Not Soap Radio ®

(Dedicated to branding experts everywhere)

While visiting Yarmouth this weekend we had the opportunity to stay at the Tru by Hilton, sort of a low-end family oriented hotel run as part of the global Hilton chain.

It was nice I guess, but drove home the reality that hotels in southern Nova Scotia have three client bases: salesmen, travelling trades, and families at sports tournaments. In other words, a well stocked bar or lounge matters less than a big waterslide.

Part of being a budget hotel is that you no longer get individually wrapped bars of soap, or little bottles of shampoo. Instead you get big bottles of stuff nailed to the wall.

Which brings us to Not Soap Radio®. Or Not Radio Soap®. I still don’t know exactly what the brand is supposed to be. There was Not Soap Radio® hand soap, Not Soap Radio® hand cream. Not Soap Radio® body wash. Not Soap Radio® shampoo. And Not Soap Radio® conditioner.

OK, I can live with that. It is the times that we live in.

Then, at breakfast, I saw the box of boiled eggs.

I had many thoughts of course. Would they really need to supply two dozen boiled eggs every morning? Did someone get paid each day to boil and un-peel two dozen eggs? What happens to the unused ones? And of course I was reminded of Martha Stewart’s advice "Since they are peeled, they need to be protected from exposure to air, odors, and any microorganisms that may be present."

I ignored the hard boiled egg box. Instead I was drawn to this, the absolute engineering marvel of our age. The pancake making machine:

In the top: a plastic bag full of premixed batter. Behind the “Watch them cook” window: a fabric conveyor belt. The machine drops a blob of batter onto the belt, and it rolls along slowly as the pancake cooks to perfection, then plops out of the far end of the machine.

The company making these contraptions is called Popcake International, and the machine run about $3,700 US.

Honestly, after all of this we much preferred a nice martini and some great finger foods at The Tipsy Gull, a cocktail bar and micro-distillery on Main Street in Yarmouth.

Footnote: Not Soap Radio is actually a thing, out of California of course. “Think globally, bathe locally”