I used to eat at this place back when I worked at Sunset-Gower Studios in Hollywood. You'd never suspect that I lived, literally, 7 blocks from one. Probably because the last time I got a meatball sub there was the last time I worked from home.
The trick they pull on you at Giamela's? A full sandwich (pictured) is twenty-five cents more than the half. What a heart-stopping deal!
And yes, when I biked home, Jared from Subway was standing by the road crying just like that Native American, Iron Eyes Cody, used to do in that 1970's commercial.
I'd tell you I only ate half, but I don't really like to lie on the blog.
Dr. Fredric J. Baur, the genius that created the patent for the container for Pringles, passed away recently.
As part of his last wishes, he wanted his remains to be buried in a Pringles can.
He developed many products for Proctor & Gamble, including frying oils and a freeze-dried ice cream. He was said to have been proudest about the patent for the Pringles design.
I just hope that I can come up with something as cool before I die (it does not have to have the multi-usage, however.)
As it may raise your cholesterol level and put you at risk for coronary heart disease.
I like beef, but I find these cliffs disturbing in a bad-modern-art way, which is probably not the intention of the Beef: It's What's for Dinner people.
When I look at these, I'm thinking "Beef: You're Soaking In It".
I'm not exactly the Grammar Police here (just ask any of the Proofreaders who read my blog), but isn't "Gotta" slang for "Got to" (i.e., "She's Gotta Have It" and "Something's Gotta Give")?
So why is BK telling me, "Got to buck"?
Buck what? My intense aversion to Whoppers?
(Thanks to Matt&Katie for spotting this too. And taking a picture, of course
In case you hadn't heard, the City of LA is cracking down on taco trucks.
According to the LA Times an existing law requires trucks move every 30 minutes, but "because the fine is only $60, many truck owners view it as a cost of doing business."
New restrictions "would increase the penalty for violating the law to a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine and/or a six-month jail sentence. To soften the blow, however, she would extend the time a catering truck can be parked in one place from 30 minutes to an hour."
Apparently certain restaurant owners around town have been pressuring the city to increase the fine, because the trucks take customers they might otherwise have eating in their restaurants.
The folks at SAVE OUR TACO TRUCKS.ORG disagree, countering that "Taco Trucks are a special facet of Los Angeles, and something we don’t want to lose."
They made May 4th Taco Night LA and encouraged everyone to visit their favorite taco truck and encourage folks who love trucks to sign a petition at their site.
Never been to a truck? Visit Bandini at The Great Taco Hunt to read reviews and start salivating.
And remember, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day (Sept. 16th), but a commemoration of The Battle Of Puebla.
I know, I know.
Just giving you something to talk about over a round of carnitas and margaritas.
(Special thanks to Aquent's eagle-eyed Jim Feighny, who spotted this from Boston. He knew this issue was near and dear to our hearts as he attended our Taco Truck Night in '07.)
In the mid 90's, when my brother came back to the States after having lived in England a few years, he commented, "What the heck happened? I go away and now everyone's separating everything. Aluminum over here. Glass over there. What's going on with you people?!"
Apparently the RecyclingRevolution had happened while he was abroad.
Which is funny to me, because I have no idea, exactly, when we all started separating our recyclables. Maybe it's like that Woody Allen story where everyone in the world wakes up one morning to discover they work at a dry cleaner's.
On the good news front, you can now dump more stuff than ever into your recycle bin in the City of Los Angeles. Like:
All Clean Styrofoam® (Cups, containers, and packaging such as Styrofoam egg shell cartons, Styrofoam block packaging, and Styrofoam clamshell packaging)
All Plastic Bags and All Film Bags (Grocery bags and dry cleaner bags, and all clean film plastic)
All Aluminum, Tin, Metal, and Bi-Metal Cans (Rinsed if possible, soda, juice, soup, vegetables, and pet food cans; pie tins; clean aluminum foils; empty paint and aerosol cans with plastic caps removed, and wire hangers)
All Clean Dry Paper (All unwanted mail, flyers, telephone books, note cards, newspaper, blueprints, magazines, file folders, paper bags, Post-it notes, catalogs; and all envelopes including those with windows)
All Cardboard Boxes and Chipboard (Cereal, tissue, dry food, frozen food, shoe, and detergent boxes; paper and toilet rolls; and corrugated boxes)
If I wasn't so danged full from my greasy pizza lunch from Damiano's Mr. Pizza, I might find the time to go to one of the fancy restaurants joining in the fun that is dineLA Restaurant Week.
Restaurant devotees galore will be busting down the doors of Ruth Chris Steak House, Zucca, Angeli Caffe, and the like for the offer of three-course dinner menus for $25 (deluxe dining) and $34 (premier dining). Lunches are $15 and $22 respectively.
What's the difference between deluxe and premier dining?
Far as I can tell, places like Ciudad are premier and places like Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. are deluxe.
Wait, no. Bubba Gump is premier, too.
But Cobras and Matadors is deluxe.
Oh I have no idea what's going on here.
Except that I'm not going to American Girl Place for Cinnamon Bun appetizers and "Bitty Bites Pizza".
(This clip is considered PG-13 in that it recognizes the existence of sex and illustrates the fact adults often make poor decisions after ingesting alcohol.)
Visiting my local Subway Sandwich Emporium the other day I noticed the familiar face of Jared was missing. You may know him as the Subway spokesperson who lost so much weight from eating their sandwiches.
In his place I saw character Peter Griffin from Fox's Family Guy hawking Subway's biggest, fattest sandwich ever, The Subway Feast:
"Heaping piles of roast
beef, salami, pepperoni, turkey and black forest ham, all wrapped up in
American cheese on freshly baked bread. It's the kind of concrete
slippers that hunger fears the most."
An odd step for a fast food chain who has (happily) marketed with healthy techniques like teaming with Trek bicycles to offer bike goodies for kid's meals and teaming with the American Heart Association. They were also, as far as I know, the first fast food place to offer apples and yogurt as sides, instead of chips.
So, in their lineup of "Fresh Fit" subs, carb-free options, and weight management tips, is this a marketing misstep or just playing to the American public's appetite?
This Saturday at the Henry Fonda Music Box, eight Designers will go head to head to showcase their talent in three, single-elimination rounds in front of a live audience.
Called Cut & Paste, it's a two-year old competition that now spans 12 cities around the globe.
And happily sponsored by AIGA/LA while in town.
All the work will be Webcast globally and projected in real-time for the audience, who can vote on-line for the winner.
And what kind of design-related event would this be if there wasn't an after party? (I hope they're serving something stronger than Keystone Light.)
If you're worried about being slashed by an X-ACTO knife, you should know all cutting and pasting will take place digitally.
Saturday, October 13th, 2007
Doors open at 7pm
Competition from 8 - 11PM
After party from 11PM - 2AM
Let's face it, some people have absolutely no respect for Rocktober.
Some of those people are, in particular, three men doing "Corey-oke" in the song stylings of Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, and Corey Hart.
All 80s songs all the time with only three Classic Rock song exceptions: "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Pat Benetar, and "Jump" by the slipped-into-utter-lameness-in-the-80s-before-bottoming-out-entirely Van Halen.
If you're among the infidels, visit their site at Coreyoke.com.
Like many Limited Liability Corporations, Aquent celebrates Rocktober.
This means changing our hold music to our classic rock compilation, taking long rides in the company Camaro, and hosting rock-themed pot lucks in our kitchen (i.e., Chicken McNugents and Sympathy for the Devil's Food Cake).
Who will dress up as Gene Simmons for the quarterly staff meeting? Which staff member will nod out in the lobby ala Jimmy Hendrix?
Oh, Rocktober, you know no bounds.
And, by the way, this is not to be confused with the "Rocktober" celebrated by the state of Colorado to commemorate their baseball team's victories.
Okay, this doesn't really count as a post, but emails were flying around the office today about fun festivals going on around LA this weekend and I figured I'd pass them along...
Swerve Festival is a new annual festival dedicated to celebrating West
Coast creative culture and its community inspired by art, film, music
and action sports. The three-day celebration will be held in Los
Angeles to bring together a dynamic group of innovators and thinkers
and to spotlight some of the most exciting work to come out of these
creative disciplines.
The GasBGon flatulence filter seat cushion is a fun, yet serious solution to the embarrassing problem of malodorous gas (breaking wind).
GasBGon seat cushions apply cutting edge carbon filter technology to
absorb the sound and odor that accompany flatulence. The unique cushioning
property combines to form a dual filter technology to muffle the sound and
the smell.
Highlights from the site for this product:
Product manufactured by Dairiair,LLC
Washable black cover for device
Site provides an "a to z" study on flatulence
Invented by an air quality and filtration engineer
Leopard print filter is called "Silent But Deadly"
Company motto: "Clear the Air, Not the Room"
Sadly, it's only available in the UK as of this post.
Curse you Brits for being ahead of the curve once again!
(Thanks to Daphne, Down Under, for the pass along!)
Tim is right here, at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Boston, MA with 200 of his favorite colleagues!
It's Aquent's annual group hug with half of the company participating in learning, eating, camaraderie, and the kind of silliness mixed with business Aquent is known for.
Well, I'll post pictures so you can see what I mean.
Like many men, I either am overwhelmed ("Get me out of this STORE!") or underwhelmed ("I'm sorry, what did you say? I dozed off here in the Young Mister section.")
Occasionally my mind does wander productively. "Who the heck would buy that?" (as in below),
"Why is that so overpackaged?", or "Man, I could go for a pretzel about now".
The review is very thorough and covers a lot of ground from the reviewer's favorite section, “The Economics of Product Design�.
"Its sprinkling of short essays reminded me of a simple truism that I sometimes overlook when thinking about design, gazing upon some item in a store or using some kind of interface and wondering how it got to be the way it is, or indeed lamenting the way it got to be how it is (who signed off on that?). That simple fact I forget is that often, an object’s design is only marginally influenced by the hand of a designer. Its design has already been preordained by market (or other) constraints. It is not merely that, as Charles Eames famously said, “design depends largely on constraints,� but something more elemental. The constraint is the design."
A bonus, too, is that the reviewer seamlessly weaves in the Billy Joel lyric "you can't dress trashy till you spend a lot of money."
Budweiser hits it well with this viral marketing piece. I've already gotten emailed this video twice today and I'm not surprised: it's too naughty for broadcast TV and is really danged funny.
Just think of the money Bud is saving not putting this spot on TV.
Not that they could, in its current state.
I remember watching BBC's Monty Python's Flying Circus series uncut on PBS when I was a kid (unbelievable for Omaha, huh?) with all its nudity and innuendo intact, and I think this ad really captures the risqué edginess you can achieve when you don't have to appeal to the wide, broadcast media audience.
PLEASE NOTE, THIS VIDEO IS PG-13 (FOR BLEEPED LANGUAGE, MEN IN TIES, AND ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION) AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR OFFICES WHO FROWN UPON SUCH THINGS.
Whether you agree with the content or not, The Meatrix site certainly deserves the accolades it's been given (a Webby, SXSW Film Festival Award, Web Marketing Assoc. Award, and more).
This campaign is well tied together complete with a good looking and quick loading Flash movie with an interactive button at the end (call to action).
The whole Sustainable Table site is filled with excellent information, easy-to-understand links, great graphics, and guides you can download to your iPod.
The whole site makes the visitor ready to be a one-man/woman marketing department: posters, graphics, bumper stickers, search boxes for Websites, brochures, short blurbs, long blurbs, and a whole lot more.
And the campaign's working, too. I've gotten two viral emails from friends already today.
I usually like to participate Los Angeles Bike to Work Week, at least riding a couple days out of that week (the promise that I'd start riding on Fridays after Daylight Saving Time started hasn't worked out so well). And I was kind of wondering, since it was already May, when I was going to start hearing about it. I got that answer today, when I opened my email at work. It started today. The email was sent Friday night.
Not that I'm the biggest "plan ahead" guy in the world, but wouldn't giving more than 48 hours worth of notice help bring more bicyclers onto the streets?
Okay, I'll take of my Marketing hat for a moment (which is nice, because it's extremely heavy) and tell you, if you haven't thought about commuting to work by bike before, this is a good week to do it. Why?
Snacks, friends, and more at pit stops throughout LA (on Thursday) and Pasadena (all week)
Be sure to check out this Checklist provided by California Bike Commute before heading out. I mean, if you're the planning type (like me). If you're one of those people who doesn't mind coming to the office and discovering you forgot a change of clothes, don't bother.
Thought I'd let you know about this Aquent sponsored happening as it's next week! Please use the RSVP address on the invite below if you want to have your book reviewed.
Even if you don't want your book reviewed, feel free to come by (just email me that you're coming!)
You know, Seinfeld has spun off more inventions and catch phrases than any other TV show in TV show history. Consider these gems which now appear in our everyday 21st century lives:
Double-dipping ("It's like putting your entire mouth in the bowl!")
Muffin tops
Puffy Shirts (didn't quite catch on)
"No soup for YOU!"
"Kie-bosh" (instead of "Kabosh")
Close Talker
Manzier
Shrinkage
Man hands
Yadda, yadda, yadda
On the muffin top front comes this invention, which was surely inspired by the same thinking, that is: "Dang it, I love the brownies on the edge of the pan and hate the ones in the middle."
If you love TWO (yes two) chewy edges on each brownie then, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the...
Well it’s real. Yep, doctors and sports nutritionists are now telling us that Pickle Juice is actually good for us. And someone has already begun to capitalize on it:
What’s even more amazing than this product being genuinely market-viable (it’s currently being retailed in 7-Eleven and Albertson’s), is the Website! It’s actually GOOD! Which amazes me. How come Web-based companies like Linked-In can continue to have poor UI design and this Pickle Juice company has a good one?
But, if you ask me, I’ll invest. I think UI is a great predictor of whether a company is going to make it or not, because it’s a reflection of whether or not they care about their customer’s perception of them. For more on this read this Forbes article on bad UI design.
And if you don’t have time, just skip to the last paragraph for a laugh.
I don't mind posting this site's content verbatim, because I have a strong suspicion the people will never understand it.
I believe this is another case of translating something from English into an Asian language then back to English. Or a Beta version of a program that inserts words where it thinks they ought to be.
The result is something that looks like my 3rd grade report on the subject.
Stunning.
I now give you this site's definition of:
The St Patrick's Day
On St Patrick’s Day the Irish celebrate one of the favorite holidays.
The St Patrick’s Day holiday is also celebrated by many other people,
too. This is a favorite holiday for many people when they go out and
celebrate. St Patrick’s Day is a fun holiday that many people love to
enjoy. Many people are in joyous moods on the celebration of St
Patrick’s Day. Remember that when it comes around this year and you
will enjoy it too. Make it a point that you take part in the St Patrick
Day celebrations.
They dress up in green and the enjoy the Saint Patrick’s Day parade and
many other festivities, too. The Saint Patrick's Day parade is a
favorite of many other people. During the St Patrick’s Day holiday many
people drink green beer to celebrate and enjoy the fun that this
holiday brings for many people. There are many other ways that St
Patrick’s is celebrated. There are plenty of lucky charms and clovers
all around so that the people really feel that St Patrick’s Day is
there.
When St Patrick’s Day comes around many people decorate with lots of
green decorations and clovers. There are plenty of other great St
Patrick’s Day decorations and you can find a lot out about them online.
When you find a good site then you should bookmark it to pull it up
whenever you need too. Also print out any of the great ideas that you
wish to keep. You will want to have it so that you can find the
information quickly. Be sure that you find a lot of different
decorations so that you can make your home look really festive during
the St Patrick’s Day celebration. It will be a fun time for everyone so
make sure that you also get into the festivities and that you celebrate
by wearing green and drinking green beer if you can. Enjoying St
Patrick’s Day happens every year so it will be fun to anticipate it
coming so that you can have fun with all the rest of the people.
Be sure that if you want to learn a lot more about St Patrick’s Day
that you get a book on the subject. The books about St Patrick’s Day
will give you all kinds of historical information on the history of St
Patrick’s Day. Make sure that you learn as much about it as you
possibly can and then you can celebrate even more. St Patrick’s Day can
be fun for the young and the old so find out all the customs that go
along with it. If you are Irish you will definitely want to learn as
much as you can about it. For younger and older people, alike there is
plenty to enjoy during the St Patrick’s Day holiday. Make the most of
what is happening and enjoy it all. Make sure that you take the time to
have a really fun time on St Patrick's Day.
During the celebrations that happen all around the St Patrick's Day,
you will enjoy the luck of the Irish. For one day you can pretend to be
Irish and enjoy all the fun that you can. There is plenty of fun to be
had so make sure that you do get to enjoy it the most that you can.
With all the fun that St Patrick's Day brings you will have a really
good time. So make sure that this year you get involved in the
activities that will be happening in your area. You will have a
wonderful time on St Patrick's Day.
Even though Easter seems to roll around the calendar every year like those other lunar-based holidays (Chinese New Year, Rosh Hashana, Burning Man), I can always count on our own Debra to show up at my desk every February with the Girl Scout Cookie order form.
But what if you don't have a Debra in your office to bug you with the form? How are you going to get your Thin Mints and Samoas?
Fortunately, the Girl Scouts have launched their new Website just for you.
Just enter your zip-code, find your local council, and get your cookies. (Seems on-line ordering would defeat the concept.)
In a clever bit of marketing they also created a MySpace page with some vintage cookie commercials with some out-of-control low budgets.
It's nice that they're introducing those girls to Sales AND Marketing, don't you think?
Every once in awhile I like to do something stupid. (I'm talking away from work.) Like start projects and not finish them. Write angry letters to government officials. Take up canning.
Yes, I said canning.
"What," you ask, "would make a bloggin', marketin', bike ridin' kind of guy take up canning, an ancient art form still practiced in the deep recesses of the Midwest?"
I blame it on bad pasta sauce. See, I grew up on great pasta sauce. It sat there simmering for hours while my mother was making it. And we all waiting until she's left the kitchen so we could put a piece of bread in it and taste some. Something that would surely rate her kitchen a solid "C" grade on the door in this city. But man, was that great sauce. (I should also point out my mother kept referring to her sauce as "meatless". You can probably imagine our token vegetarian friend's face, who'd been eating the stuff for years, when he saw my mother pull meatballs and pork shoulder out of the sauce before serving it. In her defense, it did not, in fact have meat in it when it hit the table.)
As a result, I cannot stand store bought pasta sauce. Not even Newman's Own.
And my wife, it turns out, isn't the biggest fan of standing over a pot of pasta sauce over a Sunday afternoon. Or meatballs, being a pescatarian (fish only) and all.
So I tried making vast quantities of sauce and freezing it myself, so I could have some later on in the month. Unfortunately this ended up creating a 5 pound block of Pasta Sauce Ice, which had to be chipped away into small pieces before using.
So I got this brilliant idea to can the sauce. I picked up a book on canning from the library, went to my local hardware store (which still sells canning items), picked up everything I needed, then promptly put everything on a shelf to gather dust.
I had some leftover sauce last week and I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to try out my canning technique. It took me hours to make sure everything was the right temperature, sanitized, and carefully lined up. Wendy made herself and the kids scares while I brought out close to every pot we owned.
Well, I did finally get it done without any problems (that I can tell).
The only embarrassing point came when Wendy asked to see them. I opened up the cupboard and there it was, one pint jar of homemade pasta sauce.
Turns out I didn't have as much left over as I originally thought.
Slightly used canning items will be on craigslist as soon as I can get a photo.
Seems like it was just last week that we moved in and had all the Aquent Talent over for food and drinks.
Wait, it was last week.
I should be thankful, because I hadn't put up the pictures yet. Or maybe you should be thankful, just in case I'm putting up one that you're not so proud of.
It was hard to fit all 168 people in one picture, so we tried to do little groups.
Okay, those are the normal-looking pictures. But we wouldn't be the company that brought you a Mafia-themed holiday party without including a few "not for the corporate newsletter" photos, would we?
It was a happy occasion, but there were sad moments, too.
Even though it had little to do with the theme, Olivia insisted the deer clock score a prominent position for the festivities.
When asked who spilled the red wine on the new carpet, many guests were quick to point the finger.
(It turned out our own Erik spilled it, however, then quickly cleaned it up with a guest.)
Amy's got the look. I think. I think she's got the look. I'm not sure if I remember what the look was.
Maybe it was Myke who had the look...
Here's a party trick: say something offensive to your guest (in this case, Tony), then quickly snap their picture. It's fun!
Some took the Mob theme really to heart. Which was nice to see during the holiday season.
Wow, to top off an extraordinarily busy week, my 7-year-old son, Ryan, got the stomach flu on Saturday and has been up and vomiting around the clock for 2 days.
You weren't eating, were you?
People say you've got nothing if you don't have your health, which is true enough. But once you've got your health it's really not that long before you're back on the Internet looking for iPods, flat-screen monitors, and high thread count linens, is it? So, health, first, but consumerism takes a really close second.
Last week was, to put it mildly, pretty exciting.
We moved into our new office on Monday at 4pm and managed to unload everything, get the whole place painted, fixed, vacuumed, and decorated in time to throw a party for 168 by 6pm Thursday.
I'm giving out medals tomorrow, because everyone here worked their butts off (some quite literally).
Once again, I'm sorry about the delay in the pictures, they'll be up once Ryan's stomach has returned to its regularly scheduled programming.
If you weren't one of the 100+ people at APALA's Bowling night at Lucky Strike Hollywood, I'll have to say you missed out on a pretty good time.
Well, aside from the abysmal Hollywood traffic.
The food was plenty and good (more deep fried mac and cheese anyone?), the company friendly, and the bowling... Well, let's just say one Aquenteer dropped the ball behind her causing peals of laughter from her teammates. Happily, she picked it up and quickly bowled a strike.
If you're interested, APALA is hosting a Holiday Party on December 5th (not on their site yet), which they said is going to be chock full of 500 of your favorite Print Production, Traffic, and Creative Studio Managers as well as quite a few vendors. Maybe us, too?
In the meantime, please enjoy some very amateur photography.
Hey, Hey, Aquent LA, How many events have you sponsored today?
Well, that'd be one. And, to be honest, it's not today.
But come next Tuesday, November 14th, we will be sponsoring the Advertising Production Association of Los Angeles' first ever Turkey Bowl at Lucky Strike Lanes Hollywood.
Just in case you were dying to work up a little sweat before your Thanksgiving feast...
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