Here's How Little I Have to Post About

The Confessor will recognize this as an entirely burnt post intended to let you know I'm still out here and still providing the anchor for your trenchant Ticket commentary in your offerings below.

Here it is:

Jake Kemp:  He reads the ad copy put in front of him.  This is not a criticism of Jake.  This is a criticism of whoever writes the ad copy.

I speak of the ad copy for All-Pro Foundation Repair.  As this column has pointed out, one should never buy a house from a Ticket host, because they've all had foundation problems.  (Never, Never, No, Never, No, No, Never -- and I Mean Ever -- Buy a House from a Ticket Host)   Now, instead, they all say "we've all had reason to call" All-Pro.

Even new host Jake.  Apparently the moment you're elevated to Tier One, your foundation starts to get wavy and shifty and doors stick and paint cracks.

That's OK.  Never hurts to have your foundation checked on this supposedly difficult North Texas soil.  Although how homes have stable swimming pools but can't seem to have basements or sound foundations in this area is beyond me.

That's not my current issue.  It is:

During the latest ad, Jake says something like this:

"But what really sets All-Pro Foundation Repair apart, though, is  .  .  .  ."

No.

Just, no.

You can't say "but" and also "though."

It has to be either:

"But what sets All-Pro Foundation Repair apart is  .  .  .  ."

OR

"What sets All-Pro Foundation Repair apart, though, is  .  .  .  ."

Jeez.  An absolutely nothing moment, but drives me nuts.  Ad copy guys:  Jake has a Master's Degree in Communications.  Give the man correct copy to read.

And there you have the most vivid thought I've had about The Ticket in a while.

Wait, here's a couple more less-vivid thoughts:

I like Jake and Dan 12-3.  The show continues to warm.   Dan still has the occasional hissy moment, but Jake's good at handling them and overall I think Dan has upped his game.

I like Bob, Corby, and Danny 3-7.  Everyone is settling in nicely, I think.  Corby's calmed down, we're hearing less bonehead social commentary, and Danny has perked up.   Both Danny and Corby seem to be speaking with greater care in the presence of Bob's thoughtfulness and general niceness.

There you go.

Thank you for shopping at My Ticket Confession.

 

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

Sorry, It's Just Quick Hits

Sorry I've been away.  It's going to continue for awhile.

I teased a coming Scorching Ticket Disquisition in the comments to the last thread.  This is not it.  I'm rethinking it.

I had heard something that made me a little angry but mostly sad and I shut off the radio and didn't turn it back on.  It was a Hardline segment a couple of weeks back.

But I found myself agreeing with one of the later comments on the last thread that there's been a lot of Hardline-bashing on MTC lately.  Too much, probably.  Mostly deserved, in my judgment, but yeah, I am getting a little tired of it.  Although THL seems to be bouncing back in the ratings -- not back to its previous lofty position compared to the competition, but doing better.  However, I have to agree -- while THL has its moments, and it's still my go-to PM drive diversion, overall it is a show in noticeable decline.

So I'm thinking crud-a-mighty, if the show is irritating me to that degree, what's the point of listening?  Who's going to be interested in a blog called "My Muser Confession, with Intermittent Mentions of Norm and BaD?  Not even me.

Having said all that, I decided not to pile on just yet.  And I'm not making any rules about "no Hardline/Mike/Corby shots," but let's try to find something else to talk about.

You can post about T.C. if you want, or Jake, but that's getting pretty tiresome too, unless you have a specific point to make.  I reserve the right to decide that something's just a naked shot or the same jamoke saying the same thing over and over and not worth the pixels.

So for now, I'll just quick hit some notes I've made over the past little while, some Ticket-relevant, some not very, some falling into the "listening/watching too hard" category, which tendency of mine seems to upset this site's Reddit critics.

(1)  For you Twitter followers:  Apologies once again for the hack.  I got infected through a message from one of the founders of this site's success, former Ticket Traffic Twist Barb Smith.  It was a message that some post about me or this site on a linked page was "nasty."  Although it was somewhat surprising to hear from Barb again, it was not a crazy thing to imagine considering the bile directed our way lately on Reddit and elsewhere.  So I took the bait clicked on the link.  And I'm guessing some of you did, too.  Thus completing the hack.

(2)  I love Gordon's Troy Aikman imitation when George's Fake Michael Irvin calls him up.  Very dry, very understated, very Troy-like.  Witty in an understated way, love it when Gordon gets less Keithly and lets the gag emerge from the character rather than the writing.   There are probably some interesting politics there, after Gordon's ill-advised interrogation of Troy on one of his call-ins that got him in trouble.  In any event, it's really good, as is George's Irvin.

(3) As if The Hardline didn't have enough trouble, it is the Musers' car-leasing pals at, of course, D&M Auto Leasing that have won the DealerRater Dealer of the Year Award in Auto Leasing.

