Author Topic: Snake Oil Ocracy - TC  (Read 2620 times)

shiftedShapes

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Snake Oil Ocracy - TC
« on: April 01, 2006, 04:42:03 AM »
ATOMIC DOG
Dragnet
by TC


NARRATOR:

Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to hear is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Dum, ta-dum-tum!

NARRATOR:

You're a Detective Sergeant. You're assigned to Internet Crimes. You get a call that a website has been deleting posts, posting ill-chosen articles, and making poor decisions about their products. Your job – interrogate him.

 

ANNOUNCER:

Dragnet — the documented drama of an actual crime. For the next thirty minutes, in cooperation with the Colorado Springs Police Department, you will travel step by step on the side of the law through an actual case transcribed from official police files. From beginning to end. From crime to punishment. Dragnet is the story of your police force in action.

Dum, ta-dum-tum!

FRIDAY:

It was Sunday, March 26. It was cool in Colorado Springs and a drizzle permeated the air like the spittle from a drug addict's mouth after you just punched him in the breadbasket. We were working the night watch. My partner's Bill Gannon. My name's Friday. We were on our way out from the office and it was 2: 06 AM when we got to 1850 Reliable Circle. The Biotest headquarters.

TC:

You guys from Internet Crimes?

FRIDAY:

That's right, and you better come clean, supplement boy. You're in deep, deeper than the .38 caliber slug they pulled out of Tony Soprano's gut.

TC:

You ain't got nothin' on me.

GANNON:

We'll be the judge of that (grabbing TC by the lapels).

TC:

Hey, back off, flatfoot! I know my rights!

FRIDAY:

You don't have any rights, supplement boy! You're a festering sore on society's backside! Now sit down and answer our questions, and remember...just the facts, man.

GANNON:

We got a list of complaints here longer than the legs of your redheaded secretary over there.

TC:

(Turning towards the secretary who's seated behind a desk.) Sugar, go home. Have a martini waiting for me when I get outta' here. And put on that little negligee I like, the see-through one that fits neatly inside a shot glass.

(Sugar gives him a knowing smile, reapplies her red lipstick, and adjusts her stockings — strictly for the benefit of the detectives — before grabbing her purse and strutting out.)

 

FRIDAY:

We've got a complaint that you've been deleting posts on your forum. Stuff that offers honest criticism of your products. Posts that question the opinions of your writers. You got something against free speech?

There's even one here from a guy that says you wouldn't post a picture of his wife.  You got a problem with wives, too, bright boy?

TC:

She was naked.

FRIDAY:

Naked?

TC:

That's right, naked. And it was a picture of her butt. Just her butt. Only her bunghole was covered with a Photo-Shopped red heart.

FRIDAY:

Her bunghole?

TC:

That's right, her bunghole.

Now while I personally might have the sexual mores of a rutting pig, we've got fathers and mothers working for the company who, when they go home and their kids want to see the website they work for, don't want to answer the inevitable question, "Daddy, why is there a red heart pasted over that lady's bunghole?" or however kids talk.

Plus, we're trying to run a business here, and posting stuff like that is more likely to lose customers than gain customers, and any customers we'd gain would be more interested in purchasing stay-hard cream than bodybuilding and nutritional supplements.

And while we allow some sexy pics, we try our darndest to keep the site at least a little bit on track so it doesn't turn into an Internet version of a frat boy party.

Kapeesh?

FRIDAY:

You're smooth alright, supplement boy, smooth as a disembodied head that's been floating in the river for a week, but what about deleting posts that have a beef with your products?

 

TC:

We don't have a problem with legitimate criticism. Hell, I won't lie and say we like getting the email equivalent of having our jaw massaged by an automobile jack, but let's clear something up here. It's the stuff that's out of line, the stuff that's posted by trolls, or plain stupid stuff that gets deleted. If you take 2 Spike capsules at 9 PM, you shouldn't complain that the product "causes insomnia".

It should cause you insomnia if you take it at beddy-bye time! It's a stimulant! Instead of going to sleep, you should want to run a triathlon, write a symphony, or find an all-night speakeasy where the women don't ask too many questions and they serve bootleg hootch so strong you have to sip it through a gasmask.

