Thoughts on: Messin’ with stuff for the sake of messin’ with stuff

Okay, I’ll admit it. I got up on the wrong side of the keyboard today and I am not feeling my usual self. I think what is galling me today are people who want to change things just for the sake of changing them. Sometimes we like to have a little stability in this world – what’s wrong with that.

One guy who knows what I mean is right-wing webmaster, extraordinaire, Matt Drudge. Now I don’t buy into Matt’s particular brand of politics, in fact he and I are polar opposites in that arena. But one thing you have to say about the guy, he knows how to run a website. One look at the Drudge Report and you’ll think that it’s 1993 again and you’ve just logged onto the internets with your brand new Gateway 386 using a 300 baud dial up modem. He’s kept that same format for years and has been very successful with it. Oh I know, recently he’s been sneaking in some color glossies, but he’s still got the same gazillion links to every online newspaper and syndicated columnist in existence. Republican, Democrat, Tea Partier, or Earth Firster, we all end up at Drudge, and he’s taken it all the way to the bank.

Another guy who knew something about leaving things alone was Henry Ford. The famous Ford logo with the scripted company name ‘Ford’ was first devised back in 1912 and although it underwent numerous changes throughout the years, it remained very much the same. So much so that the logo on the 1927 Model A is almost identical to the logo on my 2006 F-150 truck. The logo was on a brief hiatus from the late 50’s until 1976. Since ’76, however, nobody has messed with that famous logo (although it was put up as part of the collateral needed to secure government funding back during the precarious auto bailout days, but that’s another story).

So there you go – two good reasons to leave stuff alone.  I could actually go on and on, and I probably would if I thought it would do any good, but it won’t. Now let’s talk about people who just cannot leave stuff alone — like the owners of the Miami Dolphins football team. They want to mess with stuff. Now EEOTPB is not a sports blog, not by any means. God knows there are enough of those out there. But as a Dolphins fan, I have always felt that one of the more endearing fan-facing elements of the team was its logo – the happy dolphin in a football helmet. It was well,…fun. And football is supposed to be fun isn’t it? It’s certainly not work, or why would we spend time and money attending the games.

The old helmeted dolphin that adorned everything team related, from players helmets to fans bar-b-q grills is being replaced by a sleek new dolphin. This new dolphin is not even wearing a helmet. A dolphin that looks sort of …logo-like. It looks like it was conjured up by some Madison Avenue ad guys who have no intention of venturing past New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium to attend a football game.

Most notably missing, to me anyway, is the fact that the new dolphin doesn’t have any eyes. The eyes, with an ever so determined expression on the old dolphins face gave the logo its character. This new dolphin is sleek and fast looking and not to be trusted. It looks as slick and insincere as a New York used car salesman. So maybe putting eyes and a mouth on the dolphin was a bit too sappy for the ad guys. Maybe it was too cartoon-like. All I can say is that I personally liked the cartoon-like old dolphin, because he (or she, gender is not readily apparent when one is dealing with dolphins), painted a likeable face on the team – a team that needs all the likeability it can get in light of the past few disappointing seasons.

If you want, check out these links to the old logo, versus the new logo, and by all means feel free to weigh in on this virtually inconsequential issue.

I told you upfront I got up on the wrong side of the keyboard…now I gotta run…there are some kids walking on my lawn and I have to go yell at them…