I just spent the holidays back home in Nebraska with my family (and lived to tell about it) and I'd have to say that one of the unexpected pleasures was, weirdly, the Wii.
Both my brother's and sister's families both have the Nintendo Wii and it seemed like every time we got together (all 21+ of us), there were always a couple of folks playing Wii bowling, tennis, or golf.
What's amazing to me is how Nintendo invented a system that converts non-game playing adults into "gamers", thus opening up a whole new age range of consumers for them.
Not that I consider my mother a gamer, but there she was bowling on the Wii.
I think it must have something to do with the simplicity of the control and familiarity of the sports included with the Wii that really helps people make that jump.
It turns out the only problem with the Wii is holding on tight enough to the remote.
With any revolution there are bound to be casualties.
No, that's not damage I personally inflicted.
Yet.
It's from the Wii Damage site.
Rocktober!
Oct 2, 2007 @ 4:10 PM
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.
Yeah, baseball and Rocktober, right.
Don't bring me down, Bruce.
(photo by caffeina)
Apparently the logo for the 2012 Olympics (to be held in London) is so bad that it causes epileptic seizures.
Okay, that's stretching the point, but even without the medical complaints, the logo has very few fans.
Except, of course, for the people who paid $790,000 to develop it.
Funny how no one is ever jumping up and down about how much they like a logo, huh?
Spare Me
Nov 7, 2006 @ 1:11 PM
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... (Well, I guess if you wanted that, you should probably take a jog. Not sure there's a lot of sweating going on in a bowling alley. Especially a high-end one.)
But if you're down for good conversation, funny shoes, and the smell of freshly waxed lanes, then you should join us.
What'll you get for attending? How about two solid hours of bowling, rental of brightly-colored shoes, hors d'oeuvres, and the loud sound of pins being knocked over (or cursing, depending).
The event's open to members and non-members alike.
Check your calendar today, because registration ends this Friday!
For more details go to the APALA Website.
See you there?
Okay, so I ate at Subway. Here's the thing, though, I don't feel guilty about eating at Subway. Is it because of their health conscious branding? Hmm, could be.
As healthy a place as everyone thinks it is, once you grab the Salt & Vinegar Lay's, large Coke, and ask them to slather on the mayonnaise, it's not quite the healthy dining experience you imagined as you were standing in line. (Which is an interesting thought, maybe they should tell you how many average calories your burn standing and watching them make sandwiches.)
Regardless, I have to applaud them, again, for being on the forefront of the Good for You revolution. If Subway keeps marketing the healthy aspects of their food, the media will automatically supply them with all the free press they need to drive customers through their door (see countless Obesity in America articles, Fast Food Nation, Super Size Me, and the just released FDA study).
When I walked in today, the standee out front and signage promoted their newest healthy offering for kids: sliced apples and low-fat milk instead of chips and soda to accompany the sandwich. Of course, as a parent, you may have to physically force the apples into them, which is not the case with Flamin' Hot Cheetos, but that's your own issue.
Subway also sponsors events that people actually participate in rather than watching in their living room, like Little League Baseball and Triathlons, and is a national sponsor of the American Heart Association's Heart Walks. Not to mention they have a Healthy Living page on their site and heavily promote their "Under 6 Grams of Fat" of sandwiches. (Maybe "heavily" isn't the best word there.)
You've got to admit, almost all their branding points to health consciousness.
They've done their part.
Now if I can just figure out how to just say no to mayo I'll be set.
I mean, dang. How many times a week does someone send you a link that you have to look at? Imagine that times one hundred and you have the Webby Awards Winners site.
Not only does it link to each of the Webby Award Winners sites, but the People's Voice Winners (which sounds kind of communist, you know?) and the nominees as well.
You may find yourself at 3:30am saying, "Hey, did I miss the Grey's Anatomy season closer?"
So start slow.
Go right now to Leo Burnett's Big Ideas Come From Big Pencils site and be amazed.
That site alone should burn off the rest of the afternoon.
See you in the morning!
Gearing Up
May 16, 2006 @ 4:05 PM
You may not be aware, but this week is the 12th Annual Bike to Work Week!
If you've been groaning about gas prices, maybe this is the week to try your biking skills out and save, save, SAVE at the pump!
If biking the rest of the week seems a tad ambitious, maybe you can celebrate Thursday's Bike to Work Day.
Why is there a Bike to Work Day in the middle of a Bike to Work Week? I really have no idea. Maybe the city's Graphic Designers liked to make posters, mugs, and T-shirts.
What I do know is that you can pledge to ride to work this Thursday and have a chance to win a commuter bike and other swag. And that there will be several pit stops around the city all morning. Plus, if you really feel you've bit off more than you can chew halfway through your ride, you can flag down an MTA bus, put your bike on front, and ride for free. (I used to do this all the time, riding only halfway into work but the whole way back home. It's not considered cheating, I swear.)
Before you decide to ride, though, a few words of advice:
- Pack your bag carefully the night before. (Yeah, this is a biggie.)
- Choose your route wisely. Pick out quiet streets instead of busy ones. Heck, you're only going 14 mph, you don't really need to be on Wilshire Blvd. with cars whizzing by you, right?
- Give yourself time to decompress once you get into the office.
- Don't forget snacks for work! (Reward yourself with chocolate, you just burned up a lot of calories.)
Who knows, you might bike to work more!
Then you'll be asking yourself stuff like, "If everyone loves the weather here so much, why the heck are they always in their cars?"
I ask myself stuff like that all the time.
He's faking it.
Fashion designer Mark Ecko has this video on his StillFree.com site of he and some buddies supposedly tagging Air Force One. How old is this site? How old is this footage? Got me. No sign of this from any news agency, so how real could it be? All I could think of was that this was a lame attempt at a viral marketing campaign. Mostly to show kids how cool he was so they could buy some more of his line of tees, footware, eyeware, watches, and kid's apparel.
When you watch his video Why I Tagged Air Force One (note the Send to a Friend and Add to Your Site options) what you get is his diatribe about lawmakers keeping kids down by making it illegal to get spray paint and markers. Which they so obviously need to use to express their freedom. You can readily see the Crips, Bloods, 18th Street Gang, and many other taggers all around Los Angeles expressing their freedom every day. Then they get into wars over each other's freedoms.
Ecko goes on to say he that wanted to spray paint the presidential plane to open a dialogue with Bush about personal expression.
It's odd, don't you think, that a man so hell bent on personal freedom more than likely has his all of designer wear produced in communist China, a country notorious for curbing those freedoms? Probably not such a wise idea to tag the Great Wall.
Maybe instead of "tagging his way to freedom" Ecko should find a way to produce goods made by his "full-scale global fashion and
lifestyle company" (reporting international retail sales of
$1 billion in 2004) in a country that backs free speech.
I think I know a good one, really, really close by.
(And remember,"Marc Ecko Enterprises does not condone illegal activity, acts of
vandalism, or the destruction of other people's property." Even if they actually do it themselves.)
I'm not what you'd call a real handy guy. I can fix a toilet, say, but it might take me two years to get it done correctly, as my wife will attest (and in my defense, the toilet still worked, it just needed a little help to make it work properly each time).
Where I really shine, though, is in the area of bicycle maintenance. Ah, Zen and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance. The mantra-like cursing, the feeling of frustrations floating away as wrenches fly across the room...
I can change a tire, which I do all the time. Heck, I'm a tire changing pro. But all the other stuff confounds me.
So when I took to installing a Trail-Gator bike tow bar so I could haul my son and his bike after he tired out from riding, I knew I should clear plenty of time out of my Saturday schedule. And it wasn't bad, just shy of two hours. (Wendy, my wife, had no idea what I was doing out there for two hours. I didn't admit to spending ten minutes alone looking for the parts that rolled behind a bunch of boxes.)
When I was done it looked perfect.
But as we know in Los Angeles, looks aren't everything. Sometimes they're just enough to get you a 10% discount on gym membership.
On Sunday everything was terrific for close to five minutes. We were riding tandem along the bike path, wind in our hair, and I might have even been whistling until I heard, "Dad, it's hard! It's leaning!" Being Father of the Year I told him, "Just straighten up, it'll be fine!"
Apparently we were making enough noise that Wendy came back to find out what was going on.
I would like to go on record saying that my son wasn't being dragged along the ground. He was still on the bike. He was just leaning about 45 degrees to the left while moving forward at 12 mph. (And not helping with the peddling, I might add.)
A closer look revealed that, sure enough, the U bolts I had tightened last night had come loose and were sideways. And the clamp that was supposed to hold the handle bars straight had also come loose. The whole job I did didn't look so good now.
Now before I declare myself totally inept, I'd like to point out a few of stupid things I've seen fathers do with their kids on bikes: kid on handlebars, kid on back riding wrong way down busy street, kid's bike attached to father's with clothesline, father and kid without helmets riding on the street, father with kid on handlebar and kid on back, father with baby attached to the front of him while riding bike quickly down street...
I'm not even in good company. I'm well ahead of the pack.
One important lesson we did learn on Sunday: Ryan can ride 7 miles with very few breaks. Which is a heck of a long distance for a 6-year old (not to mention many, many 40-year olds).
After coming home and tightening the whole dang thing, we took a short ride. Made a little shorter by the fact his bike was still leaning to one side.
Either I bring this whole thing to my bike shop and have them try to make this work or I ship it back to the company and opt for one of those Adams Trail-a-Bikes... oops, they seem to be having some mechanical problems as well.
At least I'm Poor Mechanic for a hobby, I don't actually do it for a living.
Wasn't it those Whos down in Whoville that sat on a large bike and played "noisy games like zoo-zinger-car-zay -- a roller skate kind of lacrosse
and croquet"?
Well now you can play it to on your Family Triple Traveler bike from Bike Friday.
That's room for three on seats alone, not to mention a place for each of the triplets in a bike seat behind each rider.
I think I just found a way to Bike Pool to work.
You may not believe it, but that whole dang thing folds up.
Some questions a father just can't answer.
Say ones like, "Dad, why is cross-country skiing with a rifle on your back an Olympic sport?" How can you even begin to explain a concept like the Olympic winter biathlon to a 6 year old? Or my wife for that matter.
For the uninitiated, the winter biathlon is a cross-country race where contestants periodically stop to fire the .22 caliber rifles strapped to their backs at targets 165 feet away.
When I tried to explain this concept to my son, I had only gotten as far as, "Each contestant fires the rifle..." when he interrupted, "At each other?"
I admit there was a very big part of myself that wanted to say, "Yes, Ryan. At each other. In this, the cruelest of all Olympic competitions, the last man standing wins all three medals."
But then a greater part of myself realized I had to tell him the truth.
It was the part of me that figured I could lie to him all I wanted to about curling without feeling guilty.
Social Bookmarks
