polymania

At the risk of exposing my previous ignorance*, I'll mention that I finally got around to researching the definitions of a couple turns of phrase that I had long wondered about: the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons.

I had no idea that the concepts were even related. But now I do. I feel so much smarter already!

I don't know if I've said this enough, but Wikipedia kicks ass. In my mind it is perhaps the purest expression of the raison d'être of the WorldWideWeb.

* Although I have now addressed this aspect of my ignorance, I have a hunch that I am still quite ignorant of many other things. I'm not necessarily ashamed of that ignorance however. Maybe a little embarrassed at times, perhaps needlessly so, but still, I value learning, and therefore wince upon remembering how many times I have forgone learning in order to, oh, play video games or daydream.

tags: Wikipedia

We went snowshoeing yesterday. When we head up to the hills we usually stock up on candy bars as snacks, owing to their high energy content and non-melting character in cold weather. Basically, it's a good excuse to eat things we don't ordinarily eat. It's also a throwback to our childhoods.

I had a flashback yesterday while on the trail. When I opened up my Hershey bar, I remembered on old TV commercial from what must have been the late 70s. It featured people of all ages and backgrounds enjoying their chocolate bar, set to a catchy tune (as that was the marketing ploy of the day, to write an actual song for your product as opposed to a soundbite or merely borrowing a pop song like what you have these days). The lyrics went something like this:

Hershey's is, the great American chocolate bar
Hershey's is blah blah blah no matter where you are
Even if you cross the wide world over
You don't have to go looking very far
'Cause Hershey's is
The great American chocolate bar
[fade out]

And as the song faded out there was this last sweeping helicopter shot of someone or of a parent and child on a grassy hilltop.

I remember feeling envious of all these people; they were having so much fun, eating chocolate bars and making real connections with the people around them. This commercial made me sad. Not sad enough to go out and spend lots of money on chocolate bars, as the marketers probably hoped, but sad enough to make me think I was a lonely kid.

As you can tell, my trauma continues to this day. So does anyone else remember this commercial?

tags: Hershey's, TV Commercials, nostalgia