Total Badass.

I'm not gay, but if I were . . .

. . . I'd still be terrified of this man.

Rollins Band - Liar

Dude is brilliant.

George W sweeps his own Top Ten. Congrats!

Now, it's no secret that I don't like David Letterman. The man hasn't been funny in fifteen years, and Paul Schaffer looks like a naked mole rat with stupid glasses. His audiences merely laugh and applaud because they're prompted to do so by lit signs that his produces pay for and operate, not by any merit of his own comedy [sic].

But for once he's actually created a funny Top Ten. So, for your viewing pleasure (and horror), I present David Letterman's Top Ten George W. Bush Moments:

Top Ten Bush Moments
Hilarious, terrifying and awe-inspiring all in one video. Go cry/celebrate/weep/lose control of your bowels/gnash teeth as you see fit.

(And just for the record, I don't actually give Letterman any credit for this. Let's be honest, Georgy did pretty much all the work here. Plus, some poor intern had to go over hours worth of video to cut this together, not that megalomaniac of a host.)

F AI L

To make things even, here's a typography joke for all you design folks out there.


(via—who else?—FAIL Blog)

A Magnus Opressus

Here's one for the music nerds in the house. A few pieces by the dubiously named John Stump.

Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz (from "A Tribnute to Zdenko G. Fibich")

String Quartet No. 556(b) for Strings In A Minor (Motoring Accident)

And yes, I was in band in high school and middle school. And while some of my experience were beyond the standard definition of "absurd," I learned an amazing amount from my time. The understanding of music is one of the highest forms of learning as far as I'm concern. Every child should get a musical education in the same way we teach English, math, etc.

YES.

I just saw this video. I do not know anything about its origin or what it means, but it is awesome. Kids with exploding hammers. Amazing. I hope to join this culture one day. And I hope they accept me as one of their own so I can do this.

(Watch all the way to the end.)

Happy exploding hammer celebration fun time!
There's no way American is too violent. We don't have EXPLODING HAMMERS.

Yet.

A theory that's absolutely Ludacris

ATL rapper/actor(?) stopped by a New York elementary school recently to spread some holiday cheer. That's where this photo was snapped. If you study it closely you'll notice a surprising pattern.


Still don't see it? Here, let us show you.


I think if we take this out to its logical end, this could explain a lot of things—the economic crisis, global warming, Soviet Russia. Something must be done. We Luda clones. And fast.

(via VH1's Best Week Ever Blog)

Merry Christmas

Click for a special Christmas carol.

Jingle bells, Batman's a jerk.

2008: The Year of the 'Stache?

A number of sources have declared 2008 to be the Year of the 'Stache: Urlesque gave it the New Trend award and the Huffington Post surveyed celeb upper lips to come to their conclusion. And there were others.

The World Beard and Mustache Championship site got passed around the web about 9 trillion times.

I was sold "mustaches on a stick" in the streets of Portland. I got emails from coworkers about growing mustaches for Movember to raise money for charity. I met friends with fingerstaches from Sweden.

Marketers even got into the act with Australian Schick giving us a lesson in Manscaping. And a spot from La Comunidad for the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival taught us just what having a mustache is like.


Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival ad
(Side note: Did Crispin Porter predict/cause this cultural concentration with its 2007 campaign for the Western Whopper and its microsite petmustache.com? Maybe.)


BK Western Whopper ad

One of the best pieces of mustache news I found recently was existence of the American Mustache Institute, whose motto is "protecting the rights of, and fighting discrimination against mustached Americans by promoting the growth, care and culture of the mustache."


In these lean economic times, the organization gives hope to the mustachioed by sponsoring a discount card that gets them 5 percent off at select small business. (The businesses are so select that there are only a handful of them. But still. It's the thought.) I'm applying for membership right now.

And of course I'd had my own mustache experiences. First in the actually at the end of 2007 and then also these past three and a half months.


