How an Earthquake ruined my sushi lunch! (little F*er)

Hello Kiddies!  As you know, I've been away.  Not because I don't love you but because my computer crashed and didn't return for 2weeks and I don't blog at work...as much as I'd love to!

Many of you, if not all of you, know that LA was hit by an earthquake.  Not sure if they refer to it as hit, like we say a hurricane hit the coast of Florida..blah, blah...but, to much surprise and disbelief it sure as hell did!! Right when I least expected.  It was quite the day at work today.

So, like the good little media assistant that I am, I was working on the excel spreadsheets from hell (they have multiple tabs with 2392838278392839 rows and columns each) and being new I'm still learning the tricks of the trade at RPA.  My planner was at my desk literally filling me with all these shortcuts and guidelines of how to set up hours worth of excel for a measly little pie chart (one of many).  While my head was spinning with information a good little shakey shake happened and I was like holy big mac truck probably just few by...bastards slow down!  Then...SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROLL...(literally) our building was swaying.  The second the shakes started my planner was like "fuck an earthquake," he's a cali native who survived the Northridge quake, and my first reaction was "must jump on planner."  So...I did...seriously jump out of my desk onto his arm and looked at him like he was a ghost while keeping myself from sharting my pants.  

I guess one of the safest spots to take cover is in a doorway or anywhere away from glass, windows and object that can fall and hit you.  We run to the doorway and damn, they're made out of GLASS! So again, I'm holding in any sort of "accident" by crossing my legs!  I guess at that point he realized going under our desks would've been the best choice but it was over by then.  All this stuff probably happened in about 15 seconds, but I swear it felt like minutes!!!  Crazy ass shit.  People came out of offices with hands over their mouths and the emergency teams were on their phones figuring out what to tell us.  It wasn't too hectic since most have been through many, but it was a bit scattered crazy!  The earthquake was said to have been a 5.8 and others say a 5.4.  The strongest in 10 years!   It was felt all the way to Las Vegas and Mexico!  And the big one is planned on hitting within 30 years.   I'll be gone by then hopefully!  (the last big one lasted 3 minutes!)

Here's where the story gets worse.  I MISSED A SCHEDULED SUSHI LUNCH!!! A friend and I planned awhile back to eat sushi for lunch today since we are both sushi whores!  Both of us aren't natives and were too freaked out to walk the block and a half to get there worried of the possibility of an aftershock mid walk over.  I also refrained from using the potty in fear of being alone for an aftershock and not knowing what the heck to do!

So, hours later, after much research, and tending to worried friends and family I get back to work and BAM we lose power.  So, the entire building starts to goof off and an hour later we were dismissed.  Today was kinda scary but quite the experience.  I'd have to say that though it was startling, it wasn't too bad.  You just never know how long they will last and how strong they will be.  In fact, we can have aftershocks for the following week!  Usually, we won't feel them, but in the past the "first one" could be a pre-quake.  

All in all, I'm getting the full California experience.  This was the biggest fear I had coming out here and I had hoped to be out before any hit, but LA had other plans for me!  All I have to say is damn that quake for ruining what was going to be an orgasmic lunch!  I'll be taking the stairs from now on...nooooo elevators for this girl!

We're #1...again!

This just in...

UF is named #1 party school by the Princeton Review! Add that the list of national titles! :)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/5911816.html

Whoa! New Facebook Design!

For all you Facebook book addicts (don't look around, I'm talking to you). Facebook, in its endeavor to stay at the cusp of the digital world and social networking, has developed a redesign. Even as a cynic, I like it.



To check it out, log in as usual. Then point your browser to new.facebook.com

This is Legal Tender Alright!

So I was surfing YouTube like always, and came across these hidden camera pranks where the guy tries to pay for all kinds of purchases with pennies in NYC. The reactions are priceless. Enjoy.

Ponder this over a beer (or two)

Ok, I've left a lot of videos for you to watch in this post. There may be more things out here like this, but after coming across all of these, and forming some of my own opinions, I decided to post just based on these videos.