(4)  WATCHING TOO HARD:    There's something disturbingly off about that Mark Cuban AT&T ad with the adorable Lily Adams (portrayed by Milana Vayntrub).  I don't think they shot that scene together.  He towers over her and doesn't seem to be looking at her when he's speaking to her, but instead something off in the middle distance.  Could be cue cards, I suppose.  But then at the end, where she tells him what a swell negotiator he is, they reach out to shake hands -- as if to establish, awkwardly, that they are having a real conversation in a single filmed scene.  But before they touch hands, the shot cuts away to behind and to the right of Cuban -- or is it?   It does look something like his profile, but it is far from clear.  Also, in the shots framed from directly in front of them, they're standing much further apart than they are in the shots from behind the Cuban figure.  I'm guessing they shot their parts at different times.  I need a hobby.  Other than this one.

(5)  LISTENING TOO HARD:   There's a Ticket ad where Conrad uses a word that gets beeped out, and the word is "assholes."  But they've screwed it up -- Conrad uses a long "a" before the beep is edited in, and then after the beep you hear the "s" sound.  The problem is that, if The Hardline is any indication, "ay-holes" is permissible, but "assholes" is not.  But the latter has a short "a" sound.  So it makes no sense to pretend to censor "ay-holes."  The beepout would only make sense if the first vowel sound you hear is a short "a."

(6)  George Dunham now mispronounces the names of two shows on The Ticket.  Norm Hitzges (George has said "Hitchges" for as long as I can remember, and I believe we have established that this is not a bit), and now he's calling Mike and Cash's show "Cirque de Sirois."  He's not the only one, but come on -- learn now to pronounce the names of the hosts and shows on your station.

(7) Gordon no longer maintains his blog.  I'm not sure when he quit.  But I clicked over to it the other day.  There's a nice photo of him after the "you are loved" screen.  Check out the threads.  Very interesting that he labels himself "writer, broadcaster," in that order.    And that fountain pen in one hand and some hard copy under his arm.  He's been writing!  And increasingly, I think that's the way he sees himself and where he sees himself ending up when The Musers pull the plug.  He was short-listed -- very short-listed -- for a Pulitzer for one of his News columns, and I'll bet he's thinking that journalism, not performance, is where he'll make his name for the ages when the Ticket run breathes its last.

(8)  All-Pro Foundation Repair is once again claiming it is mathematically impossible for its piers to fail.  This gives me the opportunity to say once again how this concept terrifies me and to link to a post that is one of my personal favorites:  All-Pro and the End of the Universe

(9)  Can Applebee's possibly think that its bar menu has, or will ever, inspire rounds of friendly betting on bar-menu-related games, or that it can persuade consumers of it?

(10) I don't want to get to heavily into the Cowboys cynical signing of Greg Hardy, but I will share this one thought:  Smacking women around is really, really bad.  And something we should all be worried about and condemning.  But if you were a Niffle owner, wouldn't you be a trifle more worried about the fact that the victim testified that Hardy threw her on a bed covered with 30 loaded guns, "assault weapons and shotguns"?  The judge made him produce those weapons, which included a Tavor SAR, L1A1 Sporter, POF P-415, ISSC MK-22, SSAR SBS, ISSC MK-22, Highlander, Century Arms Inc. AK 149, Mossberg 590, and Benelli M-4.  I would be less worried about having hired another Ray Rice than a future Aaron Hernandez. 

There's just something about those old Chevy pickups.

(11)  Anyone else get sad listening to those Dallas Stars ads talking only about Tyler Sagan "putting the league on notice," etc.?  Putting the league on notice of what?  That the Stars only have one notable player and remain pretty much beneath notice as a serious professional franchise?

[Comments to this site are moderated.  

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ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310  

And look, guys:  If you wonder why your comment didn't make it through, you MUST send me an email.  There is no way for me to respond to comments other than on this site, because I don't have your email.  I will tell you what my answer is likely to be:  Read The Rules of the Confessional.  You probably took a shot at a commenter or group of commenters, probably accused some Confessor of being some other Confessor, or something equally transgressive.  

 

A P1 Conundrum -- Or, a Cheap Thread-Refresher

You're in love.

You're so in love, in fact, that you decide to ask your beloved to marry you.

You know what to do next.

The Diamond Doctor.

But there's a problem.

Your doors are starting to stick.  You  notice cracks in the paint on the drywall.  Your nephew's ball keeps rolling away from him, always toward the same end of the house.

Oh oh.

Foundation problems.

You know what to do next.

All-Pro Foundation Repair.

But there's another problem.

You only have a few large in the bank.

Enough for a nice ring.  Enough for some attention to your foundation.

But not enough for both.

How do you decide?

Because there's another problem for you, the in-love but living-on-that-tricky-Texas-soil P1.