In that time I've had some puzzling interactions, been stopped in the streets, recognized on mountains, hugged in bars and—one time—had a girl actually trying to rip it off my face because she thought it was fake. And I'm pretty sure half the reason I got my job was because I had a ridiculous mustache. It's been a trip. I want to write a memoir about the whole thing called Life with a Mustache: One Man's Struggle with His Upper Lip.

So yeah. Maybe 2008 has been the Year of the Mustache. That begs the question then: What will next year be? The Year of the Neck Beard?

(Where you at, Araujo?)

Random pieces of fun/yum/chum

The best way to tie:

Tyler Bryan vs Shaun Parker


I don't know how I didn't know about Lil O'Reilly before, but now my life is complete. This kid is intense. He's like a young Dan Kelly. Segment from Talkshow with Frank Feresten:

Lil O'Reilly weights in


Lil O'Reilly vs. Barney Frank


Lil O'Reilly unleashes on election results


Trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Wolverine trailer


And lastly, a tasty piece of viral Christmas cheer from my pals over at AKQA. This video's been holding at the number three spot on the Viral Video Chart for a few days now. Really nicely done, gents:

Happy Christmas from AKQA

<3

Weezer - The Greatest Man that Ever Lived (live at the Video Game Awards)

He's like a retarded Brandon Flowers.

Would you like your website with a side of bacon?

I just found this. It is amazing. Now you can add bacon to any webpage. Like . . .

Take that, vegans!

or

Whoops. (That one's for you, Liza.)

This is awesome.

Want some more bacon on that?

All you have to do is add http://bacolicio.us/ to the front of any URL. Go ahead. Try it. It's awesome.

Also, just searching for images of bacon turned up some pretty funny results. Try it sometime. Personal favorites include.

The bacon bra

The bacon suitcase


And, a piece of bacon in the shape of Mexico from the Wikipedia page.

They didn't mention that it looks like Mexico, but we both know the truth. OK. Off to brunch now. Obviously.

CMY-OK with me!

Co-founder and CCO of The Brandy Agency and personal friend and art director/illustrator extraordinaire and silent lover and tall guy Brandon Rapert informed me of some pretty exciting news yesterday. One of the campaigns we did at the Creative Circus will be featured in the March issue of CMYK magazine. Pretty rad. Check 'em:


These puppies are intense. If you dig them, check out the rest of Brandon's stuff over on his site. The dude is sick. And he's available for hire. Love him. Hard

CONGRATS TO THE PATRIOT

Love abounds today. It's been a very long, wonderful two years at the Creative Circus, fraught with creativity, frustration, drinking and bad puns. It's the end of one road, but it's the beginning of another.

Congrats and all my love to The Patriot. I'm sorry I couldn't be there for graduation today.

Let's party tonight.

Pretty much how I feel right now.

Dog Malfunction


Knocking out some Guitar Hero and CPB holiday site stuff. Slept about six hours in the last three nights. And tonight's the big holiday party. Then I fly back to Atlanta for graduation/Christmas, which means still no sleep for a few days. All this craziness can leave one a bit out of sorts.

Looks like Andy just found his new favorite band

Welcome Hurra Torpedo.

Hurra Torpedp - Total Eclipse of the Heart

The Norwegian trio has been around since the early '90s as part of an art collective. (The previous clip was from 2005.) They primarily play on kitchen appliance (obviously).

Check out this video I found for their cover of "All the Things She Said."


Hurra Torpedo - All the Things (S)he Said

Any band that covers that song has my vote. Go Norway.

Was "Apendage Removing Chap" taken?

In a search for ideas for the agency's upcoming superhero-themed holiday party, I came across what is undoubtedly the worst superhero of all time. Meet Arm Fall Off Boy. His super power? Well, he just kind of gave it away, didn't he? AFOB had the ridiculously useful ability to detach his arm and beat people with it like a club. Now—in all seriousness—I've actually thought about this as a power. (I used it in something I wrote at some point I think.) But seriously. The fact that DC actually made him a real character is dumbfounding.