I'll go one by one. First, you've got the "Speed Dressing" spot for JC Penney...err...it says JC Penney in the commercial. But they never approved it. But it won a bronze at Cannes. Big backlash. JC Penney agency Saatchi & Saatchi said they didn't do it (and anyone else who's familiar w/ this story, correct me if i'm wrong), and put the blame on the production house, Epoch. Yet throughout all of this, it seems Jacques Penet has been getting an awful lot of free press. And, honestly, this spot is 14732 times better than the new campaign that they did give the OK to.

After that, there are two spots for Heineken. When they hit the web, Heineken denied any knowledge of it and claimed to have nothing to do with it. They're pretty outlandish, so of course they wouldn't want to say they were complicit in it. Many suspected that they let it go through with a blind eye to it. Turns out, despite the production quality, these were made by some students. Read the full article here, though only part of it's in English. These have had some nice viral success. Say what you will about the effectiveness of viral, but Heineken didn't spend a dime on this, and are getting free publicity out of it.

And last, a spot "from" Guinness. I could go asking around at work, but I'm sure nobody will eagerly speak up to say they did it. My guess is this is either student work or just a fan, though I could be completely wrong. Hopefully more details will come soon.











The purpose for bringing these to light is this: all of these are examples of companies' brands being used in advertising for which they didn't pay. I doubt JC Penney will agree to pay for the production that went into "Speed Dressing." Heineken had nothing to do with "Blowjob" and "Suicide." And the Guinness one was, to my knowledge at this point, done without anything to do with Diageo footing the bill.

This brings about a slough of questions, all of which I ask people to give their opinions in the comments:

Is this the beginning of a trend of more and more people creating their own "advertisements," either for schoolwork or as a hobby? The technology is easily within reach for many, many more people to do so today than ever before. Could the free publicity out of user-generated advertising result in advertisers spending less with the real agencies if this continues unabated?

On a different note, is it ok for an agency to create something against the will of or unbeknownst to the client? What if it's guaranteed to be award-winning? What if it proves more fruitful for the advertiser, via awards or publicity? What if the agency is willing to foot the bill (CP+B has been known to do that) if the client wants nothing to do with it? After all, winning a prestigious award can help an agency's reputation and bring in new business.

If you think any more questions come out of this, feel free to ask them, too.

Think We Should Take the Valentine's Day Ad Soc Fundraiser to the Next Level this year?

Someecards.com x BustedTees

When it launched back in April of last year, Someecards turned sentiment on its head with satirical salutations juxtaposed with old-fashioned artwork. Since then, it’s quietly become the procrastination tool of choice; TIME even included it in their list of top 50 websites. Their cards give voice to the mundane, taboo, and timely. Suddenly, not getting an iPhone or thinking it would be awkward if you didn’t like Heath Ledger’s performance in the Dark Knight is card-worthy.
Now, thanks to a match made in humor heaven, you can sport them offline. A new someecards line of Busted Tees includes sloganed shirts for $12 such as “If I were ever to shoot you, it would just be in the leg,” and “I have no STDs.” Conversation starters, at the very least.

T-Shirts by someecards.com

[from PSFK]

I went on the site and they have tons of new ones. Including- 'I'd love to contact you with my new iPhone but it pretty much makes the need for relationships obsolete' =)

Here's my favorite one.

Innocentive’s Open Innovation

Here's a novel idea; if you have a problem, ask everyone.

With 145,000+ Solvers in 175 Countries solving problems for 40 Industry Disciplines, Innocentive is the most brilliant idea I've seen in a while. With the backing of many wealthy research organizations, they are offering $5,000 - $1,000,000 in prizes for chosen solutions.

I hope it takes off, the world could learn a thing or two.

Here's the NYTimes feature.

Found on PSFK

Just Do It

So the 'Just Do It" campaign is celebrating its 20th year (that makes me feel old). I've always been a pretty big Nike fan, as far as some clothes and sneakers go, and their soccer advertising. I came across this powerful spot on Creativity, for the Olympics, celebrating the 'Just Do It' spirit.



The song is "All These Things That I've Done" by the Killers. It's a very interesting choice of song because it is clearly referencing war - "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier," and the Olympic committee is praying that there is no terrorism impending at the games since they decided to let China host.

