SCMF Musings: Things that Make Us Go Hmmm…

Once you open yourself up for #SCMF experiences, its like you have moved from a standard 8-pack of Crayolas to the jumbo box.

If you look at the world with a curious mind, you can have a lot of fun noticing (and sharing) things you see / experience.

We seemed to hit upon a critical mass of shareables, so we decided to roll them up into one handy post.

> The H in H-RV isn’t for Hybrid

We were rather surprised to learn that the H-RV Honda is selling is NOT a hybrid. Rather, it is a smaller version of the C-RV built on a Honda Fit base. The naming really threw us off.

Check this out!

Another Japanese company, Lexus, has been using the “h” designator for its entire line of hybrids.

Oh well.

> Xfinity X1 — The future of Awesome isn’t so Awesome…

This is a good one. Late last year, the folks at Xfinity/Comcast sent Annie an invite to experience the X1 box (part of her Triple Play package) by way of a free upgrade.

X1 will change they way you experience TV.

Even though she’s committed to DIRECTV for its superior sports programming, she figured she’d check out the supposedly astonishing features (“Everything is Awesome” – XFINITY) of the X1 — swapping out the box she had for “Triple Play” purposes only.

The hype was good. The experience not so much (more on that shortly). So the fancy remote gathered dust until last weekend when she got the sticker shock bill bump up. That prompted her to call and get retained with 220+ channels (their Digital Preferred). With football season starting and hockey around the corner, she figured she’d give it another shot.

This is “The Daria Test”:

Daria results brought up a screen that said:

“Upgrade Your Service: To view this program, you must upgrade your service. Call 1-800-XFINITY.”

Nice. That was deja vu all over again from last winter, as she recalled pretty much everything she wanted to test on X1 didn’t work without an upgrade.

The 220+ channels really annoyed her. The “hmmm” was the revelation that the free awesome box is only SD (as in Standard Definition) capable. If she wanted HD channels as part of her Digital Preferred, she needed a new box AND kick down another $10 per month.

Yeah — that’s so awesome… not!

> The AM-PM Monster has a name, hair made of Red Vines and a beard of Cheetos…

With her MLB On-Demand package, she’s been viewing quite a bit of regional baseball action which includes commercials. During the Dodger games, there has been a frequent series of ads for AMPM (AKA ampm as they seem to prefer lower case.) sort of a “Kwik-E-Mart” that features a H.R. Pufnstuf-like monster. Because she was watching closely to a Vin Scully broadcast, she just happened to see that monster up close.

His name is Toomgis

What the…?

Red Vines for hair. Cheetos / cheese doodles for a beard. What the heck?? Curious, we all did some digging to find out that “monster” is called Toomgis, which loosely translates to “too much good stuff.”

Legend has it that the Toomgis “fell to earth from snack heaven. Others believe he was created as part of a delicious science experiment gone horribly right. But that’s all just hearsay. What we do know is Toomgis is made up of Too Much Good Stuff®. He’s a friendly, gentle giant comprised of over a hundred different kinds of food and drinks, and 35 kinds of generosity and kindness.”

We say TMI (as in Too Much Information).

> R-E-L-A-X — Aaron Rogers Kills Two Windows with One Golf Club Throw…

Ad during Monday Night Football showed Green Bay quarterback, Aaron Rogers throwing a golf club through a glass window. We had the broadcast on mute. Noticing the motion, we hit rewind to figure out “what’s what.” After all, Rogers went viral with his R-E-L-A-X comment two years ago, so he isn’t exactly the “angry golfer” type. Rewind below:

“Five letters here just for everybody out there in Packer-land: R-E-L-A-X,” Rodgers said on his ESPN Milwaukee radio show.

“Relax. We’re going to be OK.”

We found out that this was part of his continuing participation in State Farm insurance ads with a new spot for the 2016 NFL season called Pep Talk.

After watching it a few times, we noticed that the key message was — State Farm provides home AND auto insurance, as Rogers destroyed two windows (sliding glass and car side) with one throw. Clever but easily lost.

Hmmm… We wonder: Did they come up with this creative knowing how out of character it would be for the R-E-L-A-X Rogers to be throwing a club?

> Family Circus Billy Playing PokemonGo…

Our last “Hmmm” for this post comes via the daily comic strip that showed Billy of Family Circus fame heading out the door to “walk the dog” — but intending to play PokemonGo.

Uh… right. Like Billy with his “trail” reputation (we Googled), would be able to catch any Pokemons.

Hmmm… Kudos for trying to show Family Circus is still relevant — Just not very believable. Funny, that’s what we can say about Xfinity after Annie’s experience. But we digress.

As a side note, the pretty much always relevant Stephan Pastis had back-to-back strips showing Rat playing PokemonGo.
Rat too!

That’s a Wrap! Please let us know what you think of our “Hmmm” items. And while you are pondering that, here’s an appropriate song care of our Enchanted Jukebox. Enjoy!