Feel the raw power:


He's got a Wiki page too if you don't believe me. (Wikipedia is 100 percent accurate. All the time.) Sadly, it seems our hero had a rather short-lived career in the Legion of Super-Heroes.

If you look at the article you'll notice a reference to a nearly equally retarded character. Welcome Matter Eater Lad. (Again, these names don't really go for the suspense factor.) His ability was, of course, being able to eat through anything. You say you need to get into the control room. Why, just let Matter Eater Lad munch his way through the steel door. Yep.


His Wiki page.

Honorably dumb mention goes to Bouncing Boy.


He's sort of a lamer, white version of Fat Albert. Or perhaps Veruca Salt.


You'll also notice the appearance of Blockade Boy in that Matter Eater Lad comic. If you read closely you'll catch what he's able to do. I'm not even going to dignify his dumbness with a comment.

If there was any argument that DC Comics are better than Marvel, this pretty much ends it.

Forget dropping out of college, Kanye

. . . Make it music too, dog.

Recently Kanye West has made (internet) headlines stating his intentions to take a lowly internship with fashion designers Louis Vuitton or Raf Simons. He says he wants to learn the business before he launches his own clothing line next year. Hey, I love publicity stunts as much as the next guy—I'm at Crispin, it's pretty much our thing—but this is a pretty lame one.

But even if I don't wholly approve, I think Vuitton or Simons should take him up on it. That way he will stop making music, and leave us alone. I don't tend to follow too much mainstream music, but every once in a while I'll catch a new Kanye song, and they only seem to be getting worse. Peep his performance on Saturday Night Live last night, and please explain to me how he thinks he "will go down as the voice of this generation of this decade."

Kanye West - Love Lockdown - SNL - 12/13/2008

Besides his pathetic singing, his stage show is seriously lacking. You can't hide behind giant screens of sweet animations when you're standing right in front of them and sucking. I fully support Stephen Colbert's efforts.

Dear Kanye, please leave the music to the musicians and go grab some coffee for Mr. Simons. It could be your best work yet.

Oh, good morning, Colorado

Three dudes, a fish and a boner

There's really no joke I need to make here. Just watch the ad.

The Wunder Boner ad
I counted. They managed to say "Wunder Boner" 17 times in this spot. Amazing.

No matter how badly your day is going, be thankful you're not Corey Hill

Buddy sustained one of the nastiest injuries I've seen captured on film. It happened within the first round of his fight against Dale Hartt. Here's a totally non-Photoshopped picture, courtesy of MMAweekly.com:


Don't believe it's real? Check out the video:

Corey Hill destroys leg

Dude. Ouch. And the worst part about it is that he was the one that threw the kick.

OK, that's not the worst part about it. The worst part is that his leg got snapped in half. Tough break. (Buh-dum-chish!)

Double fail at drag race

Double fail.

Even better than you think.

(via ettf)

Blast your friends

Super Soaker Oozinator ad

Um, what's that filled with?

Poaching animals

. . . from Neatorama. (And a vegetable too.)

Bear plays hockey



Mouse obstacle course



Cats and a slide



Don't feed the deer in Japan



A Christmas carol played on a broccoli


Yes. I'm just blantantly plagiarizing from Neatorama tonight. If you don't check that place daily, you should start. Like, now.

Get in there

In case you hadn't heard, there are two hyper-popular new fan pages on Facebook. I think you should join them:


By request, Andy's Mustache Fan Club.



And by punishment, Kasia's B00bs Fan Club.

Join, participate, get involved and get in there.

Ironically, I wasn't busy, and that's why I saw it

This morning I was reading an email from a friend, exchanging congratulations on our respective jobs, when I noticed a Google AdWords ad above my inbox.


