this is why i love you kirsten...

(This conversation has been edited for nut-related content)

Kirsten: oh hey u know what i saw today

Kirsten: someone had balls on their car
me: what? like 'wash me' balls?
Kirsten: like tied to a trailer hitch balls

me: thats weird

Kirsten: http://www.bullsballs.com/truck/nutz

me: oh my god. i know what i'm asking santa for xmas this year.

also, it scares me that you had that link on hand

Kirsten: http://www.bullsballs.com/keyring/balls.html

me: i wish i had invented that. wouldn't that be hilarious if that was the product invention we pitched for cabell? truck nutz?

Kirsten: im posting it on my blog

me: i particularly like the 'flesh colored' nuts. although it looks like white flesh. we should sue bulls ballz for discrimination - kinda like crayola

Kirsten: yeah. you're right!
me: they should have indian red nutz, asian yellow and black
Kirsten: black nutz would be like 2 lbs

me: except the black ones would be 3 times the size

Kirsten: youre a racist

thank you...

...random neighbor that folded and stacked my underwear today.

50 reasons not to hire me come May

all I want for Christmas is...

Replacement toothbrush heads, razorblades and printer ink cartridges.

Who have I become?

old people

I was sitting across from my partner tonight at Sine, concepting over irish nachos, when my attention was drawn to something outside on the street. A line of old people were loading onto what looked to be a huge old people tour bus of some sort. I turned to my partner, apologized, and proceeded to tell him loudly that I was distracted by all the old people. As soon as I said this, I realized that the line of old people was leading from the bus into the restaurant, and that there was a white-haired man standing right beside our table, giving me the stink eye.

But I doubt he even heard me.

Or really saw me.

What with him being old and all.

Zing!

caskets and crumpets

I've always found that the best part about working on a new ad campaign is the information I discover along the way. On rare occasion, I find a golden insight buried in my research that may actually make for a fair campaign. But more often than not, I find (seemingly) useless crap.

And I can't get enough of it.

At the moment, I am working on three campaigns, so, for the last two days, I've been living at Barnes and Noble under a pile of books - conspicuously taking detailed notes about how to run a funeral home and host a garden party.

Here are some neat facts I would like to share:


3 out of 4 Americans die without a will

A good trick to remember someone's name is to repeat it upon introduction.

Attila the Hun died of a nosebleed on his wedding night

To create good conversation flow, always seat introverted people next to extroverted.

General John Sedwick's dying words: "They couldn't even hit an elephant at this dis - "

Always introduce a woman before a man and the youngest before the eldest.

Walt Whitman's last word: "Shit."

Serve from the left. Clear from the right. (I should have already known this.)

The Golden Gate bridge is nicknamed the 'bridge of sighs' due to the high rate of suicide jumps.

As a guest, be sure to mention any food allergies to the host before an event.

Tennessee Williams choked to death on a cap to a bottle of nasal spray.


And my new favorite quote of the week:

"Once you've seen Britney Spears emerge from a limo without even her usual tiny slingshot of a panty to cover what's left of her dignity, you realize one important thing: Death is the only real taboo left in this country." - Cynthia Celain

one for the dream box

About a week ago, I had a dream. And it went a little something like this:

(I wish I had a peach colored background to indicate dream sequence)

I woke up in an ambulance.

I had some recollection of being an intern or assistant at the 'American Red Cross
Emergency Heart and Cardiovascular Care'. I was sitting upright in a doctor's chair, facing a nurse who seemed to not notice me. There was beeping in the background from a medical machine. My body felt a little weird - like the cramping feeling you get in your arm when you donate blood - except all over. I looked down at my legs and noticed a large lump beneath the calf of my right pant leg. I pulled up my pant to discover a large pumping device strapped around my leg. I panicked and struggled in vain to pull it off, but the nurse continued to ignore me.

After accepting that the situation was beyond my control, I took a closer look at the pump and realized that I was sharing it with someone else, sitting directly behind me. By the looks of it, the pump was taking the strangers blood and using a filtering device to
pump my fresh blood back into their body. I wondered whether or not I would ever be able to donate blood again. Then the beeping stopped.

Complete silence.

After a few seconds, from behind me, an authoritative voice declares: "There is a risk of contamination and a likelihood that the donor has contracted the Pennsylvania Virus - which will most likely lead to death".

My heart sinks. Panicked again, I looked to the nurse who had ignored me before. Noticing my glance, she finally looks at me and asks: "Well, did you have something to eat today?" Not remembering what I had for breakfast, I thought back to the large dinner I had before I went to bed that night and replied "yes". Looking down again, the nurse sighs, raises her eyebrows and gives me a look as if to say 'Well, that may help...but we can only hope for the best now'.

I wondered to myself - if I had contracted this mysterious virus - whether my death would be short and fast, or long and painful.

Then I really woke up.


Now, I'm not a big believer in dream interpretation (I think dreams have different meanings depending on whom dreamt them. For instance, mine probably means I'm going to die), but I do believe that there are certain things you can do to intensify your dreams.

Like going out to an early Thanksgiving dinner with your roommates family - which is exactly what I did before I went to bed the night I had that dream.

This reminds me of one of my favorite comic strips called 'Dream of the Rarebit Fiend' (1904). For reference, welsh rarebit (or 'rabbit') was a sort of cheese stew popular at the turn of the century and it was common folklore at the time, that anyone who ate too much rarebit for dinner would have intense, often frightening dreams - which is exactly what Windsor McCay capitalized on.

Here are a few examples:



Ah yes, the classic 'I really need to get somewhere but seem to be running in place' dream...



I'm surprised Nike didn't get sued for copyright infringement for this one. Although I suppose it has been almost 100 years...



And at the end, the 'rarebit fiend' always wakes up to realize he/she was dreaming. This is actually how I imagine I looked when I jolted myself awake at 6:00am to jot down my dream - minus the hair ribbons and ruffled nightgown.

And by 'rarebits' of course I am referring to shrimp cocktail, lampchop, new york strip, prime-rib, crab stuffed portabella, tiramisu, apple tart, raspberry cheesecake and two glasses of pinot noir.

In conclusion:

best dinner ever = worst dream ever

the solution to over-population ahead

I had this thought tonight as I was making dinner: What if humans were hatched from eggs? Like chickens? And parents had to sit on them to warm them and make sure to not crush them? I think this might be a nice way to ensure that irresponsible people don't reproduce. I suppose this is probably the point of that science class experiment where you have to babysit an egg for a week, but that is neither here nor there. Actually, it is, but I digress.

Anyway, I already know, for a fact, that I would be an unfit parent. When I was five years old, I had the opportunity to test my theory when I found a robins egg below its nest on my walk to the bus stop. After little deliberation, I decided to put it in my pocket and bring it to school for show and tell. Not only would I win the admiration of my peers, but after a few months, we would have a new class pet, respectively named Robin.

Well, lets just say that by the time I got to school, the only thing I had to show was a soggy pocket. And instead of telling, it was more crying.

To this day, I can still remember the feeling of the egg as I held it in my pocket to keep it warm.

And I still don't know what the fuck happened.

Lesson learned.

riddle me this...

Does anyone know how many people have viewed my blog? I want to know how unpopular I am.

Thanks.

The Smells of Shockoe Espresso

This morning I was getting my daily cup o' shit at Shockoe Espresso when I overheard the most cliched interview question of all time:

"so, tell me a little about yourself..."

Automatically I thought about what bullshit job that poor chump must have been interviewing for. Then I realized that the interviewee was probably applying for a job at Shockoe Espresso. I left before the stink of burning coffee could seep into my clothing, but I imagine the rest of the conversation probably went a little something like this:

Interviewer:

"So, tell me a little about yourself..."

