Crunchy Numbers: Dispatches from My 2013 Journal

Over the last few years I've developed the habit to keeping a small journal around me to take notes and write down random ideas and observations. If you spent any significant amount of time around me you may have noticed that small black leather bound notebook (it's actually a Piccadilly plain small essential notebook. They look exactly like the famous Moleskine notebooks but cost about half. Unfortunately it's become a lot harder to find them since Borders shutdown) I often have on me. Content-wise I'd say it's like an extremely casual version of the sort of daily notebooks former Senator Bob Graham keeps, Most of it is really just a jotting down of the mental kipple that my life generates. I keep certain running lists like movies I've seen and books I've read but I make actual entries on average maybe every three or four days (I noticed there are a lot of Thursday entries). 

So I figured with 2013 firmly in the rear view mirror I'd share with everyone to a quick look back at some of the stats and entries:

Books

Overall I've completed 37 books in 2013. This might be a personal record of mine as an adult. I probably read more as a kid but it's hard to compare; you can go through like four Choose Your Own Adventure Books a day. This number would have been impossible without the aid of audio books which where a mainstay of my commutes (and sometimes slow days at the office). Of the 37 books I've read 23 of them were audio books (I know some purists would say I didn't technically "read" them, but whatever). 10 of the books I read where physical books while I polished off 4 e-books or whatever the kids are calling them these days on my Nexus 10. The first book I completed this year was an audio reading of Paper Towns by John Green (1/9) and the last book was David Mitchell's autobiography Back Story (12/31) read by Mitchell himself, which I think makes for a superior experience over reading print.

Movies

Counting movies I saw in their entirety; I'm talking sit down, watching at least 95% of the thing, not just catching the last half of "Anchorman" on Cinemax, I saw 53 films in 2013. Of that number I only saw 9 of them in theaters (and really like half of those were Rifftrax Live events). In terms of physical media I saw 4 movies on DVD and 1 movie on VHS (1931's "Private Lives" for esoteric rom com research). The other 39 films were streamed online (Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, etc.), the future is now. First movie I saw "Ruby Sparks" (1/2) which I got from a Redbox machine (one of the 4 DVDs I saw that year) and the last film was "Delirious" (12/21) which I streamed online. I also want to note that I finished my years long goal of seeing all 100 movies listed in Billy Mernit's "Writing the Romantic Comedy" (also I finished my first draft of my own rom com) the personal rankings of which I may eventually publish on this blog.

Eating

I didn't keep some kind of thorough list of everything I ate or places I ate but I have verified that I ate at least 12 times at a New Jersey dinner (though it certainly felt like more). Also, I don't know how to explain it but somehow I ate at California Pizza Kitchen at least 5 times, all outside of California. I also made 3 confirmed trips to Fuddruckers which is not nearly enough in my opinion.

Haircuts and Grades

• 3/24 - B+ "Decent, short, really took care of the sideburns"
• 6/8 - B- "Slightly longer on top, sideburns undercut"
• 8/25 - A- "Even cut, I liked it, best I can probably hope for"
• 11/16 - B "OK cut, slightly longer, mostly focused on side and back"

I should probably find a place that doesn't average a B but they're close, friendly, cheap, and we've come to the point where I don't have to really explain to them how I want my haircut.

Karaoke Songs

With the friends I run with, it's always important to have a steady list of songs you want to sing mapped out so you don't waste valuable time at the karaoke place pouring over sticky songbooks looking for something to pick.  3 songs I got around to doing for the first time this year were:

• George Jones - "White Lightning" (RIP George Jones. Super fun song to sing. Though it's a 50s country song about brewing moonshine, the lyrics could easily be about cooking meth)
• Robert Palmer - "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On" (The sexiest song about telling someone you don't want to sleep with them.)
• Dinah Shore - "Buttons and Bows" (I had recently seen that classic "Frazier" episode where he does an embarrassingly inept rendition of the song on TV and I just had to get it out of my head) 

Five Random Excerpts

• 1/31 - Thurs. - "Last episode of '30 Rock' aired tonight; I didn't know that it was airing until this morning. Fantastic final season. I'm really going to miss that crazy show. My Thursday night line up is crumbling."
• 4/4 - Thurs. "It would appear that my Casio watch died after midnight around 12:03. Sad. It might be too cheap to replace the battery."
• 6/14 - Fri. "Technically it's past midnight so it's the 15th but who's counting?"
• 9/7 - Sat. "Now: The house is currently out of seltzer. I must take my leave to the Shoprite."
• 12/9 - Mon. "Icy mess this morning, fell on my ass twice while heading to the bus. Surprisingly not as much damage as I expected. It's one way to get the morning started."

