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R.I.P. Dear Abby

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I know I speak for all the Dr. Babooners in the house when I say we’re sad to hear that “Dear Abby” has passed away. It is truly remarkable that she and Ann Landers were twin sisters, and both in the mass advice business. It is a point of honor for Minnesota that she spent her final years here in the Twin Cities area.

This New York Times obituary also makes it clear that Pauline Phillips had a sharp wit, and was a clean, concise writer.

And of course John Prine sums it all up nicely.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

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Flu Bugged

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We are all Dr. Babooner.

dr_babooner_mask

Dear Dr. Babooner,

My cubicle buddy has terrible Respiratory Etiquette.

She’s always sick but she won’t stay home. Somehow she got the idea that the best way to handle a sneeze is to deflect it upwards, much in the same way raggedy militiamen in third world insurrections celebrate by firing their guns into the air.

Although she sits on the other side of a partition, I can hear her hacking and honking and moments after she coughs I’m pretty sure I can feel tiny droplets of infected mucous settling on to my bare skin.

I’ve tried talking to her about it, but engaging her in conversation feels like a scene from one of those war movies where the infantrymen have to run zig-zag and dive behind obstacles just to get across the courtyard. Of course she believes she’s indispensable and that the company wouldn’t survive if she missed a day of work. So instead, it’s her co-workers who are dropping like flies.

Not only does she sneeze clouds of snotty mist all around the office, but I often see her wiping her nose with a bare hand just before using that very same hand to open a door or greet someone who has just walked into the room.

I want to throw a Purel-soaked body sack over her and drag her to a nearby clinic but I know she’d complain to the HR department.
Of course I’ve tried to inform HR that she’s a health hazard, but there’s never anyone down there. HR staff are the only people in the company who follow the contagious disease policy.

Dr. Babooner, I’m at my wits’ end and I don’t know what to do! Should I move, quit, or force the issue by wearing a gas mask? I’ll hold my breath until you reply.

Desperately,
I.M. Gasping

I told I.M. we must all take our health very seriously for our own sake and for the sake of those around us. But it is difficult to tell someone who doesn’t see it that their poor hygiene is a hazard to others. I like the idea of a gas mask, although full body protection would be even better. Maybe you could start by declaring tomorrow Hazmat Friday?

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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Taking a Walk

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An unusually large portion of today’s press coverage appears to be stuck on predictions and opinions about Lance Armstrong and what he might have said to Oprah regarding his powerful, tireless legs and how they got that way. So I thought it would be an appropriately contrarian move to head in the other direction entirely – towards a guy who is drawing attention by using his ordinary legs to move very slowly and deliberately.

Journalist Paul Salopek is taking a very long walk. He’s following the path of human migration out of the cradle of civilization in Africa, across Asia to the Bering Straight, and then down the western edge of the Americas to the last place on Earth to be settled by humans, Tierra del Fuego. The path is displayed on a website that will follow his journey, which is expected to take seven years.

Aside from the bunions and blisters, the sunburn, the frostbite, the aching joints and the pebbles in his shoe, Salopek will have to navigate past at least 30 man-made borders, which he expects to be the toughest obstacles of his journey. He should know – as a globetrotting journalist he has had some serious problems with suspicious governments, most prominently in Sudan in 2006.

Seven years! Considering how far he plans to go, it really doesn’t seem like enough time. But Salopek is 50 years old, so I suppose it’s now or never for a massive undertaking like this. Not that a fit 70 year old man couldn’t do it also, but at that age I would want to do it in a golf cart.

Seven years is the same as about 15,330 rounds of golf at the pace I play, a speed which allows for a lot of fruitless lunging and a considerable amount of fishing around in the weeds. I won’t come close to spending seven years walking around a golf course in my lifetime, but if I could reclaim some of those steps it would be more satisfying to put them towards a higher purpose, like this Out of Eden project.

Here’s a walking tune to wish Paul Salopek well. There’s about a minute spent on tuning at the beginning of this, but what’s your hurry?

