Saturday, October 28, 2006

Donuts and other holes in the universe


I'm posting this from my local library because my cable Internet service, Optonline, went down in a rainstorm last night and is still offline. It's more than 12 hours since I've had service. And because my phone and television also come through their cable line, I don't have those either.

I've called them four times, racking up insane amounts of minutes on my cellphone as they keep putting me on hold. But they can't tell me when service will be restored. Anyway, I wanted to blog about it so that when people Google Optonline or Optimum Voice or Cablevision, they get this message warning them about how crappy the service is.

On another topic, have you seen the Dunkin' Donuts commercial where people put air quotes around the word "coffee" every time they say it? The tagline is something about Dunkin' Donuts coffee being air quote free. Does anyone understand this? I think they're trying to say their coffee is better than the competition's, but what does it have to do with air quotes? Is it supposed to mean that Starbucks sells fake coffee, i.e. "coffee" and not coffee? I'm not a fan of the dark roasts they use, but it's surely real coffee.

Am I being stupid? Does anyone get this commercial? Are they purposely being idiotic so people will blog about it and give them free publicity?

Perhaps I should consider myself lucky cable is down ...

8 comments:

Myfanwy Collins said...

I haven't seen that ad, but from your description, I'm not getting it either.

Hope your cable is back up soon!

Anonymous said...

I think they're saying that their coffee isn't pretentious. :)

Ellen said...

Hi Myf. My cable JUST came back. It was maddening!

Steph, I think that's a good guess about the message of the commercial, but if you're right, the execution is idiotic. There's nothing there to suggest that the "coffee" is pretentious, just that people seem to be kind of depressed about standing in line for it.

Kristen said...

I kind of liked it. I mean, how many times have you been desperate for coffee - the coffee you really like - and settled for the "coffee" offered at, say, an interstate gas statin pit stop? What's most refreshing is that they're using the little quote gesture correctly when words like "literally" are being used in sentences like this all too often, lately: "I, like, literally exploded from the excitement."

Oh. Really?

Ellen said...

Kristen, I know what you mean. I had puke-coffee at a pancake house today. And I'm proud to say my 8-year-old daughter catches people misusing literally all the time. "I seriously doubt your head was LITERALLY exploding," she'll say, dentalizing the T to make her point. It's pretty cute.

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen that ad, Ellen. We don't have Dunkin Donuts anymore here. But speaking of stupid ads, we have an Oil of Olay ad that shows three women sitting around a table talking about how young their skin feels. One of the ladies mentions that 9 out of ten women say Oil of Olay makes their skin feel younger. Another woman adds, "Now you can make that 13 out of ten women."

Patry Francis said...

Cape Cod seems to have a Dunkin Donuts on every corner. Whatever the meaning of their ad, I must be among the minority who hate their "coffee".

Anonymous said...

First time I saw this ad was about ten minutes ago. My husband and I are in the dark to what it means as well. I wondered if it meant that Dunkin Donuts coffee is "free" using quote marks and by fingers in the air... ?
Does anyone know? Dunkin Donuts was actually good to drink about 21 years ago... Last time I tried their coffee, the cream curdled and congealed in the cup as it hit the coffee.