But the good thing that Nike portrays in the ad is culture. It is not just about Americans, it's about all races, and all sports competing, whether it is for your team, your country, or just yourself.

Visa has been advertising their card with the campaign slogan, "Go World" also taking the worldly, instead of American approach.

Who ISN'T blogging these days?

Working in Social Media, I realize sometimes that when I start to talk about a lot of things that I do at work, I must backtrack a bit and give some explanations as not everyone is as well acquainted as I am about the internets.

The funny thing is that I have found myself explaining things like RSS feeds, blogs (oh yes, blogs) and blooean searches to people who are my age. So many people assume that someone who was raised with a computer will instantly know everything about the internet (as if everyone born after 1980 was genetically programmed to understand how to upload a YouTube video). In reality, a lot of younger people use the internet at its most basic level since they don't really have any reason to go deeper.

The internet has always had a lot of information, but only recently have we been able to utilize it and properly catalog it to the point where the information can get to the right people at the right time. A great YouTube video called Teaching the Machine demonstrates more eloquently how the 'Machine' has learned from us constantly feeding it data through clicks or mash-ups.

And yet, we add so much data to the internet every day (even if a lot of it is just a bunch of really dumb crap.) Flickr maps, Yahoo Pipes, Tweets, blogs -- the internet has evolved from a linear dialog (someone makes a web site, you view the web site) to a much more winding process (someone posts, someone reads, someone comments, someone links, someone remixes, etc.)

But, this all comes at a price: the internet isn't unlimited after all. Some even think that the internet might run out of space soon.

Oh well. I'm sure there are some things they could maybe get rid of out there?

It's Not Very Good... and PETA is Mad

So I saw this TV spot from Verizon about LG's new Dare phone. As soon as I saw it I thought, "That wasn't very good." Being a former intern on the AT&T account, I still have this innate sense to check out wireless phone advertising and size it up against whatever AT&T is doing. I can't help it. Usually I'm pretty entertained by Verizon's stuff but this one was weird.

Made by McCann Erickson, New York (Verizon's agency), this commercial shows a guy jumping a fence to retrieve his phone guarded by pitbulls. It isn't very realistic. No one I know would risk their well-being for their phone.... (well I take that back.... if my iPhone was being guarded by dogs I might try to put up a fight.) I'm not sure why they thought this positioning would work. Did they think a name like "Dare" and this type of advertising would make every dare devil, x-game enthusiast flock to their local Verizon retailer? Doesn't make much sense. Not very edgy or cool.

Now, a couple weeks after seeing the spot, I see this article on Ad Age: "Verizon Pit-Bull Ad Unleashes Flurry of Complaints." Apparently not only do I not care for it, but PETA, the ASPCA and dozens of pet-related websites, have posted petitions and message boards on the Web protesting the ad with slogans like "Can They Hear Us Now?" Clever.

These pet-friendly organizations are mad becasue these commercials depict that it is ok to chain dogs and to have guard dogs. "Pit bulls are not guard dogs and they were never meant to be guard dogs," Mary Harwelik, founder of The Real Pit Bull (an advocacy organization). Then the article gets into Michael Vick's dog-fighting debacle.

To check out the full article on Ad Age click here.

Even though they are gettiing criticism, Verizon isn't going to pull the spot. Apparently these ads were "designed to be over-the-top, to break through the clutter and get the message across." Whatever that message is, I don't get it.

Also related with animal cruelty, check out CREATIVITY'S TOP 5 Episode 24. If you thought Sarah McLaughlin's Humane Society commercials were bad, check out #4. These commercials kill me! Im a huge animal lover. It will make you get out of your seat and race to a shelter. Or at least you'll want to.

Still waiting to hear a definite thumbs up from Atlanta. They did tell me I'm one of the top two candidates though! I'll know by the end of the week. The suspense is killing me! Agh.

Jfran

You Aint Got No Alibi

Here's an article from my DailyCandy e-mail that cracked me up. Thought I'd share, though I'm certainly not directing it at any one of you beautiful people =)

Ugly Bag

You’ve tried miracle creams, painful injections, and expensive procedures. But nothing helps.
You’re still incredibly ugly.