If you blend Metabolic Drive with kale, sardines, or Zima, don't complain that you "don't like the taste" of the product. Of course you don't like the taste. Who would? If you think Metabolic Drive is "too thick," add some more water or milk!

Why the hell should we post messages about stuff like that?

And we're sorry that Metabolic Drive comes in a tub and not a plastic sack. While it's true that we might be able to charge .20 cents less per order if we just stuck it in a plastic bag, this isn't some two-bit garage operation where we use a snow blower to fill orders. 

Would the people who make Macallan scotch ship their product in a cardboard juice box to save a few cents? Would the Cohiba cigar factory ship you tobacco in a sack and tell you to roll your own so they could charge a little less? Why doesn't Mercedes just sell a chassis and engine so you can make your own body out of two-by-fours and plywood?

Because they're all about quality and they appeal to a quality-minded buyer.

Same with Metabolic Drive. Same with all Biotest products.

GANNON:

Oh, you're pretty slick, supplement boy, slick like a kitchen floor after a jealous husband emptied his .38 caliber revolver into his cheating wife's belly and she bled to death on the formica.

Explain this: we sent your protein bars to the boys in the lab. They ran a series of statistical analyses on the labels of your last three flavors. The first label says the bar has 22 grams of protein. Now get this: the label of the second bar says 20, while the most recent label says 19.

Maybe the average Joe wouldn't notice anything, but the boys in the lab have detected a pattern. That's right, a pattern. They ran those numbers through the computer and it seems the latest bar has three fewer grams of protein than the first bar.

You ain't dealin' with chimps here!

 

TC:

Listen, Einstein (lighting a Robusto cigar), despite what people say, the sales of protein bars are determined largely by taste. A couple of years ago, we made a good protein bar — the cleanest one on the market using the best available protein. It tasted good, but not great. We got our clocks cleaned by the Detour bar, which, while having a decidedly poorer nutritional profile than our bars, tasted pretty damn good.

So we killed our bar. Sent it to the morgue COD with a tag on its toe and went back to the drawing boards.

It took us over 2 years to get it perfect, a bar that has the best nutritional profile with the purest ingredients available, that also tastes great.

But we remember the lessons from our previous experience well, and the memory burns like battery acid thrown in your eyes after you conveniently "forgot" to pay your shylock.

Different flavors are, in effect, different formulations. If you make a Rocky Road Metabolic Drive protein bar with 22 grams of protein, it's going to taste like a flatfoot's shoe. But if you make one with 19 grams of protein, it tastes like Jessica Simpson sliding down your throat wearing velvet hot pants.

Who knows? The next formulation might have 23 grams of protein.

People shouldn't make this out to be some sort of conspiracy straight out The Da Vinci Code (blowing smoke in Friday's face).

FRIDAY:

Cry me a river, supplement boy (slapping TC). What about deleting the occasional post that complains about shipping costs?

TC:

Man, it gets old. We use Fed-Ex (rubbing his cheek and glaring at Friday). Not the UPS and not the Pony Express. It is what is, and besides, if you order more than 99 dollars worth of products, you get free shipping — if you live in the United States.

But if you live in, say, Swaziland, it's going to cost more.

Here, let me draw you a graphic representation on this cocktail napkin:

 

You see? Swaziland's farther away. It costs more to ship to Swaziland than Akron, Ohio. That damn Fed-Ex is so unreasonable! To charge more just because it takes more fuel to fly a plane a few thousand extra miles! To charge more for keeping a fleet of trucks in every country in the world!

FRIDAY:

Pipe down, supplement boy. We've got solid evidence that you've been deleting some posts that attack authors. What do they think they are, infallible, like the guy with the funny hat in the Vatican?

TC:

You know, if a guy has nothing to say about the product of someone's labor except, "This sucks," I'm sorry, he doesn't get called on in class. If someone tries to post that Chad Waterbury's a thieving scumbag because he recommended doing curls to build up your biceps and didn't give attribution to Pavel "I don't sniff panties" Tsatsouline because, gosh Lord, Pavel recommended biceps curls to build up your biceps, too, we're not going to post it, except maybe for some grins.

Any routine ever designed or that ever will be designed has elements or similarities with a routine that preceded it!

