Lots of businesses can boast clever puns in their names, but few can lay claim to one in their name and a second completely different pun in their slogan. Hello, Fixer on the Roof.
The eternal question about businesses bearing cutesy names is whether you really want to trust your house, car, or life to the person who thinks up these groaners. But that hasn’t stopped me from vowing to call up Bin There Dump That if I ever need a dumpster, nor did it stop me from calling in the SWAT team (Specialized Wildlife Apprehension Technicians, whose website features the cutest damn illustration of a raccoon in jail that you’ve ever seen) to evict a family of squirrels from the spare bedroom last year, nor did it make my fireplace service choice between Friendly Fires and Burning Sensations any easier. But trusting my roof to a mad punner? I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.
I’m used to receiving “free” offers in the mail, but rarely is a company—especially one as large as Direct Energy—as upfront about just how much free is going to cost me. I’m not even sure why they bothered putting the asterisk there; it seems pretty clear even from the large print that I’d have to be pretty daft to take advantage of this offer.
Bonus: I have no idea what Bucknuts are or how they allow Direct Energy to offer “competitive energy solutions.” They really don’t sound like something I’d want to burn for heat in the winter.
F’Coffee and Rear Ends won the honours for Dodgeville’s best (& worst) business name in 2007 and 2008 respectively, and it’s about time I bestowed the honour for 2009. The clear winner this time around is FOC!, with its even more wonderful domain name, focit.ca.
“What does ‘FOC’ mean?”
“It’s a slang word. When a man and a woman are in love, the man puts his…”
“No, no. Here: ‘F. O. C.’
Of course, Rigby Reardon, with some timely assistance from Philip Marlowe, eventually discovered that it stood for Friends of Carlotta. If you don’t know the rest of the story, you owe it to yourself to rent Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid some day. I assume that these Leaside FOCkers are fans.
From the Who Knew? files comes Ontario Sawdust, distributors of quality sawdust from a variety of wood-based products, according to their web site. I always thought that sawdust was a waste material that, while useful for many things, didn’t require any kind of specialized distribution. After all, you can pretty much make your own for free.
Ontario Sawdust says that they pick up (and pay for!) raw material, but I wonder if they’d come all the way down to Toronto for occasional donations from a home workshop. It would nicely solve the problem of what to do with the waste from my shop. The City of Toronto won’t collect sawdust as garbage, and some kinds of wood (like Walnut) will kill everything if you use them as mulch.
Advertising, Wonderings | Val Dodge | 
June 18, 2010 | 
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