I'm+attracted+to+all+the+shiney+things...

I'm a sucker for advertising. The message, the image, the humor, the key phrases, the whole bit. I love it, I get it, and I'm fairly good at creating it. When I buy a product, it has to be just right and I get a little silent pang of joy when something conveys that message. Body lotion, for example, it's got to have the pump, it's got to come in a nice bottle so I can put it on my dresser, it has to make me smell good (not like candy, not like a flower explosion or some kind of whipped dessert topping that Jessica Simpson would be expected to smother herself with before airing on national television,) it has to contain the words, moisture, perfect, beautiful, glowing, shiny, or completely and utterly wondrous somewhere on the bottle, with a 1-800 number so that if the aforementioned promises do not occur on my skin I can complain. I've always loved cosmetics for their advertisement, their presentation. I like the way Pantene shampoo smells but that ugly bottle pisses me off, can't it be more organic, more appealing, more geared towards my generation. I think Herbal Essence made a huge mistake with their new look, the tradition was held in the shower campaign the apothecary-esque bottles. Now all of that is shot to the wind behind color coded glittery bottles that grove together. Clever, but crippling. I've noticed that woman's products feature words like luxurious, sexy, natural, smooth, anti-cellulite, beautiful, unique, soft, and perfection, often in tones of lightly metallic hued lavenders, burgundys, taupes, and sea-foams. Products geared towards men, on the other hand, contain words like battle, defeat, strengthen, restore, knock out, and usually come in colors black, blue, red, and green. Maybe not that easy to notice, but its weird to go through your bathroom drawers or cabinets and see that all the products you use have basically the same advertising premise, the same jargon, the same shape, and colors. I for one, think it's brilliant, accommodating, but still sneaky and a bit underhanded.

Commercials have also taken an interesting turn for me. It almost feels like the more humorous and less germane the commercial is to what its selling, the more successful it is. The skittles commercials for example, the beard wielding man, the sheep guys... completely bizzare, did I love every minute of it, YES, did I want skittles after I saw each commercial... not enough to go out and buy them, but now I occasionally will get some, pick out all the orange ones, throw out the rest, and wonder why I didn't just buy a pack of orange tic-tacs. Oh, but then I remember I don't like the tic tac commercial with the lady who juggles them with her tongue while a guy standing at a water cooler is watching, thats 100% less appealing to me then two funny guys with sheep bodies, or a beard shaped like a hand stroking someones face. Alas, the more obtuse you are the more you enter my heart, and pool of resources.

Internet ads on the other hand, are both intrusive and irritating. Pop-up, that doesn't even sound like something you would want. Zits and crazy ex-boyfriends pop-up out of no where but not things I want to invest my time in. Banners and side bars cut down on the page making an article that should be a paragraph a two by one inch five page mess. I say they go, and fast because typing with that giant naked lady dancing in the corner of my screen is distracting. NO I DON'T KNOW IF J-LO OR PARIS HILTON SAID THAT QUOTE. I don't want a handbag, a diet drink, more insurance or a free subscription to ZooPets On Speed Weekly.