What would you put in your backpack for a 7 year walk?

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Share and Share Alike

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After meeting the changeable tattletale/conspirator Thorin yesterday, it seems appropriate to consider more about animals and sharing today.

We care about fairness. Sometimes.
Chimpanzees do too. Perhaps.

Playing something called “The Ultimatum Game,” chimpanzees demonstrated a sense of fair play on about the same level as a group of 2 to 7 year olds, according to a paper published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Although there is some disagreement among researchers. The authors of an earlier study where chimps played “The Ultimatum Game” concluded the opposite – that our primate relatives really do not care about fairness at all.

And so there is a back-and-forth. Authors of the latest study defend their work.
Critics cast doubt.

I’m sure it’s all in the interests of gaining a greater understanding of our world, but when will the poop flinging start? That’s what I want to see. Don’t I get a reward too?

Here’s another primate experiment where Capuchin Monkeys demonstrated a visceral reaction to unequal distribution of the goods, seen on a bi-weekly basis among humans when women and men receive their paychecks for doing the same work.

The Capuchin in the video is doing something the chimps in the more recent study did not do – rejecting a reward because it is inadequate compared to what the other monkey is getting. Is that so very different from feeling bitter about the quality of someone else’s car, house, lawn or life?

I would like to see a study where Chimpanzees are given the chance to buy wedding dresses and flat screen televisions along with the mechanism to flaunt these purchases in front of the other chimps, who would, of course, fling poop. I’m guessing my study would have absolutely no scientific value, but the videos would have wonderful ratings.

How keen is your sense of fairness?

The Baboon Congress

Thorin

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Today’s guest post comes from Sherrilee

My Samoyed is named for Thorin Oakenshield, the king of the Dwarves from “The Hobbit”.

Thorin1

He was a rescue dog and came with two names. His first family named him Angel and his second family changed it slightly to “Aingie”. Ick. We didn’t even make it home from St. Paul with him before we knew we couldn’t live with either one of those names. Since “The Hobbit” was one of the very first fantasy/science fiction books that I ever read, we decided that would be a good place to troll for names.

Although we think Thorin is a great name, I do have to explain it to almost everyone.

Thorin is a very sweet boy but not the brightest bulb on the tree. He has allergies in the summer that lead to eye and ear sensitivities and he has an insatiable appetite for paper stuff. He loves tissues, toilet paper rolls and anything that finds its way to the floor, even empty boxes. He’s also sampled books. If you ever need to know how much the library charges for a destroyed book, just ask me. He once ate a scrapbook.

Online descriptions of Thorin, the character, paint him as “officious” and “greedy”.

These two words may not be enough to capture the literary Thorin, but they do describe my canine Oakenshield.

Officious? My Thorin has a tattle-tale bark. It is completely different from any of his other barks and yowls. If one of the other animals is getting into something, he barks his special bark to let us know the rules are being broken. When my other dog got up on the counter and was eating the chocolate chip cookies off the wax paper, Thorin barked. When the kitties got into a bag of cat food on the buffet, he barked.

Greedy? Oh yes. If the spoils are being shared with him, you don’t hear a peep. Obviously this goes against his tattletale urge. Over the years, Thorin has quietly shared banana bread, dog treats, devilled eggs and recently an entire jar of sauerkraut.

Two possible explanations.

  1. When his mouth is full, Thorin chooses eating over barking.
  2. Thorin’s silence is for sale.

What would it take to buy your silence when others are doing wrong?

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Stovepipe Hat

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Lincoln_hat

Hey Mr. C.,

For my history class I had to go see the movie “Lincoln”, and I thought it was kinda good for what it was – a lot of old people in heavy clothes walking around in the dark, talking.

Anyway, my teacher, Mr. Boozenporn, said I should remember it because it’s the history of our country and it belongs to everybody.

Besides, he said, Daniel Day-Lewis is going to get an Oscar because he was the best Lincoln ever – even more Lincoln-y than Lincoln himself. I thought that was a weird thing to say, but how do you measure Lincoln-ness? With Lincoln Logs?

