I
am a Rescue Ranger
15 MAR 07
A
friend of mine told me to join this blogging competition recently.
First of all, I wasn’t aware that I was blogging. I don’t
like blogs; they all look the same. Then, I realized that you can
have customized graphics on your blog. I got an email a few weeks
back from some guy stating that blogs will soon take over personal
websites. "The silent revolution is happening :) Get on board
or be road kill :)" I
didn’t appreciate that. I don’t want to be road kill:(
Too many of my friends died that way… |
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The
warning |
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Another
brother victim to roadkill. I'll get your revenge for you before
you're buried, Mr. Hops! Bunnies for life!
(Man, I gotta stop listening to Tupac while I'm working.) |
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As
much as I told myself, whatever these kids can do, I can do better,
but crap, it dawned upon me that I can’t keep up. I can’t
tell my manga from my xanga. I thought technorati is the latest
beat Bengs have on their Ipods. Heck, I can barely customize my
wallpaper on Friendster.
So blogs or websites;
I’m here to write. The representative told me that “the
theme is free for interpretation”. Right. Sounds like a
trap to me. I was totally immersed writing 5 pages worth on my
grandma’s undies but I told myself that I’m sure to
go out of point. So I’m playing it safe and since the competition
is titled, "Yesteryears," I’ll write about my
youth instead and that people, is a long ass time ago. Be warned
that unfortunately, what you gonna read below are true accounts
of real events.
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I
did a lot of dumb thing when I was a kid but this one tops my
list. You might not know this but, I am very influenced to this
box called TV. Whatever is shown on it, I would try to imitate
it or create my version of it. While Hulk Hogan was giving a
body slam on Andre the Giant, I was slamming my bolster nearby.
When the cartoon Mask came on at 6:30pm, I was watching it with
my Dad’s motorbike helmet on. As you can see I was a victim
of American TV and I’m soaking EVERYTHING that was thrown
at me like a sponge.
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Cartoons
from the 80s kick ass big time! |
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Then
this new series of cartoons called the “Chip and Dale Rescue
Rangers” got it’s debut. No it’s not those lame
Power Rangers you have now. It was from Walt Disney and it showed
2 cartoon chipmunks saving the day using everyday items like paper
clips and everyday items. These sort of cartoons should be banned
because it started to affect my 9-year old boy brain. I watched
it so much, that subliminal messages started to fill my head;
"Why can’t I be a Rescue Ranger?"
"Why should they have all the fun?"
"They used everyday objects? Heck, I have everyday objects
piled up in my messy room so might as well use them to vanquish
evil." |
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| Rescue
Rangers didn’t wear anything fancy like Superman so I got
no problem with getting the right gear. Rescue Rangers was a pair
so I got my younger sister to be my sidekick. (She is usually my
sidekick in everything cause as a candy craving 6 year old, her
schedule was pretty open most of the time.) Just when you thought
that all kids played dressed once in their childhood, I brought
it up a notch and started to make a poster. I was kinda good at
drawing so I made this killer poster of my sister and me with our
arms crossed.
I even designed a logo
with a lightning bolt to show we mean business. Then came the
tough part- What sort of services do we have to offer? The Rescue
Rangers on TV rescued other talking cartoon characters but since
we live in a real world, I gotta find real problems for my sister
and me to tackle. So we both decided that we should save humanity
from the evils of roaches and other creepy crawlies. Nevermind
that we are terrified of roaches, we the Rescue Rangers will destroy
them nonetheless. How? We didn't exactly thought about that. So
basically, this Rescue Ranger thing is fast turning into a pest
control business.
Okay, so we both wore
jackets, I had a cap on and my sister got herself some shades.
Our poster was ready and we wanted some opinion and we asked our
Dad. My Dad took one look at it and said that it was a great idea!
But he said it was missing something.
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A replica
of the poster.
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We were too preoccupied about how cool the
whole thing was that we didn't even thought about how we gonna
"destroy" the pests.
Hmmmm. Oh well.
RESCUE RANGERS TO THE RESCUE!
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Before I go on, let us take 2 steps back. I
would like to tell you that my Dad is not your typical Dad.
He does not deal with discipline; that’s my Mum’s
job. He’s what I call a "Fun Dad". He would
wrestle with us even though he just got back from 12-hour shifts.
He would buy toys from Toys’ R’ Us every December
when he got his bonus without fail. (When I say toys, I’m
not talking about 1 or 2 lame figurines.
I’m
talking about big ass headquarters, 6 figurines; 3 good guys
and 3 bad guys and complete with other cars or motorbikes that
came along with it. That itself would keep me busy for months.
Thanks Dad! :) So you have to understand where he is coming
from when he made that statement.
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My Dad. |
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our eyes lit and I took my black marker and wrote our home phone
number in bold. Things would be fine if we just stop there, but
my boy brain kept pushing. We got some money from Dad and went to
the nearest stationary shop to make copies of the poster. How many
pieces you say? 5? 10? What about 100? And after we had 1 ream of
A4 size Rescue Rangers posters complete with our phone numbers,
me and my sister went to the neighbouring blocks to distribute them
into letterboxes. Now you know why the government got those new
locks for your mailbox because kids like us keep shoving crap in
it. Haha! |
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Junk
mail campaign |
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| There
you have it folks. At age 9, I have successfully executed my first
direct mail campaign. It was a cheap form of advertising and I can
also target my potential customers. Very effective indeed. Everything
went smoothly until Mum found out cause my sister had to blab when
we were eating our dinner. We didn’t get the cane but we got
one hell of a lecture. My Mum is an interrogator and executioner
all in one. CID should employ my Mum, that way, they can cut costs.
Even my Dad got an ass whopping. |
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As you
can see, nothing escapes this woman. |
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I guess that’s about it. I hope you like what I wrote and
maybe it will give you an inside look on why I do the things that
I do. When I look back, it was pretty embarrassing, heck I’m
blushing as I type this. But oh well, all kids do silly things right?
But not all kids understand
the effectiveness of direct mail,
Evil Bunny
PS: I got no call back
from the 100 posters we distributed. I had one neighbour kid saying
that she saw the “ad” and asked whether it was done
by us. We flatly denied.
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