I thought, What kind of schlock is this? Is that really a convincing argument? Then I thought, Is "schlock" even a word? [Editor's note: Yes. Of course it is.] Clicking on advertising-rated AdWords ad has yielded some real gems in the past, so I went for this one.

I was pleasantly surprised with the result. Think Tank 3 is a very small ad/branding agency out of New York. Although I don't care for the name or positioning as a "modern day think tank", they actually have a pretty cool style. Very reminiscent of Howard Gossage, sort of that voice of the intellectual small guy that can flip deftly flip between erudite and absurd. The shop's creative director is a woman, Sharoz Makarechi, who apparently has worked in post-Taliban Afghanistan to "train Afghans in modern communication skills for journalism and social campaign creation." It seems like a very small, tightly knit shop, but someone should check them out. I'd be interested to know more.

Oh yeah, and apparently there are more ads like the one I saw, trying to steal work away from the big guys. They won a One Show Merit. Pretty funny, especially the latter ones.




But on more thought, maybe this ads only work on people like me that see their agency's name, and think, Hey, what the?

Join the dorkestra

Join the YouTube orchestra

Besides the not all that ground-breaking idea of YouTube Live (live streaming video? wow.) here's a new little doodad of web 2.0 brought to you through the omnipotent video site. Cool enough idea, but I was hopefully for something more instant and collective, not just what is essentially a videotaped audition. (It sort of makes me want to submit a video of me just burping the music. Or perhaps this.)

It'd be cooler to have users record their parts, then submit them and build one collective, online orchestra. That way it's a globally collaborative piece. From there, the conductor could mix the audio to get it right. Maybe solos could be written for most instruments, and players could record their solo separately. Then, they can add it into the larger mix and be featured in their own version of the piece.

It's a decent idea, but it could be way cooler. That's all I'm saying. Thoughts?

The Brandy Agency

Welcome back from the break.

I'm pleased to announce the opening of my very own advertising agency today, The Brandy Agency.


The Brandy Agency is a dream that's been a long time coming. The agency is a result of extensive collaborations between fellow Creative Circus alum Brandon Rapert and I. And today we're proud to share our vision with the world.

We're always looking for new clients, and we still have a few positions left to fill so if you're interested in either, please contact us. Thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMwO9PX4_7c

This is what usually happens when I present ideas

Scary Puppet Show

On that note, look for the official launch of the Brandy Agency shortly. It's coming.

One of my favorite politisms:

[on the phone] "OK, Tiffany, I'm gonna let you go."

Translation: "I'm cutting this conversation off because I can't or don't want to talk to you anymore."

It sounds like courtesy, but it's the opposite. Our culture is weird.

What a sweet deal

From Facebook:


Wow, Starbucks, really flexing some philanthropic muscle there.

We worked on this while I was at Wieden. This is a stupid idea. Five cents per drink is not going to get people in the door. This killed a beautiful campaign that my friends did for them. Good luck, BBDO.

Add your ad

Following today's theme of technovations, here's something cool out of Stanford.

ZunaVision

Click over to the ZunaVision website to try it out for yourself.

The ability to put insert new images or video into an existing video is nothing new; advertising's been hot on it for a year or more now, from Dexter to Toyota Matrix to Barack Obama to even the last year's CP+B holiday gift site. But what (apparently) makes this cool is that it democratizes the process by making it easily generated by any user.

I'm not sure this is a great thing as it could eventually lead to even more clutter and ad overload, but it may be an easy way for YouTubers to make some cash. Undoubtedly the technology isn't far off where you'll be able to designate an area in your video as ad space, and it will be served advertisements, just like banners are served now.

Let's get digital, digital

This technology has been around for a little while. (If you haven't seen it then it's obviously pretty new and exciting to you too.) Before, this type of interaction has to be run through a PC-based program, but this new version runs through Flash which opens up a lot of possibilities.

