You know what is really freaking annoying?

[LaraMN]

When you're watching something on t.v. and you have the sound level *right* where you want it, then a commercial comes on and suddenly the volume jumps up so high that it practically gives you a coronary. If you turn the volume down, when your show comes back on you have to turn it back up again, and the cycle repeats. I will never buy any effing "Blo-Pens," for the simple fact that their commercial is aired at approximately seven thousand decibels higher than all the rest, and it pisses me off. Screw you, Blo-Pen company! Screw. You.
:mad:

[wildhorses]

1. I feel your pain sister!! it is aggravating as HELL

pens you BLOW


go BLO it outcha ass

[LaraMN]

6. The commercial I hate the most, at present ,is the one advertising

some service you can pay for which will send you jokes on your cell phone. It has horrible dialogue, and the narration involves some annoyingly awkward statement like, "we will make your sense of humor even BETTER!" I just cringe every time it comes on. ugh.

[lildreamer316]

23. *I* am HORRIBLY tired of the one

for the matchup place with the old guy....if I hear the piano intro to "This will be --an everlasting love" ONE MORE TIME I'm gonna puke.

[RandomKoolzip]

2. You know what's even MORE annoying?

Impotence. :cry:

[LaraMN]

7. and canker sores!

Don't forget those painful, tingly bastards!

[RandomKoolzip]

8. "The Painful Tingly Bastards" was the name of my band in high school.

:o Did you attend Alexander Haig Memorial HS in Duncan's Mistake, New Jersum back in the early 1840's? I might know you.

[LaraMN]

11. I don't know. High School was a blur.

Particularly the 1840's. That was during my ink-licking phase. mmm.....ink...

[RandomKoolzip]

14. Ah! I knew it.

I was afraid of kids like you. Me and the other squibs on the Lemur Tossing Team (state varsity champs all the way through the Gilded Age! Woo! Go Lemurs!) would have quivered in your presence, knowing that a loose cannon ink-licker was capable of the most severe of beatdowns.

ANyway, good luck with your TB.

[Floogeldy]

3. It is real easy.

When you are watching commercial TV, you have the remote handy to hit the mute button during the commercials. I do.

:)

[LaraMN]

9. In this instance, I was dozing off and it woke me up.

I had the channel on the Lifetime network so I'd have something to bore me to sleep, and it almost worked, until I was ripped from the wings of sleep by the auditory vomit of the Blo-Pen commercial.

[tallahasseedem]

4. Me too.

It happened alot during American Idol. :hide:

[KitchenWitch]

5. Or on a DVD you are watching

You set the volume for the dialog parts, then later there is a music track whose volume blows you out the back of your house.

[Orrex]

34. God damn it I hate that!

I'd say that better than 75% of new-release DVD's do that. WTF? Did they lay off the sound-techs during principle photography and forget to rehire them for post?

[Haole Girl]

10. Did you know you have Ronald Reagan to thank for that?

It was under his administration that it was first approved to turn the sound level up so high for advertising. I swear...I remember hearing this trivia and thinking, "That figures."

[LaraMN]

12. Figures.

Someone needs to go write disparaging comments on his headstone, with Blo-Pens.

[raccoon]

30. That may be so, but they were louder than the regular shows

long before his administration. Whether it was legal or not, the stations sure did it.

If you think things are annoying now, imagine what a pain it was in the days before the TV remote.

[Oeditpus Rex]

13. Yup

Threads with teaser question heds. :P

[politicat]

15. Mute.

I love that button. I see fade to suede or black, and I hit that button. Worst case, I get a second of closed captioning.

Tivo is also your friend.

[Crazy Dave]

16. They've had TV's out that automatically monitor....

...sound levels and keep it below a set level. Never tried one though, just seen them advertised as my television is over 13 years old and still works perfectly.

[Gormy Cuss]

17. Oh -- a Republican solution.

The problem is that advertisers are allowed to blow out the speakers in a desperate attempt to get your dollars. Demo solution: revise the regulations. Repub solution: insist that you must buy something to fix the problem they created, because that grows the economy.

[Crazy Dave]

20. Is that what you call it?

A big conspiracy by "The Man" or maybe it was an electronics engineer who was irritated by it himself, got a patent and sold the idea to a manufacturer. Things like that do happen in the real world you know just like closed captioning that wasn't available as standard 20 years ago.

