New linkie

Last post, I linked to a funky Japanese anime where a crazed chick on a bike slams into her boyfriend (I'm assuming ex-boyfriend, by the way he nonchalantly stands there as if he's God's gift to the female race...well...that and the fact that she's slamming into him with her bike)...but anyhow, I thought I linked something else. Then made fun of Collin's barbituates prescription because of it.

So, without further ado, here's the original thing I was linking to.

Go watch, come back, and read on.

***


So, that was done by an agency in town -- Borders, Perrin and Norrander -- and I think it sums up the advertising world pretty accurately. Not that we're filled with mullets and rotted teeth, but that everything an agency does, EVERYTHING, should be creative. And I guess that's what drives me nuts about the "agency" where I work. We value production over creativity.

At one point in our mission statement, there's a statement about "creatively brilliant" solutions. That's nice, but to be a top tier agency (a goal that we're reminded of at every staff meeting, with mentions of W+K, Crispin Porter and Chiat Day), "creatively brilliant" solutions won't get this agency anywhere in the high-profile ad world.

But "brilliantly creative" solutions can.

Simple change, huge difference.

Back in the blog again

In all honesty, I was going to post earlier this week, but every time I went to do it, I felt awkward, especially given the deep subject matter of my last post. I mean, what can I really post that would stand as a decent segue from the last post? I'm pretty much screwed.

So instead of trying to blatantly change the subject through some deep and though provoking post, I give you this.

Have fun.

Ryan

The room shouldn’t look like this. The colors are bright, loud, the painted prints scream under their price stickers. The walls are beige, not white. They should be white.

***

I’m sitting in a chair. It’s a decent seat; has some decent velour-like fabric that adds a slight cushion. It’s the kind of seat that’s a step above the plastic-and-steel moldings that are found in DEQs and Payday Loan stores.

***

Evening. I’m in the kitchen, boiling water for the noodles, cutting a link of chicken-apple sausage while its pan is heating up. Then ringing. It’s him. It’s always him, calling to tell me he’s almost home, asking me if there’s anything we need for dinner.
“Mrs. Anderson?”
Not him.
“You’re married to Ryan Anderson?”
He didn’t wait.
“Ryan has been in an accident. He lost control and fell down an embankment on Highway 14. He’s been flown to Southwest Medical Center. Do you need a ride to the hospital?”

I don’t remember hanging up. I don’t remember turning off the stove, unhooking the keys from their place next to the garage door, or locking the door. The drive was a haze of brake flashes, red lights and congestion.

***

I parked. I don’t remember where.
My subconscious carries me, following the arrows pointing down long, conservatively appointed corridors, toward the ER. I turn a corner and am met with a large counter, with three LCD computer monitors and three heads poking out from behind them. I’m drawn to the left-most head. She smiles genuinely.
“Ryan Anderson?” I ask, my voice creaking, lilting awkwardly.
She pauses.
She holds her previous breath for a slight moment, forcing her smile to broaden. She speaks carefully: “You’ll need to wait in the waiting room.” She points behind me. “A doctor will be in as soon as possible with an update.” Her smile has fades. “Is there anything you need?”

***

Judging by the absence of soda cans or coffee cups, I must have declined her offer. The room is bare, save for the chairs and the poorly framed pints with the calming landscapes: cascading waterfalls, majestic mountains and epic prairies.

Then, a sound: footsteps, echoing shrewdly off the lacquered hollow halls. Faint. Then louder, the intensity thundering through my chest as it gets closer. I look up, force my pale stare from my hands, and, with every ounce of my resolve, glare at the waiting room doorway’s right frame—the one closest to the ER.

Steps. Breath. Heartbeats. They’re closer now, ricocheting off walls and ceiling tiles, fluorescent lights and mechanized doorways. They’re closer now, small thunderclaps closing in. Outside.

They stop. The air buzzes. I can’t breathe, my heart’s paused, lungs suspended. My hands tremble, me right leg gyrates, up down, up down.

There’s no sound.

Footsteps again.

One.

Two.

Three.

The steps slowly transform into a person, appearing—wrinkle by wrinkle—in green surgical clothes. “Scrubs,” my brain says. “They’re made of paper.”

A weak smile appears, tired and hardened, but practiced in its frequency. Her arm raises to shake hands, her eye’s large. Sympathy. Her lips are moving, forming a code that I can no longer interpret. Then they form a familiar string, one that sparks a distant memory, a point of vague relativity:

“I’m sorry.”

