Phelps' Olympics

Is it just me, or should the bigger story with Michael Phelps be not only is he winning gold medals in every event, but he is winning every event with a world record. To me, if Phelps only even ties Mark Spitz's record of 7 gold medals, he should still be regarded on a much higher accord due to EVERY race being in world record fashion. Just a thought, but I think the news coverage needs a bit of a shift of focus.

Back from Fiji and onto the job market

Apparently, I have not been the most faithful post-er to this blog, fortunately that is not for lack of exciting things happening in my life. I just got back (the end of last month) from just about 4 months on one of Fiji's 320 islands. It was really a life changing experience. 4 months, essentially completely out of communication with the outside world. A feeling that I quickly learned on embrace, much faster than I was expecting.
Yeah, the weather was beautiful, the water crystal clear and warm, and the most bio-diverse dive sites anyone can imagine right on my doorstep, but none of those things is what will really stand out in my mind for a long long time. That accolade goes to the Fijian people. You honestly can not ask for kinder more generous people. Every week we were taken into a families one room extremely rudimentary homes. Here we were fed the best food, slept in the families beds, and sent back to camp with any leftovers. All this come from people who have so little, but are willing to give you whatever they can. This is not a culture that does only looking for something in return, but instead does because they are genuinely good people.
It really causes you to take a step back and think about your life and some of the things you consider important when you see how happy the Fijian people are. As I already mentioned, the locals are not blessed with hardly any modern conveniences, not even indoor plumbing, not even outdoor plumbing for that matter. With that being said, these people are also some of the happiest people one would ever have the fortune of meeting. It is inspirational, for lack of a more creative word, to see how such a simple life can lead to such happy people. Maybe it is time for re-evaluation on what brings one pleasure.
I added some pictures to my Flickr account, check them out and add some comments HERE. I am currently searching for a job... a good one. Any ideas?

Domestic Violence, Cartoons with Cigarettes, and Racism

I ran across this article today. Retro Commercials. I was particularly entertained by the Jello commercial and its striking similarity to the Sales Genie.com commercial that I posted yesterday. Oh how far have we come! Id actually like to think that we have come fairly far from those advertising days, although who knows what companies are hocking now that may turn out to be the cause of the next cancer. In 50 years I'm sure we will all be laughing at the cell phone commercials while all of us Razor shaped brain tumors, or perhaps we will get a good laugh at all the beer commercials because maybe alcohol will turn out to cause impaired judgment or something and that people drink to much and crash their cars, killing thousands every year. Who knows what the future will prove! Watch the old commercials, leave a comment with your thoughts.

Super Bowl Commercials

I am not going to write a long drawn out post analyzing each Super Bowl Commercial. There are plenty of other blogs and websites that I am sure you can visit to get the full run-down of them. Overall I was not extremely impressed by a lot of the commercials. I think the E-Trade baby was clever and I liked the cars.com commercials, but I think the major advertisers like Anheuser-Busch came up a bit short in the creativity department this year. However, I think people will be talking about two commercials more than any others. They are the SalesGenie.com commercials. (I posted one in this blog, you can find the other on You Tube or MySpace.) These commercials will not be drawing the attention on their merit, but instead on their over the top stereotypical portrayal of Indian and Chinese people. I am pretty sure the company just committed suicide that cost them over $5 million. Good investment. Too bad they are going to have to shell out way more than that in PR dollars if they ever intend to turn profit.

You Cannot Blame the Messenger - Only the News

Well it looks like Punxsutawney Phil, the self-proclaimed 'official' groundhog of groundhog's day, has seen his shadow again this year thus declaring that we will have to endure 6 more weeks of winter. You can see the video here. Phil is not the only groundhog predicting the weather these days however.
For the last 14 years, one General Beauregard Lee has been predicting the remaining period of winter with a much high success rate than Phil. Lee has accurately predicted the oncoming weather an impressive 98% of the time, while Phil has only been successful about 39% of the time. Oh, did I mention that Lee did not see his shadow, which tells us to expect an early spring. I don't know about you, but I would much rather believe the groundhog who predicts warmer weather, not to mention the one with a near perfect track record. I for one am sick of the media's biased coverage of Groundhog's day. CNN.com at least gave mention of the differing prediction of the true professional groundhog, Lee, but Fox News, with their 'Fair and Balanced' approach neglected to even report on existence of another groundhog or the fact that Punxsutawney Phil's predictions have had the reputation of being completely inaccurate. I would like to call for a switch in news coverage for next year's Groundhogs Day. The massive media attention of Phil brought over 30,000 people to the small town of Punxsutawney, PA this year to witness nothing more than an unreliable gimmick which is controlled by a bunch of high-powered business men wearing coat-tails and top hats. Lee on the other hand only attracted just over 250 people to his festivities in Lilburn, GA. American has the right to know whether winter will continue or not. I challenge the news to report the news, not pop-culture. Leave that to E! or Perez.

Postscript: You can check out www.yellowrivergameranch.com to get more information on General Beauregard Lee and his home at the Yellow River Game Ranch.

Infermo

Today I am sick. But like the outstanding employee I am I went to work anyway in order to serve mucus filled fajitas to a bunch of fat rednecks who are staying in the hotel attached to Chili's. (The fajitas weren't really mucus filled. That was just because I was sick). But really, back to the people who come in and order more food than one person should really eat in an entire week in one sitting, but since they order a diet coke they figure it cancels out the fried cheese, the applewood-thickcut bacon Smokehouse Southern burger, and the Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie. By the way, 6 Diet Coke's still equals 6 sodas. You people are gross, and don't tip well.

My blog is not necessarily as interesting as Brian's, although in fairness to me I do not have the luxury of watching rain-drenched Rasta's through the window of the library or whatever building he works in.
I downloaded the You, Me, and Everyone We Know free E.P. yesterday. Im diggin (digging) (Pollack, Midi Controller, To the Rescue, 2008) it. If you haven't already you should download it for free too. Im pretty sure you go here to get it. This band is legit, Ben used to be in Supergiant. Cool. I still know the words to those songs.
This video is funny, almost as funny as that guy from Perfect Strangers name Balki (See two videos down)



Im not really sure how this BlogWar is gonna work really, maybe pretty similar to how Conan, Colbert, and Stewart are having a war. This may all just be to fill blog space until our writers come back.
Everyday Mir and the Moon has a band meeting over speaker phone. Enjoy

Blog Wars

Apparently I have entered myself into a BlogWar with one Brian Michael Pollack by way of Anna Jennings. -More to come-