Spudliness

So I finally managed to get a picture of the Spud Stud (remember the 3 pound potato I bought in Idaho?) to put up here.

Thanks to Katy for lending me her camera, although I must admit that she was probably partly persauded by the fact that we really needed to get the damn thing out of the house, because it was starting to grow some serious mini-sprouts.

I figured this would be a bit of comic relief for anybody else who's had their fill of tragedy today.

Dept. Of Whining

I'm sick. Waaaaaaaah!

I think I'm coming down with what Katy had last week, because I have the same initial symptoms (severe fatigue, fever, dehydration, severe nasal congesiton, and sneezing). Fortunately, what she had was bacterial, so as soon as she started taking penicillin she felt better.

So I actually hope I have what she had. Otherwise, it's viral, and hence will be extremely problematic. It's kind of hard to apply for jobs when you feel like death, sound like Kermit The Frog, and look like a junkie (I get really bad black circles under my eyes when I'm sick).

Blah. I have pulled out one final stop, though: I rented a movie. Every time I get sick, if I make plans based on the fact that I will still be sick the next day, I am inevitably better.

So I went and rented Gettysburg (which I've been meaning to see because it's based on my favorite book, The Killer Angels), because it's over four hours long and when else am I going to watch a ridiculously long movie but when I'm sick?

Okay, possibly the rest of this time that I've been unemployed and lazy, but otherwise, when?

So we'll see how that works. Until I see whether it works, however, I reserve the right to bitch and moan and whine and eat chicken soup and claim that Chinese food has restorative powers.

Excuses, Excuses

Posting will once again be limited for a bit since I am in the midst of an all-out job search, mostly for bartending, but once again looking at regular (i.e. desk) jobs.

I really wish graduating from school hadn't sapped me of all direction...and also that the economy wasn't so shitty. That'd be helpful. Bleh. More to come.

Further Evidence...

...that some people just have way too much time on their hands: Some Russian lawyers are considering suing Warner Brothers because Dobby the House Elf in the new Harry Potter movie bears too strong a resemblence to Vladimir Putin.

Go Cooper!

Cooper gets his first story published. It is, of course, Springsteen-related: A story on Clarence "Big Man" Clemons, the saxophonist for the E Street Band.

Yay Coop!

Who Needs English?

(AdNerd On)

I think there need to be more commercials with non-English speaking celebrities. Case in point: The two really funny commercials currently out featuring Yao Ming.

Yao speaks very little English, and because of this, the advertising people working on these commercials are forced to be a lot more creative about how they use him since they can't have him spout "witty" dialogue, and end up constructing much funnier spots.

The first one is one that I think most people have seen, with Yao and Verne Troyer (aka Mini-Me), but click here if you haven't seen it. It's a perfect example of how restraint and subtlety can be a lot funnier than people loudly yelling about how extreme their Mountain Dew is.

Though I do take a couple points off for using Jeff Goldblum for their voiceover talent. His voice just creeps me out.

The second ad I haven't been able to find online quite yet, since it just ran for the first time on the Super Bowl yesterday, but I thought it was one of the better ads of the Bowl (though for this year, alas, that's not saying much).

Yao goes into a New York souvenir store, and asks if he can write a check (in Yao's accent, this comes out, "CaIwricheck?"), and the clerk goes "Yo!" and points to a sign stating checks are not accepted. "Yao," he tries to correct her.

This goes on for a few seconds, a manager is brought over, and it's pretty silly to describe, because the execution is much better than the description. Suffice it to say, it's funny, and Yogi Berra is eventually involved.

Anyway, I gotta give to the creators of these ads for taking something that could be a huge hindrance (a non-english speaking star) and turning it into a huge advantage by spending more time coming up with funny concepts.

Now if only the lunkheads who came up with that dumb Dodge Ram ad with the guy hocking a disgusting piece of beef jerky at the screen could listen to the subtler people who created these two ads...maybe ads wouldn't suck as much.

(AdNerd Off)

Whoops

Northwestern was sent into a tizzy tonight by this wonderous little bit of news: Olsen Twins Both To Attend Northwestern.

This certainly threw me into paroxysmal atrial tachycardia (or gave me a heart attack, for those of you who aren't ER junkies), until someone noticed that the numbers on the end of the web address actually redirected you to another site that specializes in making fake CNN news reports.

Whoever decided to do this is apparently also pulling this prank on Ohio State.

And as my more journalistically astute friends pointed out, the text was not written in AP Style (standard journalistic language) and was worded kind of oddly.

Still, fooled me. Now where's that defibrillator?...

Stupor Bowl

I've been wandering around like a nutter (or, to be slightly redundant, Ozzy Osbourne) lately, so I do apologize again for my lack of posting. I will try and post some stuff next week when I'm just running around interviewing for jobs and otherwise sitting around and doing nothing.

And I swear, I'll post the last bit of the road trip sometime soon.

You Know You're In Chicago When...

...you utter the words "Wow, it was actually warm enough to snow today!", and are truly grateful that it was.