Fill in the blank

Fortunately this blog post is not intentionally blank. In fact it is filled with the nonsense inside my head and a big fat question for the brand guys at Samsung.

We just bought this super cool flat screen TV for bedroom because, well because it was Gary’s birthday and I could not bear another life cycle event with him looking longingly at the TVs everywhere we went. If you read yesterday, it was a bit of an ordeal to buy and make room for this item. It continued to be an ordeal when our main man Carlos came to install this baby and he could not find the stud. Yeh, I know, it was a present for ‘the stud’ but I can’t hang a TV off of him so we needed to find the one in the wall. Built in 1939, this house has its charms, but finding studs in plaster walls is not one of them.

I digress. While Carlos was making countless holes in my wall looking for the stud, doing a great job installing the TV, I decided to look through the QuickStart manual and familiarize myself with the TV.

Ok, that is a lie. Actually, I did not even consider looking at the manual until I was checking out the nifty swing mount on the TV that will actually allow me to get into the back of my underwear drawer in the armoire by moving out of the way (the old stationary tv blocked it) and in turn touched… SOMETHING, that knocked out the reception on the TV. Did you follow that last stream of consciousness insane sentence? Anyone out there distracted by my underwear drawer? No matter, point is we needed to figure out how to get the TV back on again so I looked at the manual. Gary, on the other hand, called Carlos and he told us how to do it.

Never mind. None of this has anything to do with what the point of this pointless post is. Looking through the guide I came upon 3 pages that said ‘This page is intentionally left blank”. Really? WTF. Why would three pages be left blank. Intentionally no less. Ok all you printer and designer types out there, we all know that a saddle stitched (fancy name for stapled) brochure has to have a multiple of 4 pages because the sheets are printed in spreads and folded in half creating 4 pages per signature. Enough of the print layout lesson. My question to the brand manager at Samsung would be:

YOU COULDN’T THINK OF ANYTHING TO PUT ON THOSE EXTRA 3 PAGES OTHER THAN “THIS PAGE WAS INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK”?

I mean seriously, guys, a little marketing opp here maybe. Perhaps some more troubleshooting, I am sure you did not cover all the problems that I will encounter on that one page. But three blank pages? And your solution to them was to let us know that it was intentional? Yikes, I have been in the biz for a long time. I have never had a client say, “Hey, let’s intentionally leave these pages blank and then state it so we don’t look like we made a mistake. Ok, our work is done here, drinks anyone?”

Yeh, well, the TV is real nice, even if the brand guys are kind of lame.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

:  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :