High Five New York City

HeadOn! Apply directly to the forehead. HeadOn! HeadOn! AHHHH!!!

Crowell Advertising, out of Salt Lake City, has come up with yet another advertising award. BUT this isn't another chance for advertisers to pat themselves on the bat.

This award is called "The Tracy's-Crap Advert Award."

They had me at "Crap."

Their press release starts with:

Ever see advertising that's so horrendous, you wish you could somehow get back at whoever made it by burning down their house and nominating them for an award of some sort for bad advertising?

Nicely done Crowell. Nicely done.

Users are asked to submit crap advertisement to their website, here, and vote on the crappiest of them all. (You can submit up until mid-October.)

On the homepage now is that delight of an ad for HeadOn! pain reliever, Vermont Teddy Bears, and no joke, an AIDS awareness ad that has Hitler having sex with a naked woman with the tag: "AIDS is a mass murderer."

Seriously. Someone gave that a green light.

So HeadOn! (gotta love bad jokes) over to the "Cream of the Crap" page and click away. If you're as sensitive to ads as I am you'll really appreciate this site.

P.S.

Crowell have branched out to make some really cool greeting cards you can buy that aren't "your average grocery greeting cards." Funny stuff.

Eight years after, "What now?"

I wasn't sure what to post today.

Anyone who was alive eight years ago can still see those images whenever some one says "9/11." To me, posting a video/pic would just ad to the ad nauseam that surrounds the over exposure of that day.

Instead, I'm going to post one of the positive memories I have surrounding that awful/akward few weeks that followed 9/11/01.

Nine days after the attacks, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show came back on the air. Stewart was visibly shaky and didn't seem sure how to get the show back on course.

Peppered with his self-depreciating humor, Stewart's opening eight minutes were some of the most honest and touching moments of any TV personality I've ever seen.

This was the beginning of my adoration of TDS. Take the time to watch.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
September 11, 2001
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Miracle Whip, condiment of the hipsters.

It's easy to see why advertisers want to get into our faces. We've grown up as the TV generation. And that's not without incident.

The fact that we're impulsive and have a reputation of being terrrible with our money might have something to do with our vacuum-tubed babysitters. That and the Ritalin.

But because of this upbringing, we've had 1,ooo's of ads shoved down our throats, everyday, since we've been able to sit-up.

One benefit of this is that we've learned how to smell a rat.

I present our rat:

Do you feel it? That nasty, nauseous feeling in your stomach? That's a natural reaction (from a human being) that comes about when old people try to sound like/relate to "the kids."

It's similar to the feeling that you get when your mom sends you a friend request on Facebook or when you see that middleaged woman getting down to the Pussy Cat Dolls at the bar. It just feels WRONG.

Another ad from this campaign here. (Read some of the comments.)

In the event of an ad executive hitting the "Random Blog" button on Blogger.com and the stars align to cause them to land on MY site, this is my attempt to avoid some of this multimillion dollar foolishness in the future: I've found an article from Tom Humbarger on SocialMediaToday that gives some insight on how to behave in the very-easy-to-look-like-an-idiot realm of Twitter. Original article here.

(BTW, SocialMediaToday gets special props from me because they have a story on their front page about the A-MAZING new blog People of Walmart. A-FREAKIN-MAZING.)

Humbarger: "Here is a short list of best practices for corporate Twittering that I compiled for one of my clients. Most small-to-medium businesses should be able to achieve results with a couple of hours of effort per week."

Getting Started

* Pick a Twitter name that matches your company name or alternatively a name that includes your company name such as @companyteam
* Build up a level of tweets so other users will see you as credible and relevant – the minimum number of tweets that you should accumulate before you start promoting your account is somewhere in the 50 to 100 range (most users will ignore you if you have few tweets or haven’t been tweeting for very long)
* Fill out your profile completely including a URL as most people will not follow anyone with an incomplete profile
* Create a customized Twitter homepage (that matches your corporate brand as much as possible) to provide additional information about your company and products

Getting your message out

* Try to tweet 5 to 8 times per day, and you should space them out throughout the day if possible
* Only 20% or so of your tweets should be related to your company or include a marketing or ‘advertising’ message – the others should be tweets about related topics that provide value to your followers or show a more human side of your company; people will stop paying attention to you if you use Twitter exclusively for self-promotion
* Most of your tweets should contain a link to a website, blog post, article, etc. – these are the types of tweets will establish your Twitter account as being a source of great content and worthy of being followed back
* Use HootSuite’s to schedule your tweets and to track your tweet clickthrus and their Hootlet app to easily tweet the URLs of content at the source – Hootsuite also lets you include multiple users on the same account which can help to spread out the Twitter workload

Following people

* Use one or more of the Twitter directories (WeFollow or Twellow) to locate potential users to follow based on their interests and geography
* Follow anyone who mentions your company or keywords that important for your business
* Periodically do a Twitter search on your company name or click on @yourname from right panel to see who is re-tweeting you or mentioning your name
* @reply people to thank people or to just reach out to them
* RT or re-tweet posts that you think are worthy – generally these people will notice and start following you
* You don’t want to grow your Twitter following too quickly – steady growth is better and a goal of growing 100 to 200 per month is a good start for most businesses

And finally as noted in The Guide to Corporate Twittering, you should:

* Be honest
* Be responsive and human
* Be nice

I really like the last three. Very important to sound like a human. Happy Twittering.

