Bob Peale
angeli ribelli
- Joined
- Sep 4, 1999
- Posts
- 10,535
Maxine Ginsberg: New gadget spells doom for telemarketers
Saturday, October 13, 2001
By MAXINE GINSBERG, maginsberg@naplesnews.com
While the wheel and the light bulb would rank high on everyone's list of smart inventions, other contraptions probably get mixed reviews, depending on who's doing the rating.
Some might sneer at the advent of the automobile, saying things were better when we had no emission pollution. People walked more. They champion a time when there were no fender benders, no triple-figure engine tune-ups, no car pools with annoying passengers, no dependence on foreign fuel. When two horses competed for the right of way on a dirt path, O.J. Simpson didn't pull off the other driver's spectacles. Jack Nicholson didn't beat on the vehicle.
There are those who scoff at the value of modern communication. All the evil in the world instantaneously home-delivered in detail might not be so therapeutic to the psyche. Brains might feel less battered if fewer people knew that the characters who appear on talk shows share the same planet as they.
A dubious virtue of television is the capacity to supply an audience for every huckster in the universe. Not since the snake oil salesmen plied their trade along the frontier has there been such an onslaught of flim flam artists hawking everything from anatomy enlargers to cures for conditions people didn't even know they had.
But the boob tube occasionally presents a product with potential. So it was one night last week, when a 60-second spot touted a little gizmo that could be a genuine boon to the harried homeowner: An end to telemarketers.
Who would not be intrigued enough to stay the clicker and listen to the pitch? Is there a telephone owner who hasn't been driven from a meal, roused from a snooze, or wrenched from a diverting book or film by that offensive jangle, only to hear some stranger first mispronounce her name and then proclaim that she has won something wonderful — the privilege of buying a discount coupon service, the opportunity to purchase a credit card she doesn't need, the chance to contribute to a charity that will receive a fraction, if any, of the money collected.
According to this spiel, when plugged into any phone jack in the house, the product intercepts telemarketers who get telephone numbers at random and notifies them electronically that this number is not in service. They can't get through. It's called the Tele-zapper. Brilliant name, because it calls up the vision of getting rid of these pests just as bug zappers do. The telemarketer-squisher costs $49.99 at Kmart. If it works as claimed, put this bright idea right up there with the wheel. Peace at last. Sweet revenge. And for only half a c-note.
****************************************************
Yeah, I could be in love
Saturday, October 13, 2001
By MAXINE GINSBERG, maginsberg@naplesnews.com
While the wheel and the light bulb would rank high on everyone's list of smart inventions, other contraptions probably get mixed reviews, depending on who's doing the rating.
Some might sneer at the advent of the automobile, saying things were better when we had no emission pollution. People walked more. They champion a time when there were no fender benders, no triple-figure engine tune-ups, no car pools with annoying passengers, no dependence on foreign fuel. When two horses competed for the right of way on a dirt path, O.J. Simpson didn't pull off the other driver's spectacles. Jack Nicholson didn't beat on the vehicle.
There are those who scoff at the value of modern communication. All the evil in the world instantaneously home-delivered in detail might not be so therapeutic to the psyche. Brains might feel less battered if fewer people knew that the characters who appear on talk shows share the same planet as they.
A dubious virtue of television is the capacity to supply an audience for every huckster in the universe. Not since the snake oil salesmen plied their trade along the frontier has there been such an onslaught of flim flam artists hawking everything from anatomy enlargers to cures for conditions people didn't even know they had.
But the boob tube occasionally presents a product with potential. So it was one night last week, when a 60-second spot touted a little gizmo that could be a genuine boon to the harried homeowner: An end to telemarketers.
Who would not be intrigued enough to stay the clicker and listen to the pitch? Is there a telephone owner who hasn't been driven from a meal, roused from a snooze, or wrenched from a diverting book or film by that offensive jangle, only to hear some stranger first mispronounce her name and then proclaim that she has won something wonderful — the privilege of buying a discount coupon service, the opportunity to purchase a credit card she doesn't need, the chance to contribute to a charity that will receive a fraction, if any, of the money collected.
According to this spiel, when plugged into any phone jack in the house, the product intercepts telemarketers who get telephone numbers at random and notifies them electronically that this number is not in service. They can't get through. It's called the Tele-zapper. Brilliant name, because it calls up the vision of getting rid of these pests just as bug zappers do. The telemarketer-squisher costs $49.99 at Kmart. If it works as claimed, put this bright idea right up there with the wheel. Peace at last. Sweet revenge. And for only half a c-note.
****************************************************
Yeah, I could be in love
