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Too many Queen songs

TRAVERSE CITY — I’m curious what others thought of Consumers Energy’s Super Bowl apology commercial. Nice of them? Self-serving? Sincere and heartfelt? Insult to injury, in that you and I will end up paying for whatever they spent on the spot? Where do you come down on this? If I’m being honest, my immediate reaction was “You should have used the money you spent on the commercial on whatever equipment or process would have prevented the fire in the first place.” I’ve softened the last few days, however. Stuff happens, after all. And CEO Patti Poppe seemed genuinely sincere. Nice job on her part. (Can I have a $5 rebate, though?)

– Maybe I watch too much TV, but I’ve started to notice trends. Last week, for instance, I mentioned how many Queen songs are used in commercials since the movie came out. Lately, it’s Dylan songs. They’re in four or five commercials lately. Have you noticed? Now that I’ve told you, maybe you will.

– Another thing I notice is the dramatic pause TV news people use at the end of each report. Listen for it. They pause for a beat at the end of each report, as in, “And that’s how the elephant … escaped the circus.” Do broadcast schools teach this?

A new study says men’s brains age faster than women’s. This will not surprise any woman I know. It doesn’t surprise me either. I’ve always thought women were superior creatures who only tolerate our existence because they’re also nicer than us.

– Before Liam Neeson’s stunning comment about seeking out an African-American to kill after a family member was raped, I had a line written for the column about his new movie “Cold Pursuit” that went, “Neeson is a wonderful actor, but he sure picks lousy movies to star in.” Now I just think he’s another closet racist jerk.

– Shouldn’t grocery stores north of say the 35th parallel have snow tires on their shopping carts?

– Do you want to know why our roads stink? Here’s why: A four-person group of top, former Michigan politicians, two Dems and two Republicans, released a plan this week to actually and finally fix the roads, and people online from both parties (but mostly one party) trashed it. Their plan would raise the gas tax by 47 cents over nine years to raise $2.5 billion, which is what’s needed to do the job. Most motorists would never notice the 4-5 cent per gallon yearly increase, but still they griped. Which tells me we really don’t want better roads. So shouldn’t we also stop complaining?

– Gotta say that I really, really dislike (I’m trying to ween myself off the word hate) MSU’s uniforms with the neon green letters. I’ll bet you do, too.

– Jeff Bezos, the richest guy in the world and founder of Amazon, is accusing the National Enquirer of trying to blackmail him. I hope it’s true, not because I like Bezos but because the National Enquirer is true trash and actual fake news.

– Unicode, the nonprofit that oversees emojis, issued 59 new ones this week. I wonder if we’ll someday have enough emojis that someone will write an entire novel with them?

“Winter is nature’s way of saying, ‘Up yours.'” – Robert Byrne.

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Andrew Heller, an award-winning newspaper columnist, appears weekly in the Daily Press. He graduated from Escanaba Area High School in 1979. Follow him at andrewheller.com and on Facebook and Twitter. Write to him via email at andrewhellercolumn@gmail.com.

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