One thing I noticed from old pictures in our history books at school – Lincoln looked kinda stupid in that tall stovepipe hat, and Daniel Day-Lewis looked stupid in it too. So maybe that’s all the proof you need to know they are the same guy. Too bad, though, that Lincoln got stuck with that dumb hat as his “brand”. I’m guessing he owned other nice things that would have made classier trademarks for him, but if history even takes the time to remember you I guess you have to just accept what you get.

I wonder if the Stovepipe Hat is ever going to make a comeback. Lots of fashion trends do, but that one might not make it. It’s hard to get a large hat like that into a small space, like in a car. But I thought it was cool that Lincoln kept some letters and speeches in there, and maybe that’s where Daniel Day-Lewis tucked his script. I know he’s a great actor, but that’s kind of a cheat if he was able to do that.

Maybe the Stovepipe Hat would come back if there was a way to stick your smartphone in there. Or better yet, have your smartphone project its images and videos and stuff on to the hat itself. Cool! If I could walk down the halls of Wendell Wilkie High School streaming the movie “Lincoln” on the rounded barrel of my stovepipe hat, I’d wear one!

But then everybody else would stream THEIR favorite movies on THEIR hats, and people would get caught up in the action and they’d wind up bumping into each other and falling down the stairs, probably.

Lawsuit! Oh, well. It was a good idea while it lasted.

Anyway, one thing the Lincoln movie taught me is that it doesn’t matter how boring you are – Steven Spielberg could probably make a pretty good film about your life, and Daniel Day Lewis could definitely play you – even if you’re a woman or a little kid. But every day when you get dressed, you should ask yourself – Would these clothes look good on the big screen? That’s why I think I need to up my game in the wardrobe department. Based on where I am right now, any movie made about me is going to come out looking like Napoleon Dynamite. I’ve got too many t-shirts!

Your pal,
Bubby

What advice would you give the actor playing you in the movie about your life?

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Artful Dodgers

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Advertising represents a bid by well-financed entities to capture our attention and direct or change our behavior. Yet the baboons on our trail sound like they are exceptionally committed to avoiding this influence. From Verily Sherrilee’s use of the mute button to Ben’s channel changing, to That Guy In The Hat’s aggressive and possibly un-American refusal to own a TV, one could almost say living a low-ad lifestyle is a point of pride.

Spend your billions, Captains of Industry. We are unswayed!

What’s more, we are oblivious to your desires!

A research and consulting organization called YouGov looked at advertising avoidance, particularly as it applies to political ads. But they also looked at how assiduously their sample viewers skipped around other kinds of advertisements too.

The chart they published could have been drawn by Clyde, who appears to be having a personal feud with the Geico gecko.

Chart from YouGov
Chart from YouGov

One can see that the insurance reptile’s ads were ignored with a level of enthusiasm that must make people in the gecko animation industry think perhaps it is time to go about polishing up the resume.

Human attention is a prized commodity in our digitally interconnected world, and each person has a finite amount of it to trade on the open market. Right now, other people (producers, talk show hosts, movie stars, disc jockeys, bloggers) get paid to do or say things we will read, watch or listen to so intently that we might accidentally stick around for the things some lizard (pitchman or politician) has to say. What a disappointment to learn how expert we have become at ignoring the message.

Will it ever come to a point where large companies simply pay us directly to consume their ads? Would you give the Geico gecko your eyes, ears and brain for thirty seconds if he gave you a quarter to do it?

Fifty cents if you could pass a multiple choice test about it?

A dollar if you could force a friend (probably not for long) to watch it?

New models will be developed. How much is your attention worth?

The Baboon Congress

Ad (foolishness) Infinitum

98 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from Clyde.

I have been watching a lot more television lately, some of the bowl games and a few shows on HGTV and the Food channel. Most evenings my wife has been visiting my art room/office where the bigger TV is to watch some holiday specials, such as on Hallmark channel. She watches the shows, when she is awake, and I notice the ads.

