how do you "blog" anyways?

the daily show in :60 widget

2009-11-06T09:04:00.001-08:00

wanted to grab this to see how it looks within the blogger environment.

marky mark's response!

2008-10-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

as it turns out, mark wahlberg himself did not enjoy the SNL skit as much as i did. this is an interview on jimmy kimmel live.

calm down mark, it's all in good fun. he must really talk to animals, and that's why he's so worked up...
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say hi to your mother for me, alright?

2008-10-06T08:50:00.001-07:00

this post has no real purpose, except to provide you with the video of the most hilarious skit i've seen on saturday night live in some time.

i've been watching for the last three seasons off and on, mostly on for the last two since kristin wiig's emergence. her stuff is the most consistent, with andy samberg's digital shorts a close second - and then every now and then, samberg will bust out a gem like this.

the impression is dead on.

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what a disappointment

2008-09-26T08:09:00.001-07:00

although i probably shouldn't admit it, i enjoy a bit of celebrity gossip from time to time. i have no idea why, honestly - something about the whole hollywood lifestyle, i guess. in reality, i feel like i really could care less about lindsay lohan's romances, unless she wants to get me involved .. but i just don't know. i'm fascinated. i check wwtdd and/or the superficial daily, if not multiple times a day. (shoot me.)

anyway, with that said, it should come as no surprise that i've been looking forward to my first nyc celebrity sighting .. and this morning, it happened!

any guesses as to who it was?

fucking brooke shields, walking around soho this morning on my way to work. what a disappointment. she's so unfamous that the only thing i can think of with her in it is south park: the movie, in the scene where she says that she 'farted once on the set of blue lagoon', and terrance slaps her in her face. and she didn't even want to be in that.

(the clip sucks, because i don't think you can just go posting movie scenes on youtube. but, yeah.)

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just wanted to let you know

2008-08-28T07:52:00.001-07:00

that i haven't forgotten about you, i just haven't had anything great to say lately. not that all the other stuff going on this here blog qualifies as particularly 'great', but you catch my drift.

also just wanted to let you know, on a sad note, that the beloved family dog passed away yesterday after a seriously unfortunate accident at home in massachusetts. no need for a detailed explanation.

otto lived an 8-year-long life of english bulldog luxury, consisting mostly of sleep and probably too much hand-fed 'people food' (it's the italian in us).

anybody willing to scratch near his ass was an automatic best friend.
he protected the front door and the top of the stairs - he loved his family, and his family loved him.

RIP otto .. you were a good boy.

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reinventing the stop sign

2008-08-20T12:23:00.001-07:00

i'm a media person, so not everything discussed in the below video is stuff i deal with on a daily basis. but, through the experiences i have had in the industry so far interacting with account and creative folks .. it's pretty damn funny.

http://view.break.com/542649 - Watch more free videos
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the WORLD wide web

2008-08-14T07:05:00.001-07:00

i don't read the free papers they hand out at the subway in the morning, but i do glance at other people's over their shoulder. if you're reading this and thinking, 'i HATE when people do that!' - i'm sorry, and i hate it too.

anyway, i digress. this morning's front page headline was 'fear of human crisis in ravaged s. ossetia'. the CNN.com headline on the very first day of this whole debacle was 'breaking news: russia invades georgia'.

i am not even close to educated enough on the issue at hand between russia and georgia to discuss the actual story - but what i will say is that it seems american media coverage of the happenings at this point has been pro-georgia. this is reinforced when you read today that president bush has warned russia to withdraw troops immediately, or face possible retaliation.

so i was curious as to what started this whole thing in the first place. apparently - and this is just from a conversation with a buddy - georgia is split into two territories, north and south ossetia, and each wants to withdraw from georgia to become a part of russia. there was civil unrest between the two, and russia got involved.

now again, i don't know enough - but that doesn't sound like russia 'invading' georgia to me. an 'invasion' is out of nowhere .. isn't it?

back to the point of this post .. on the WORLD wide web, you can check out BBC for news outside of the states, or any one of numerous other world outlets. so if you're looking for some additional coverage, there are places to look.

and i'm not really saying the US news coverage is biased, or not grounded in truth .. just that the web makes it possible to check other sources.

the internet rules!
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almost as good as a real beach!

2008-08-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

go click around on corona beach. throw your blackberry into the ocean, put a lime in your beer ..

and draw in the sand. (yeah, i'm an artist. those are my feet, i'm lounging looking out at the water.)

i'm thirsty. for a corona. is that the desired effect?
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congratulations, you broke one MILLION points

2008-08-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

not really though - apparently you can't get to a million, because if you could, this would have been the performance. there's nothing else in life for this dude to accomplish.

TWO HANDS!? really? i didn't even know that could happen.
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i need a statistics nerd's opinion

2008-08-08T12:18:00.000-07:00

this has always bothered me. there are 10,000 peoplemeters in the whole country, being responsible for every single show on tv's ratings the following morning. is this a statistically valid sample size?
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"find 5 differences" .. kinda, not really

2008-08-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

print ads, in general, are not eye-catching. the reality is, it's not easy to make a reader stop and interact with - or even glance at - a magazine ad. it's even worse if they're in an awful position in the magazine, like smack in the middle.

i saw this ketel one ad smack in the middle of wired, and found myself spending time with it. after about a minute, i realized i had been duped - but as an advertising professional, i was okay with that.

you see, there aren't any differences between the two ketel one bottles. but, you sure have spent a hell of a lot of time staring at them!

good work.

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THE blob

2008-07-31T19:40:00.000-07:00

watch this video a half dozen times. the height on the launch, the kicking the legs mid-air, the back flop, the fact that she's probably 10 and crying when she comes up?

like a fine wine, it gets better with age.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

also, the video is obnoxiously huge, and covering up some side-bar information .. but worth it i'd say.
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yes.

2008-07-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

it doesn't play as well as the game obviously, because the game is the greatest game ever, but it's still pretty fun.
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it's not a party without guinness (apparently)

2008-07-29T07:31:00.000-07:00

this clip has been up on youtube for four months, and has 300,000 views. it's not the definition of viral per se (this ray ban viral video has 3.6 million views in a year), but it's gotten some decent exposure. i, for one, have had it forwarded to me by two friends in the last three days.

imagine if advertisers would go out on a limb more often and do something like what guinness did here. i've seen some of these 'never-made-it-to-TV' ads on youtube before, and they're usually a hit.

what does this say about this type of risque advertising? that people would like it more than the crap that's jammed down their throats? or does it not matter, because the realities of both the ad industry and society just don't allow for it to happen?

UPDATE: youtube pulled the clip. i hope you had an opportunity to see before it went MIA, but if not, here's the rundown. a naked woman (clearly on all fours) is slowly rocking back and forth, with a bottle of guinness resting in the small of her back. about 30 seconds in, a male hand from behind the woman reaches for the bottle, takes a swig, and let's out a refreshing 'ahhh.' 10 seconds later, a male hand from the front does the same. the tagline 'guinness: share one with a friend' comes up, then a third hand from the bottom of the screen reaches up for a sip, and the tagline continues .. 'or two.'

apparently the aforementioned 'realities of society' are responsible for pulling it down.

my question is - what the hell was the third hand doing down there?
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"in a relationship"

2008-07-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

it's pretty obvious to me that social networks are big parts of our everyday lives, and i especially like seeing references to them in daily reading.

this morning my people.com rep sent me 'the dirt', which is just a collection of all the celebrity headlines you will likely stumble across in the blogosphere that day. one of today's bits of information was about tim gunn (of television station bravo fame) giving dish on a romance that apparently starts between two contestants on the upcoming season of 'project runway'.

people.com then continues on to cite sources who say: Apparently [the contestants] have listed each other as the “top friend” on their MySpace pages and now list themselves as “in a relationship.”

ah, yes. 'top friend' applications and relationship statuses infiltrating your everyday news, ladies and gentlemen. the digital age is (read: has been) upon us.

anyone know what's on bravo tonight?

2008-07-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

gossip girl's advertising antics

2008-07-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

i'll try not to do this often, but because i peruse the advertising blogs often, a lot of my personal blog fodder comes directly from there. a post on ad freak today warranted a contribution from yours truly, so here it is.

the CW's tween (and adult?) hit 'gossip girl' has been running ads in the digital space hoping to accomplish a number of things, including driving people to CWtv.com to catch up on the season they may have missed, creating buzz for the new season premiere in the fall, and just generating awareness of the show in general.

some of these you may have noticed, and ran with the tagline 'OMFG'. these were the first batch from what i can tell, and they're clever for a couple of reasons. first, they play off of the whole 'omg' thing, which i guess technically originated as IM and/or text message lingo, but has certainly earned its place elsewhere. yahoo! just named their celebrity blog 'omg', for christ's sake. anyways, the CW hit the nail on the head because this phrase (or abbreviation) resonates well with the tech-savvy generation Yers and millenials. by adding the 'f', it is clear that whatever is happening on 'gossip girl' is just shocking and awesome beyond words. oh my f*cking god.

the second batch just started running recently, and these are the ads that warrant some discussion. the ads feature racy scenes from the show's first season, and come full-circle with disapproving quotes from television critics. however, the catch is this: in one of the ads, blair waldorf's bikini that she had on in the actual episode from last season miraculously disappears. where did this bikini top go? (the shot from the actual season is below, followed by the ad.)

clearly, those involved in the creation of the ads (the creative agency obviously, and the CW, who approved them) are purposefully making the creative racier than the show content itself, in an attempt to attract those crazy kids. they're also choosing to use quotes from critics such as '[gossip girl is] mind-blowingly inappropriate.' these antics are breaking one of the fundamental rules of advertising: blatantly using sex (in this case, CREATING it!) to garner viewership. it'd be one thing if the scene was in the actual show - but here, the thought process is obviously 'sex sells', and that's pretty much it.

i have no personal qualms with the media and/or creative strategy, but when you're targeting 13-24 year olds (i'm sure the CW will tell you 18-34 .. ok, whatever), is saying 'watch gossip girl - it's inappropriate, and the chicks get naked and do it in the pool' ... dare i say, inappropriate?

the show:

the ad:

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my theory on color

2008-07-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

i've come up with some strange theories in my day, but this one may take the cake. this is something i've been talking about for years, first mentioned to my buddy mike all the way back in middle school i believe, and mentioned to several people since then.

mike is one of the smartest guys i know. salutatorian of our class, straight a's at middlebury, works as an environmental geologist in boston now. when i gave him my theory on color, he just shook his head, told me i was being stupid as usual. so i asked him to explain why it wasn't possible, and he went off on this rant about the color spectrum and physics - whatever he said probably did successfully debunk my idea, but because i couldn't follow what the hell he was talking about, i still think it's interesting and maybe even possible. here goes:

when i see red, i see red. like a stop sign or a fire hydrant. and when you see a stop sign or a fire hydrant, you too see red. but who's to say that my red isn't your purple, and your red my blue? the same can be said for all the colors. because you really can't DESCRIBE a color without just naming something that is that color, i think it's hard to disprove this. imagine, if every single day we were all walking around, going about our business, but our physical perceptions of the things around us were just completely twisted. would anyone know?

is this (im)possible?

welcome to the blogosphere

2008-07-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

evan rutchik, welcome to the blogosphere. it may not seem addicting now .. and i'm not addicted to it yet .. but it will soon grow on you as a place to let your thoughts run wild. i'm trying to keep this blog in check in terms of personal posts, because eventually i hope to send it around to employers and co-workers in place of a boring, traditional resume - but we both know the things zipping around inside of this cranium.

your most recent entrepreneurial idea involved starting a blog 'battling' site, in which people can challenge others to a 'blog off', kind of like a dance off but .. well, lamer i guess. in response, i challenge you to describe this idea as your first true post.

i will say, you're off to a good start by naming yourself 'i am sooooo digital'. which of course, now that you signed up for twitter and started a blog on the same day, you are. (kind of.)

a darn good idea!

2008-07-04T23:25:00.000-07:00

a couple of days ago i was catching up on my celebrity gossip - and the headline was advertising related. being the advertising geek that i sometimes am, i was pretty excited. candie's apparently just paid fergie - female artist formerly of the black eyed peas, now doing her solo thing - $4 million to incorporate the brand into her songs!

i'll admit, i am new to the industry - but i've been paying very close attention to the world of advertising for the last five years, and i've never heard anything like this. blatant, over-the-top product integration by glad and whole foods in top chef? brand-sponsored vehicles? the "verizon wireless call to the bullpen"? i've seen all that.

but candie's - who has been celebrity-endorsed by jenny mccarthy, ashlee simpson, and hilary duff in the past - is paying money to be mentioned in a musician's lyrics. this is brilliant if you think about how many of fergie's songs get extremely popular, get played at parties and bars and a million other places, and get memorized my countless people. i don't want to say it's subliminal because it's not - but girls subconsciously singing 'i put my candie's on, and danced out the door' (or something much better) is what they're paying the $4 mil for.