Essentially, Papervision uses your webcam to read a symbol on a sheet of paper and generates the images on-screen. Code can also be written so that two symbols interact with each other when placed in close proximity.

Very cool stuff. Still in its infancy though.

Papervision - Augmented Reality (extended) from dpinteractive on Vimeo.

If you want to try it out for yourself, click over to Digital Pictures Interactive, print the symbol and then allow Flash to read your webcam in the second player down the page.

Thanks to Ken Slater, digital person extraordinaire, for the tip.

Speaking of melding the digital and physical, there's a pretty good article in last month's Wired about how our technology now is actually a pay-off on the promise of virtual reality that was all the rage in mid-80's teen comedies all the way up to the late-90s. Check it out here.

Remember Virtual Boy from Nintendo? That red-interfaced contraption your pressed your face into and played tennis?


Virtual Boy promo

I remember being 11 and calling BS on that. I also I remember going to a car show with my dad about a year early. Besides the cars they had several virtual reality game consoles the size of a Yugo set up. For $5 and a 45-minute wait, you could strap yourself in an be immersed in a totally virtual world for about 90 seconds. I remember feeling rather underwhelmed at the experience but having to feign excitement because my dad has just dropped a pretty hefty note for a stupid video game on it.

The amazing thing about technology is that we've developed it to the point within the last 15 years that we're able to do some amazing things on-screen. The new frontier is how this on-screen technology integrates into our physical lives: augmented reality, semacodes, OLEDs, e-paper, NFC, NTT and more.

Lastly, check out this new "spatial operating environment" from Oblong Industries called g-speak. It's based on the famous Minority Report sequences. Awesome stuff. I just wish they hadn't put the clip to such ominous music. It makes me a little less excited and a little more scared. Couldn't have sprung for the new Beyoncé track or something?


g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Soon, we'll be be to collect on all those promises sci-fi movies made to us.

Google, related searches: meanies

Just now I was doing some Google image searches. I searched for "shack" and saw this:


That's sort of messed up, Google. Just rubbing it in the faces of people that are surfing the internet from their shacks. Inappropriate.

Even if they're racist, you've got to admit, they're pretty creative

I was reading an article over on LAtimes.com about the rise in racially motivated crimes after Barack Obama's election. Then I came across this paragraph:

What?! Sounds like the KKK just went and saw the new James Bond or something. So bizarre.

If they were, you wouldn't be wearing that shirt

I saw this picture yesterday on blog post of girls with ridiculous t-shirts, and it made me deeply, deeply sad.



Just study that image for a moment. I imagine who that girl is, what her life is like, how she talks, who her friends are, the hat she wears. It all makes me very sad. Hapless flailing about, going to outdoor country music festivals. Sad. That's all I see.

Synecdoche, Colorado

Leaving the office on Friday evening it didn't seem as though I'd need to come in this weekend. We had busted all week--on only four to five hours of sleep a night and one big all-nighter--to get ready for four different client presentations. But we got through it, got it all done, and it was looking like I wouldn't see the interior of 6450 Gunpark Drive for at least another collective period of hours.

But I've also learned recently to be less presumptuous than that. I was just waiting for a nine o'clock DING on my Blackberry with an email from one of the CDs saying that we need to come in to crank out another set of idea. And sure enough at 8:52 this morning my little device dinged. I got out of bed, fearing what awaited me on the screen was the announcement of the untimely passing of my weekend. Instead what I found was a message rather inspirational message to get out and see the world. So, I decided to take the advice.

Ah, to see a movie. Let's see. What's out there? No, no, no. Ooh, Synecdoche, New York. And a mantinee showing. Perfect.


So, off I head to the theater. Usually the idea of seeing a movie alone makes me feel sad, but today it was an excitement, an excursion, a diversion to be away from the rush and people and things and deadlines and just absorb a work.