Derby della Madonnina

This wouldn't be MY blog if I failed to mention what went down this past Saturday.

FC Internazionale, or Inter Milan, squared off against their city rivals AC Milan in the 200th edition of the Derby della Madonnina.

Translated for American audiences: it's a game between two of the biggest soccer teams in the world that's been played twice a year for the last 100 years. And just to make things a little more tense, the two teams have shared the same stadium for the last 62 of those years.

This game has moved beyond rivalry to a spectacle that catches the attention of the entire world of football.

With the series tied at 37 wins apiece, the stage was set for a colossal clash.

Inter got the memo. Milan didn't.

It took Inter 6 minutes to get their first shot on goal. It took Milan over 60.

What resulted was an ass kicking of a magnitude that Milan hadn't suffered in 11 years.

All of this comes after a transfer window where Inter sold one of the top 5 players in the world and still came out on top.

And for that all I can say is: Grazie Moratti. Grazie Mourinho. Grazie Nerazzurri.

Everything's real!

A great video from the guys over at FunnyorDie.com, that tells us, you should believe everything you hear. Sounds like good advice to me. Speaking of, did you hear Obama wants our foreskins?

Death Panel Advisors - watch more funny videos

Kill the clutter before the clutter kills you.

It always seems like I'm drowning in bookmarks. That or have a bookmark I want to read but it's on a different computer.

But no more!

Now I've found InstaPaper.com, which is like your bookmark folder if it were designed for the absentminded.

They offer some great options. Basic stuff like one-touch bookmarking and the ability to create folders. But there are some more advanced options, like being able to archive your bookmarks, or viewing your pages text only for easy mobile viewing. Even better, the iPhone app gives you the option to save the pages where you can view them sans Internet connection.

All for the Internet-only low, low price of diddly squat. Not bad, IMO.

*sing-song* It's my burfday! It's MY burfday! It's MY BURFDAY!!

June 11 is definitely one of my favorite days of the year. I don't know why.

The sun just seems a little sunnier today. The internet is moving just a little quicker. The high fructose corn syrup tastes a little sweeter.

Could be the best day of the year. Could just be me.

To celebrate, I've found one of my favorite Youtube clips to spread a little June 11th joy.

Hope this does the trick.

That's, like...deep, man.

Whether you're talking the war on terror, gay marriage, evolution in the classroom, or even global warming; the underlying theme that is framing these debates is religion. More specifically: the infallibility of religion.

So, it was a breath of fresh air when I stumbled across this great article on Time Magazine's website called "Einstein & Faith."

Einstein described himself as "religious" but never admitted to following the Christian or Jewish faiths, exclusively. When asked what he meant by calling himself religious, Einstein replied with one of the best quotes I've read in a long time:

"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."

Click here to read the full article. It'll give you a new perspective on what it means to be religious.

These are a few of my favorite things...

A person I consider a mentor once told me, "People always say they hate advertising. But what they really mean is: they hate BAD advertising."

This is a picture of Ecuadorian team Barcelona Sporting Club's stadium Estadio Monumental Isidro Romero Carbo.

With a little black paint and some manual labor, Sony grabbed themselves 180,000 eyes staring at their logo for 2+ hrs. In the ad world, that's damn near priceless.

Modern day soccer is so dominated by advertising (ever heard of Red Bull New York?), it's easy to become jaded. So, it's nice to see an original idea.

I think the reason I love this so much is because it manages to be subtle, while it's punching you in the face. Like your girlfriend telling you a story about how she broke her new pumps today, while going through your wallet.

Just like yesterday.

Artist: The Who
Song: Won't Get Fooled Again

And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Weird Science!

Cognitive psychology was one of my favorite subjects in school. It's a science focused on discovering how we learn language, solve problems, and the concepts that our brain uses to define our world. (Why can't you remember everything? Does how you raise a child effect its adult life? How do you learn to speak?).

It was like they were trying to write a owner's manual for you brain. I ate it up with a spoon.

I learned your brain doesn't care much about your daily life. It quickly goes on autopilot, only perking up when the right stimulus appears. Autopilot is fine for most occasions but most people don't know their brains are set to idle.

I recently came across some videos that shows exactly what I'm talking about. Here and here. Enjoy.

Why Do I Play Soccer?

On Sunday, I was at my bi-weekly pickup game/therapy session that is soccer with my Guatemalan buddies. I had finished lacing up my boots and started heading toward the field. On the way, some gringos playing football (not futbol but football) started hassling us about going to playing soccer with the "Mexicans."

Let me clarify, growing up playing soccer in rural West Tennessee has prepared me for the "Football v. Futbol" debate, many times over. I was not frazzled by these Frat-daddies in the least bit. But I knew the longer that I tried educate these unbelievers about the beautiful game the more soccer I would miss out on. So, when one of the MENSA candidates pipped up and asked "Why play soccer? Why don't you play football?" I simply replied "Leo Messi is why I play soccer."

They continued to shout and jump around and stand uncomfortably close to one another but I walked off knowing that if they ever took the time to look up "Leo Messi" that they would know I had won that argument, many times over.

5' 6", 21 years old, arguably the best player in the world, heralded as the "new Maradona"by the man himself, and not a hint of ego: Leo Messi.

NYC Trip: As transcribed from the Orient Express

My trip to NYC has ruled my life for the last few weeks so I've been M.I.A. from my blogging responsibilities. I figured this would be a good way to get back into the swing of things and let my friends/family know how the trip went. I'll break it up into a couple parts so the post isn't so long.


NYC Trip Part 1:

Pre-Trip:

• Heidi and I took this trip to not only escape from Middle TN for a couple days but also to "feel out" New York as a possible post-college destination for the two of us.
• We found bus tickets for $70 round-trip. Yes, I said round-trip.
• To continue the good fortune, Heidi's friend Whitney recently moved to NYC let us crash at her place for the week. Whitney = Best. Hostess. Ever.
  

Saturday 7/12:

• Packed our bags and said our goodbyes. Met up with our friend Veronica so she could drop us off at the bus station. After driving up and down Murfreesboro Rd. for 20 minutes we found the bus parked beside an International Grocery in Antioch.
  
• Apparently, the same people who ran the grocery store ran the bus line. Seemed shady at first, but after closer inspection it seemed much more reputable (they sold live frogs, wouldn't you trust them with your life?).
• After a quick scan of the crowd, Heidi and I concluded that out of the 40 or so passengers on the bus, there were only 3 of us who couldn't speak Mandarin. It was a little odd, to say the least.
  
• Huge delay between Cookville and Crossville. A tractor-trailer flipped and dumped a chemical that creates hydrofluoric acid when it reacts with water. Both sides of I-40 were closed.
• Wreck on the detour turned a 3 hr drive to Knoxville to ~11 hrs. Good start.

Sunday 7/13:

• Almost positive I saw a man who payed for his ticket ended up driving the bus for a shift. Apparently, on our bus the only difference between the driver and the passengers are their seats.
  
• Definitely saw the trip coordinator switch places with the current driver less than 5 miles before the Holland Tunnel. My guess is he's the only one with a driver's license.
  
• After 24 hours on a bus, we got into town 8 hrs behind schedule (8 p.m.) on Whitney's only day off. Kinda a bummer.
  
• Trip didn't conclude at Penn Station like our tickets said. Where did it end up? Chinatown, of course.
• Tired, hungry, and disoriented. Then, we see Whitney's face appear out of an endless sea of Asians. I was never so happy to see her.
  
• Tasted my first real pizza since about 2002. Passing Pizza Hut off as pizza is heresy once you've tasted the real thing.
• Went back to Whit's place and promptly passed out in my clothes. I've always been a party animal.
  

Happy Independance Day!!

I originally wanted to write a post about music or some of the other things I have on my mind, but seeing as it is the nation's birthday I feel like there should be a red, white, & blue tinge on whatever I write.

So I set out to find the video or song or website that most embodies the America I hold so dear. There were a few ideas that had potential: The annual Nathan's hot dog eating contest (which came down to a sudden death "dog-off"); the injustice of California banning fireworks in some parts of SoCal (wildfires, shmildfires); or even a blurb about the Declaration of Independence.

But then I stumbled across YouTube gold.

In my opinion, this clip captures the essence of the current American dream: to become so wealthy and popular that nothing you do seems outlandish. We have a professional boxer in a sequined Uncle Sam costume who has become so popular his entrance involves Vegas-style dancers with peacock feathers on their heads, enough mini American flags to keep the factories in China humming for weeks, and James Brown gettin down with his bad self. How can you beat that? I'll tell ya how, by adding a splash of Cold War-ambiance circa 1985.

Enjoy.




(Oh and try and block out the memories of Apollo getting his ass handed to him.)

1st Post:

The title of my blog might be a little confusing but it's meant to be an homage to the late George Carlin.

He once asked, "Are we so much better than chickens...?", "...you don't see chickens in drug-gangs...when's the last chicken you heard about came home from work and beat the shit outta his hen?"

That was the brilliance of Carlin. He could say something completely outlandish/offensive and then, through his amazing analytical skills, justify what he just said while revealing social truths about ourselves and end it all with a joke. Brilliant.

George Carlin is the inspiration for most of the people who inspire me today. He was fighting for free speech before most people knew it was something you needed to fight for. Dedicating this blog to his memory was my way of saying "Thank you" to a true American hero.

(Chickens...starts about 4 minutes in.)