But we'll use it for a handle anyway

Box of "Silk" soy beverage, IGA, Vancouver, BC

The fact that the makers of "Silk", a soya beverage, need to print "NOT A HANDLE" on the side of this box tell me one thing. People use the opening in the side of the box as a handle.

Firm's faced with the misuse of their packaging have two choices.

1. Warn the users about the potential misuse of the package
2. Recognize that the packaging will be misused and strengthen it to ensure that nothing untoward happens if the opening is used as a handle.

The makers of "Silk" opted for the former. But as any student of human nature could tell you, the majority of people will take the easy route and thus are more likely to use this as a handle than not. And that is exactly how I saw one of the staff at the IGA carry a box of "Silk" around in the store. Can't say I'm at all surprised.

McDonald's Reveals the Secret

Big Mac sauce, Safeway 

In the song from McDonald's the 1970s television commercial this was the "special sauce" on a "Big Mac". 

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSmAibfvCeU

But now that the sauce is for sale at the grocery store, perhaps it is not so special after all.

Everything "new" is not necessarily real

New Balance shoe

New Fashion shoe

New Fashion shoe (Label)

I found these two shoes at the local thrift shop. I can't imagine the creators of the "New Fashion" shoes are trying to deceive anyone. No potential buyer could possibly ever get the backwards "N" on the New Fashion shoe confused with the "N" on the New Balance shoe.

Looks like a clear case of trademark infringement to me.

Portugal has ceased to exist

Cover of brochure from Hampshire Labs

This brochure arrived in the mail today. (Evidently I'm now in the "prostate care" demographic.)

I have no interest in this product, but the map caught my eye.

The cartographer has used a different colour to mark the three countries mentioned in the copy; Spain, France and Italy. But what happened to Portugal? According to this map Portugal, the rectangle at the left-hand edge of Spain, is part of Spain the way that Sicily is part of Italy.

Confusing, inaccurate, and insulting.

Something my daughter noticed. I wonder how many others have?

Shaw's Robot
(Source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mHsncAWtyvc/maxresdefault.jpg)

WALL-E's EVE Robot
(Source: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/25/59/ec/2559ecdebba551ddbc6d0f0332e57873.png)

Last night I was watching WALL-E on television with my daughter. She noticed the obvious similarity between the EVE robot and the robots that Shaw is using in its advertising campaign.

I'm sure she is not the only person who has noticed the similarity. But the Shaw robot is different enough that Pixar won't sue, but close enough that some people will make the connection. Best of both worlds for Shaw.

How do we know that household sizes are getting smaller?

Half pie at IGA, Vancouver

In my primary school can I only recall one "only child". Everyone else came from families of two to eight children.

But these days, for most families in Canada, two children seems to be the upper limit, not the starting point.

And how can we tell that household sizes are getting smaller? Packaging like this 1/2 pie at IGA.

Since when is the "slab" a standard unit of measure?

Sign for "1/4 Slab Cake", Safeway, West Vancouver, BC 

I saw this sign at the bakery department of a Safeway store. The "1/4 Slab Cake" does look pretty, but how big is it?

This is one of the regular problem of businesses that assume that their internal language is understood by the customer. I don't know how big a slab is, and there is nothing to tell me how big the "1/4 Slab" is? How hard would it be to include a size? Imperial or metric? Or even better, both?

What does Jeep have to do with this bicycle?

Jeep-branded bicycle, Salvation Army, New Westminster, BC

Jeep-branded bicycle, Salvation Army, New Westminster, BC

Jeep-branded bicycle, Salvation Army, New Westminster, BC

Among 4x4 buyers, the Jeep brand is pretty well respected. Obviously someone at Jeep, and/or the company that sold these bicycles, thought that Jeep's reputation would transfer over to these mountain bikes.

But like many licensed products, the Jeep mountain bikes are a poor imitation of the real thing. The bicycles are low-tech and heavy. It would seem that the designers were more interested in hitting a price point than any performance goal. Any serious cyclist would avoid them like the plague.

But Jeep was happy to get its percentage for the use of the name and consumers ended up with a bad taste in their mouths as they grappled with a bicycle that offered neither the legendary off-road performance of a Jeep, or the simple functionality of a well-designed bicycle.

What is really going on here?

Entry box for a free membership to Steve Nash Fitness World & Sports Club, Horseshoe Bay, BC

I saw this box in the Freshslice Pizza location in Horseshoe Bay. Are the clubs really interested in giving away memberships? Of course not, but this is a highly effective way to gather names of prospective members.

Everyone who enters will be called and who knows, maybe one or two people will buy a membership.

Not a good start

Postcard handed out for Atavistic Chemotherapy Conference

I picked up this card outside the Burrard Street SkyTrain station on April 18, 2017. It all looks pretty legitimate until you see that whoever designed and printed the card got the date wrong and then had to correct it by hand.

That does not create a great deal of confidence among prospective attendees. A sticker with the new date would have been a bit more professional, or just printing up new cards.