Thursday, December 22, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Review: Premium Brewed Game Day Ice
Game off. |
Labels:
beer review,
premium brewed game day ice
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Is anyone getting me a car this Christmas?
I keep seeing commercials where affluent, well-manicured
people give each other cars with oversized bows on them? Is this really a
thing? How do they even know what features the other likes? Are they dropping
hints into casual conversation? “Boy, this leather couch sure would be great at
60 mph, right?”
If I surprise one of my friends or family members with a
luxury sedan, will I hear a peel of joy or see a cringe of awkward regret?
“Thanks for the car. Did you keep the receipt?”
Labels:
advertising,
Christmas,
Lexus
Monday, December 19, 2011
I am a loser.
This past weekend, I flew across half the country to
participate in a poker tournament hosted by a former* fraternity brother. There
were 22 of us seated at three tables with a bevy of food and beverages to keep
us well contented and lubricated over the course of the afternoon. Some of the
guys played fairly regularly and others, such as yours truly, hadn’t played in
over a year.
And then I was out. THE FIRST ONE OUT. I had a pair of Jacks
and I bet aggressively, pre-flop, but two guys matched me. Then, a Queen
appeared on the flop, and I felt I had to bet even more aggressively to chase
the two out. One obliged and one didn’t—the one with the pair of Queens, it
turns out.
At first I was disappointed, however, the more I thought
about it, the better I was with it. Being out first meant that I could mingle
amongst the remaining tables and catch up with guys I hadn’t seen in years.
And the best part was that no time had passed. Sure, we were
all a little older, some fatter and a great number had wives and kids and
responsibilities, but we all cracked jokes, told stories and laughed to the
point of tears. Some guys had suffered health problems, experienced losses or
were having a hard time, but we listened, consoled and, after a certain point,
busted their balls. Because that’s what we do.
Will I remember who won this year? Yes, because we get it
engraved on a trophy. Will anyone remember that I was the first one out this
year? Yes, because those guys are merciless.
Was it worth it? You bet your @$$ it was.
*Technically we’re still fraternity brothers—brothers for
life and all that—but I mean that we’re not longer in college.
Labels:
poker
Friday, December 16, 2011
In ___________ We Trust.
2011 seemed to be the year when we lost our trust*.
The government lost the trust of the American people.
America lost the World’s trust.
The dollar is no longer the most trusted currency worldwide.
The 1% lost the trust of the 99%.
We lost trust in banks and stocks and bonds and anything
other than gold.
No one trusts China. Or the media.
Fewer and fewer people trust God, any god.
We can’t even seem to trust the food we eat or the air we
breathe.
And, as Penn State proved, sometimes we can’t even trust
each other.
So what can we trust? Who can we turn to in 2012? Can we
trust ourselves?
Trust your gut.
Trust in life.
Trust in the inevitable march of time.
Trust in 4 billion years of evolution**.
Trust that Hollywood movies will always be over budget and
underwhelming.
Trust that a man being hit in the nuts will always be funny.
Always.
Trust that a monkey will always pee in its mouth when it’s
on camera.
Trust that everything will work out okay.
Trust me, I’m a professional.
*And trust funds, if you were so lucky to have one.
**Or 4,000, if that’s your thing.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Creativity is a lot like Pooping*
If you work in a creative field, like advertising or graphic
design, you’ll eventually hear someone say something like, “great, I guess I’ll
just go poop out another idea**.” But, honestly, they’re not far off.
Top 5 ways Creativity is like Pooping™
1.
You can’t
force it***. Trying to squeeze out a creative idea before its time is like
trying poop when you’re not ready—you’ll end up getting hemorrhoids … of the
brain.
2.
When
you’re stuck, read something. This goes back to number 1****, but sometimes
you have to distract yourself in order for ideas to come to you.
3.
Garbage
in, garbage out. Feed your brain substantive ideas and inspiration***** to
get nutrient-rich thinking; granted, it’s all crap, but some is better than
others.
4.
Sometimes
you just have to be the biggest @$$hole. To convince others of your ideas,
sometimes you have to challenge and even risk offending them.
5.
You never
know what you’re going to get. Sure, when you sit down to poop, you have a
general idea of what you’re going to get—brownish, smelly, clingy—but until you
look in that bowl, you don’t know if it will be smooth and silky or clumpy and
runny. Which, let’s face it, is why you got into the business in the first
place, right?
*My parents are so proud right now; “Four years of college
for this?”
**Which precedes the notion of “polishing a turd.”
***Yes, yes, very funny.
****Zing!
*****Like That Tad Guy’s blog, maybe?
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
All I want for Christmas is … more variety.
I was recently given a mixed holiday CD. “Nice gesture,” you
might say. Or, “How thoughtful.” And you would be initially right and then
horribly, painfully wrong. It was a CD assembled by a committee of people with
disparate tastes and sensibilities. I know that Christmas is a time of
togetherness, but sometimes Run DMC just needs to sit at the other end of the
table from Jessica Simpson and Justin “Shortie” Bieber.
The CD was a disaster. But it got me to thinking, as I’m oft
apt to do, and it made me realize that while it FEELS like there is an
overabundance of Christmas/Holiday music, there actually ISN’T a lot of NEW
music*. With some exceptions, most original artists churning out holiday albums
these days are merely acting as glorified cover bands. Few are actually writing
or performing wholly original music. And, unfortunately, when an original song
does come along and get popular, like Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas
is Tad**”, someone*** comes along and covers it until it’s unbearable to hear
ever again.
So if I have one wish this holiday season, it’s this: $1
billion in cash. But if I have two wishes, then it’s that everyone in the whole
world write more holiday music.
*OKAY??
**The original title
***Specifically: the Cast of Glee
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Brunch Pants (tm)
Artist's rendering of Brunch Pants (tm) |
I give you (with the help of my brunch crew; respect): Brunch Pants (tm). This project is in the experimental stages, but--if successful--will absolutely change brunch as you know it**.
F.A.Q.s
Is that elastic in the waistband and at the ankles? Yes. Our highly made-up brunchologists have determined that both swell throughout the course of each of the courses, of course.
Are those printed patterns of breakfast foods? No. They are of brunch foods.
There's no way that someone was genius enough to put plastic linings IN THE PANTS to take home and/or smuggle buffet food, right? Wrong. We are that genius.
Aren't those just a take-off on weight-lifting pants from the late 80s/early 90s? Maybe. But we can 100% guarantee that no one who wears these pants will ever workout.
What will be the estimated cost of these amazing pants? Right now, our estimates are between $25-$753 retail.
*No, no you didn't.
**That's a heads up, Nobel Prize committee.
Labels:
Brunch Pants,
brunchologists,
humor
Friday, December 9, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
All I don't want for Christmas.
When I lived in Seattle, a group of friends and I
participated in an annual white elephant gift exchange.
For the uninitiated, the term “white elephant” was originally
and literally a white elephant. White elephants were seen as rare, enviable and
precious gifts, but they were also a financial burden to feed, house, and clean.
Only the wealthiest kings and sultans could afford to keep them, so if a person
were given one as a gift, it was essentially meant to drive the owner to financial
ruin. In modern usage, it means a gift that isn’t really a gift. Or at our
party, it was a gag gift.
Basically, everyone wrapped their gifts and people drew
numbers out of a hat. One had the first pick. Two could then steal one’s gift
or pick from below the tree. If a gift was stolen three times, it was no longer
available to steal.
Some of the most memorable were: The Clapper*, Bootleg DVDs
from Taiwan and a beer in a sock. Good times.
But as we got older, we wanted to be classy. So we decided
to change the game to be a CD and DVD exchange**, but still keep the same
structure. One person, however, didn’t get the memo. And it so happened that I
picked old number 1 for the first time ever.
So there I was in my Christmas sweater, all eager and full
of Holiday Cheer***, surrounded by friends when I unwrapped the first gift. It
was neither CD nor DVD. It was a Strokin’
Santa wind-up doll. Without going into too much detail, Santa had one arm
raised over his head**** and the other on his “north pole”. And when you wound
up the doll, Santa “jingled his bells”. Again, I’m thankful that this was not a
DVD. Needless to say, no one wanted to steal this gift.
But, fortunately, my roommate’s girlfriend was going to
another white elephant gift exchange and traded me a Snoopy Snowcone Machine
for Jolly Old St. Nick. Classy indeed.
*My roommates and I first used it with the TV, but it would shut
off if there were any loud noises ON the TV
**Throw this one in the time capsule, right?
***How is this not a brand of cheap moonshine?
****A detail that has always befuddled me. Was he looking
for a high five? Was he waving to someone?
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The One-Handed Rule
This past weekend, some friends of mine were talking about
the high turnover of restaurants downtown. Some places seemed to only last a
few scant months while others disappeared shockingly after a few days, like a
kidnapping victim in a new country. And then we cracked the code. Correction: I cracked the code. To be a successful
lunch establishment, you only have to pass one test and that test has only one
rule: can you eat it one handed? Soups, salads, bottomless pasta bowls are all
well and good, but they fail the test. And the beauty of the one-handed rule?
It frees up your other hand to receive congratulatory high-fives. Yes!
Labels:
food,
food for thought,
the one handed rule
Monday, December 5, 2011
Origin Schmorigin
I’m a sucker for superhero movies. Not all of them**, but if
they’re even remotely entertaining, I’ll give them a chance. Let me clarify:
mainstream superhero movies, like Spider-man
2 or The Dark Knight*—I’m not a
fan of the hyper-realistic, hyper-violent sub-genre, like Super or Kick-ass. I
don’t need trumped up morality tales or movies trying to subvert the genre. I
just want a halfway decent popcorn movie, like this year’s Thor or Captain America.
The reason I write all of this is because I just watched The Green Hornet. It was terrible; this
is not new information. Every review I read said as much, but I figured that
maybe Michel Gondry and Seth Rogen had created something starkly new, which
oftentimes means that it is initially rejected by the masses.