If you suffer from retina-scarring, child-terrifying hideousness, hope exists. Not in a bottle but in a bag: the Ugly Bag, a revolutionary, instantaneous solution to common repulsiveness. Just slip it over your horribly disfigured head and let your new life begin.

Maria, formerly known to friends as “Vomit Face,” gushes: “The side effects were difficult at first — sure, I miss being able to see stuff — but it’s worth it.” JoAnne, who for years could make a living only as an extra in zombie films, says, “It’s great! I really [words too muffled to understand due to presence of paper bag on head].”

So don’t delay. Because whether you know it or not, your ugliness is probably hurting you.

And it’s definitely killing us.

Bars and Stop Signs

Don't drink and drive.

That being said, I've got a couple of fun things for you today. First is an article from AdAge yesterday about bars in agencies. Proudly pictured is our resident bartender, Joe. Read the article here:

http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=129721


Another fun little thing. If an agency had the task of creating the stop sign. It's called "The Process":



Clients really can be that nitpicky sometimes. Oh well. Enjoy your day!

That's SO CLEVER!

Dear Julio...

Remember that night you were really drunk? You, Sean and Nancy were hanging out...



Its cool, really. We don't judge. <3

Let's just call a truce. I'm having a party- come over hang with my peeps. We can put all these mean jokes behind us.





And just because I like this gif:

It's sweeping the nation

Just wanted to share this with all my fellow wizards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

Organs?

So I found a site called Wordle (don't blame me if someone else has already posted this) that takes words from a bunch of text and creates word cloud,s so I typed our lovely blog in and
this is the result. Enjoy.

The good ole' days of advertising

Winston the premiere cigarette of the Flintstones.



Of course these things practically sell themselves.

A new reason to be scared at night...

An article from the Daily Mail UK reads,

"WASP Knife Will Freeze and Blow Up Your Organs


Add this to my “Things to hyperventilate over” list: British police are on the lookout for something called a WASP Knife, a weapon that injects a ball of compressed gas into its victim that then expands to the size of a basketball, instantly freezing and exploding their internal organs. The blade, which was designed to help hunters and divers bring down large wild animals quickly, could possibly be bought on the internet by serial killing-minded crooks. Look at what it does to a watermelon!



The WASP website states “the effects of the compressed gas not only cause overinflation during ascent when used underwater, but also freezes all tissues and organs surrounding the point of injection on land or at sea.” It's like a freeze ray out of a superhero movie... Only it's real, and thus infinitely scarier. Somebody hold me."

I LOL'd

Dr. Horrible

The best marketing of all -- give it away for free, let the word spread, then charge them.

Luckily, this video is at the 'give it away for free' part. That is, until midnight tomorrow.

All I can say is this -- it is the heartwarming tale of a super-villian...as a musical.

Man, I wish I could be a super-villian. I think I would be amazing at it.

...

It's uncanny...

It's soooooooooo pretty!!!

The James W. "Bill" Heavener Football Complex at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The new facilities feature a trophy room, Gator Room to host up to 200 visitors, coaches' offices, weight room and a remodeled locker room.

Art rocks

Piggybacking on Corwin's post:


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.


And as a tribute to Heath Ledger's amazing performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, here's a picture that made me laugh:

Where the Hell is Matt, More Kisses, and A Political Cunty Salad

Guys, I can't embed videos. It just doesn't work. When I paste the embed link it only a little bit of it shows up. So here's a link to a video for you to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY&feature=user

This is creating quite a bit of commotion around here in the Wrigley section of the office. A guy named Matt from Australia decided to up and quit his job one day and travel around the world, where he taped himself doing an awkward little dance in all these amazing places. Well, his video went viral (and in fact is still in the top 20). Stride gum decided to sponsor him and send him on another trip, where he visited 42 countries. This time he got people to dance with him...and the result is a video that gives me the warm fuzzies. (Corwin, don't bother watching it since you shot down my Otters Holding Hands video)

The questions is, how is this tied to Stride at all? And even if it isn't, will it still be good for the brand?

