A Sucker Born Every Minute: The Vivitar 35mm Camera

Ok, I've officially seen everything. I half expect Vince or the resurrected spirit of Billy Mays to be hawking this product. You need to go to their site and watch the video. My father, for the love of him, is a Luddite. HE CAN EVEN USE A GODDAMN DIGITAL CAMERA.


But enough of that, the add has all the hallmarks of 'As Seen On TV' marketing.

It has the initial pitch

Then, a show stopper!

Oh how I love seeing those words. They are a mark of (lack of)

quality to any ad I see.

In the end, the deal was better than expected:

Now THAT looks like... crap. If you read the fine print, you pay an extra $7 "shipping and handling" fee for the first camera. Then another $7 for "processing and handling" for the second one. $24 is still cheap, but then you factor in buying more film and film processing charges and yeah this is a cheap alternative to downloading them to your computer. For Gaia's sake this is ridiculous. The features of "Built-in flash" and "Motorized Automatic Advance" reek of "We have extra stock of these. Jimmy, make an ad campaign to get rid of them now!"

And Jimmy did, and will reel in many poor saps.

Tales from the Crapiness

Hope everyone had a nice 4th of July. I'm still recovering but I decided to go ahead and put a post together for you all. On the 3rd I went scrounging again for the greatest finds in the Crap Pile and Kitchen Crap to bring to you. Here's my recent findings.

Hopefully you don't need to cut anything, because the only offerings here are 12 soups spoons or 12 forks. And though you wouldn't think it, these are aluminium not plastic. Not a bad deal at $2, but still not worth it for the fear of it being coated with lead.

Being a guy I don't see the usefulness of this one. I guess if you gals want your bra straps to slowly strangulate your neck you can hook one of these things in and let it do it's magic.

Wow, that's a cheap Forty.... oh wait, 40 CDs. It holds 40 CDs. Damnit, I wanted a drink! Or a bottle, as the case may be.

Hard to see, but our old friend the Specuallty cloth is under this Beauty Scrub Cloth. And again with the whiter than fscking white skin from using this. At this point, I'm thinking about using an SOS pad rather than this. It might actually be gentler!

Speaking of fine engrish. Spange? Really? I'm really trying to figure out what accent I need to put on to convert sponge to this. And it's one of those plastic ones even, not a true sponge.

Oh god, the stupid it burns. Here's the thing. Some Grandma, somewhere, just bought this for her grandson who's into "that rangers thing." Bonus points here: Displays "New Arrival" and "Collect Them All" on the cardboard. 1) This never 'arrived' on TV as far as I can tell (Unless its a Super Sentai team I've never heard of) and 2) I have them all right there, and I know this because you're so goddamn cheap that you will never release more.

Ok, I know what a pie shield is. My question is thus: Why make it into 5 easy to lose pieces? yes I know you can shield different sizes of pies but how often do you switch between say a 9" to a 12"?

Going further down into the useless category. Really? Is the can lid too good for you you need to spend $5 or so on a piece of one-use-only crap? Has Alton taught you nothing?

NOT LONGER POWERED BY THE AIR WE BREATHE

One year ago today we lost a great man, a great entertainer... oh wait, excuse me:

ONE YEAR AGO TODAY WE LOST A GREAT MAN

Bla bla bla yes I know the joke is old. But June 28th, 2009 was a real shocker. I thought at first the reports of his death were a joke. As more and more came in on the news feeds I realized we all were going to miss out on some truely epic and, more importantly, new products that he would hock. We'll still have the nostalgia of seeing his previous products like this one:

Wait just one fucking second, I've see this before. Holy SHIT! I HAVE seen it before

That's it, that's what happened. Billy didn't die from Oxycleaning his nose, causing him to have a heart attack. Vince offed him in a fit of rage over having the same damn product.

---

In all actuality, I had seen Billy's version of the producted at the Kitchen Pile several times. In fact seeing it there was the idea for naming the post about Vince Shalomi. Every time I tried getting a pic of the box, thought, I kept missing. Thought about even buying one, just to say that I have one. Anyways, may the man rest in peace. He gave me many laughs at his expense, hell I think he wants those laughs. As someone once told me: If you don't have haters you're not doing it right.

Stuff the Shamwow guy wouldn't sell

So you wouldn't know it but I go to the OC Fairgrounds quite a bit, but it's mostly on the weekend for and out-of-the-way grocers market where I score quite a bit of deals on fruits and vegtables. So today I fill up my backpack to the brim and then some (Fair is closed next weekend so I needed to stock up) and I decided to check out the other booths.

Now I decided today to peruse the rest of The Marketplace, as it's called and I came upon and old favorite: there's several locations I call The Junk Pile and The Kitchen Junk Pile. The Junk Piles have cheap crap, just in cardboard boxes ranging in price from $1-5 dollars, depending on what the operators think the stuff is worth. Kitchen Junk Piles have just as much junk, but they're on shelves and cost more and are, by their name, used for the kitchen.

I decided today to take some pictures and show you just how odd some of this crap is. Let's take a look shall we? (Note: Most of my pictures from my camera came out crappy, so I plan on going back to get some more tomorrow. The spot I get my food from, Bruce's Produce, gives away free passes to The Marketplace if you
buy enough. I got two passes today, and my back hurts from hauling all that home in my backpack >_<)

First item is from an aforementioned Junk Pile stop. 'Specually Bath Belt' is the best engrish I seen in a while. Also more than mildy ecchi as well. Strategically placed bubbles keep it from going full hentai. What can't be seen in my pic is that this is basically a plastic washcloth, with material that looks more like a kitchen scrubber than anything I'd use on my body for bathing purposes. My guess is that those are soap bubbles, but clouds of skin ripped off by used of this thing. Not recommended, even if it is only a buck.

Next, from the Kitchen Junk, are cute little mini whisks made to look like pigs. While PigglyWiggly is how I first read it, there are no Ls in this. But, then again, a nursery rhyme about going home without supper is also not the best association to have about something used to prepare food.

Not content with just having a bagel cutter? Why not execute the sonofabitch with this sleek little device. Maybe the bagel had subversive thoughts? Murdered the cream cheese? Was looking to cause a Muffin Revolution? Yep, time to kill it in on swift move.

If I'm going to be barbecuing, I'd want more that 6 patties. But I do have to give props where they are due, as this would be the least worthless crap I found at the Kitchen Crap today. I could totally see the commercial for something like this. Oh wait, there is something similar, but only does 5 small patties:

Last but not lease I have a question to ask. Exactly at what size do they become cake rather than cupcake? I mean seriously.