Furthermore, it gets old when someone tries to post that so-and-so's article posted on January 23rd, 2006 didn't change the reader's freakin' life. They didn't read it and automatically understand all of life's mysteries. They didn't read it and see bunnies and birdies all over the place. As such, they want their "subscription" cancelled.

For one goddam thing, there are no subscriptions! It's free! You don't like it, don't show up. And we can't possibly post an article every day that appeals to every man, woman, or weightlifting child. There's going to be some stuff that doesn't float your boat! Live with it. Go have fun on the forum, peruse the extensive archives of over 2,000 articles, or come back tomorrow. Better yet, eat a longshoreman's shorts.

Sometimes I have to work hard to recruit a writer or to convince him to bare his soul to the whole world, and when he does write an article and has to read a succession of "this sucks", it isn't going to be easy for me to convince him to write another article. He'd rather drink crankcase oil out of a bootlegger's shoe.

So criticize away, but give constructive criticism and don't attack his parentage or integrity.

Now where's that bottle of rye I keep around here strictly for medicinal purposes?

GANNON:

Better pour yourself a double, supplement boy, we ain't buying your claptrap. You're crooked, crooked like a hooker's nose after she's been beat up by her pimp for stashing a C-note in her flimsy push-up bra. Somebody's got to take the rap for all this!

TC:

Well it ain't gonna be me! (TC gets up and starts scuffling with Friday. Gannon comes up behind him and hurls him towards the floor. On the way down, TC hits his mouth on the foot of a bronze statue of Tim Patterson wearing a toga.)

 

FRIDAY:

We got one last thing, tough guy. What about these allegations that Biotest funds Testosterone Nation?

TC:

(TC spits out a few teeth. They skitter across the floor like the cheap beads from a stripper's novelty G-string after she lost her grip during her pole dance and careened off the stage and fractured her hip.)

We've never made a secret of that! So sure, we get a little peeved when someone from another site tries to advertise their products or their site on the T-Nation website.

You don't think that takes gall?  "Try product X, says the troll, it's a lot better than Biotest's!" "I work for such-and-such site; come on over and I'll answer all your questions!"

Likewise, when someone writes, "Here's how I train and eat and here's a list of the supplements I take," only they're not listing any Biotest supplements, but even so they want our readers or authors to critique their program and tell them how to train. A message like that is all it takes for me to start drinkin' early that day.

It costs us a pretty penny to run this site — well over a million simoleans a year. We've worked hard to build a readership and a business. Why in the name of Mickey Spillane should we allow competitors to sponge off our efforts?

FRIDAY:

Alright, supplement boy, looks like you're clean...for now. But slip up just once and we'll be all over you like one of Clay Aiken's adoring boyfriends after he just washed using Axe body soap for men.

The story you have just heard is true, even the part about the guy who tried to post a picture of his wife's naked butt. The names were changed to protect the innocent.

NARRATOR:

On March 31, trial was held in Department 98, Superior Court of the State of Colorado. In a moment the results of that trial.

(MUSIC UP)


( — Commercial Insert — )

Coming today to a theater near you, Ice Age, The Meltdown!

Manny, Sid, and Diego return in another incredible adventure. The Ice Age is coming to an end, and the animals are delighting in their new world: a melting paradise of water parks, geysers and tar pits. But when Manny, Sid, and Diego discover that the miles of melted ice will flood their valley, they must warn everyone and somehow figure out a way to escape the coming deluge.

Starring Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, and Queen Latifah.

See it this weekend!


NARRATOR:

TC was tried and convicted of using silly metaphors and bad similes in the first degree - ten counts - and received sentence as prescribed by law. Brutalizing the English Language in the First Degree is punishable by imprisonment for a period of not less than five years in the state penitentiary. Because of the viciousness of the suspect, it was decided that the terms would run consecutively.

Oh, and he was acquitted of the Internet crimes.

© 1998 — 2006 Testosterone, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

LuciusFox

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Re: Snake Oil Ocracy - TC
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2006, 08:01:37 PM »
 That was too long.

Karl Kox

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Re: Snake Oil Ocracy - TC
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2006, 09:46:48 PM »
I agree also boring ???

benchthis

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Re: Snake Oil Ocracy - TC
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2006, 09:50:45 PM »
i want my 4 minutes back   >:(  on second thought i would of waisted them  :(