Because now, all of the Ticket hosts are endorsing both All-Pro Foundation Repair and the Diamond Doctor, according to a DD ad I heard for the first time today.

Only My Ticket Confession Has the Courage to Ask If The Ticket's Endorsements Threaten the End of the World

A lot of you don't like these kind of posts, so apologies in advance.

*     *     *

Oh, my quaking Confessors, I had a horrifying thought this evening.

It makes me wonder if The Ticket has taken a position which, under certain circumstances, might mean the end of reality as we know it.

It is indeed a world-threatening possibility.

But before I get to that, I would like to join Mike Rhyner in wishing Donald Fagen a happy milestone birthday, his 65th.  A true musical genius, including, I would argue, a performing genius.  I recorded one of his tunes awhile back, very cool arrangement with a trio plus a Hammond B3.  My performance would not make you forget his, but it was an honor to sing it nevertheless.

Love this man's stuff.

All right, back to the end of civilization.

As you know, all the Ticket hosts, without exception have (no doubt independently) concluded that All-Pro Foundation Repair is the foundation repair to select.  I wonder how many of you are also aware that even Jody Dean endorses All-Pro Foundation Repair.

This is not Jody Dean.  It is Tara Harper,
to whom Jody Dean  reportedly pitched woo
on something called Most Eligible Dallas.  But she is
more fun to look at a picture of than is Jody Dean.

Its preferred method of foundation repair has an extremely unusual property.   This property is not described on its website -- indeed, I can find no Internet references to it at all.  However, this method -- the solid helical pier -- is described on All-Pro's website as follows:  "This pier has an almost infinite drilling depth and weight bearing capacity."  Got that?  Almost infinite.

But The Ticket doesn't even make a claim that extreme.  The hosts (through, I recall, Mike Rhyner) expressly state that the pier can support more than twice the weight of the house.  "That's why we say," Mike says, "that it is mathematically impossible to fail."

Whoa.  Mathematically impossible to fail.

But consider:

What if one of them failed?

Hypothetical illustration.

Well, you snicker, that's ridiculous -- it's a mathematical impossibility.

Oh yeah?  Well then, why does All-Pro Foundation Repair give a lifetime guarantee?  

First of all, what the hell is a lifetime guarantee?  The buyer's?  What if he sells the house?  Does the guarantee go until the seller dies?  Or is it the lifetime of the house?  How is that measured?  I suppose one measure would be its collapse with the catastrophic failure of the helical piers.  

But let's put that conundrum aside, and consider the meaning of a guarantee.  It provides buyers with a remedy in the event of the failure of the product.  Ah, you say, All-Pro might as well issue a lifetime guarantee if its pier is mathematically impossible to fail, since it would never, ever have a claim.  But surely it would be an even better sales ploy to say -- our piers, being mathematically impossible to fail, don't even require a lifetime guarantee, because one would be completely unnecessary.  Issuing a lifetime guarantee where the event being guaranteed against is considered, or represented to be, impossible, would be like the Vatican issuing a money-back lifetime warranty of Jesus's love.

Nope -- a guarantee concedes the possibility of claims against it -- the possibility of failure.

Nevertheless, whatever you think a lifetime guarantee means, the question still remains:

What if this pier, which, after all, is just a piece of solid galvanized metal, and not a magical substance  .  .  .  failed.  Did not support properly.  Within your lifetime, you found cracks in your foundation.

So then we would have something that is mathematically impossible to fail .  .  .  failing.

Which would mean that mathematics -- the way we describe the physical world, the basis for all technology, the discipline without which we would have nothing -- indeed, according to some schools of thought that claim that mathematics is an inherent property of the universe, a set of truths that are "discovered" rather than "invented" -- without which there would be nothing -- is false.

Suggesting, if one accepts this latter view of math, that the failure of an All-Pro Helical Pier would mean the end of the universe.

So, if any of you know of a house employing an All-Pro Helical Pier with foundation problems -- keep it to yourself. 

Twitter:  @Plainsman1310

Email:  ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

I Kinda Feel Sorry for That Guy from Structured Foundation Repairs, Inc.

As Confessors know, and as The Ticket's sales department either loves or hates, I listen to the ads.

Lately I've been feeling sorry for the guy who owns, and reads the ads for, Structured Foundation Repairs.  I think his name is Tom Kidd.

He sounds like a really nice guy, sincere.  I'm sure it's a great company with a fine product.  If you go to its website (http://www.structuredfoundationrepairs.com/) you will see all manner of testimonials, 5-star approval rating (although if you click on those five stars, there's no link, so the provenance of that rating is not clear), good works for the community.  (Although they have the same logo, the connection between www.structuredfoundation.com and www.structuredfoundationrepairs.com is unclear.)  And their foundation repair is probably terrific, backed by what sounds like a solid warranty.

