It's the Little Differences

When we were in Italy in August, I noticed a couple of unusual things in the Florence train station. The first unusual thing was that there were wine vending carts on the platforms when you step off the train. They are the first thing you see, before coffee, before food, before newspapers. The second thing was the Mc Donalds in the station. It looked like any other Mc Donalds, but the menu included such things as Tira Misu flavored shakes and whole fried shrimp.

But upon walking out of the Mc Donalds , that was when I saw the strangest thing of all - Benecio Del Toro on a 30 foot high billboard advertisement for what I though was condoms, but turned out to be ice cream.

I suppose it never dawned on the Italians that Magnum ice cream, with it's black and gold color wrapper and hyper-masculine design might spell jimmy hat before it spelled two scoops of vanilla with jimmies.

Naturally, I snapped a picture of the ad (see below). But I was not content with my simple vacation snapshot and have since dug a little deeper. Turns out that there is a significant advertising campaign associated with this concept. It's pretty lame, but I am going to guess that they backed up the money truck and unloaded a pile as high the billboard picture on Benecio's doorstep. I guess this is where academy award winners go to plump their bank accounts when the work gets slow. What's next? Adrien Brody for Tantum Rosa? No. I am not going to tell you what Tantum Rosa is. Google it for yourself. Tee hee.