Cigarettes!

In classic Franklin blog fashion, a cigarette review is in order, this will be short and sweet.


The new Marlboro no. 54's

For Marlboro these are a great step forward, at least in the ways of pushing flavor for front of their smokers concerns. These still carry your classic Marlboro considerations, they will still kick you in the ass with strength and are by no means "light" flavored cigarettes. What I find funny is that although the last new kind of menthols were called "Smooths" the had a different flavor and all the harshness of a regular menthol from Marlboro. In the 54's there is a genuine camel-esque smoothness that they've failed to acheive with their other cigarettes in general. This was a big step forward in my eyes for Marlboro, getting away from the machismo flavor aspects and worrying about delivering a qaulity smoking experience. I like these and when a menthol mood hits me I would probably do them again, especially if a light was offered (which if the past dictates, I'm not expecting).

Dissapointed by commercials

This is going to be a reoccurring post here, me and being mad at commercials are like this


Our first target is http://freecreditreport.com I know what your thinking "Franklin we all hate that jingle, get over it" but my friends the jingle isn't what's bothering me. It's what the jingle is saying, the theme is constant from the first commercial to the latest one. If our rockband member friend had known what his credit score was, he would have a better job, car, life/wife. Now granted, knowing what your credit score is isn't ever a bad thing. But knowing
doesn't make his credit score better.

There are about 3 commercials that come to mind with this dude and his ad-hoc band preaching the praises of freecreditreport.com, let's cover them shall we?

In one commercial he suggests that f he knew his credit score was bad, he could have some how gotten a better car. If you don't know this is wrong, let me be the first one to let you in on the secret, HAVING A BAD CREDIT SCORE MAKES IT HARD TO FINANCE A CAR. Knowing you have a crap score doesn't somehow resolve your credit issues. If you have bad credit and you want a car, you have to wait and improve your score or get a P.O.S. car.

Another gem is the idea that if he knew his credit score he would have ended up with a better job, the same rule applies here. If a job is checking your credit score to see if you can work there (Normally companies that deal in financial matters i.e. banks or credit card companies)

A) You have bad credit and probably have no business working there
or
B) They don't have financial dealings and in turn don't really need to check your score, if they do this on a background check, you may not need/want to work with them.

The last commercial makes me especially frustrated because it's incorrect on so many levels. In our latest "musical" excursion with this dude, he tells us he meets his "dream girl" but her bad credit stopped them from living in a suburb and they are instead stuck in her parents basement. I'm assuming he's referencing home ownership because their joint attempt to find a place to live is being considered. Let me give you cats some more interesting info about your credit. Your credit score, is yours, there is no rule saying when you get married (or start a relationship in any form) you have to apply for things with credit jointly, in fact getting married makes it easier to do this, giving a combined credit "boost" if one person isn't enough to do the job. What really gets my goat on this one is our songwriter suggests if he were single he COULD get a nice place, which means they could live together in a nice place by applying with just his credit.

Super frustrating yes? People being fooled into getting services they don't need under false pretenses? I hope not. Do some research people, learn somethings and for god's sake pay attention.

Iranian Elections

One and only one question needs to be answered honestly for a resolution to the political unrest pertaining to the Iranian election. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart already made the point... "How did millions of votes, most of them hand written get tallied in a day?" I'm paraphrasing here but honestly it just doesn't add up. Earlier this week the ayatollah recommended that the candidates would need to bring their complaints to the Guardian Council. As it turns out they did, the council said it would review a few polling sites and results could take... up to 10 days to get those polls calculated. So again, if it takes 10 days to confirm some polling sites how could ALL of the votes been tallied in less than 1? This is serious, it has nothing to do with outside countries influencing the Iranian youth or people in anyway aside from us being aware that it's happening and showing support.

Someone needs to do something and unfortunately it can't be me because there isn't much one in my position can do. I am a young American with little to no access to a wide audience of other Americans, much less Americans of any influence. Even if I did have access to the ears of people who might do something, I very much doubt they could. I will write this, I hope people read it and put the pieces together and I genuinely hope the people in Iran even if it's just a few also came to this simple solution. Like it says, I'm not that smart, I'm just paying attention and trying to get others to do so as well.