But for years The Ticket has been a home-away-from-home for All-Pro Foundation Repair. 
It has a gigantic promotional footprint on The Little One.

Back in October 2010, I wrote this article ("Never Never No Never No No Never -- and I Mean Never -- Buy a House from a Ticket Host") in which I noted that Craig, George, Norm, Bob, Dan, and Mike all stated in an ad then running that they were "customers" of All-Pro, and I suggested that Ticket hosts must be cursed since they all seemed to have foundation problems.  Either that or those gents were victims of an incredibly unfortunate coincidence.   (Corby and Gordon, who did not confess to being All-Pro customers, were having terrible plumbing problems that Baker Brothers tended to -- note Baker Brothers' neat "we get it" comment to that article.)   This was the first time that I thought maybe someone at The Ticket might actually read this site, because not long thereafter the ads changed to remove the suggestion that Ticket hosts had bad foundations, and now they just say that all the hosts "endorse" All-Pro.  And, of course, many of them continue to appear on nearly every All-Pro ad.

And All-Pro has a very tight jingle ("the right solution for your home").

And All-Pro's ad features a professional announcer in addition to the host-endorsers.

And the All-Pro guys are University of North Texas alumni.

And there's a whole batch of them, a couple of whom used to be on the ads, sounding like a couple of frat guys with dirt-support engineering degrees.

And -- and surely this is critical -- All-Pro employs all methods of foundation repair, including some kind of exotic solid core pier, so that no matter how lopsided your crib may be from the subsidence in the earth's crust caused by the fracking operations just over George's fence, they can find some kind of gigantic tool to put it level again. 

What about Structured Foundation Repairs?

No celebrity endorsers.  No host reading copy.  Just Tom.  And, recently, little daughter Kylie, whose fee is probably fairly modest.

Only one guy.

No announcer.

No jingle.

No suggestion that SFR has more than one kind of pier.  (Although Tom offers the same lifetime transferable guarantee as All-Pro.  By the way, what is a lifetime transferable guarantee?  If you sell your home and transfer the guarantee, and then you die, does the warranty expire?  Does your buyer have some stake in keeping your ass alive after you've stuck him with your defective sinking dump?)

And the guy is an Aggie.

So I'm trying to imagine the Ticket account person visiting Tom there at Structured Foundation Repair, trying to sell him some time.  And I'm wondering how it goes.  I mean, Tom has got to know that APFR is spending an  ungodly fortune both for the time and for the goodwill of those enthusiastically endorsing hosts.  Mostly, I'm wondering if The Ticket is such an incredible promotion machine, especially when so many hosts jump on to endorse the sponsor, that Structured Foundations had to do something just to stay in the foundation-repair consciousness of uncounted heads-of-household for whom The Ticket hosts speak gospel.  (I'm one, but don't tell Mrs. Plainsman.) 

So I'm thinking:  Tom probably has a damned fine product and no one with a sweet daughter like Kylie is going to screw me on my foundation repair, should I need one.  And All-Pro is probably already completely swamped with P1's hoping to take advantage of the free engineer's report -- and mind you, it's an independent engineer -- a goddam $500 value! -- if you sign up for the All-Pro deal on that visit, which, correct me if I'm wrong, renders the engineer's report 100% worthless.   

So I'm thinking that Tom and his crew are highly incentivized to come out very promptly and give me a good deal and make me a happy, non-slanting homeowner.

Therefore, I'm proud to announce that effective immediately, My Ticket Confession is endorsing Structured Foundation Repairs, Inc.  

Never, Never, No, Never, No, No, Never -- and I Mean Ever -- Buy a House from a Ticket Host

What do the following humans have in common?

     George Dunham
     Craig Miller
     Norm Hitzges
     Dan McDowell
     Bob Sturm
     Mike Rhyner

They all own homes with foundation problems.  How do I know this?  Because in an All-Pro Foundation Repair ad now running on The Ticket, in which each has a speaking part, the first of them to speak – I think it’s Bob -- says that they’re all customers of All-Pro. Well, maybe you can be a customer without having foundation problems. Yeah, right, you pay a foundation repair company to come out to the house for a spot of tea even if you don’t have a foundation problem.

I mean – really, do you know any half-dozen people in your entire circle of acquaintances who have foundation problems? What is it with their housing selections? Are these guys cursed?

Of course, it could also be a lie that they’re all customers of All-Pro Foundation Repair, in which case shame on them.

Wait a minute: Can you buy a home from noted Ticket hosts

     Gordon Keith or
     Corby Davidson?

No, because they have terrible plumbing problems as evidenced by numerous repeat visits from Baker Brothers Plumbing.

Folks, if you have your heart set on owning a home in which a Ticket host formerly dwelt, you’re going to have to hope that Donovan Lewis wants to move.