I never said I was Anne Frank.

Five Really Random Things I Just Jotted Down And Now I'm Not Entirely Sure What They're In Reference To

• "Distaff = Female"
• "Men's Werehouse, for fashionable Werewolves"
• "William Melater aka Bill"
• "One hit wonder or magnum opus?"
• "Dialog: Remember the time we met Willy Wonka but it turned out to be a bum in a factory?"

2013 in a nutshell everyone!

Inanimated Or: Why I Am Crazy

We had to throw out our old home toaster recently. Something went wrong with the internal coils and it just started burning one side of the bread to a crisp while leaving the other side untouched. Looking back over its life, I would conclude it had a pretty impressive run. Seven plus years of flawless service is quite an achievement for a low end, no frills, white plastic outer shell, Hamilton Beech toaster. Had it held out for a little while longer it might have even outlasted the Kmart where I think it was originally bought. I'm sure whatever toaster we get to replace it will be just as unremarkably reliable at it's singular, specialized task of warming up slices of bread, with the occasional bagel thrown in. I really shouldn't pay this mundane domestic non-story any mind and give it about as much remembrance as a replaced light bulb or a tossed dull shaving razor. Unfortunately, as you can see I cannot, since I am part of the generation cursed to have grown up with "The Brave Little Toaster"

For myself (and I suspect more than a few other of my peers), that exciting animated adventure tale featuring a plucky little toaster and his misfit cadre of animate home appliances (Radio, Lampy, Blanky, and Kirby the vacuum) faithfully seeking to reunite with their beloved owner who was forced to abandon them years ago has instilled a sort of irrational attachment and nostalgia for the inanimate objects, particularly of my childhood. The film and its sequels (including one where they somehow end up on Mars!) combined with the movie's obvious progeny, the even more sentimental, emotionally loaded, "Toy Story" films (interestingly enough many original Pixar members worked on "Toaster") is likely responsible for cultivating more than a fair share of hoarders within my generation.

Of course we all have our mementos, heirlooms, and souvenirs that we all hang onto and which keep us connected to the past and fond memories; and there are times when a vintage item is actually better than a modern day version, but there are clearly limits. If an object has outlived its usefulness and a replacement is available, you should replace it without affording it the empathy reserved for a human being. I shouldn't feel a twinge of sadness as I see my broken toaster looking solitary and out of place in the outside trash bin. I shouldn't think it lies awake at night, shivering in the cold, staring at the empty sky, grimly pondering why it has been suddenly abandoned. I shouldn't imagine all the other kitchen appliances having melancholy conversations about their lost comrade and morbidly considering their own mortality. The new replacement toaster should not be characterized as an arrogant villain just because it happens to be newer and more advanced than the old toaster.

Whenever I start to get irrationally sentimental like this, I think back to one of my all time favorite TV adverts: the series of Ikea commercials from the 90s where the viewer is manipulated into feeling bad about the unfortunate fate of a household object and it then abruptly told by stern looking Swede that we are crazy for thinking that and you are better off replacing old, tacky items with new ones. It is true, I am crazy and Disney and Pixar are highly irresponsible for peddling such entertaining and memorable messages of consumer goods animism to kids at such impressionable ages. I should enjoy my new toaster, guilt free and perhaps buy a new floor lamp from Ikea.

For next week, in my continuing series examining the influence of animated films of my childhood in my adult life, I'll tackle the deep theological issues of mortality, the afterlife, and the existence of the soul raised by "All Dogs Go To Heaven".

Do You Remember?

