Nailed it.
GE executive: “Do you like the Cisco equipment?
Jack Donaghy: “Of course. It continues to be the gold standard by which all business technology is judged!”YouTube - “30 Rock - Cisco Telepresence”
Desi Arnaz: “Hey, the last one! You’d better get another pack!”
Lucille Ball: “Okay!”YouTube - “Lucy and Desi pimp Philip Morris Cigarettes”
Wayne Campbell: “Contract or no, I will not bow to any sponsor.”YouTube - “Wayne’s World - Sponsors”
David Lynch: “Product placement in a film putrifies the environment.”
I’ve tried on more than one occasion to articulate to a friend of mine what bothers me about the way 30 Rock handles product placement. I think the closest I have come is this: when they turn on this ironic, “buck the system” way of dealing with something that is an unfortunate part of their job (to write in product endorsement), they are really just taking the easiest way out - writing it as plainly as possible - with the expectation that viewers will feel it’s funny that the writers hate having to do it as much as we hate having to watch it. What I actually end up feeling is that they have found the path of least resistance to converting their problems into my problems. In short, now I am being advertised to in the middle of the content, and nobody even cares enough to try and make it less painful. It’s distractingly insulting and takes me out of the show to a point that I want to stop watching. And no Coke can on Friends ever did that.
There was a particularly bad episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia a few weeks ago that was clearly sponsored by Dave & Buster’s. The extent to which the sponsorship dictated the content was appalling - but they wrote an entire episode around it and I have to respect the effort that went into that.
It’s awful that we’ve come here at all, but as far as execution goes the 30 Rock approach makes me feel like they think I’m dumber than I am, and it gets more irritating with each iteration.
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Home
For some reason, I am addicted to this song. The girl singing has this powerful voice that you would never expect to come out of someone so tiny, and the guy sings so, easily, for lack of a better word (I’m really drawing a blank here). Watch this video for a better idea of what I’m trying to say, or you can just enjoy this version right here.
To give credit where credit is due, secretsquirrel, I owe you one. (He also has a tumblr.)
I came upon this track via the same source, and also found it to be magnificent.
Why is Obama on the cover of the Japanese Goodnight Moon?
The question is why isn’t he on the American one, you unpatriotic racist.
Both of those logos are awesome.
One of the fascinating things about kids developing is the way some things just click. One of the frustrating things is you don’t get to be in their mind when it happens. Three days ago, something snaps in this one’s head and suddenly she colors with purpose. Wild.
You can dye your hair, but it’s the one thing you can change.
From This is Hardcore, among my most-listened and most-loved records.
Pulp : Help The Aged
Love it, for one day you will live it.
I have been ever-so-slowly re-converting my music collection to a lossless format. I’m starting with the things I listen to the most, and love the most. I cannot recommend this enough. I’ve been listening to MP3 long enough that I really had not realized how much gets lost in the compression. I mean, I knew. I always knew, especially in my heart, that it was wrong. But you get used to it. You learn to ignore the awful gurgling sounds that, if you listen closely enough, have been injected into everything you listen to.
The life of music is in the high end. Everything is in the high end. Any definition in your low end? Guess what, that’s because of a clean high end. Sounds sexy. Is sexy. MP3 destroys your high end. Takes it in, chews it up, and spits out what is essentially random noise designed to trick you into ignoring it. You’ve fucked up all of your music and you keep obtaining more that has already been destroyed for you, in the name of saving hard disk space.
Well I say no more. Well, not no more. I’ll still listen to MP3s. Probably still buy them even. But I’m falling in love again with music I have owned for twenty years, and it’s because I can hear things again. I can hear the clarity of the recording remarkably close to the way it was understood that the listener would (or should) hear it. It’s airy, it’s spacious, it envelops.
Some may say they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but I bet they would. An audio engineer’s opinion on that may not carry a lot of weight, depending on how you look at it, but I think a lot of people are underestimating the importance of clarity in the way people perceive music.
Better music, not more. Refresh.
In case you need to run from the airport to my new house, here’s the route.
It’s 3 miles. Should take you about half an hour if you’re in decent shape or being chased by TSA dogs.
This is almost exactly where a smooth, pale youngster by the name of Me came of age. I was in Burlingame, Calif., home of the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia and the IT’S IT factory, from fifth thru twelfth grade.
You see the little coastline near the Hyatt? That’s where I first touched a boob for real. We were supposed to go over to someone’s house and watch … I dunno, Evil Dead 2, probably? But then we got into the whole boob thing and ran late.
Folks, there were no cellphones in those days. Those were the days when you’d be in the middle of a boob session and say, you know what, let’s ditch that party and just keep doing this. And later you could blame it on something stupid like traffic because there were no cellphones and nobody ever really knew where you were.
This is a scary crazy coincidence - I am outside the house, right now, touching my boobs. No. Shit.
Is this the greatest song ever?
Five seconds.
Quickly…
I’m sorry, the answer was yes. Yes.
The Vaselines : Day I Was a Horse
Many moons ago I had a split live cassette of Beat Happening and the Vaselines. It was my first exposure to the Vaselines. They are good. I like them. That was a good cassette.