Whose Faulty Vision

Quote of the Whenever

I haven’t really posted this week, have I? I’ve just been really busy, I guess. Lots of little projects at work eating up my time. This weekend, Christmas and I and some friends are going to the Sterling Renaissance Festival, which should be lots of fun. I’ll take pictures.

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a great Quote of the Whenever:

“Think for a moment about the concept of the flamethrower. Okay?…We have flamethrowers. And what this indicates to me, it means that at some point, some person said to himself, ‘Gee, I sure would like to set those people on fire over there. But I’m way too far away to get the job done. If only I had something that would throw flame on them.’”

-George Carlin

Escalator gag

You know what would be funny?

If someone were fallling down an escalator, and they were falling exactly as fast as the escalator was moving, so they’d just fall and fall and fall.

That would be funny.

Tracking my spending

I like to keep track of how much money I spend on what. I write it down on my little handheld computer, putting it into broad categories (Food, Entertainment, Transportation and so on). Not because I spend too much, but simply because I like to know where my money’s going.

So anyway, I’ve run into the problem of how to treat alcohol. If it’s bought with food, there’s no problem–it just goes under Food. But what if, like last night, I just go out for drinks with a friend? I’ve been somewhat inconsistently labeling it as Food, Entertainment or Misc. But thinking about it, I think Entertainment is the best fit. After all, I don’t buy it to assuage my thirst, but to enjoy a drink with friends. Makes sense, right?

Good day

I had a particularly good day at work yesterday. I won’t bore you with all the details, but here’s the short version: I had written a brief for an ad for a blueberry muffin mix from a flour company. The company hadn’t advertised since 1997. There was a debate between the planning team and the account team-officially it was about something else, but what it was really about was whether the ad should be a brand ad-about who the company is-or a product-focused ad. We ultimately convinced the account team, and went into the client meeting with the “brand ad” version of the brief.

At the client meeting, not only did the client agree that the brand message was more important than a tight product focus, but they widened the scope of the ad. It’s not just about blueberry muffin mix anymore, it’s about the company and their range of products. For us advertising
types, this is a much more interesting type of ad to do: there’s more scope for creativity and bigger ideas.

So we actually got more than we asked for. I take some measure of credit for that: during the client meeting, I brought up the fact that they hadn’t advertised since 1997, and argued for a brand ad. And they agreed. Very satisfying.

Jaws video game

I blogged a little while back about ways to adapt movies into video games, while telling a different story. They’ve come up with a new one, that I hadn’t thought of: Tell the villain’s story.

Specifically, a company is developing a “Jaws” video game where you play the shark. You swim around and eat people and cause mayhem. Not sure how they’ll get a whole video game out of that, but props for trying something different.

Powerpoint Complaint

Confidential to Microsoft Powerpoint, and the rest of the Office set for that matter:

STOP TRYING TO GUESS WHAT I WANT TO DO. JUST DO WHAT I TELL YOU TO DO. WHEN YOU TRY TO GUESS, YOU ARE WRONG EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Thank you.

Narsty, narsty meeting

If you ever come up to me and say, “Morgan, why is it that you are not an Anarcho-Syndicalist”,

okay, not very likely, I admit,

but if you ever come up to me and say, “Morgan, why is it that you are not an Anarcho-Syndicalist,” I will answer you, I will say, “You, it is because of meetings like the one I just got out of.”

This is a meeting on a project with every planner in the department. Three of them are senior planners, and the other three junior like me. Everyone wants to have their input into the project, but–and here’s the thing–nobody owns it. Nobody has authority over it. Everyone’s voice is equally strong. And as a result, NOTHING BLOODY HAPPENS. Four-hour meeting where we spent three hours just going around in circles.

Can you imagine running a government that way?