Masses 1
Gondry & Rogen 0
The main problem was that the creators never defined what
type of movie they wanted it to be. One minute it wanted to be a super cool
action movie with video game effects and the next it was a slapstick farce with
action scenes that would make the 3
Stooges blush.
And the shame of it is that the movie could have been a
compelling statement on violence and vigilantism***.
There’s a scene early on when the Green Hornet and Kato
instinctively run from the police, but end up running the police car into
another car, resulting in a fiery crash. At that moment, they cheer. But what
if they had stopped and thought, “Oh crap. We just hurt a police officer who
was just trying to do his job?” Seth Rogen’s character is supposedly a
billionaire and yet we hear nothing about his efforts to rectify the
consequences of his actions.
Which got me to thinking: I’m done with origin stories. Origin
stories are passive. Things happen to the hero instead of the hero making
things happen. I don’t care so much about the “why” as much as the “what”.
Which in turn caused me to remember a stunningly original
comic book mini-series I collected in my youth: Marvels. The first thing that struck me was Alex Ross’s
photorealistic artwork. But after that, it was the story. Instead of following
the story from the hero’s perspective, we follow a newspaper photographer, who
bears witness to these goliaths as they crash into and intrude on the lives of
everyday citizens. Each of their conflicts results in both positive and
negative consequences and most of the victims know little to none about “why”
Spider-man decided to choose a red and blue color scheme over black****. It was
a bold take on a host of classic good vs. evil stories.
I just wish there was a filmmaker in Hollywood brave enough
to tell a conventional superhero story in an unconventional manner. Because if there was,
they’d be my hero.
*Yes, both are sequels.
**I’m looking at you, Daredevil,
Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four.
***Yes, I get that I just said I didn’t want that from a
Superhero movie.
****That was a nerd test. You failed if you got the
reference.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Yogurt, yo.
Just like you can bake bread without a bread machine*, you
can make yogurt without a yogurt maker, but if you want a dedicated machine,
then the Euro Cuisine Automatic Yogurt Maker does the trick nicely.
When I made my first batch, I followed the instructions to bring the milk to a boil, let cool,
add yogurt, pour in jars, set timer, plug in and wait. I'll be honest: it was a
hassle. So after reading up on the process and making a few more batches,
here's what I now do:
-buy skim milk, measure out 48 oz.
-add a cup of non-fat powdered milk
-add a jar of yogurt from a previous batch
-set timer for 12 hours and turn on (overnight)
-put lids on jars, cool in fridge and go to work
The higher the fat content, the fewer the hours needed to cook. But all of the yogurt comes out nice and thick (not Greek yogurt thick, but regular thick). I add frozen fruit right before eating, although there are instructions for adding them in at a different stage of the process.
I'd rate the machine higher, but the on/off switch doubles as the light and I forgot to turn on the machine once because of it**.
-buy skim milk, measure out 48 oz.
-add a cup of non-fat powdered milk
-add a jar of yogurt from a previous batch
-set timer for 12 hours and turn on (overnight)
-put lids on jars, cool in fridge and go to work
The higher the fat content, the fewer the hours needed to cook. But all of the yogurt comes out nice and thick (not Greek yogurt thick, but regular thick). I add frozen fruit right before eating, although there are instructions for adding them in at a different stage of the process.
I'd rate the machine higher, but the on/off switch doubles as the light and I forgot to turn on the machine once because of it**.
*yes, you can actually bake your own bread
**surprisingly, the yogurt still turned out okay
Thursday, December 1, 2011
That Tad Guy's Gift-giving Guide™
It seems like everyone does a gift-giving guide this time of year. The best gifts for octogenarians. What to
get your co-workers. How to say, “thanks for checking me into rehab” for under
$10. All of those guides are misguided*. This is the only guide—the
definitive guide—you’ll need this holiday season. Why? Because I’m not going to
give you a list of crap to purchase. I’m going to show you how to select a
gift. And isn’t that the best gift of all?**
DO:
·
Get them
something they want. Sounds pretty simple, right? Yet studies*** show
that 89% of gift recipients don’t get what they want, 43% of the time.
·
Get them
something expensive looking, but which was actually on sale. Oops, secret’s
out, folks****.
·
Give them
something meaningful … to them. The better you know a person, the less you
should have to spend on them. Uh, I mean that you won’t have to overcompensate
trying to impress them. Jeez.
DON’T:
·
Give them
something that doubles as a passive aggressive attempt to change something
about themselves. Examples include: Gym memberships, non-alcoholic beer, one-way
tickets out of the country, gift cards to psychologists, etc.
·
Give them
an illness. Blankets for winter are great; small pox blankets for winter …
hard to return.
*See what I did there? It’s called “wordplay”
**Hahahaha. No.
***I’m sure there’s some study somewhere that backs this up
****Hope everyone likes their “Rolexes"
Labels:
do,
don't,
gift-giving guide
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)