Maybe one can blame it on the sullenness associated with the sluggish economy or the problems caused by the recent hurricane or maybe it's the residual gloom from the 10th anniversary of 9/11 but I must say, with only a mere three days left, I have sensed a definite lull this year in overall excitement for September Day; a situation which I find totally unacceptable.

For some of the more distant foreign readers of the blog and the terminally unfunky, "September Day" is the annual celebration of legendary R&B and funk band Earth, Wind & Fire's 1978 top ten Billboard hit "September". Since its inception in 1979, the year following the song's debut, smooth groove loving fans of getting down and funky from all walks of life have made an effort to "remember the 21st night of September" by gathering at sundown and partying the night away listening to, and performing should the mood strike oneself, "September" along with covers and remixes of varying quality; reveling in the singular joy of the band's 6th or so highest charting single.

With the nation's current state of general malaise, we are in desperate need of a particularly jumping edition of September Day. It is more important than ever for people today to let love change the mind of the pretenders and once again chase those clouds away; to once again let hearts ring and the keys of our souls sing as we dance the night away.

Love in the Time of Dial-Up

Some products and their advertising campaigns are so classic and timeless that they remain virtually the same for years even decades. It's quite a remarkable feat for an ad given the ever changing nature of the marketplace and modern society in general with dynamic shifts in technology and popular culture occurring by the second. This particular AT&T ad for their internet services from 1997 is not one of those ads.

In the fourteen or so years since I last saw the commercial, I am quite shocked at how throughly outdated this spot has become in almost every possible way. The internet service that AT&T is primarily advertising is obviously going to come off as outmoded but really it's all the other incidental stuff in the ad that's truly disturbing. This one minute slice of life vignette of the mid-90's comes dangerously close to total irrelevance to younger viewers and in about another decade or so will become just as unrelatable as a black and white commercial for an Edsel or a Victrola. It's a harsh, undeniable indictment of my oldness that's scarier than any horror film.

Here's how it all breaks down:

• First off, I think it's utterly fitting and proper that Larisa Oleynik plays the female protagonist of this commercial. Few actresses are as closely associated with the mid to late 90s than Larisa. Her entire career essentially runs from the 1994 to 1998 run of "The Secret World of Alex Mac" to her the reoccurring guest role on "3rd Rock from the Sun" to her grand swan song in 1999's "10 Things I Hate About You". Sure she continues to live and her filmography claims that she has been steadily working all throughout the 00's, but can you really say you've noticed her in anything post-"10 Things"? Also, the boyfriend sort of looks like a poor man's Andrew Keegan, another casualty of the 00's.
• Check out out Larisa's vintage period gigantic sweater and jeans ensemble. It looks like she's wearing one of Nicholas Brendon's sweaters from "Buffy". She's practically drowning in wool. A burka would have been more revealing.
• With the recent demise of the classic boxy archetypal station wagon, the boyfriend's sweet ride has now become just a relic of a bygone era. Perhaps one day you'll be showing this ad to your children and they'll ask "Mommy/Daddy, what is that weird looking car that's not as big as minivan but bigger than crossover SUV? Is this what life was really like before the war with the machines?"
• The towering beige monolith and their accompanying bulky CRT monitors are an obvious and expected antiquity (Larissa's weird trackball mouse has aged particularly poorly). With the recent rise of laptops, tablets, smart phones, etc., it would appear that the desktop PC itself may be joining the station wagon soon enough.
• I don't think I need to prove to you that "AT&T WorldNet Service" no longer exists. Also, doesn't it look like they are typing up word documents and emailing them back and forth to each other? These are like the only two suburban teenagers in 1997 without AIM.
• I could devote an entire post just on the primative proto-"sexting" scene that goes on between the young couple. From just a sociological angle, it's fascinating how they both go through all the motions one would imagine from a modern day sexting session despite the fact that the picture couldn't be any tamer. There's the not so subtle flirty back and forth, the mischievous, playful look on Larissa's face as she send out her self shot pic, the sudden look of arousal on the part of the boyfriend when he receives it (maybe it's the first time her saw her sans sweater?), and the dude's eventual picture response (although the polite thing to do today would be to send a dick shot). It's like watching old "scandalous" footage of people wearing full suits to the beach.
• From a technological angle, obviously the major difference is the lack of cellphones. If there was any modern sexting going on here it would most likely be done via SMS. Larisa's method of taking photos of herself with a Poloraid (which they no longer even make film for anymore) and scanning it to her beau is only slightly ahead of drawing a picture and mailing it. I do have to commend her dude's solid MS Paint skills, it was a pretty smooth cut and paste job given the time crunch.