I love Charlie Kaufman's work. I think he's an amazing creative, unparalleled in almost all respects. He is to word what Gondry is to image (albeit entirely more full of himself and a his own mortality than the French director). Adaption. is still my favorite screenplay. Absolutely brilliant.

As with most of his films, Synecdoche sludges through the jumbled slough of the protagonist's unconscious, bumping directionlessly like a bumper car on a carnival ride. The driver tries desparately in vain to control his life and steer it in a meaningful direction, only to find that there's no start of finish to the ride, no path to follow. Instead, he drive his car madly in one direction until he hits another's car and jolt their chosen trajectory into disarray. The pattern continues until the ride simply is called to a end by the man behind the controls.

That's how I characterize this and essentially all other Kaufman screenplays. Brilliant, near-autobiographical scripts that vividly capture the essences of loneliness, depression, helpless and (fleetingly) love. This latest attempt, takes this issues on in the most grand scale of any of his works to date. Before his stories were microcosms unto themselves, and in Synecdoche, that microcosm has literally been transplanted onto the entire world (or, in fact, the literary term synecdoche).

I won't go into more detail about the film because it's a jumbled, non-linear mess that could never be done justice except to actually see it. Yes, the movie is tedious at points, heart-crushingly sad, devilishly fun and perhaps drags on a bit too long. But then again, Kaufman's point is to show life how it truly is (or at least that's what the protagonist Caden Cotard claims). It's not a great movie, but it's amazing. These two things seem contradictory, but I promise that, with Kaufman at the wheel, contradiction is the whole point.

The thing that most shocked--and amused--me about watch the film was the actual watching of it. I seemed to be the only patron in the theater without a membership to AARP. Seriously. There were probably 35 people in the theater and 34 of them were over the age of 55. I can't imagine how horrific of an experience that movie must have been for them. The grand proportion of the film is spent worrying about various ailments and death. In fact, the film is almost entirely about human mortality.

There were two very old ladies sitting in front of me, talking back and forth throughout the movie, trying to decipher what was happening. (Not only is Kaufman unfriendly to the elderly audience in terms of subject matter, but his films are verbally, visually and chronologically untethered from reality. I have no idea why there were old people there, other than the fact it was a 1:40 showing. Perhaps it was an ill-advised nursing home field trip?) Anyway, these two yammering Ednas finally decided to get up about halfway through and walk out, unable to follow what was going on.

But the eldery weren't the only ones left unsatisfied. The only other person in the audience who was relatively young was a man of about 38 or so sitting in the bottom seats in the center by himself. As soon as the film was beginning to slowly fade into the end, he started to, very loudly, put on his jacket. It went over his head, up the air, with all sorts of clasps and ties clanging obnoxiously in the dead silence of the theater as the screen was gradually fading to a white glow. Before the credits even rolled he stood up and trounced out. He was obviously very pissed that he had pissed away $7.50 on this stupid waste of time. It was awesome to see.

Then, an older lady (I'd say 57 or so) seated next to me on my aisle began singing along with the song played over the credits. She sat there, by herself for what I'm guessing was the entire credits (I got up and left) singing to herself. It was surreal.

On the way home I passed people and places, all of them off on their own tangents in life. I got lost in a maze of parking decks. I saw a little girl on her with little training wheels with her family beside her. I saw someone on the side of the road taking a small harp out of its case to show a friend.

Kaufman's films have a way of affecting me. They make you hyper-sensitive of the world around you. Slowly, as you return to the "normalcy" of a hurried life full of deadlines and having to get things down for one reason or another, you'll become desensitized to your awareness. But even for a brief moment, they offer you the chance to see life through the eyes of someone who sees and hears nearly everything, who absorbs it all and can't tell you anything of what it means but can at least show you the beauty in it.

Even the box was organic

This will only be funny those of you who know Dan Kelly and his proclivity for receiving care packages from his parents filled with any time of sugar-based goody you could imagine. Imagine Halloween having a set of twins in a cardboard box while being mailed from Cleveland. It supplied the Nasty Dandylion (our apartment) with many a late night snack.