On another note, check out my comment on Sean's handshakes and kisses post to see three other kiss-related campaigns that might give you a different kind of warm fuzzy feeling.

Oh, and this link is for you, Lauren: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Euu_DMhsXQo

Friday's off and cultural study days.

Found this on a new favorite, WebUrbanist. I can hear Weltmen in the background, "that's very you."

At any rate they have a whole geek art collection, This Stephen Colbert artwork is made from 768 Rubik's cubes.

More interesting articles:
7 Amazingly Unique Beach Houses and Lake Houses
About Banksy: Who is Banksy, The Infamous Street Artist?
20 Abandoned Cities and Towns from Around the World

This is a fine example of what I do with my Friday's. Aside from watching 6 episodes of Weeds Season 3. I love summer time.

Life and Politics

Well, it seems as though, I am slowly but surely joining the rest of you in the real world. Being the only Wizard without a job is kind of depressing. Don't get me wrong, it rocks to be at home, mom cooks or we go out to eat, I can go out whenever and come back whenever, play with my dogs, hang out with people and whatnot, but what I want is to work (becoming an adult, hah!). I'm so excited to be a part of the advertising world instead of looking in from the outside.

Okay enough of that....

So I got an apartment on Roosevelt Island, which lies between Manhattan and Queens (map). The complex is 4 high rise buildings, each with roof top deck, gym, doorman, and laundry in the building. It's kind of absurd. I move in the 1st and start work on the 4th.

So my job will be at PHD as an Interactive Assistant Media Planner on the Siemens and AIG accounts. The head on the Interactive team is from Florida (Jax) and her sister is a Gator! I still can't get over how many people I met in the city from Florida, one of the Realtors I talked to, people at PHD, guys at bars (Sarah!), etc.

On to politics.

We all know that whoever has the most popularity tends to win elections/ contests/ awards/ etc. (See www.c-k.com [Sorry Lauren] or even P&G/ BBDO's takeover at Cannes)

Anyway what I'm getting at is this great comic strip turn political call to action I found created by Sean Tevis, an Informational Architect in Kansas running for State Representative.

This is his story.

He's just about got what he needs to get his campaign going, a great example of grassroots, word of mouth viral campaign that has swept the Internet as he has garnered over 2,800 donors, although I am not sure when exactly it launched.

And I'll leave you with this...

Why you comin' home, five in the morn'?

Lately I have been coming back from the agency around 10:30 p.m. -11:00 p.m.. You have to understand how very weird it is to walk out to the parking lot only to see that my car is the only one left in the (very large) parking lot.

But, things have to get done, after all. You see, we have this intern project which requires us, for all intensive purposes, to do a business pitch to the heads of the company. I'm not so much worried about pitching to them, but rather to have my bosses that I work with, as well as my fellow interns in the room.

Also, I have decided to bring in some Flash into the presentation. While it looks great, Flash always seems to leave me working up to hour 0 and wondering "Really, was it REALLY worth it?'
Overall, I feel like I can now appreciate the difficulty of new business pitches now, more so because our presentation was "moved up" a couple days. The use of quotes was because I believe that there really wasn't any emergency which caused them to change it. (After all, the presentations will be attended by some high level people. It doesn't seem like they would have the schedules that permit sudden three hour blocks of presentations to crop up.)

Yesterday was the second installment of 'Lot Rock' -- the agency's way of welcoming in summer. Every week the agency features a band (usually made up of people in the agency) and a type of beer (with wine and Miller as well). Work stops at 5:00 and everyone gathers -- CEOs and peons alike -- to enjoy some music and a beautiful blue Michigan sky. While I could only stay for half of this week's lot rock, I managed to see the rest from my window on the third floor. I could swear that someone must have looked up at my hangdog expression and thought "Thank god I'm not a damn intern."

Next week is something called 'Creativity For Kids'. I don't know what that entails, but the Chevy and Navy experience vans are now parked outside the office. Anything that kids like can ONLY mean fun.

At least, fun for me. (Oh dear, that sounded creepy)

Work goes well, yet each day I realized how everything is becoming less about surviving in an ad agency and more about preparing for my journey across the sea. Currently it stands at 15 days until I find myself living in the land of Hello Kitty for at least a year.