So there you have it. If anyone asks, that's what life was like in America circa 1997. If it was anymore 1997, the Spice Girls would have shown up at the end carrying matching Tamagotchis. Quite unsettling how much everything changes in less than a decade and a half.

Getting old is the worst.

Pop Culture Flashback: Carl's Mantra

Do you ever find yourself suddenly recalling some completely irrelevant, random memory that has absolutely no correlation or imaginable connection to anything you were ever thinking or doing? It's not a dream or thought triggered by some tangential stimuli or an eerie feeling of deja vu; it's just a totally out of the blue flashback in your mind, like some "Inception"-style planted idea, that makes you question why your subconscious would have even bothered to have devoted any effort in preserving it.

Well you know what I suddenly recalled earlier today that I (and probably most people) haven't thought of in well over a decade? That's right, that scene from the Season 4 episode of "Family Matters" ("Driving Carl Crazy") where an enraged Carl Winslow humorously screams his personal mantra in an effort to assuage his rage after Urkel drives his little clown car into his garage.

Even though I was a loyal TGIF watcher growing up and would consider myself a fairly thorough and reliable source of knowledge of the show, when I suddenly caught myself recently muttering this hauntingly familiar yet unidentifiable mantra I had to look it up. I was shocked when I found out where it came from. As soon as I saw it I immediately remembered the episode and the context but was still left puzzled as to why I even thought about it in the first place.

Was this tedious and trivial observation worth a whole blog post? Probably not. But hey that brain's a pretty interesting little mass of slimy matter. Here I'll even throw in both German and Spanish versions of the scene to add some extra educational value.

P.S.: Had I found one more comical, rage reducing, sitcom mantra to go with this and "Serenity Now" from Seinfeld, I could have done a full Rule of Three post.

The Internet Never Forgets

My senior year at NYU was probably my favorite school year ever (although I faintly recall kindergarten to have been quite pleasant and 6th grade wasn't all that bad as well). While nothing resembling outrageous Rothian standards, between all my AP credits and my early core class heavy schedule, by the end of junior year I had completed all my essential requirements for my Communications major, leaving me with an already light senior year schedule that I had to fill with wacky, superfluous electives. I went to school a maximum three days a week (I got it down to two by the spring semester) and when I happened to be there I was either taking guitar lessons or developing film or workshopping poetry. It was sort of like a year long day camp...that cost about $30,000. By the end, all my frivolous class taking even gave me enough credits for an unexpected minor in creative writing.

One of my light elective classes was a digital art class where we learned basic level Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and had some lectures about art and composition. Aside from all the neat posters we got to make and print out on the fancy giant printer, the rudimentary Photoshop skills I learned are still used by me today (sadly, as a communications major, this was probably the only piece of useful, substantive education I received during my whole 4 years there). One of the ongoing assignments during the semester was for everyone in class to create and maintain a simple photo blog on Blogger that they would have to update with one interesting image every week. We all dutifully maintained our little blogs (mine was called "Amazing Victor's Blogosphere") and when the semester ended we all just abandoned them, to lie fallow and forgotten on the endless plains of the Internet.

This would be the case for almost the next three years or so until I recently found some of my old digital assignments while sorting around the files of my old college laptop. It was then that I wondered if my temporary little site still existed. I put the name in on google and, lo and behold, there it was, a mass of 1s and 0s frozen in time, perfectly preserved since September of 2006, waiting for the next update. I had also forgotten that after I submitted my final picture, I had randomly uploaded two other entries: some random shots of me unkempt and unemployed post college (my how things have...remained exactly the same) and some shots from a College Bowl meeting that stands as probably the only known photographic documentation of an actual NYU College Bowl meeting.