I returned home from work this evening to find my own care package from my parents. It too was filled with snacks. But as you can see below, it was very different.


Yes, that is papaya and apple muesli, honey roasted almonds, a cranberry-cherry-pecan mix, a California trail mix, all-natural plantain chips, organic fruit bars, organic gummy bears and even gum made from natural rainforest chicle. My parents aren't hippy like that at all. Really random.

Sorry. I don't think is is amusing to anyone but me, but I'm having a blast. See ya.

Certainly colour like no other

Zune Paint from Sibling Rivalry on Vimeo

Just the wrong company.

Deceptacon Airlines

"THAT CRAZY PLANE IS ATTACKING THE CITY!"

(Found while searching for "laser" on Google Images. Obviously.)

Diddy meets doody

I gotta be honest. This is kind of how my day has been. "Yeuh. we're cool, we're cool . . . Hey, what the—!"

It like peeing your swimsuit in the ocean as the tide's rolling in

Just in case anyone wanted to know what it's like having a mustache, this sweet video should catch you up to speed.

Suez ad by La Comunidad, Buenos Aires

That puppy won a Gold at Cannes this year.


Fittingly, this is the blog's 200th post. I feel like I've done so much with my life. Yet so, so very little.

A very special logo

Working on some comps tonight, my partner Tim brought up a good point. How messed up is the Special Olympics logo?!



Conversation at the design agency:
- "Hey, the Special Olympics just called. They want us to design a logo for them."
- "Hold on, I just got it. They're all freaks, right? Let's make it a circle of six-armed kids."
- "Yeah, that sounds great. Let's go to lunch."

At least that's how I imagine it went.

Or maybe the Special Olympics is merely a cover for an international ring of spider-people bent on world domination. I kind of hope that one's actually true.

Winter Storm Surprise '08

This one is for all the homies back in Hotlanta. I woke up this morning, looked out my front window and saw this:


Checked the side window, still there:


And yep, even from the front of my house:



At the risk of sounding Southern (which I'm not . . . despite having lived in Atlanta for the last 12 years), I must say, I was pretty excited. And this is why.

I wasn't excited at the mere fact that there was snow outside. I've seen a good bit of snow in my life; I grew up in Michigan. No, I was excited by the fact that I had not expected there to be snow at all. It was a complete surprise. And it's been a while since I've been surprised by snow.

Living in Atlanta, you tend to hear about the dangerous blizzard that is predicted to blow through town about three weeks ahead of time. It's going to knock out power, close churches and school, cause a run on bread, milk, batteries and firewood. The news stations will tout their coverage as Winter Storm Watch '08. It'll be really dramatic. And then, when it does come, it'll be a light sprinkle that melts the moment it touches the ground. It may be thrilling if you've lived in Atlanta all your life, and that's all you know of snow. But to someone who grew up sledding every day after school until the sun went down, it can all seem a little ridiculous and disheartening.

That's why, when I awoke this morning and saw the unexpected white visitor that blanketed my neighborhood, I was thrilled. I had no idea that it was to snow overnight, did not see it coming in the least. It was a return of innocence to snow for me. Gentle, quiet, still.

I'm sure in a month when I'm trying to de-ice my windshield in subzero wind chills as I drop my keys in a snow drift, this will all seem like a distant memory. But for now, I'm excited to see the snow.

Michael Crichton reincarnated

Thanks to my buddy Andrio over at 33rpm in Brkln for this one.

I think we all know the manswer to this one . . .

ME.

What's with all these posers out there? Pitt's is pitiful excuse for facial hair. And Clooney's looks like he cloned an eyebrow.

Ouch. Puns must stop.

(Found while doing some research on the US Weekly website. Hence all the puns.)

Get quacked up

This duck's looking for a party.

And she was probably bleeding when she did it.

I love failblog. And this is why.