Every once in awhile I take the time to read our local newspaper. Actually, read is probably too strong of a word. It is really more of a scan since most of the content is already old news previously obtained from sources on the net. The cut and paste from the AP feeds is quite annoying to the point the only sections worth looking at are the opinions page and the city state page. The latter providing access to the local crime activities (and to make sure my name didn’t make it there by accident!). On this particular scan, two things stood out. One of them was this picture from the AP (rights remains with AP)
There are a number of things that caught my attention here. First off, anyone who thinks the economy is anywhere close to being out of the woods hasn’t been paying attention to the news at all and therefore wouldn’t be reading the paper in the first place – making this entry completely pointless (more filler). Secondly, I share those same initials giving me flashbacks of school ribbing. Third, did someone actually sit down an say to themselves “This would be an awesome name for my establishment”? If so, then this might be the same dude that thought Pen Island would be a great Internet company name for an ink pen wholesaler (hint, write out the obvious URL string – I just checked, it is still accepting http requests, but now has gone dark). Lastly, from the gutter, an image popped into my head with that name that made me shudder.
If that wasn’t enough, this add caught my attention from Illinois Furniture.
This store has been going out of business for at least a year now (likely even longer than that). It has become a local running joke to the point I think the city board is now investigating this store. This was a full page add so I cut it down for easier viewing.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen this advertised both in local media and an army of people holding the standard “Going out of Business” placards on the street corners. But this is the part of the advertisement that caused me to burst out laughing.
So, I can save UP to 70%. Typically by all marketing standards I am familiar with, this is the highest amount of saving that can be assumed for the advertised store and this can have all kinds of devious interpretations depending on integrity of the company. But wait, it also says I can save “AND MORE”. What the hell does that mean? If I can save more than 70%, why did they cap my enthusiasm previously by indicating my ceiling of financial thriftiness was 70%? Now they have just confused me so I’ll head to Good’s instead.
Hit the jump to see a few more fails
