8 billion, and refuses to give any of it to charity as it'll just go to waste, or something like that, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that you will be able to buy a Bible there. However, there is a Gerry Harvey's chance in hell of them selling whiteware.

Even if we ignore Christian "tradition", can you buy a tree? Can you buy Christmas cards? Can you buy food? Most people don't buy everyone whiteware and appliances for Christmas ("Daddy, what does this thing do?"); in fact, a lot don't buy anyone whiteware and appliances. OK, maybe they do occasionally.

Actually, how many shops say that they are a one-stop shop for Christmas? Out of those, how many actually can be?

And I'm running out of ideas, so I'll end it here.

[FILLER] Well, I *had* some ideas...

Don't worry, I haven't dropped dead yet. I'm just a little bit stuffed for ideas right now.

In the meantime, how about a bit of Cyanide & Happiness?


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net. Apparently I'm supposed to leave that bit in.