First thing is first -- worry about this presentation, then I can worry about Japan.

Oh...and kicking some rear in our floor-wide Nerf war next week.

I heart Chelsea

Just one of the cool things about my new life in the big apple...

The Chelsea Market:

I work in the Chelsea Market, which for those of you who don't know, is this awesome restored factory (the former National Biscuit Association) where the Oreo cookie was invented. Now, while I think that in itself is cool, the building now houses some of the most amazing restaurants in the city...one of which, Buddakan, was used in Sex and the City the movie (Carrie and Big had their rehearsal dinner there). Also, the building houses the Food Network. Yes, that Food Network! You know, Paula, Giada, Emeril, etc... But wait, there's more. My office is NEXT door (I mean 3 1/2 feet across the stairway landing) from Google. Yes, that Google. Obviously, not the entire corporation, but who cares? It's freakin' Google! And, Beyonce' and Jay-Z's recording studio, EMI, is in our building, too. Beyond all of that...it's a beautiful building :)

But, perhaps the coolest thing... Chelsea is a super trendy area of the city, with great restaurants and nighttime hot spots where a lot of celebrities hang out...In fact, today at lunch I saw Anderson Cooper. Yes, that Anderson Cooper... You know, the brutally handsome CNN reporter and star of Anderson Cooper 360. One look into his eyes would make any cold-hearted bully cry tears of absolute joy. If you don't believe me:

Also, this is a funny clip from Anderson Cooper 360, which shows a great clip from SNL where they spoof Anderson:

And, one last thing... I met Tim Zagat, co-founder of the Zagat Survey (www.zagat.com) at Euro the other day...awesome!

R-E-A-D-A-B-O-OKAYYYYYYY!

Wow, 2 posts in one day. I must have a lot to talk about. Let's see...

So I went in to work today and was greeted by an amusing little thing taped on my computer screen. I really liked it, so I thought I would share it with everyone else. Yesterday, a couple signs posted on the walls around the office announced the arrival of the BBDO Library, coming next week to the 6th floor stairwell. The signs said "Bring a book. Take a book. Bring back a book. Step and repeat." or something to that nature. So today I get in and this little guy was taped on my computer screen:



I found it amusing, but it didn't stop there. I proceeded to pull the card out:



So even though I'm sick and felt godawful today, this little guy was there to brighten my spirits at the very beginning of the day. And it was a very light work day, due to the fact that all the higherups are in Turkey right now, and all the projects my team is currently working on our pretty much out of our hands for the time being.

OH! And I'm no longer in that cubicle! I'm now in an office! Albeit a shared office, but it still feels cooler. My office mate is named Casey. She's pretty cool, though a couple different people warned me that she snores. There's an inflatable penguin in our office, and I asked if it had a name (it doesn't), so now I have the task of naming it. And my office is now Gator-iffic with all these different SI covers and stuff posted on the walls (thanks Nicole!). Best part of that - this one guy's a big Ohio State fan, and he walked by and saw it and was like oh hell no! So there's one little rivalry starting up. And I met a girl that went to FSU that had my dad, so its becoming a small world around there (and that started another fun little rivalry). AND I finally met the other Gator that works on Gillette, Nicole Minton. I think she graduated 04. She said she was a research assistant for Sutherland at one point. So yeah, the world just became even smaller.

I swear I had something else that I wanted to share with anyone, but I can't remember. I blame the antibiotics. Possible side effects: Confusion, Forgetfulness (not listed on the bottle, only listed in Physician's Desk Reference or some other insanely large book about meds my mom has...but it seems to happen to me sometimes when I'm on these)

Handshakes and Kisses

Ok, some really cool stuff that just came a couple months ago that I just got wind of today. I actually found it while searching for some other print that I really wanted to show everyone, but I think it may not actually have come out yet. Anyway, P&G has been all about adding creativity to its advertising over the past few years, which I previously mentioned helped it garner the advertiser of the year award at Cannes this year. Now, and I think many may agree, that razor campaigns have really been lacking in that creativity department over the past few years.