Interviewee:

"Well, to start, I was raised by a family of great apes in the mountains of Nepal. I have no formal education, per say, but I was taught from an early age on to hate humans, as poachers were affluent in the area I was raised. I moved to the states at the age of 8 - after my parents abandoned me - and found a new home with a group of nomadic born-again Christians from New Jersey. I've been working at the DMV for the last 10 years and would still be working there if I hadn't been laid off for constantly screaming orders at my co-workers from across the room. I don't particularly care for coffee, don't understand how to establish a wireless connection, have no concept of 'room for cream' and have no prior barista/cashier/cook experience. However, what I lack in common sense and common courtesy, I make up for in my uncommon love for 80's love ballads, bad poetry and the smell of burning."

Interviewer: (in the voice of a 1920s newspaper editor who just caught wind of a hot scoop from the press intern)

"You're hired!"

A little bit too close to home

You guys...

I just had the best grilled cheese sandwich in the whole wide world.

And also, I'm drunk.

I call shenanigans

You know how I just went on that whole rant about 'trusting the system'?

Nevermind.

I just checked my e-mail a second ago to find out I didn't get a scholarship for this semester.

Even after I told them I haven't been to a doctor or dentist in five years, don't have health insurance and have had a missing filling since August.

But, aaaayyyy...whaddya gonna do?

Spoiler Alert!

Originally I thought this would be a great name for a band that created lyrics/song titles based around endings to good movies, books, etc. (for example: ‘Dumbledore Dies’), but today, ‘spoiler alert!’ means this:

I’m about to spill my beans.

Its that time of year again where second-year students at Adcenter get together to argue about Sixty, the annual AdCenter publication sent to over 8,000 agencies at the end of the year.

And every year this is what happens:

We argue about how it should look
We argue about what content should/shouldn’t be in it
Most important, we argue about whether or not it should have a theme.

And although there wasn’t a theme for Sixty last year, I’m noticing one forming already this year.

Politics.

Students talking trash about professors and peers. Professors favoring students. Art directors and Copywriters with hidden agendas. Lately, it seems the only dependable thing at the Adcenter is the vending machine.

And it stopped taking dollar bills last week.

However, as pessimistic as I sometimes am about this school and the industry I am voluntarily about to enter, the more I think about it, the more I think I am just idealistic.

That’s why I propose one of the themes of this year’s annual should be this:


TRUST


As in:

Trust in the system
Trust that the instructors were hired for a good reason
Trust that everyone got into Adcenter for a good reason
Trust that everyone will find a job upon leaving
Trust that the agency that hires you and its clients will trust you enough to do good work
Trust that they will tell you when you don’t
Trust that people who work the hardest and smartest will be rewarded
Trust that people who don’t work will be found out
Trust the criticism of those you respect/admire most
But trust your gut instincts
Trust that good ideas can’t be forced
And when they don’t come, trust it’s not the end of the world
Trust that everyone has their own set of strengths and weaknesses
And that someone else’s strength doesn’t make you weak
Trust that your closest friends and family will forgive you when you are distracted or forget to return a call
And trust that they will listen when you call home whining about work
Last but not least, trust that we can/will create a great Sixty if left to our own devices and with a little bit of guidance.

I don’t really expect this to be the theme, but I figured if we’re going to just turn into jaded advertising asshole/client burn-outs in 20 years anyway, might as well give this whole ‘trust’ thing a shot.

Otherwise, we could always just go with the theme of high school yearbook.

Yah, that would kick-ass.

Jefferson Davis was a Warlock

Yesterday afternoon I found myself walking down Monument Avenue looking at statues of confederate heroes when I was reminded of a conversation I had with my friends Mike and Jenny last summer in Chicago. When walking home from North Ave. beach, we passed a statue of a general on a horse with one hoof raised and got into a discussion about the relationship between the horse and it's rider in sculpture/art.

I think it went a little something like this:

(Horse vs. Rider)

four feet grounded = rider died of natural causes
one hoof up = rider died of war-related injury after battle
two hooves up = rider died in battle
horn on forehead = rider was a warlock/witch

Since that conversation, every time I see a statue of a war horse, I'm tempted to craft a false unicorn horn and place it on it's forehead.

