As far as I know, this is not a neighborhood issue. Yet. Sunday I put gas in my car at a Chevron at the Preston/Northwest Highway intersection. The station, it appeared, had been recently updated. Immediately after I started the pump, a speaker on the pump began blaring radio-type commercials at me. Not the "Come inside and buy a drink" or "Clean your engine with Techron" type-thing, but third party commercials for companies unassociated with the oil company. Clearly a new income stream for the station even though I was already paying a premium for the gas.
I know I'm cranky (I'm still mad that we have commercials on paid cable tv. That's not what was promised when cable tv was new and trying to grow) but now I can't even pump expensive, premium priced gas in relative peace?
I'd love to know if anyone has seen this new technology installed east of Central. I want to make sure I don't turn in there.
I haven't come across this yet East of Central, but on a related topic, I did take my girls to see Shrek III last week at NorthPark and was APPALLED that they played 25 minutes of commercials AFTER the designated start time for the film. Considering we arrived 10 or so minutes early to our seats, that was a whopping 35 minutes of straight commercials we endured in order to see our "feature". I guess since many of us have learned to use our DVRs to weed out commercials when watching tv, advertisers have had to find new places where we are captive audiences (gas pumps, movie houses) to get their message across.
Posted by: Matt Wood | May 29, 2007 at 09:09 AM
Obnoxious talking pumps at the Chevron in Casa Linda, I located the mute option before I took more drastic measures. Kind of brings to mind some of those sci-fi type mind control possibilities doesn't it?
Posted by: AC | May 30, 2007 at 10:13 AM
You know, slugging a gas pump isn't the best course of action, so I pressed that mute button as hard as I could. So far, Casa Linda is the only one I've encounted.
What I really want to know about is why I can't get gas at any Mobile stations.
Posted by: KatieMac | May 31, 2007 at 12:19 PM
They've had one of those awful things for awhile at the Tetco/Chevron at Live Oak (one block east of Peak). Took me two visits to find the "mute" button. That station also features the most amazing assemblage of panhandlers (the poor station attendants have a huge pile of trespass notices they've had issued, to no avail). All for the joy of paying $3/gal and more.
Gassing the car has become one of those despised chores, like cleaning out the cat box or the gutters, that one tries to put off as long as possible.
Posted by: Ryly | May 31, 2007 at 02:19 PM