Enter "No Fusion, No Kiss." Creative team out of BBDO Dusseldorf put together this campaign. Hopefully you guys enjoy the print (see below). I think the copy writing is a little weak, though (Julio, how would you fix it?). On top of this awesome print, however, is the amazingly entertaining No Fusion, No Kiss website. I learned a bunch of different handshakes, though somehow it rewound and showed me #7 and #8 twice - but I kept on watching and it suddenly fastforwarded to the 390s. Pretty entertaining. The kissing lessons are too. So check out the website, and enjoy the print below (the last is my favorite) - hopefully everyone will understand them!

Bounce!

Hi Everyone!



I really am getting into a routine of reading this blog everyday (RSS Feed, sorry Sean and your analytics). If there is a morning when it hasn't been updated, I get sad. In all of my routine craziness, I totally forgot to contribute! So, here it goes.

I just got done having a fabulous week with a fellow wizard, Melissa (no i dont call her meldoug, I also call Lauren Lauren just deal with it). So a lot of her blog was my life too! She got a job in like 2.5 seconds. We laughed a lot. We love the new millenium. Good times. Thats what she said.

I know we are all really busy, but yesterday the Gators spot for Titletown USA was on sportscenter. I took the liberty of finding the link and posting it here. If you are in the mood to get the chills, watch it. If you are in New York surrounded by people that think Syracuse or some other crap team is like the sports mecca, show them it. Someone tried to tell me yesterday for like 5 minutes that Syracuse should be the titletown. "We always win in Lacrosse." O, OK. I am all for school spirit but COME ON. Or find the people that went to those small liberal arts schools that don't even know how intense college sports can be, find those people and show them this - http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3487364

Now for the real reason I am blogging. Bounce. I freakin LOVE Bounce. I pay the extra dollars for Bounce over the generic with a huge smile on my face. I pay extra to the little chinese woman at my local wash n fold for Bounce. LOVE IT. But I also have all of these alternative uses for it. So does my mom. I kinda thought we were the only ones. Then this article caught my eye yesterday, http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i5dab627a6e5e9f6721df0cf892520377?pn=2 , it is all about alternative uses consumers have for typical household products and whether these uses should be intergrated into their advertising. The article quotes a lot of brand managers that will never do this, it disrupts the integrity of the brand and so forth. But the folks at P & G that bring me my beloved Bounce decided they didn't want to be so "single minded." They took a risk, and have gotten a lot of attention for it. Digitas designed their new Web site, bounceeverywhere.com and I spent a good hour on it yesterday. I now have found EVEN MORE uses for my bounce sheets from other bounce lovers like myself and I am really excited. REALLY! Leo Burnett did a new TV spot and magazine ads and Bounce landed on the Today show (<3) in a spot about products with alternative uses. TWICE. Pretty good PR.

I really recommend checking out bounceeverywhere.com. It has a semi social network, comsumer involvement feel without ever losing the integrity and core of the brand. Really cool and unique product involvement. I wanted to share that with you all.

Also, as a part-time side job, I work Liberty and Knicks games at Madison Square Garden, where I intered last summer. Tomorrow I am working a Liberty game and it is MAC AND CHEESE NIGHT at MSG. I am really excited. I love mac and cheese and I really wanted to share that with you. It doesn't happen very often and I am really looking forward to it. That is all.

Analyze This

There've been some exciting changes to Wizards lately. We've added new people, become obsessed with posting pictures, and there's even a little bit of info about us at the top now. But the biggest change is one that you can't see. We've officially added Google Analytics. It's some really cool stuff. We can track people coming to the site, what directed them there, how long they spend on it, and even where they're coming from. It's awesome. If any wizards want access to this data, let me know.





So the map is really cool, but I see a problem here. California, you're slackin on this one. I know we've got a couple of you out there, and don't use the fires as an excuse. (Maybe we don't see any visits from Cali because you're using the RSS feed I told you about, but I doubt it...)

Update us on how everything is goin out there! One of you hasn't even posted yet! At least we've gotten a comment or two from one of you recently.

No matter how much you try you will never be as awesome as this picture...

RE: this is for you, Mumbles

Anyone else see it? It's all i could think of when I saw that pic