There's an Ad for That

One of my routine gripes in here is advertising. It's a field I considered entering and to which perhaps I was or am suited, but for which I have been unable to escape a bad taste in my mouth. I hear that cry of if I think I can do better, then why don't I. Nevermind that many gatekeepers would have to greenlight my cockamamie ideas. But I'm not going to delve into that, this gripe is rather more focused and it has to do with facsimile musical tracks being created for use in commercials, in what I would assume is an effort to avoid paying the rightful composers of said music. That seems about right, right?

The latest one I noticed was an ad for Brigham Young University during their victory over San Diego St. You might recognize the instrumental in the background as a blatant rip-off of Snow Patrol's "Chocolate". There are, in fact, differences between the two, just as there are between Vanilla Ice's most well-known hit and a certain Queen collaboration with David Bowie. Who knows, perhaps the folks who created that BYU ad were granted permission from Snow Patrol to create a little jingle that sounded much like one of their songs.

Moving right along, February is about to draw to a close and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the 28 days pass. Heck, even when it's 29 it seems much smaller than the old 30 and 31-dayers. So it goes, eh Kurt?

Before this month ends, I must say that I am firmly behind Charlie Sheen. This vid is the latest and while many think Charlie sounds nutty, there is an awfully intelligent and articulate individual there. In the clip they even discuss that he is anti-semitic. As a half-semite, or a semi-semite, that they would even find the alleged anti-semitic remark anti-semitic, is...well...Why do I have a feeling those who made that speculation are not even Jews themselves? Not that it would matter really, I just find that interesting...Shouldn't we let the supposed offended race or religion be the one to point out their offense? Charlie, my apologies on using your first name lest it give any implication that I might know you on any real personal level.

But what really stinks in the whole situation, to me, is something I feel I see so damn often in the media. I admit I don't follow the news nearly enough. I find myself grossly uninformed on many current (and even past) events. But I might prefer to be uninformed than misinformed. With all of the unrest in Northern Africa and the Middle East, why the Hell are we so up in arms about a guy who performs on a sitcom doing a lot of drugs? Perhaps he is damaging himself, perhaps he is setting himself up as an anti-role model, but is that more important than thousands of people being murdered and political unrest? I'm all for humor bringing levity to things and serving as a pleasant distraction, but when we get down to serious business, shouldn't we focus on actually serious business? Update: Sheen was on Piers Morgan last night and these very things were addressed, with the show itself coming before Anderson Cooper's discussion of the state of affairs in Libya. Kind of...meta...


At any rate media, I continue to be more afraid of trans fat than I am Charlie Sheen. Update: I ate a DiGiorno pizza at 2:30 in the morning, which contains my feared trans fat. I had hyper-realistic nightmares. I am sure it was the pizza and not any other substances. Beware the Ides of March, folks. Mazel Tov.

Cuanto Cuesta?

Last night I had the strangest dream and it involved a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats. There was never any mystery about what percent milk I would need...It really wasn't that strange, but the only detail I remember was the bowl sitting there on my kitchen counter, on an inexorable march toward sogginess.

This entry's going to be rather link-heavy, so apologies if that bothers you, and your welcome if that's your sort of thing. Now the following apparently took place some time ago, but since it was pointed out to me only a couple of days ago, I will share it with you all. It is an incident of what I consider to be clear cheating an episode of Price is Right. I used to watch this show pretty religiously in the summer, in middle school in particular. It was my reason to awake by 11am. Drew Carey as a host is tough to take. I really think they should have handed the job off to me. I could use the money a little more than dear old Drew, but then so could a lot of people.

The next links are kind of my favorite and are all courtesy of my buddy Tom. In the late 1970s, there was no Nintendo Wii, and there was no internet for porn, so those things had to be combined. There was the Atari 2600 and, thanks to the folks at Mystique, a perfect trifecta of outrageous pornographic concept games:



Bachelor Party



Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em



Custer's Revenge

I won't bother to summarize those or anything since wikipedia covers it in quite excellent fashion. "Custer's Revenge" is definitely my favorite, as it is closest to the absurdity and hilarity dating back to when a buddy of mine was sent an Oregon Trail -inspired pornographic story. Inspiration doesn't do it justice, as the format was adopted pretty accurately. There I was thinking the girl who had written it was a pioneer...

To close out I just have to remark on a couple of song similarities that my ear has picked up on in the last day or two. Feel free to agree or disagree. The first is the clear influence of Hall and Oates's "You Make My Dreams Come True" on the Ducktales theme. Though Hall and Oates came first from what I know, I still give the point to Ducktales.

After that, take a moment to observe the common riffs between Morrissey's "First of the Gang to Die" and Yellowcard's "Inside Out." Point
Morrissey.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...