TV... it's the best and the worst

Alright, we all have our favorite shows and events to watch on TV. Or maybe you are just dealing with your laziness with a healthy dose of the brain-fryer. Either way you are a consumer of the old tube, nay, you are a conossieur of TV-land. With the weather outside a this moment, I wish I could go back there, lay on my couch, and immerse myself in the web of comedic genius of 7th Heaven or the non-stop heart-pounding drama that is Family Guy. Those 7th Heaven writers are so spot-on... you know?

But you know what really grinds my gears?

"Engineer"
Let me first address the over-use of the word engineer. You probably haven't noticed this if you are not, in fact, an engineer yourself. The idea that someone has engineered anything being sold on an infomercial really gets me. Do you think the Topsy-tail was really "engineered" to reality by its most-likely tooth- and degree-less creator? And I am talking High School degree here. It reminds me of that scene in Wayne's World where the guy stops buy with the Suck-kut (sp?). Anyway the guy is demonstrating it and Wayne says "Well, it certainly does suck."

Obviously, I have a vested interest in the overuse of this word, but honestly, look at how it is used. I am fine with the train drivers' titles. They probably get first dibs here. Everyone else though (the guys at the radio stations, all the other techie people in the entertainment industry, and or any trade school grad without an Engineering degree) should not be called engineers. I worked my ass off to get here and have enough debt to show for it. I am tired of this shit.

The funny thing is, we engineers would never say anything like that. We usually just say that we'll "design" something. Oh well, my eruption of animosity is proabably firmly seated in my anger with advertising anyway. Which brings me to my next point.

Marketing
I think marketing with commercials does nothing and you could not convince me otherwise. The only way I would concede that marketing through commercials works is if I was actually impressed with the products merits themselves. Not because the commercial is funny or there is some hot chick in the commercial. Aside from regular commercials, you also get the two-for-the-price of one bullshit. Take Geico commercials. They are famous for this.

Then the other ones that drive me crazy are the station specific hyping of their own programs. This seems to be worse on cable stations like Comedy Central or VH1. This past weekend I saw a classic example of this. I was watching a couple of shows on VH1 and there was a commercial for this new show "But Can They Sing?" VH1 felt the need to play this commercial at every break but somehow stifled the feeling to record more than one promo! This is like catching old news over and over. And let me tell you...