___________________________________

Last night, a friend of ours lost her husband of barely one year, in a car accident. I didn't know what else to do. So I wrote.

Cool clicks

just a couple links to play with, courtesy of the Stumble bar add-in to FireFox.

http://www.show-me-dq.com/

http://www.izpitera.ru/lj/tetka.swf

have fun.

This sucks

It seems I’ve found the “twin,” if you will, of Saran Wrap. Yes. Saran Wrap. The devil in disguise. Satan and all that is wrong with the world and, in general, life, can be found in a brightly packaged elongated cardboard box that houses yards of rolled up plastic wrap. For more insights, go here.

While this dubious device isn’t nearly as aggravating or manslaughter inspiring as Saran Wrap (I think it was raised in a slightly better household), it rightly deserves its place in the Tormenters line (probably somewhere behind Pol Pot and ahead of Summer Rain in Portland).

I think the evilness of this product is that it sits quietly, never bearing its ugly, unspeakably impossible task until AFTER you have taken advantage of its designated use. This, by the way, is the opposite of my other nemesis’ strategy – Saran Wrap blatantly coaxes you into believing its promises are not only worthwhile, but they’re effective and acutually acheivable.

This gets it done with something different; it uses the element of surprise. Your defenses are down. You’re thinking you’ve just finished a job well done, and then – POW! – You’re left babbling and wondering if it was actually you who earned scholarships to go to school.

*

The Carwash Vacuum is a wonderful product.

In theory.

I’m sure the person who came up with the idea of adding on a couple of bolted down, coin operated vacuum cleaners to their drive-through car wash is now a wealthy person. Unless that person happens to be MC Hammer. But that’s probably not the case.

Probably.

Here’s the thing with The Vacuum. It’s a great idea and, when it doesn’t swallow your coins and not operate, it’s great – pretty much sucks loose change and dirt and leaves and small pets into its anodized innards like a pro. But once you’re done with the vacuuming duties and your car is once again off the local HAZMAT crew’s to-do list, you’re faced with a seemingly simple challenge: recoiling the vacuum’s hose to perfectly (not to mention loosely) wrap around its base.

I approached this challenge the way I’m sure most others do. I was feeling good – my car’s finally clean, my poor dog’s not limping around the house with a heat blister on his paw – as I pull the hose out from the front seat of my car. The flexible orange monster is about six feet long and, as I turn to the vacuums cold steel base, I attempt to set the hose on its (for lack of a better word) hanging place, and wind it up that way.

No good.

But who cares, right? This is a good day. The sun’s finally shining and everything. Still smiling, I try it again. Only this time, I take a different tack: I try to place the hose on the opposite side of my previsions attempt, and then wrap it that way.

Nope.

See, the evil genius of The Vacuum is that the hose is just flexible enough to wrap around the ins and outs of your car, but just so inflexible that it can’t be wound tightly upon itself like, say, a garden hose.

15 minutes have now elapsed, and I am staring at the vacuum’s base, vacuum nozzle in hand, trying to recall how it looked when I pulled it from its resting spot. But I can’t – I was drunk with the excitement of thinking I was actually going to rid my car of dirt and empty water bottles.

Now entirely dejected and irritated, I grabbed the orange serpent and its entire length and spilled it on top of the base. I could care less at that point. Besides, the car wash was closing and the acne’d teenagers previously pushing cars through it had left for the evening. But something happened. Be it luck or fate, the hose fell into a perfect loop onto its spot, revealing its secret: you have to start closer to the vacuum’s base for it work. If you start coiling from the nozzle, you’ll want to keep the loop tight, which in turn destroys the loop. Which means there's a high probability the car wash's security cameras will record you beating the hell out of the vacuum's base with its own hose, or hanging yourself with an innovative combination of the overhead lights that illuminate the vacuum area, and the vacuum's just-long-enough hose.

Long time coming

I forgot to inform everyone that I would be on a temp blogging hiatus until today, because I took a couple days off at the head and tail end of the long weekend.

Therefore, there was no work, a little play, and no blogging.

For that...I appologize.

And even worse? I don't really have anything great to post -- it's just been one of those dead zones.

But I have an idea for a post that I think I can hammer out during lunch...so bear with me.

Anyhow, hope everyone's fourth went well and that the majority of your fingers and toes are still functional, if not attached.