Nothing like a good dose of corporate sleaze to remind us all what’s important in this life.

After some basketball star (et al) dies, Planters pulls an ad featuring the death of Mr. Peanut. Notably, it included neither a helicopter crash nor Kobe Bryant. But in the interest of all of our feelings they decided to remove it for the time being. What considerate folks these marketing executives must be.

“We wanted you to know that we are saddened by this weekend’s news and Planters has paused all campaign activities, including paid media, and will evaluate next steps through a lens of sensitivity to those impacted by this tragedy,” according to a Planters spokesperson.

Pfiffle.

The only connection the ad has to the crash is death. And if that is why they are pulling the ad surely it should never have been aired in the first place considering the many deaths that occur every day and doubtlessly impact scores of people.

I didn’t know Mr. Bryant so I don’t care that he has died. And why should I? He would most certainly not have cared about my death. Neither would any of the others. For the people at the peanut company to act as if they are yanking this ad to prevent deepening our collective sorrow is crass and obscene. If this helicopter had contained zero pro athletes or other similar celebrity would they have removed the offending sales pitch from the airwaves? Not a chance. What little they must think of their customers, huddling together to craft that completely unnecessary press release which served only to get the name Planters back in peoples’ mouths. As if we all saw the news and immediately thought, “But what will become of the recent nut advertisement?”

Despicable, classless swine.

Curling update:

The third week of the season began about an hour and a half before game time. The team gathered at our favourite table to enjoy a few pitchers of fine beer and some varied foodstuffs. I had the torpedo prawns.

We were on my favourite sheet, the twelfth. Favoured not because of the ice, which was horrible, but because of the presence of a wooden structure on the wall near the end of the sheet which makes for a perfect beer table.

The opposing squad had the hammer in the first end but we managed a steal of one to open the scoring. Still with the hammer, they went down and took two from us in the second end. We promptly answered back with a pair of our own to make it 3-2 at the halfway mark. It was tough to get points as while the ice down the centre of the sheet was playing fast, outside of about four feet in the middle it was frosty and very slow.

In the fourth we blew the game open with a steal of three. Now 6-2 with only two ends to go they would have to put up some crooked numbers to get back in the game. Fifteen rocks later I thought we might be done early. Sitting three in the fifth end with a pile of guards out front my team all but had the score on the board in our minds before the opposing skip made a dandy little tap back right to the button for one.

Still, it was 6-3 and we only had the sixth end to play. We maintained ample confidence since the opposition had their share of troubles with the ice as well and had some less experienced curlers. We made some shots and cruised to another two in the final end for an 8-3 win and a sparkling 3-0 record on the year, outscoring the opponents so far 26-7.

Mind you, this is still novice curling. A greater challenge may be posed if we do indeed enter the upcoming mixed open funspiel in late February. I’ve told my team I will join them. They were not going to enter as they wished to go with “our team” in order to ascertain our true abilities against much stiffer competition. However, we need to bring on a spare who is also a woman since the team must have at least one of each gender on the ice for this particular spiel. And since we’ll be playing actual rules rather than the novice league rules, we can’t sub mid-game and therefore our female team member would be forced to play all game, every game if we do not find someone who can substitute for her and the fellas as well.

And because it is “Hate Week” (every week for me) I threw together a quick list of things I hate. This is far from an exhaustive list, merely the first things that came to mind in five minutes of focused anger.

Snow

Slush

Anyone who is offended

Cold weather

Food poisoning

Falling down

Biting into something that is mouldy

Video review in sports

Line ups 

People

Dry lips

Stubbing a toe

Having to get up from bed to urinate

Others’ sneezes

Running into unleashed pit bulls at night

Burning myself

Scent free environments 

Spilling liquid all over the place

Not bringing change and therefore getting more change

Glare

Neckties that are too wide

Neckties that are too narrow

Neckties, generally

Rats

C.G.I.

Fad dieting

Running out of sauce

When news pre-empts The Price is Right

You and the horse you rode in under