Archive for June, 2008
satisfied »
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
I enter the conference room and make my way to the far corner. I set my notepad down and walk back toward the door where the line is already ten people long. More are immediately behind me.
The line moves past the table, each person gazing over the food choices. They talk amongst themselves, about what they’ll eat, what looks good and what they’ll avoid. “I would but—,” “I wish I could…” and “those look great, but I probably shouldn’t,” drift about in different voices.
I follow slowly, grabbing bits and pieces and trying to will my paper plate to be as sturdy as plastic. There are a few different things that look enticing, but I don’t know what they are. There are bagels, danish, yogurt and egg McMuffins. (more…)
only in america »
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
I took some time to grab a sandwich from Subway the other day. It’s not my typical stop (with Jimmy Johns so close) but the new $5/12″ deal makes it more tempting. Unfortunately, stuffing that discount, over-mayo-ed subway melt into my gaping maw got me thinking about my least favorite ad campaign.
You may remember (because they’re still milking that asshole for all he’s worth) Jared and his heroic effort to lose his substantial mass by way of subway subs. Who the shit decided this one?
By 20 years old (when metabolisms are still running like motivated mice), he was 425lbs (that’s 50+ newborns; though i don’t know why i’m using that as a unit of measure). Suddenly, he was motivated and dropped from taking in 10,000 calories (seriously, read that article and all the shit he was eating; points for not feeling nauseous after) each day to just 1,000. Then, after he had lost the weight of two people, Subway came calling and now he’s (still) famous.
He’s the son of a doctor. (I’ll repeat that. A doctor.) It doesn’t list anywhere a lottery win or having to go homeless for a few months after freshman year so someone was financing his grotesque eating habits.
Let me guess, Mr. and Mrs. Subway Guy… you love him. He needs the money and blah, yadda. Somehow, considering he was eating five times what normal (see: not american, not obese) folk chow down, i have doubts he would have starved if you eased up on the funds. Everyone should ignore that you fed the fat jerk until he was three people heavy, right? Fuck.
(I’m amazed Jared hasn’t been mentioned before this. I really, really, really can’t stand what that fuck represents. [Even though I’m positive he’s the nicest person to ever exist, outside of Jesus and maybe Bob Marley; he looks like a cuddler.])
The whole campaign was (is) a pathetic sham to get people to mow down sandwiches. Sandwiches they could make themselves for a fraction of the price (and much higher quality) if they weren’t so overworked, overstressed and generally busy.
Moving on… That brings me to my current (maybe all-time favorite) ad campaign. E-Trade has been rocking the quality marketing since the tip-off, but this last round is too awesome.
First, there was the “even a baby can do it” ad that showed a baby buying stock:
Then came the mother load. The baby, discussing the better average return with a clown in the background:
But the most recent manifestation is probably my favorite. Baby showing off his Blackberry:
If you factor out a minor hiccup, that moby-esque dweeb buying stock in hong kong from new jersey, it’s solid. There’s the talking baby, the spit-up, the slang, the clown creepiness, the play on vlogging and the overall awesome. (“uhh… s’a bad girl. man”… amadeaus as ring tone… “Hey, girl. Can I hit you back?”)
Thank you E-Trade. Thank you.
friday free for all »
Friday, June 13th, 2008
… Busy weekend coming up and a series of others thereafter. I, unfortunately, don’t see this as a good thing necessarily. I’m a fan of sitting around with a few Summits and a shitty movie, but all signs point to this never happening again until fall.
I watched Haley Bonar rock the varsity last night, am planning on seeing David Sedaris do whatever it is you do at a book talk all over the Coffman Union tonight, am headed to Eau Claire for the afternoon tomorrow and then I’m off to the Uptown Bar for lookbook later. Girlfriend and I may even head up to stillwater to watch the bike race on Sunday.
Whew.
… The Supreme Court voted to let detainees not prisoners, because prisoners are charged with something challenge their being held at Guantanamo Bay. This is good and all, but which ones will have the bank to take their detention to court? And how long will they be held before being able to? And why doesn’t anyone care?