[Gormy Cuss]

31. I'm not knocking the innovation. I'm knocking the business-only

mindset that creates the need for such a product. I'm not a tinfoiler. I've worked in enough corporate arenas to see that anything that isn't regulated, no matter how noxious, is considered fair game. Commercials have always had as a tool a notch up in the volume. One notch, not twenty. That's what makes it worth regulating -- they can do it, so they do, and to hell with the majority of consumers.

It's like the Do Not Call list.
Demo view: consumers have said they don't want to be annoyed, let them have it.
Repub view: it inhibits commerce. Consumers have the choice to buy caller ID and call blocking.

See how it works?

Closed captioning solves a different sort of problem -- reaching a subset of viewers who wouldn't otherwise have access to your product.

[Crazy Dave]

32. Wow! These are huge discoveries!

Gormy Cuss (post 20) said:
"Closed captioning solves a different sort of problem -- reaching a subset of viewers who wouldn't otherwise have access to your product."

And those of us that don't know any better thought it was so the hearing impaired could watch the same TV shows as everyone else. Same goes for those loud telephones and the ones with the real big numbers. The telemarketers want their fair shot at everyone right?

You better be careful my friend if you have truly discovered the REAL reason why we now have all these new enhancements in television and communications that are more handi-cap friendly. They'll be sending the black helicopters and the men with dark sunglasses to your door directly if you keep giving away their big secrets like these you've shared so far. Too much money and corruption involved in it to risk being outed by a smart and informed person like you.

OMG look! There's advertising here on DU! Those damn corporate republicans have infiltrated our hallowed website! RUN!!!

[Gormy Cuss]

33. Let them come for me. The truth hurts.

Business is motivated by profit, which is natural and a good thing for owners and investors. I support that idea. I object to elected officials supporting business only rather than acting as the governor to check business practices that are hostile to consumers and employees.

[Gormy Cuss]

37. Closed captioning commercials, just to clarify what I meant.

Closed captioned programming wasn't nearly as accessible to those who could benefit until the FCC required enhancements to television sets and required that most television programming include it. That's government imposing regulation because the marketplace didn't respond on its own.

I had a cc enabled TV before the programming rule was implemented and very few commercials were captioned. Once there was an expectation of large audiences of the hearing impaired, advertisers responded.

[Blue Diadem]

39. Yep, we had one..it was wonderful and I became spoiled..

then it went to TV heaven and now I'm stuck with one that doesn't have it.

[billyskank]

18. They do it deliberately

They want to make the advert really in-your-face so it catches your attention.

I hate shit like that. I hate it just as much as I hate the way supermarkets rearrange all their produce regularly, just to make you have to hunt for your stuff (in the hope you might alight on something else while you are searching and buy that too).

:nuke:

[qnr]

24. Well, I always figured it was so you'd still have to hear the commercial

while you were in the kitchen getting a snack or something of that nature.

[tigereye]

35. yes, but ironically it makes people hate the product -

there have to be some marketing studies out there that recognize this, right?

another reason why my TV is gathering dust.

[NewJeffCT]

19. That happened to me just last night

I was watching "Last Samurai" and had the volume fairly low since my daughter was sleeping in the next room. Then, BAM, a commercial comes on and it was like 3 times the volume.

Yes, you can hit the MUTE button, but you can't always do it in a timely fashion. And, if you turn the volume down, you risk not being able to hear the TV program itself.

[MissHoneychurch]

21. Press "mute" during the commercials

that way you keep your sound level for your show and don't have to listen to the stupid commercials.

:hug:

[Midlodemocrat]

25. LOL. My husband does that and then leaves the room.

So I have to get up and search for the remote. Or worse, he takes it with him.

[MissHoneychurch]

26. LOL

Now THAT is a problem. Maybe you need to tie the remote to the couch :rofl:

[Midlodemocrat]

27. I DID solve the problem. I bought another remote. Now we have

dueling remotes. :rofl:

[MissHoneychurch]

28. Oh boy ...

:rofl:

[NewWaveChick1981]

22. Damn, I hate that too!

That's when I mute the TV and go off to do something else while the commercials are on. :P

[Ravenseye]

29. Get a Reciever

I have my whole system plugged in through my Audio/Video reciever. While mine doesn't have this, a friend of mine has a newer reciever which has a decibel function. Basically instead of setting the volume to "24" or some abstract number you actually set the decibel level and it adjusts. It's actually pretty cool. I'm not sure how it works, but basically it keeps the commericals at the same level as the show. Makes more sense I think. It's on my list of toys to buy.

[atomic-fly]

36. What's a frickin Blo-Pen?

I hear you though.

[SOteric]

38. ^^^ -What he said

:shrug: