New Hotness

This is a heads up to all the style mavens out there that I am bringing the new hotness. Old school digital watches are IT.

By January you will see all the kids wearing the Casio A168W-1 with ElectroLuminescence and genuine metal band

Keep an eye on my wrist and mark my words.

Coconut Doughnut

It is a scientific fact that no one likes coconut doughnuts. The sole reason for their existence is to make the other eleven doughnuts look delicious by comparison.

"Hmmm. There are only two doughnuts left in box. I wish I hadn't cruised in to work at 9:30 today. Let me see, the first one appears to be a talcum-powdered, lemon-jelly filled doughnut. The lemon jelly has clearly been sucked out through the jelly whole already. You can see the lipstick marks. It looks like a giant, deflated pimple. The other one is coconut. I think I'll go with the pimple."

Planetary Naming Conventions

The easiest promises to break are the promises you make to yourself. The most recent self-promise I broke was to not buy any more gimmicky shirts from Threadless.com. This has nothing to do with Threadless not being awesome (it is), but I have way too many gimmicky threadless shirts. I was only going to buy the abstract artsy looking ones from now on. That agreements with myself was shattered yesterday when I purchased this lovely shirt labeled "Planetary Status". Ha Ha! Stupid Pluto. I can't wait for it to come in the mail.



This shirt got me thinking about all the lazy marketing people who named their product/service/business after a planet. They might say they named it after the original god name that inspired the planet name but that would be a lie.

Here is my list of well known planet rip-offs. This is all I could think of without any Geating (that is cheating with Google. Get it? I just made it up).

Mercury - The insurance company. The car brand.
Venus - The woman's razor.
Earth - None I can think of. I guess it would be confusing calling your product earth since, you know, we all live here.
Mars - The candy bar.
Jupiter - Not sure on this one. Isn't a Jupiter research group or something?
Saturn - The car brand.
Uranus - The punch line to many jokes but I can' think of any brands.
Neptune - Hmmm. The band (or are they producers)?
Pluto - The dog.

Drumsticks

I had an epiphany at lunch today. I am going to create and market a new product called drumsticks on a drumstick. Basically it will be a fried chicken drumstick and an ice cream drumstick speared on a regulation size wooden drumstick.

I will sell them at the fair.

When you walk up to my drumsticks on a drumstick stand you will see my D.O.A.D.s in their special see through D.O.A.D. containment box. It will be a clear box with one heating side and one freezing side to keep the D.O.A.D.s in a state of perfect hot/cold equilibrium.

And the best part is you get to keep the drumstick when you are done. A sticky, greasy drumstick. The kids will love it (and buy two)!

Art

Ginette and I hit up the Adams Avenue Street Fair on Sunday. It was a beautiful day to be out walking around. For the most part it was the same old stuff for sale. However this time we actually bought something. An awesome artist named Gabe Leonard was selling prints and we just had to buy this great Johnny Cash print. We framed it and put it up the same day. Check out his website and buy some work. We got dibs on Cash though so we better not see this hanging up in your living room.

Disc Golf

Inspired by Dan Kit's comment to my last post here are a few pictures I took at the disc golf course in Rancho Sordo Mudo. As far as I can tell this only 1 of 2 courses in all of Mexico.






 

Active Hobbies

So I have narrowed my active hobbies* down to five.

• Mountain Biking
  
• Raquetball
  
• Surfing
  
• Lifting Weights
  
• Golf (Disc)
  
• Golf (The regular kind)

For a hobby to be on my active list I have to have done it at least once in the last six monthhs.

Is this too many active hobbies? I can't seem to really commit to one. I like them all for short periods and then get bored with them. Surfing is my current favorite and I have been going out every week with some guys from work.

It would be nice to just stick to one and be "that guy who is really good at [insert active hobby]." I guess I run the risk of also being labeled as "that guy who is really weird and is always talking about [insert active hobby]."

*While it is true that I spend quite a bit of time playing World of Warcraft I can't call it an active hobby since screaming at my computer is not excercise.

Workplace Hazards

Have you ever shown up for work on a Monday morning, drank 2 giant cups of coffee, started cleaning up some nasty html code, and then started blasting your Metallica Mega Mix™ on your iPod? I have. It is a dangerous thing. I get so pumped that I just want to slam my fist through my 17" LCD. Blam! I can't even fathom how dangerous it would be if I used a nail gun or drove a Semi for my job.

I think they should do workplace iPod genre screenings and only allow soft rock, adult contemporary and new age.

Spell Checkin'

I give myself a point every time I spellcheck an email and get busted for a word that is not acceptable to Microsoft but is acceptable to me. I got 3 points for an email I just sent that contained the words "bloglines", "woot", and "FTW."

Woot for Internet slang. I can't wait until I have kids. I am going to be so confused.

Biking

So I biked to work today. It was more out of necessity than anything since my beloved Volvo is in the shop. According to my nifty bike computer this was a total of 2.01 miles in 12 minutes. To be fair there are 2 gnarly hills.

By the time I got to work my shirt was soaked through. When is it ever 80 degrees and 65% humidity at 8am in San Diego! I mean give me a break here.

On the plus side there were some coworkers who saw me bike in sweating like a pig. I know they must secretly think that I just finished an epic ride or something. Oh ya.

Most Popular

One of my daily visted websites is Yahoo! News Most Popular. It displays the top 10 articles and pictures for the day in 3 different categories; Most Emailed, Most Viewed, and Most Recommended. I couldn't help but relish the juxtaposition of today's most viewed and most recommended pictures.

What we recommned to others: Destruction in the Middle East


What we actually want to look at: Pretty girls

Prognostication

I remember reading this article and chuckling back in 2004. He He, 5 blades. No way.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930?issue=4228&special=2004


Then right around the super bowl they put out this bad boy.



Gotta love SNL for taking it to the logical extreme with the Platinum Mach 14.


During all the hullabaloo I went electric...

Inconsistencies

Two inconsistencies have been on my mind this week. They are very minor things but I haven't written about anything in a while.

Don't Shoot the Messenger - We all know this phrase and many of us have probably used it as a defense. Working in a corporate office I know I have. However, I really enjoy giving someone good news even if I had absolutely nothing to do with it. When they respond with excitement and give me big hugs I certainly don't say "Don't Praise the Messenger!"

Raisins and Prunes - What makes these guys so special? They are just dried grapes and plums. I have eaten at least a dozen different dried fruits before and none of them, save these two, get special names. Dried apples are called dried apples, not wizzgimbos or any other bizarre name.

Need Advice?

I have become pretty numb to banner ads, text ads, etc. on web sites. i am sure this is true for most avid web users. However I finally started paying attention to an ad that appears on the right side of the screen whenever I look something up on my new favorite website, answers.com. There is a smartish looking guy with glasses offering me advice on (apparently) any topic. I am less interested in the service and more interested in making him say funny things. Specifically, I need mustache advice. Ha ha. I am bored...

Archetypes

There are two sterotypes that I seem to see everywhere in advertising. These two particular groups of people simply don't exist in the real world in the same proportion they do on TV, print advertising, etc.

Stereotype 1: The Sassy Black Woman

Characteristics: Colorful clothes, excessively cheerful, dread-fro, non-threatening.
Frequently Sited: Hanging out with an asian woman and a white woman... with the white woman in the middle, upwardly mobile, in a Hanes commercial.

Stereotype 2: The Handsome, Virile, White-Haired Gentleman

Characteristics: White or Gray hair that is not receding, confident, impotent, Anderson Cooper.
Frequently Sited: Schilling for Cialis, Mutual Funds, or AARP (even though the actor is clearly not old enough to qualify).

Internet Memes

I ran across this great collection of Internet phenomenon or "memes" as us snobby Communications majors like to refer to them as. How many of them do you know?

Internet Phenomenons

One of my favorites is still limecat.

Suggestive Selling Run Amok

So I got this in my inbox today. I honestly want to know what previous purchases convinced the Amazon robot to make this suggestion.

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

Since you have purchased extreme sports gear or beef snacks in the past, we thought you might like to know that Slim Jim, Original, Case of 12 15-Ounce Canisters is now available for ordering. Order yours by following the link below.

Hmmm, based on his buying patterns I bet this guy would order meat sticks (in bulk) through the mail.

Karate Kommandos

As a follow up to my last post I have started TIVOing Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos (1986). This is a shameless Chuck Norris and friends cartoon that involves Chuck battling "The Claw" and "Super Ninja".

My favorite scene so far involves Super Ninja hijacking a Space Shuttle. To accomplish this he... wait for it... launches various ninjas and CROCODILES from a catapult on a boat in the harbor at the launch site. The ninjas AND the crocodiles deploy parachutes (wtf?) and one of the crocodiles actually crashes through the window into the room where Chuck and his team are viewing the launch. Chuck wrestles the croc to the ground and throws it into a closet. Mind you these aren't radioactive or mind controlled crocodiles. They are just run of the mill crocodiles that have, apparently, been trained to use parachutes and attack only Chuck and his team of Karate Kommandos. This all happens within the first 45 seconds of the episode. awesome.

Chuck Norris

Here I am, showing up late to the party again. I just got on the chuck Norris bandwagon today after hearing titterings about it for a while.

Check out http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com

Here are my favorite so far:
- Most people have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Chuck Norris has 72... and they're all poisonous.
- When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes, ever.
- Chuck Norris once bet NASA he could survive re-entry without a spacesuit. On July 19th, 1999, a naked Chuck Norris re-entered the earth's atmosphere, streaking over 14 states and reaching a temperature of 3000 degrees. An embarrassed NASA publically claimed it was a meteor, and still owes him a beer.
- Chuck Norris can hit you so hard that he can actually alter your DNA. Decades from now your descendants will occasionally clutch their heads and yell "What The Hell was That?"



For a history of this bizzareness, check out
http://www.answers.com/topic/chuck-norris-facts?method=22

Snakes on a Plane!

I am probably the 10 thousandth person to blog about this but I can't help myself.

Imagine you are a movie producer and you are in a pitch meeting. All you are told is that the movie will be starring Sam Jackson and the title is... wait for it... Snakes on a Plane. Do you buy it? Most sane people would not, but New Line Cinema did. I predict that this movie will have a ridiculously large opening weekend with a fantastic crash in box office dollars on the second weekend.

Reuters Article
My favorite part of this article (my emphasis)

Chris Rohan of Bethesda, Md., created an elaborate, R-rated audio trailer that lovingly mocks the title and movie. "It's a genius title," Rohan said. "It's so stupid it's great. It invites satire, but it's something you just love. It's something I can't explain. You either get it or you don't."

The audio bit uses a Jackson sound-alike shouting, "I want these mother------- snakes off the mother------- plane!" Soon, the growing legion of fans added their voices as they demanded that that phrase also appear in the movie.

Apparently, the studio got the hint. When Ellis assembled Jackson and others for the recent shoot, the filmmakers added more gore, more death, more nudity, more snakes and more death scenes. And they shot a scene where Jackson does utter the line that fans have demanded.


All hail the power if the Internet and obsessive fan boys and girls!

The Truck

I saw a truck at the gas station that apparently made deliveries/pickups for a thrift shop. The name of the thrift shop printed on the side of the truck was "Your Sister's Closet." Does that seem creepy to anyone else? That truck had to be a front for some used clothing smuggling ring.

What An Age We Live In

While sitting in my chair I...

- Visit my favorite deals site and notice some cheap Kenneth Cole Shoes
- Visit the Amazon link and see that they actually have my size (in black of course) and look pretty cool.
- I place my order with 3 clicks and get free shipping with my Amazon Prime membership and don't have to pay tax since Amazon shrewdly doesn't have a distribution center in California
- 2 days later the nice gentleman from the mailroom brings me my shiny new shoes in their sealed Amazon box.
- I take off my old shoes and put on my pretty new shoes...

All without leaving my chair! Man I'm lazy.