opposite ends of the (subway) spectrum

2008-07-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

on wieden's blog, i stumbled across what i think is a very interesting destination. subwaycrush.com is a forum in which you can select a city - in my case, NYC - and a subway line - if i was a freak like these people, most likely the 4/5 or 6 - then write a note to someone that you pretty much thought was sexy on the subway and tell them you'd like to rendezvous at another time and place, preferably not on the subway. i read through quite a few of these, including one written to a woman on the A train entitled "dear suggestive banana eater" (... no, not a joke), and came to the realization that on one hand the manhattan subway, in all of its glory, can be a place for love. strangers eyeballing each other from behind dark sunglasses, undressing each other in their minds all the while keeping their feelings to themselves - that's what i'd call love, no?

then there's the other hand. this morning, at about 8:45 on the 4/5 train, the door opens at 86th street, and i hear a woman SCREAMING at another poor lady for being in her way. "f*ck you, dumb b*tch!" then, a third party from the peanut gallery telling everyone to just calm down got a big ol' "f*ck you too!" i almost interjected, just to remind this unpleasant woman that it was way too early in the goddamn morning to be cursing out strangers (not that any time of the day is acceptable), but instead i turned my ipod up and closed my eyes. not because i'm not a knight in shining armor ... just because it's not the first time i've ever seen this happen, and i can only do so much in a day.

ohh, new york city.

w+k on twitter

2008-05-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

my agency is constantly twittering, and i have been loving when whoever is responsible for the updates tweets about what's been "found". the list of five or so "found" links pops up every day or every other day. the most recent batch included an awesome digital campaign for nokia's new game emulator here, a youtube clip of what is probably the most advanced (and horrifying - more on this in a minute) robot i've ever seen here, and some other really cool stuff. follow @wiedenkennedy and check it out yourself! it's also stuff that - at least for me - might never have been found otherwise. maybe that's part of why twitter is so cool ... i'm still trying to fully get on board with twitter, although i'll tell you - it's growing on me already.

so to this robot. apparently this dog was created by boston dynamics. there's a scene in this video where a person KICKS this dogbot pretty hard, and the thing catches its balance. it then proceeds to trudge uphill in the snow, walk over a huge pile of cinder blocks, and leap its way across a warehouse.

now, by no means am i some kind of "robots are going to take over the world" theorist, but i think robots could take over the world if this continues. seriously? pretty soon, the only thing these machines aren't going to be able to do on their own is think. that's what's keeping me comfortable with these advances in modern science and technology. but once they can think ... alright i'm kidding. i'm not that nervous about it. but is it that big of a stretch for it to happen in a bunch of years?

the truth

2008-05-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

the celtics just made my weekend complete. paul pierce went bucket for bucket with lebron, ended up with 41 and put my c's into the eastern conference finals. obviously i was worked up enough for game seven, but to add to the magnitude of the situation i had a small bet hedged on the celtics winning the series with a friend. i gave him 2 to 1 odds, back when the series was tied at 2 games apiece, that the celts would advance to the next round. they nearly gave me a heart attack, but they pulled it out. game one vs. detroit on tuesday night.

i haven't caught up on any industry happenings, videos, news (besides sports) or anything else of the sort at all this weekend. think i'll dedicate some time to those things this evening, and catch up on thursday night's LOST.

first post .. about ten years late

2008-05-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

for some reason today, i'm feeling inspired. i've been at the new job as a digital planner for almost three months now, and i think i'm getting pretty good at understanding the landscape. but, not having a blog, del.icio.us, twitter, etc. set up at this point in my life (and at this point in the digital timeline) is pretty ridiculous of me.

my inspiration started this morning with the below video. i watched it and by the end, realized how much time and effort went into it. (seriously. think about how that video had to be done.) then, i got in one of those moods where i was like alright, i'm about to do something productive. i went on a reading streak, and on mediabistro i stumbled upon a bit on this girl, a journalism major at NYU. talk about inspiration. this girl is younger than me, only halfway through college, and has completely shown me up.

well, no longer. (actually .. yeah. still shows me up, totally.) i have a blog. i have a del.icio.us. i have a twitter. and it may take me a while, but i'm going to do my best to turn this blog into a worthwhile destination.

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