Help WAS just around the corner

That's right... is no more in Canada. By July first all Canadian stores will have rebranded to "The Source by Circuit City". While change is always interesting, it'll be kind of sad to see a brand with a 35-year heritage in this country disappear. I especially have a soft spot for them because our first computer was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer.

...complete lack of respect for the law

I've just given up trying to watch Smokey and the Bandit II on Prime's Friday night movies. It's absolutely disgraceful the way virtually every bit of Jackie Gleason's dialogue has been redubbed by Henry (the second Fred Flintstone) Corden (as discussed on this thread.) I'd be better off anyway going and watching the first movie, in its uncut form.

Holy holy holy crap

Kentucky Fried Chicken is back, baby! I dread how long it will take for this new design to reach Canada.

As promised

The new Safeway logo

I'm fudgin' it

Contrary to media reports like this one, McDonald's is indeed running a commercial and promotion to mark its 50th anniversary, at least a Canadian commercial. The promotion is two double hamburgers for $2, and two double cheeseburgers for $3. Not a great deal. But the TV spot, which does fall within the "I'm Lovin' It" campaign, plays 50's style music while showing a still, B&W photo of McDonald's #1 in Des Plaines, IL. The hook of the commercial is that the camera slowly zooms in on the sign, which reads

McDonald's
HAMBURGERS
1 SERVED

Nice photoshopping job. McDonald's NEVER had a sign, of course, showing "1 served." By the time they started keeping track on the signs, it started at "OVER 1 MILLION." It's academic, anyway, because the "BILLIONS SERVED" thing is no longer officially done -- it doesn't appear at all on new signs, and old signs are frozen at "OVER 99 BILLION".

Pointless logo change

Come Monday you're going to be seeing a brand new look for Safeway stores. I can't find an example of the new logo on the Web just yet, but I was surprised to see it on a shopping bag today. Basically it's the white areas of the old logo, colored red, and "SAFEWAY" in a new font.

What's good for General Motors...

In branding news, and who doesn't love branding news, GM will start putting its "Mark of Excellence" logo on all new cars and trucks starting next year. They apparently feel the GM brand has more value than the individual nameplates, though I doubt that's the case with Chevrolet, at least.

What's weird is that this is the exact opposite of what Chrysler has done in the last several years, phasing out its pentastar logo and replacing it with individual logos for the different nameplates -- the Chrysler seal, the Dodge ram's head, the Jeep grille design, and even the Plymouth ship (what was that, the Mayflower?) before that division went away.

No parody intended

Wal-Mart really took it on the chin on last night's The Simpsons. Somebody fouled up big-time, though, when my local station ran a Wal-Mart commercial during the show!

I'll only be using this bed for sleeping, eating, and maybe builidng a little fort

Mark Evanier's News From Me is a blog you should be reading daily. The comic book and occasional TV writer is at his best when he's telling insy showbiz stories. But here's a
great rant about what's wrong with hotel rooms.

An era is passing

As someone who came of age during the 1980's, I've become a bit depressed lately. We've had Ronald Reagan, and now John Paul II die in the past year. Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather have departed their nightly newscasts, with Ted Koppel on the way out, and now Peter Jennings stricken with lung cancer. I really feel like the icons of the eighties are vanishing.

I just finished reading the Doonesbury 25th anniversary compilation, and was really moved by the memories evoked by the 80's era strips. Not the strips themselves, because I didn't get to read current Doonesbury back then, but the events immortalized in the book's pages. Time is really marching on.