Random Act of Advertising Kindness

If you don't live in Atlanta, you may well be sick of hearing me go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about the Wizometer. I'm sorry. I am. But I was born and raised in this town, and over the years I've watched the traffic get exponentially worse, the city get exponentially more dangerous, the local government get more corrupt...and now this?!?! NOT IN MY NAME.

The pure, unadulterated hatred humanity feels for the Wizometer is also the #1 driver of traffic to this site. Week after week after week, now matter what else I write about, the Wizometer post remains the most-read. And why? Because every day - at least once a day - someone googles something like "wizometer hate" or "what the hell is the wizometer", and ends up on my blog. And tonight I myself googled "wizometer" to see if it's truly specific to Atlanta, or if it's become a nationwide phenomenon. As far as I can tell, it's been contained within the ATL, but that's not the point. The point is that I found this. Sorry I can't embed the video here, but that's how 11Alive rolls - you have to go to their site to watch their awesome video about something they have the audacity to call an "act of kindness".

I'll break it down for you, in case you don't want to click the link (and really, who could blame you?): At some point in the evening news, they'd done a story about a local high school that has implemented some sort of fitness program. And the reporter who visited the school committed a random act of publicity kindness by distributing wristbands featuring the Wizometer. My favorite part is when she holds them up and says, "These are Wizometers," then corrects her minor error by pointing out that they are actually wristbands with pictures of the Wizometer on them. Personally, I think it's splitting hairs. A Wizometer, a picture of a Wizometer - they're both overwrought graphics with meaningless, contextless numbers all over them. As for the alleged "kindness" involved, the only kind act I saw was the gracious acceptance of those things, when you know everyone in the room wanted to burn them in effigy.

Stop trying to make the Wizometer happen, 11Alive. And if you insist on continuing to force feed us Wizometer promotional items, at least have the decency to slap that logo on a roll of toilet paper where it belongs.

THAT'S YOU TOLD.