I've seen ads for Hoodia here and there on the internet, but I didn't pay much attention. The name sounded too much like a nearly indecent word that they named a restaurant after. But eventually I wondered what is that stuff, and a glance at the ads showed that it's supposed to be for weight loss.
Then I heard an ad on the radio this morning for Hoodia. The ad said that Hoodia was from a plant in Australia that was used by Aborigines when they were out in the bush. They used the plant as an appetitie suppressant, since food wasn't very plentiful out there.
But now, through the miracles of modern science and marketing, you too can have this plant to work for you.
The ad said that their new product, presumably the plant in pill or capsule form, will reduce your appetite and increase your metabolism.
But that doesn't sound right at all. If the Aborigines are out in the bush, they'd want their appetite suppressed, no doubt about that. But they certainly wouldn't want to increase their metabolism, because that would burn off their stores of fat even more quickly than normal, leading them to starve much sooner.
No point in going walkabout, if you're not going to be able to walk about for very long.
So the Hoodia product we can buy either has additives to increase metabolism (which is a red flag for ephedra-like substances), or it doesn't really increase your metabolism, because if it did, there'd be a lot of dead Aborigines in Australia's outback (which is a red flag for possible false advertising). Either way, there's a problem.
I'm not going to try the product, not because of the red flags but because I just don't like the name (and also because I'm too cheap to spend money on stuff like that). The name reminds me of the commercials they had on TV when I was a kid for some game called "Hoosker-do." It was just like the game "Concentration" that we used to play with playing cards, so if we had asked our parents to get it for us, we would have wasted a valuable gift-receiving opportunity on something we could already play.
No, in my experience, things that start with "Hoo..." are too pointless, trivial, or tacky to bother with.
8 comments:
Charlie,
Thanks for the link to the article! Fascinating.
Looks like I was wrong about it being Australia. I did no research when I wrote my post, because that would defeat the purpose of giving my impressions.
Now I'm smarter too...
My brother and I received
Hoosker-do (which means "do you remember" in sweddish) for Christmas, I do remember. Wow, I feel old.
Janice,
Did you and your brother like the game?
We were holding out for Getaway Chase Game, which we never got and which I'm certain we would have grown bored with almost immediately, but we didn't care because it looked cool.
For "Concentration" we used to turn the whole deck of playing cards face-down on the carpet, swirl them around to mix them up, then start playing. The winner was the one who had the most cards at the end of the game. Hoosker-do looked like exactly the same game.
We loved the game. It was very cool, with 30 to 40 different sets of pitures on cardboard that rotated under a plastic disc that had 30 or so holes you covered with checker like disks to hide the pictures. When you turned the picture disc you had a new game. The winner had the most matches or checkers. It was alot of fun.
We also had Miles Bournes, a french card game, that is
Uno-esque with a car road rally theme.
Janice,
I LOVE Mille Bournes!!!! I played it as a grown-up with my then-husband and another couple we hung out with (pre-children). Too much fun!
I should go buy that and play it with my friends when we don't have enough people to play Settlers of Catan.
Thanks for reminding me!!!
You can find Mille Bournes at Amazon.com. I bought it last year. My brother and our spouses play once a month, teams of course. My sister in law put an end to my brother & me being on the same side a few months ago. I guess we had a big advantage over the two novice significant others. It's a great game.
I've never heard of Settlers of Catan. What is it?
Janice,
Settlers of Catan is a board game, but the board is a bunch of hexagons that you shuffle and arrange, so your board (and strategy) changes with every game. I'm pretty sure it originated in Germany--my friend got hooked on it by her son, who got it from a friend, who bought it in Germany. But it's available (in English) through Amazon. It can get expensive if you buy the expansion pack for 5 - 6 players (regular is for 4 players) and the variation games (my friend has Cities and Knights of Catan, which is a little more complicated).
Whatever you do, though, don't play it with my friend's son, because he always manages to win.
Thanks for the warning Skye, I'll have to check it out, sounds like a lot of fun.
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