My question for you:

Would this qualify as street art?

Hi E.B

Hi E.B,

I know I mentioned in our meeting tonight that I'd rather be writing a blog, so I figured I'd better just in case you see this.

Good night.

Heal me Donny Osmand

This is a myspace note I received last spring from a ABC casting director named 'Douglas':

I don't want to talk about it.

Dr. Zombie

I apologize for the multiple postings - I only have about three, four ideas max and will most likely forget that I even have a blog in about a week.

So I had this idea a few years back for this Zombie advice column.

It might be called something like "Ask a Zombie", "Dr. Zombie" or "Excessively Savage Love" and would feature questions from zombies, or the living with zombie-related problems.

Here are a few possible questions that could get it started....

"I had a love affair with a zombie, and now I am pregnant with a bi-racial zombie love child. The problem is, my zombie lover's parents were raised with traditional values, what do I do?"

Or

"For as long as I've been doing thrillers, I've always been typecast as the "hot" zombie. How do I convince producers that I don't just love brains, but that there are also brains behind my beauty?

Or best yet

"What is the best way to quickly prepare quiche to serve a growing hoard of Zombies?"

Of course the "advice" would always be something like...uhhhhhhhhhhhh,
braaaaaaainnnnnss.....uhhhhhhhhhh. But sometimes, on the rare occasion that a living
human writes in, they would be instructed to contact the HR department of the Zombie headquarters and bring lots of brains.....errr.....friends.

If anyone has any leads about a zombie newspaper/magazine, hit me up.

That is all.

The cartoon

Here is a comic strip I did for another Creative Thinking assignment:

"tell an embarrassing story about yourself"

If I had more energy, I would make this into a whole series. But then I'd have to kill myself.
I imagine the main character to be somewhat of a younger, sadder, lonelier and more desperate/socially awkward version of Cathy.

Except funny.

The origins of 'bad at life'

-

"Write an article about yourself...."


This assignment was given to me at the beginning of last year for a creative thinking class at VCU Adcenter. After a week of weighing my options, it came down to the night before the assignment was due and I still had nothing.

As I often do when I am desperate for inspiration, I resorted to sifting through my belongings I've kept in a shoebox under my bed since I moved away to college. However, after hours of sifting through my old letters, pictures and bills, I started to notice a disturbing trend.

I was alone, sitting on the bedroom floor of my tiny loft apartment at 3am, with an un-started article due in 6 hours and a life's worth of failures and shortcomings scattered around me, when my inspiration hit:

I am bad at life.

I awoke at 6am the next morning, wrote an mock news interview about my being 'bad at life' - including testimonials from old managers, ex-lovers and current schoolmates - and taped the article to the top of an old cigar box. In the box I enclosed prime pieces of evidence I had found the night before, along with their respective stories. This is just a sampling:

This was a note left on my windshield in Minneapolis a few years ago. It reads:

"Asshole, you are parked 10 inches from my car! how do you expect me to get in? I have back problems and even if I didn't it would be hard to climb over the middle! What goes around, comes around..."

This is a picture I found of my best friend from high school, Tara.

I have absolutely no idea what she is up to these days.

And this is my cousin and her old fiance of three years, What's His Name

Here are some letters, postcards and/or envelopes I wrote to the following people:

My big sister
My little brother
My dad
My aunt and uncle
Grandma
My two favorite college professors
My german foreign exchange student


Then postage went up.

This is an old phone bill from Aug 13 to Sep 12, 2005.
Highlighted are all the Sundays I forgot to call home.

Thats all of them

In the year 2006:

Number of weddings attended: 6
Number of weddings I was a bridesmaid: 2
Number of bachelorette parties attended: 1
Number of R.S.V.Ps: 0

I own these movies

Although this was my most ill-planned assignment of the year, I got my first A.

Sigh.