[Read the first installment of my study abroad experience: What Brochures Don't Tell You About Studying Abroad]

Since I knew no one in Dublin and had never been there before, my Time Out: Dublin guidebook was my new bible. It had several pages of maps and a pretty extensive listing of shops, bars and places to eat. As I learned my way around the city (sort of) and tried to fill up my empty days (I came almost a week before registration, so I couldn’t even use the campus computer labs or the library), I discovered a few discrepancies between my guidebook and my own personal experiences. I’ve summed up a few of them, for your enjoyment: Read More »

Walking around Soho on a Saturday afternoon is generally a trying experience. As I struggled my way through thousands of shoppers and tourists heading down towards Canal Street, I looked up to see the newest billboard for Svedka vodka and stopped dead in my tracks. “90% of New York socialites prefer Svedka over eating.” Pan to my jaw dropping.

The ads use a female robot promoting what life and drinking might be like in the year 2033. The robot is, not surprisingly, large breasted and big assed. Using the female form to sell alcohol is not a new concept. According to Svedka however “The Future of Adult Entertainment” seems to also involve stereotyping homosexuals, and encouraging starvation. The taglines bring a new low to the world of booze peddling. The advertising agents have gone so far as to say “people are intrigued because we all secretly want to have sex with a robot.” Really? Robot sex is never something that titillated me, but who knows what I’ll be into in 10 years.

As much as I find most of these ads totally deplorable, there is one billboard that makes me smile every time. It says, “18 Billion Scientologists can’t be wrong.” Making fun of scientologists is always funny. Read More »