AT&T's Slick Ad End

An often-seen TV commercial boasts about how AT&T covers 97% of "USAmericans" (as long as they don't stray into certain rural or wilderness areas).

The commercial is a visual feast of American architecture--Gateway Arch, Hoover Dam, etc.--getting covered in orange drapes a la the artist Christo. They didn't actually do it--it was computer-generated.

At the very end, they cut to a satellite view of northern North America--you can see the Great Lakes near the bottom of the screen--the shot only lasts for a couple of seconds, so one supposes it's not an effort at boosting service to Canada.

But the continent is noticeably painted uniformly the same orange color--which might be described as rust- or copper-colored. This makes the shot eerily resemble all those depressing Gulf oil slick TV news bits people have been seeing the past three months.

That's certainly not the kind of association AT&T would have wanted. One can only surmise that the commercial was tested out on focus groups before the Gulf oil disaster.

And, wouldn't you know it, in-between drafts of this paper, there was a major oil line rupture in the Great Lakes area!

Steven (Starjet) Kearney

Bad Names for Cars (that sound good until you consider what they mean:

Miasma Fiasco Entropy
Cretin Crony Craven
Mirage Enigma Phantom
Forerunner Penultimate Vacillator
Delilah Jeremiad Pariah
Sundry Desultory Slacker
Novice Dilettante Tyro
Angina Atrophy Aphasia
Edema Vapid Exiguous

Zebra Kaleidoscope