ottawa foodies

OK, I don't watch much TV and I just reinforced why. It's sort of on in the background right now as I'm doing stuff on the computer, but it did get my attention when a commercial came one and it was in a kitchen at a restaurant.

A woman was explaining that she was the sous-chef (sp?) and should have her own restaurant in a year. She said she should be getting married next week but she won't because she's about to have a horrible accident. That much I guess was clever. Then she explained about the grease on the floor she didn't clean up, and she grabbed a huge pot of boiling water and went to move it - slipped on the oil and had it spilled all over her.

Then it showed a close up of her on the floor screaming and writhing, and she was terribly burned on her face.

It scared the crap out of my 5 year old. And it disturbed me quite a bit.

I think it was a commercial for workplace safety.

I guess everyone these days is so de-sensitised by violence on TV that this is just ordinary everyday stuff to them. But it's not to me.

Yuck.

I guess I posted this here because it started out as a commercial about working in a restaurant kitchen and that's why it got my attention. That made it on topic.

This commercial is straight out of a horror movie! It's definitely about workplace safety. I am by no means squeamish but the ending really caught me off guard when I first saw the advert.

I hear ya. Hearing about this sort of thing makes me glad to have ditched both satellite and cable. Pretty much all we get now is HD (digital) CBC over our rabbit ears. Beautiful picture, but not a lot to choose from.

We never had a TV in our house when I was growing up either. So I read books and did computer stuff instead. Missed out on plenty of pop culture but you can't have everything. :-)

And don't get me started on violence vs. nudity. One is dirty, immoral, evil, and should not be tolerated. The other is nudity.

Now wait and see what sort of ads Google dishes up for this topic. hahaha!

I think the point of these commercials are decent, but this one took things way too far! I've been asked to do a lot of questionable things at various workplaces, and I should have known to say no. In any case, this freaked me out, so I feel bad for little ones to have witnessed this!

I'm going to have to chat with you off-line about those rabbit ears FF. We just do the over-the-air thing too. We went almost 4 years with no TV at all but tried the o-t-a for the playoffs last year when the Sens made the finals. And so far we've kept it but I actually watch it maybe once or twice a week. Of course, I guess I'd need a HDTV or converter box, and spending money on TV is not very high on my list :-) What channel does it come in on?

A quick summary of my entertainment setup:

* Cheapish Viewsonic 27" LCD (720p, not 1080)
* Mac mini (Intel core duo)
* Elgato EyeTV (www.elgato.com)

With a wireless keyboard and trackball, I have a fully functional computer in my living room. Apple's Front Row software provides an amazing interface for music, photos, and movies. And the EyeTV is a fantastic product with excellent PVR capability.

My screen plays multiple roles:

* A "moving" picture frame for displaying photos
* A cool visualizer while playing music (I use G-force: www.soundspectrum.com/g-force/)
* An interface to my media
* A movie screen (DVD drive in the mac mini)
* A TV screen (CBC Eng/Fr HD, plus local analog)
* A general purpose computer screen (Google Earth, Ottawa Foodies, etc)

It's pretty much just like getting a decent computer setup, except it serves as a TV and home entertainment system too.

Two other WSIB PSAs I've seen; one shows a woman falling from a ladder and the other a forklift operator getting impaled. In those the workers talk (in their bloodied state) and explain what just happened. Both are brutal and unexpected but are, I think, also effective in conveying how easily accidents happen. The scalding one is just over-the-top terrifying.

Google ads generated: restaurant jobs (EEK!!), personal injury lawyer, and buy fresh sausages online.

Fresh sausages - excellent! Soylent Green!

I think it was shocking, but appropriate. I don't think it should air before 9 p.m., but I think it takes messages like that to drive home important points. How many teenagers out there are working in fast food restaurants, where there are large deep-fryers and other dangerous equipment around...a nice friendly little message will be ignored...but a message like this really helps drive the point home.

But as I said, I don't think it should air when little ones are likely to be watching (i.e., before 9).

www.dcnonl.com/article/id25005

I screamed first time 'round, now I just shiver a little when I see it.
I'm wondering if the actress actually hurt herself when she stikes the counter with her head. For me that part of the commercial is just terrible looking.

It is a disturbing ad. When I was a kid there was a workplace safety ad featuring a guy hammering in a spike. A piece of the spike breaks off and lands in the man's eye. It was effective enough to stick with me today but not quite so gratuitous. What's worse about the current ad is how innocuously in draws you in then smashes you over the head with a sledgehammer to drive the point home. Sure it's effective but it's also too much.

On the violence/nudity tip, there was an ad earlier this year that featured a female cop seducing a guy she'd pulled over for speeding. The reaction from those who took offense was swift and the ad was quickly pulled. If *that* was grounds for axing a commercial, and I don't think it was, then surely these same people will be up in arms about this one. I doubt it though.

Fresh Foodie, I gotta ask, and not at all seriously, but... how can you run a foodie site and not get the Food Network?!! ;)

This site is my food network! :-)

Even with cable we didn't have the food channel for the past few years. Before we had kids though, that was pretty much all I wanted to watch.

I have already seen a couple of those WSIB PSA's and I have to agree this one left me the most traumatized. I saw it for the first time last Monday when I got home from a show at the NAC and turned on the 11:00 news. I have since seen it twice always later in the evening and choose to switch the channel. Although I know they are trying to make a point I just find it a little too violent for my liking. One of the spokespeople from the WSIB was on Ottawa Morning recently and the basic jist of the question was do the ads really need to be that violent and the answer was yes. This spokesperson seemed to feel it was the best way to make their point.

PS I am envious of you FF getting channels with your rabbit ears! I used to live in a basement apartment and actually got great reception down there so never needed cable. I now live on the top floor of a highrise apartment building and the only thing I get from up here is snow - grrr! I object to having to pay for four channels that I feel I should be able to get for free but then again I'm cheap!