{"id":140,"date":"2013-09-19T08:17:46","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T15:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=140"},"modified":"2018-07-23T19:33:29","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T02:33:29","slug":"nike-targets-pot-bellied-husbands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=140","title":{"rendered":"Nike Targets Pot-Bellied Husbands"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nike+<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s called the Nike+ Fuelband.\u00a0 It\u2019s a plastic electronic bracelet that wives buy to slap onto their pot-bellied husbands\u2019 wrists to humiliate them into climbing off the couch once a week or so.\u00a0 It\u2019s like one of those little research bands that Marlin Perkin\u2019s had Jim Fowler attach to the legs of rare African birds.\u00a0 I am one of those rare birds.\u00a0 I have been tagged.<\/p>\n

It tracks my every movement.\u00a0 The number of steps I take.\u00a0 The number of calories I burn.\u00a0 The number of donuts I eat.\u00a0 My life is no longer my own.\u00a0 I have considered a number of plots to \u201cgame\u201d the system.\u00a0 Don\u2019t think for a moment I haven\u2019t thought of attaching this thing to a toddler.\u00a0 The only reason I haven\u2019t is that according to my iPhone, toddlers burn about 10,000 calories an hour.\u00a0 The Nike+ Police Force would bust me by lunch.<\/p>\n

My wife slyly presented it to me as an unassuming special<\/i> birthday present.\u00a0 I received it in a beautifully wrapped box.\u00a0 My wife beamed as I tore through the paper toward what I assumed was an assortment of chocolates.\u00a0\u00a0 Imagine experiencing that whiplash.<\/p>\n

I am increasingly convinced that this high tech catch and release system was the brain child of my wife and Phil Knight.\u00a0 Go ahead and scoff, but we only live 100 miles from him, and both he and my wife are rabid Oregon Duck fans.\u00a0 Do I need to paint you a picture?\u00a0 I do?\u00a0 Okay, let me explain:<\/p>\n

The athletic market is tapped out.\u00a0 How many $200 pairs of gym shoes can you sell?\u00a0 So, with what I imagine as the helpful <\/i>prodding of my wife, Nike decided to focus on a yet untapped demographic \u2013 wives with pot-bellied husbands.\u00a0 This demographic has historically been a tough nut for Nike to crack.\u00a0 These portly fellows have resisted the flashy $300 neon track suits.\u00a0 They\u2019ve turned up their noses at the $100 wicking undershirts. \u00a0Sure, Nike has sold them 100 million Just Do It! <\/i>t-shirts (usually from bargain bins), but these guys are just not doing it.<\/i>\u00a0 They are lying on the couch eating chips and scratching their bulbous bellies.<\/p>\n

My wife no doubt wrote the script Nike gives to wives to use in conjunction with these little plastic ball-and-chains<\/i>:<\/p>\n

\u201cHoney, you look like you\u2019ve been losing weight.\u00a0 This will help you keep track of the calories you\u2019re burning each day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or perhaps:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis looks great on you.\u00a0 Very athletic!\u00a0 Much better than that stogy $8,000 Rolex I got you for Christmas.\u201d\u00a0 (Did I forget to tell you that for the $150 price, in addition to reminding you how sedentary you are, it tells you the time?)<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the name Nike+ Fuelband.\u00a0 The name itself bursting with energy and motivational influence.\u00a0 Some skinny marketing geek got a big fat bonus for coming up with that one.\u00a0 No question.\u00a0 They\u2019re probably still howling about it in the lunch room of the marketing firm.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as for me, the experiments continue.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t quite yet perfected it, but it appears that if I eat an entire half gallon of ice cream, scooping vigorously with the same hand as my Nike+ Fuelband, the little computer thinks I\u2019ve run a marathon.\u00a0 Rock on, Nike+ Fuelband.\u00a0 Rock on, Rocky Road!<\/p>\n

_______<\/p>\n

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______________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Check out these great books:<\/p>\n

The Lawyer\u2019s Song: Navigating the legal wilderness<\/em><\/strong> at \u2013<\/p>\n

https:\/\/buff.ly\/2K41Tax<\/p>\n

Seven Rules for the College Playground –<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/buff.ly\/2IqXxgn<\/p>\n

Seven Secrets You Need to Know to Hire the Right Lawyer –<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/buff.ly\/2roFIov<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s called the Nike+ Fuelband.\u00a0 It\u2019s a plastic electronic bracelet that wives buy to slap onto their pot-bellied husbands\u2019 wrists to humiliate them into climbing off the couch once a week or so.\u00a0 It\u2019s like one of those little research bands that Marlin Perkin\u2019s had Jim Fowler attach to the legs of rare African birds.\u00a0 […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[532,53,54,55],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","tag-humor","tag-nike","tag-nike-fuelband","tag-phil-knight"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1406,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions\/1406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}