I nominate the head of marketing at Goldfishes as the new Secretary of Education

I've wanted to start a blog for a long time now, but -- like paying the money I owe the City of Chicago (or Societe Generale, or SFR, or the Gas Company, or whoever is financing my student loans) -- I never got around to it.

Last night my roommate Ben and I were sitting around watching Reno 911 when I offered him some Goldfishes. "I love 'fishes cause they're soo delicious, gone goldfishin'!" I said to him as I handed over the bag. I just sat there and shoveled goldfishes into my mouth, dazed in a whirlpool of my prepubescent nostalgia. After about 15 seconds, Ben started to talk; apparently he'd been thinking the whole time I was trying to find out how many goldfish would fit in my mouth.

"You realize how genius the marketing for kids' products is? I mean, the fact that you remember that stupid jingle after all these years, what does that tell you? These people knew exactly what created memories for kids and they used all the elements in the commercials they made. Can you imagine if they used that same skill to teach kids things instead of trying to sell them junk?"

"That would be unbelievable. You would sit at home and learn about math and science through an amazing series of jingles and adorable animated characters. You would never forget anything ever. We would have the best-educated kids in the world." I said back, warming up to the idea.



"Yeah, a guy would come up to you and ask, 'so, you know about quantum dynamics right?' and you would just look at him, insulted, and say, 'of course I know about quantum dynamics, you think I was never six years old sitting at home watching tv all day?'"

"Yeah dude, and the quantum dynamics cartoon would be on when everyone's parents are at work. So the more you know about quantum dynamics, the less your mother loved you. You can tell what kind of childhood people had based on how sick they are at quantum dynamics. Someone comes up to you and starts complaining about their childhood and how their mother was never around, and all you have to say back to them is 'Woah woah woah. Your mother wasn't around? Let me tell you a thing or two about quantum dynamics.' Quantum dynamics would be the cross that unloved children would have to bear the rest of their lives, and like the stupid goldfishes jingle, they'd never be able to forget it."

"Do you realize if we had this in America we would have the smartest, most educated people? The way this country absorbs whatever commercials feed them...if we could turn that into a way of delivering educational material..."

And then we both went silent for another 30 seconds as we contemplated the possibilities of a nation educated on jingles and animation.

"Ben!" I shouted, cause that's what I do when I get excited about an idea, "Ben, they already do this in Japan! In Japan, they use all kinds of media to teach kids crazy stuff. Remember the other day how you were telling me the reason the Japanese crushed our auto industry wasn't that they had better technology but that they had better management? Well guess what my friend Yohei used to do all day when we were kids. He would play this video game that made no sense to me. This was a baseball video game, but instead of playing baseball, you were the manager of the baseball team. So instead of using the controller to throw a pitch or hit a home run, you use it to decide the batting order, to deal with injuries, to manage the team finances and create revenue. And then once you have all your plans set, you sit back and watch the team play to see if you end up winning. Isn't that insane? While we were playing games that glorified the superstar athletes, Japanese kids were playing video games that taught them to be managers."

The ideas were rolling freely now, and I could tell Ben had something really good to say. But just as he was forming his thought, both of us noticed the TV again. Reno 911 was still on and Terry (or Tear Bear as he's affectionately called) was selling blow jobs at Tacos Tacos Tacos Tacos. The Reno police are on the scene, about to arrest him for prostitution.

"How much are you charging for a blowjob Terry?" the cop asks him.
"$2."
"$2?! Terry, look, the special here at Tacos Tacos Tacos Tacos costs $4.09. Don't you have any dignity?"
"Yeah. But my blowjobs don't come with fries and a drink..."

What were we talking about again? Oh well, let's just keep watching TV.