This has been a pretty physical week for me to the point where this is probably the first time in years (likely exactly 6 years) that I have come home from work and literally crashed out on the couch – actually let me qualify that a bit – came home, completed my training runs and then crashed out on the couch. I didn’t want you to think I was cheating out on my road to running injury recovery. This week will likely result in some future blog entries (depending on how much I think I can discuss about this week in a public forum). For now, just know this particular week I do not have a chair in my “office”. In light of my fatigue, I figured I would simply post a series of fails that I have either come across myself or obtained from my brother or friends.

I am going to start out with my favorite one. Linda actually alerted me to this one. She was traveling down Rt 91 in Dunlap/Peoria when she noticed this sign. Now keep in mind this is one of those things that has plagued me all my life. I was blessed with a name that really can’t be “cutesied” up which I have appreciated, but there is one very common mistake I still see on a daily basis. I have no idea if this sign is actually right or not, but my guess is this particular Brian has fell victim to this common mistake.

The odd thing is it has been up there for months (I made Linda drive by it so I could get a picture). So either it is right or he has also resigned to it. I always nicely respond with a “thanks for the compliment” when the mistake is made in person.

Hit the jump for the rest of the fail gallery!

I was walking my lot last year when this particular fungus caught my attention…. kind of funny looking eh, if you were hungry you might even think it looked like a pancake.  Wait, you realized I’m talking about the small fungus at the bottom right?  Is someone swimming laps in the gutter again?

Oh, before I forget, I finally upgraded my phone to a new smart phone.  Although my Motorola Razor was a true workhorse that survived many a day in the woods with me, it was finally time to let it go.  Most of these pictures were taken with the Razor and some were forgotten about until I did the photo transfer to the new phone.  The good news is the new phone has a much better camera so future fail shots should be a lot crisper.

If you are a merchant and want to throw me into rage, try to deceive me through deceptive marketing.  I have just about had it with the mis-marked merchandise and sales that are not sales gimmicks that are showing up all over the place now.  For example, this was found in Lowes one day.   The photo chopped some of the sticker off, but they had put a huge green sign below their DeWalt cordless drill proclaiming a “SPECIAL VALUE” of $129.  This caught my attention having a need to replace my drill for the bridge work.  Knowing Lowes has done this to me before I looked a little closer and sure enough, the regular sticker was right next to it also proclaiming $129.  That doesn’t seem so special to me, but then again I must be a dumb consumer.  Note, there are the words Everyday Low Price on the sign, but if that is the everyday price, what is the purpose for the LARGE GREEN SIGN?  We know why and it isn’t going to work … off to Menards.

My brother Ron sent this sign shot to me.  I cannot remember where it was exactly but it was either in the Chicago or Springfield area.  I’ll let you be the judge if this savings (as written) would sway you in any manner to get gas if you hadn’t already decided you needed to fill up or consider signing up for a shell card.

I stared at this sign for awhile and I am still trying to decide if this is right or not.  Originally it seemed to be missing an apostrophe before the first S.  After some pondering it felt like there should be an apostrophe after the first S to account for multiple people’s health.  Then I thought forget about what health cares about the situation, wash your damn hands for ME and my fellow humans.  After about 5 minutes of staring at this sign I decided it was time to get out of that bathroom for my sake.

Another entry from Ron.  Unlike the approach from Lowe’s, truth in advertising is extremely refreshing.  According to Ron his son Derek took this shot while in Oak Lawn at a stoplight.

Linda and I stumbled on this in Target over the Christmas Holiday.  A Grooming Adventure Set.  Let me type that again.  A Grooming Adventure Set… Nope, it still doesn’t feel right in the least.  So what we have here is a comic book hero being used to market to kids the concept that shaving is fun in contrast to what every adult male who uses a manual razor (like me) knows not to be the truth.  Taking this a step further, they have now associated a RAZOR to a TOY so leaving  a real one out accidentally has that much more of a chance of becoming very ugly very fast.

The ever alert Ron also sent me this complete GEM.  This was the packing on a flashlight called Zenolite.  I’ll paste his own comments from when he sent me this:

The angles on the left, top and right side mean something, but there’s no rationale for the angles listed along the bottom of the plot and their corresponding curves on the plot. NONE! Just technobabble.

There are other oddities: the degree sign after rather than before the C in the table, the “Nominal Battery Volt” rather than “Nominal Battery Voltage” or “Nominal Battery Volts”, the fact that “Only ZENOLITE can penetrate the darkness at any given moment with dynamic LED beams of ultra bright light” (BTW, there’s no such thing as a dynamic LED, so that’s nothing?), the fact that a company banking on a name like that should realize that the element is Xenon, not Zenon, unless they were referring to the famous Zeno paradoxes such as never getting where you’re going if you always halve the distance, etc.

He also followed up with the company regarding his perspectives on the packaging but alas, they failed to respond to his inquiry… SIGH!

This shot was taken a week or so after a snow storm at a Peoria parking lot – some of my readers may recognize where this was at.  Now keep in mind the pavement was basically clean with the exception of where the plows had to pile it while clearing.   Seems like there is always someone who thinks four wheel technology is a new thing.  So instead of using one of the 50 other spaces in this lot, this particular one seemed like the best possible place.

because the spot to the right was just tooooo convenient.

The next two shots were taken at the Burger King on Allen Road in Peoria.  They actually put in a some gaming units that are free for their customers to play.  They definitely get an ‘A’ for customer attention, but close inspection left a lot to desire on the installation process.

Would it have killed the designer to move that down post 5 inches to address the alignment issue with the light?  It is difficult to tell from the angle of the picture, but the curvature is towards the light.

Ron has definitely been keeping a keen eye on his surroundings.  He also sent me this shot he took on the road (again, think near Chicago).  I wonder how long it will take Velazquez to figure out he overpaid for his trucking firm’s signage and in turn costing him a reputation for quality and attention to detail.

Not going to say much about this – you read the product, you decide if it is a fail or success.

By the way, if your mind is still in the gutter from the fungus shot above, you might get a chuckle out of this product I found at Menards one day.  Either this was cleverly planned or someone in their marketing department is not getting enough… uhhhhhh attention.. that is what I meant, not getting enough attention.

Come on Burger King!  It is bad enough you partnered with a crappy movie (purely judged on their box office take since I have had no personal desire to see any of his movies after his first fairly decent one), but do we really need product displays that make every male cringe?  Note, my friend is always commenting on the fact that M. Night couldn’t be bothered with putting an actual Asian actor as the lead in this movie.

And lastly, I bring you a shot taken at the Shell Filling Station in Kickapoo IL. At least they got it right 50% of the time.   But now that I give it some thought, it will probably go unnoticed by all smokers since they  obvious don’t actually read product labels anyway.

That is all for now folks.  The muscles are screaming in agony and the bed awaits my spent body.  Hope you enjoyed some of the things that keep life interesting (and somehow people employed).  Thanks also to my brother for all his submissions.