MeMo

April 01, 2011

Worst TV ad ever? I think not.

Still too busy to do a proper blog post, but I stole this awesome commercial off Therese's Facebook entry. (Yes, THAT Therese.)

She said it was the worst commercial ever.

OK, it has its drawbacks. It's cheesy. It plays into molto stereotypes. And yeah, the young woman clearly loves the cat more than the guy. But as pet emotiporn, I think it's great. The little white fuzzball would totally work on me.

Frankly, the disgusting ad in which the termite (or whatever) bounds around gnawing on buildings (and has a little head inside its big head, or something) freaks me out way more.

Posted by Kyrie at 01:44 PM in Made for TV MeMo | Comments (2)
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March 31, 2011

Happy Opening Day!

For some people, this is New Year's Day. And in Houston, where the day could not be more perfect, it's hard to remember that the rest of the country, in the main, suffered mightily this winter and Opening Day is even sweeter than it is here.

This is a gorgeous video from ESPN. Full disclosure: I know the dad of the guy who made it, Tim Horgan. Still, it reminds us that especially this time of year, baseball is about hope.

2011 MLB Opening Day || Stormy Weather from Bluefoot Entertainment, Inc. on Vimeo.

Posted by Kyrie at 02:56 PM in | Comments (7)
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March 30, 2011

Worst jobs in history

http://laphamsquarterly.org/visual/charts-graphs/?page=99Here is a marvelous matrix of truly awful jobs.

Resurrection man and fuller sound pretty bad.

I, like almost everybody else, have had some terrible jobs. I was, briefly, a night janitor. That was a great job! I could do the actual work in about two hours and hole up and read for the rest of the time. On the other hand, I was briefly a bank teller. Pretty OK, right? No! Worst job ever! Not allowed to sit down, ever. Utterly sexist environment. (This was in 50 B.C.) Worse pay than the janitor job.

Moment I knew I wasn't long for the banking world? Smarmy assistant branch manager bawling me out for being $5 short at the end of the day after I spent 90 unpaid minutes looking for the missing fiver. When he got done yelling I said, "Seriously? Five dollars? This bank has 50 branches!"

I was 18. I stand by that observation.

Your worst job ever?

Posted by Kyrie at 02:55 PM in Life Skills Tests | Comments (43)
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March 29, 2011

Strangest ad on TV

Very busy today, but just a little bathroom humor: this commercial from Kohler. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Disturbing!

Posted by Kyrie at 01:44 PM in Made for TV MeMo | Comments (15)
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March 28, 2011

I don't necessarily heart this

I know I'm late to this party, but please forgive me -- I was out of town for a few days.

The OED online, a few days ago, added the heart symbol to its lexicon. As in I ♥ cats.

Here is a list of the updates.

Now sometimes I hate the changes in the language, but this one seems semi-rational. Some days we're prescriptive, some days descriptive. This is a descriptive day.

I do, however, have one confession. Some versions of the story pinned the change on the emoticon <3. Honest to Pete, I didn't know that was supposed to be a heart. It looks like an odd-shaped rump to me. (It took me a number of tries before I figured out STFU. I'm sort of proud of that.) And that one with the tongue sticking out? I still don't understand that.

I found thsi list of popular typed emoticons. In the main, they seem at best random. But useful if there is a teen or wannabe teen in your life. If you're over 30, however, or in a professional context, just don't. Are we clear on that?

Posted by Kyrie at 01:29 PM in language | Comments (18)
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March 24, 2011

Where's MeMo this time?

I'm someplace I'm quite familiar with but haven't been to in forever. The architecture here is really nice, so I have of course taken a photo of drab roofs and highway.

Nevertheless, where am I?

Posted by Kyrie at 12:32 PM in Where's MeMo? | Comments (8)
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March 22, 2011

Odyssey Dawn? Really?

The military is getting a raft of static for naming the latest operation Odyssey Dawn, which Stephen Colbert says sounds like the name of a Carnival cruise ship.

Here is a list of the least inspiring military operations names ever.

Really, it's not that easy. As explained here, the guidelines restrict the namers to certain initials in any given case.

Here's the deal in this case:

Under the guidelines set out by the Defense Department, the first word must begin with the letter O and the second must begin with the letters A, B, C, D, E or F.

It gets more complicated, of course, but let's pretend it doesn't. What would you name the operation? If you come up with a good one, you can also append it to the comments in the link above.

Oh, and this from Steve C. So cute it makes kittens ashamed.

Posted by Kyrie at 11:25 AM in language | Comments (30)
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