Your Dog Wants to Go Hang Gliding

My Endorsement

I don't endorse things on a regular basis. However, when I do endorse something I put all my weight behind it. This is considerable considering my gym time has been lacking as of late. (Off topic: G and I bought bikes last week and took them out to Balboa Park yesterday. It was awesome.)

Anyway, I like to push things that I really enjoy in the hopes that the movie, artist, product, or service does very well and continues to put out great movies, music, products, or services. In no particular order, here are the things that I am strongly endorsing at the moment. You will not be disappointed. BTW, I am always on the lookout for new, cool stuff so feel free to comment on what you are currently promoting.

TIVO - Get it now. No more questions. It will change your life and save your marriage.
Threadless.com - Purveyors of uber cool shirts. I just bought this one today. I would recommend getting on their mailing list since the newest, coolest ones sell out very quickly. I'm talking within hours sometimes.
Answers.com - This is my new favorite website. It literally has answers to everything. I was able to settle an argument about the origins of baby corn at a party by pulling this website up on my Blackberry. Add it to your bookmarks.
Nate + Jaclyn - Simply fantastic photographers. They did our wedding and my sister's wedding. We actively keep up with their blog to see their current work. If you are in the Southern California you need to check them before they get so popular that you can no longer afford them.
The Office - Have you been watching this show? Lordy it is ridiculously funny. Extra funny if you work, or have ever worked, in an office setting.
Chili Fries - I don't have a link for this one but Chili Fries freakin rock.
The Simpsons (pre-2000)- This one doesn't really count per my above description of supporting things in the hopes that they will continue to do well but I just had to mention it. The Simpsons rock so hard it is difficult to comprehend. Specifically, seasons 3 through about 7. Ya, ya, "I have seen the Simpsons and they are pretty funny." Watch these older episodes again on DVD to with your finger on the rewind button and your laptop on your lap to try and keep up with all the subtle and hilarious references.

If you hang out with me on a regular basis at all these are all familiar to you since I talk about them constantly. Sorry.

2 Ads That Must Be Stopped

The Guitar Center and the Used Care Tent Sale at Qualcomm Stadium need to STOP putting out advertisements that scream about how quickly their sale is going to end and what amazing deals they are. If you have the sale ever single week, it is certainly not "once in a lifetime." I hate to admit it but I almost went to that tent sale when I was looking to buy a car. In hindsight I am very glad I did not.

I <3 my Volvo.

Best. Links. Ever.

The "D&G Approved Links" on the right represent web pages that I visit frequently. Many of them several times a day. While they represent mine and Ginette's personal interests they all have one unifying characteristic. They are all updated with new, interesting content very frequently. Some of them, like Fark and CNN, get new content almost hourly. This is what keeps me coming back.

What is the old real estate adage? Location, Location, Location. The same is true for web pages, Content, Content, Content. These web pages don't have the best design on the planet, but they have some of the best content.

So what am I missing? What pages do you visit frequently with killer content?

P.S. There are several other pages that I visit very often but they are just way too nerdy for me to post. They are D approved but they certainly aren't G approved.

Rambling #1 - Hair Products

I had two product questions last night when G and I were out shopping.

#1 - What could they possibly put in some of these hair products to justify their outrageous costs? Do they actually contain ingredients that are rare and hard to come by? What ingredients are in these things... anteater placenta, holy water, a baaaby?

Specifically, I was looking at the male hair product, Fiber by Crew. This little "puck" cost over $17. Granted it lasts for an eternity but it comes to over $4.00 an ounce. That is quickly approaching illegal narcotic prices. Right near it was Biosilk. This little bottle of conditioner or whatever cost a whopping $24 and had the audacity to include 1 sentence worth of directions on the back. They basically said, "put in hair." You think for $24 they would put some major selling points on there.

Anyway, I bought the Fiber, and passed on the Biosilk.

Welcome

Daniel and Ginette have a blog... I am so excited... wait.

What about Davisu?
What about TeamStrikeForce?

I am disenchanted. As well you should be my friend. I make no guarantees that this will last either... but we'll see.