Not-so-subliminal advertising

I just got a pedometer – you know, a little gadget you clip on your belt or your pocket, and it records how many steps you take. Rick’s parents gave one to my dad for his birthday last week, and Eric and I immediately stole it and had a walking war. I think he may have won the first round… but now I have my OWN pedometer, so I can work on training for round two. Today, according to my pedometer, I walked 11,377 steps. Which is WAY more than Eric walked, because he doesn’t even have a pedometer. And everyone knows that steps walked in the absence of a proper measuring device don’t count for anything. You know, it’s like the tree falling in the forest when no one is around to hear… or something like that…

And speaking of walking, I have to say that I love the new VW GTI commercials. (Okay, that has nothing at all to do with walking. But a car IS a way to get from point A to point B – and so is walking.) So like I was saying – I really love the new VW GTI commercials. The ones with that guy from Prison Break – or rather, the guy who USED to be on Prison Break, before his character ended up with a slashed throat (wow, this post got ugly really fast…). You know the ads I’m talking about? He’s dressed all in white, with a long-legged blond sidekick, and they both have these great fake German accents. Every commercial starts with a “Pimp My Ride”-type car, which the fake Germans promptly dispose of – by hitting it with a wrecking ball, or dropping a giant metal box on top of it, or hurling it over a catapult. And then the GTI comes into view, and the fake German guy steps in front of it, calling it a “vee dub” and flashing a pseudo-gang sign “VW” with his hands. They’re great ads – and probably the only time in my life I’ve actually felt compelled to buy a car based on a commercial. And I don’t even LIKE hatchbacks…

Of course, I have to admit that the only reason I have the car I have now is because of the movie “Ronin.” At the beginning of Ronin, there’s a car chase with an Audi – it speeds down a narrow street, engine racing, zipping around obstacles. It’s a cool scene, but the movie itself wasn’t the reason I decided on an Audi. It was only when I went to test drive one that my mind was made up – as I accelerated onto the highway outside the dealership, I noticed the little test-drive Audi was making the same racing sound as the car in the movie. I realized, as I maneuvered down the highway, that the movie wasn’t a big conglomeration of special effects – it wasn’t simply sights and sounds, in bits and pieces, smashed together by audio technicians. The car really, honestly sounded that way. Wow – I had a chance to own an honest-to-goodness, Hollywood-tested, movie-car-chase car. Not that I care about that kind of stuff. But I did end up buying the car.

But maybe it’s time to trade it in for a GTI? Of course, Audi is German, too. So either way, I’m still “representing Deutschland.” Ja wohl.