… I spent part of Monday, the afternoon on Wednesday and almost the entire day yesterday learning how to code into our new Content Management System CMS. That means nothing to you, but I have more flexibility in knowing how the whole thing works.
All that time was taken to work on one landing page template. Impressively unimpressive.
… I guess MySpace is going into a redesign. With the Book getting all application drunk and things, I find myself curious. Navigating the Space is currently like trudging through knee-high sludge, blindfolded, with one leg. If they clean things up it may actually be a useful interface again. Doubt it.
… and finally:
This blog will be moving. Eventually. I’m looking to make WordPress my bitch in coming weeks and will use it to master coding I have yet to play with. Due to such, I’ll be moving this into part of my portfolio site as a subdomain or directory or something.
That site sucks like having your liver eaten out by vultures each day for eternity would be an inconvenience and I need to get on with things. Having a job I’m uninterested in and working where collaboration goes to rot are fun and all, but it’s getting a bit taxing.
There will be ample warning, links will be changed on the Book which just caught up to the Space in social networking traffic… case you were curious and mentioned here so you can update your bookmarks/readers/neurons. I give you all this because you are the dedicated threes who spend your hard-earned idling reading my rants. I’d never leave you hanging.*
In case you’re curious even the staff here couldn’t care less, there will likely be a redesign. Maybe something with darker text than the background or graphics or something that looks like i know what I’m doing fake it ’til you make it, as the losers and middle management say (if there’s a difference).
* I totally would. No offense.
predicting the future? »
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Full disclosure: I had this weird-ass post sorted that claimed flash video was the best invention created by man. I still think it’s top five, but when I actually looked into things I decided against the whole “best ever” thing.
I immediately discarded the idea you’re welcome as idiotic because 90% of the videos are worthless here’s me dancing, here’s me bitching, here’s my cat sleeping, here’s a clip of my buddy being a moron, here’s a shot of some stranger doing something stupid and here’s a clip I hacked off my Tivo and most have that damn Benny Benassi song as their soundtrack.
I was going to do the post because I’ve been playing with YouTube, BrightCove and iMovie for work the last few weeks. Been immersed in the media, as you will. But yeah, decided against and I think it’s for the best.
Anyway, I’m planning* a Segway tour through work. As we promote the hell out of them it’s only fair that we get to ride the things right? This frightens me:
If you were to dissect me Russian doll-style right now, I’d have that stoic, glassy stare on each face until the smallest. There you’d see a look of horror like something out of a 70s slasher epic. You’d also hear a tiny bloodcurdling scream.
I’m not afraid of falling, mind you. I’m afraid one of my co-tourers will bolt ahead at full tilt and run a set of handlebars through my lumbar region. I’ve never been on one, so I guess we’ll see.
* by “I’m planning,” I mean someone emailed a bunch of people of which I was one and I accepted an invitation to partake. I haven’t done any planning. I’m just waiting for them to shout over the cubes that it’s time to hop on. I’ll ride around with the skill and grace of Gob; you don’t know Gob? Arrested Development? …why do I even try? ::sigh::
the real hulk »
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
There’s a new movie coming out with Ed Norton as “the hulk.” That’s fine, but he needs a CGI equivalent and hits people in the ear who hits someone in the ear?, which is frowned upon. Though he’s been demoted to American Gladiator host and has a kid in lockup, I still like to look back at the good old days. The days of real Hulkamania. Of which I was not a part because I never watched WWF.
The video’s not that interesting on the surface it’s just a redundant attempt point out the obvious, but it’s a fun look at linguistics and an even better look at the man, the myth, the legend.
[via]
“Unamerican” has been defined differently over time by different people as a tool for different things. Think, “recession,” “liberal” or “patriotism.” It’s strange to think of all the other words that have been manipulated and misused in the name of progress.
Incidentally, Hogan is obviously the best part. Considering he was good and bad numerous different times over his career and came back as part of the NWO when he was way too old, is there a metaphor there? Or some deeper meaning? answer: no.