4.1.1

I have some observations:

  • We are expected to choose an insurance company on the basis of how stupid, irritating, and over-repeated are their commercials.
  • As usual children are smarter than adults.
  • Perky women with big eyes and red-dyed semi-messy hair are the gold standard in advertising spokespersons.
  • We are fat, have too much stuff, and spend money we don’t have.
  • Women can boss, nag, or control men, but men cannot do any of those things to women. One of a few examples: the Walgreens ad where the woman crushes her husband’s sugared donuts to bits. It’s good that she did because that donut must have been very stale. This is not a pro-male or anti-female rant. I just notice the pattern.
  • Apparently men deserve this because men in ads are so often childish and driven by their appetite for greasy food, beer, and big-screen TV’s.
  • Speaking of beer, people in beer commercials are the antipodes of everyone sitting in beer taverns drinking beer. Are those people watching those ads as they drink? Do they think about that contrast? Should I go tell them?
  • All the ads for tablets, readers, and cell phones disappeared after Christmas.
  • Many women apparently take a picture of themselves in their underwear before they lose a bunch of weight.
  • Does Marie Osmond make a good model for health and beauty with her botoxed lips and over-lifted face?
  • Attention Food Channel – cooking is neither a race nor a competition!
  • The louder the spokesperson shouts in a commercial the more dubious are the claims.

What messages to you get from Television ads?

Uncategorized

Dark Spot

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Electricity is great. I’m officially spoiled!

Thanks to electricity we can stay up late and read after dark and go out to eat when we really should be in bed after a long day of exhausting manual labor.

I admit I’m hooked on this frantic, juiced existence.

But there had to be something more pure and truthful about an age when customers pushed open the store doors by hand and signs didn’t light up. For one thing, pre-electricity shopkeepers were spared the worry that a simple burned out connection would fundamentally change their message.

Or you can have it done MEDIUM well.
Or you can have it done MEDIUM well.

Maybe the old days were better.

A neon sign represents an everlasting commitment. Once you emblazon your name across the night sky, you have to be sure it remains fully and coherently lit. Otherwise a dignified title like Trail Baboon could become something perplexing, like ail boo .

When has a sign seemed inadvertently funny?

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Sleep Deprived

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The verdict is in on the question “what happens when you lock six men in a pretend space capsule with a bunch of cameras and sensors and tell them to make believe they’re flying to Mars.”

mars_crew

It appears they become lazy, and cranky, and they can’t sleep.

In other words, it’s the very same result you get if you choose to stay on Earth and simply get old.

In just about any environment, getting people to exercise is a challenge. The intangible piece in this case is the willing suspension of disbelief. They chose scientists to take this mock journey, but scientists are practical and ultimately they know the truth. Why exercise for two hours a day? After all, it’s not like we’ll really have to be on Mars, or that we couldn’t get out of this box if necessary!

A better crew would have been made up of unemployed actors who could really get into their roles.

Believe it or not, we already dealt with this topic – in what was only the second Trail Baboon post on June 4th, 2010.

In that post, I suggested the “Six Men in a Tub”, who were being paid $100,000 each to embark on a scientific version of a 17 month reality show taping, needed a proper theme song. One was offered, modeled after the anthem for the TV show “The Brady Bunch.” But it turns out those tailor-made lyrics were still wrong.

The study results suggest this is a more accurate version:

Here’s the story of six sleepless fellas
Who got lazy while pretending they could fly.
They skipped workouts and moved less than they were told to.
They didn’t even try.

It’s not easy to snooze in a trailer.
Though they’re paying you to stay there like a lump.
It’s depressing when you know you’re stationary.
You feel like such a chump.

When it started there were cameras and reporters.
Asking how long would the daring mission take?
And the guys were acting so dedicated,
But inside they understood it all was fake.

The whole thing’s fake. The whole thing’s fake.
This is all the lousy acting I can take!
The whole thing’s fake. Not much at stake.
I’m embarrassed which is why I’m wide awake.

Name a role you could inhabit, non-stop, for 17 months.