This blast of digital nostalgia also helped me gain some perspective on just how unfathomably vast and full of crap the interest is. There's an entire world of users out there leaving random web footprints that'll out last the Pyramids. Every fleeting web page, bog, social network profile, web board comment, etc., no matter how inconsequential is probably preserved in the infinite folds of the web. You wouldn't believe the number of immacuately preserved websites for forgotten movies of the past still exist (looking to download some sweet desktop backgrounds or AIM icons from the movie "Paycheck"? I know I am!). It's an interesting thought that your "LOL" comment on the Star Wars Kid Youtube video from 2004 will likely be around far after you've disappeared. The ancient Greeks would be so pissed that immortality in the 21st century is a few clicks away; they had to spend all their lives chipping away on marble slabs, creating sculptures and shit.

I have to admit, however, there are even some limits to the internet. I'm pretty sure my geocities webpage from 1997 consisting of an all cap "Welcome to Victor's Home Page" greeting, lime greenback background, a picture of Mr. T and a free web counter is lost forever.

Wassup!

I guess there's been a slightly longer than usual down time since the last entry. There's no real reason for the mini hiatus. I have been feeling a bit out of step lately though; a little north of ennui but not quite up to malaise. Oddly enough, despite the missed time, I'm actually slightly ahead of my usual rate of updates for a month. I'll probably top out over my usual ten post Mendoza line if I maintain this current pace. Do I dare even start to dream about matching the 12 to 13 posts a month heydays of January to March of 08'?

It seems like every other day another reflection of the dire problems of the country today makes me more and more nostalgic for those free wheelin' Clinton years. It appears that late 90s advertising sensations, the "Wassup" Guys, also seem to have felt the pinch of the past eight years.

In a bold, public display of outright partisanism by a beer commercial spokesman not seen since Spuds Mackenzie's endorsement of Dukakis in '88, the Wassup Guys have clearly given their verdict on the previous administration and their opinions on the future.

As tongue and cheek the whole presentation was; it was still kind of expectedly jarring to see such a symbol of simple turn of the millennium high school days supplanted and placed right in the worst elements of the present. It'd be like seeing your high school self on the street crankin' dat Soulja Boy. The whole thing felt sort of bizarre and sad (especially when that one guy tried to hang himself). Seeing this relic of the past in a modern context just seemed to magnify how ugly things have gotten. I guess that's the sort of message they were trying to send out.

Also, isn't it a little bit ironic that it's a former Budweiser ad campaign that's strongly endorsing John McCain's opponent? If I were him I'd get the Budweiser Frogs on the horn and get back on the offensive again.

Things I'll Still Remember On My Death Bed: ShopRite Can Can Ads

Chalk this up as another addition to my long growing list of interesting topics for Media/Communications Studies papers that I never wrote in college.

You, the average 21st century modern member of society are being bombarded daily with hundreds, possibly thousands of examples of mediated communications of all varieties, shapes, and sizes. It comes at you from every direction: through an unfathomable amount of sources via television, print, video games, movies, internet (even this very blog), countless advertisements distributed across every medium imaginable, etc., etc., yada yada. It's such an all encompassing ubiquitousness that sometimes we may lose sight of and just get caught up in it. If you think about it, you'll probably spend more of your life consuming media; actively or passively, consciously or subconsciously, then anything else in your life. If you are reading this, there is probably a good chance that you will spend far more of your life staring at images and words on a computer screen then with your family. You'll probably have spent more time watching TV then talking to your friends. Of course, even when you're with family or friends you might still be consuming media...together (watch a movie, play a video game, listen to music).

Contrast this to the average modern person of a century ago and perhaps there's the possibility that all this information overload is well, sort of fucking us up? Is the human brain, which hasn't fundamentally changed for millenniums, suited to function properly in the face of the constant stream of information that is overwhelming our senses? Take, John Q. Handlebar from is uneventful 1908 world of telegraphs, ragtime music, penny-farthing bicycles, and Jumbotron-less baseball games and throw him into the world of today; I feel like there's a good chance his mind would be completely blown; in an actual literal "Scanners"-esque manner. It's a lot easier for us since we're born into it; as soon as we're out they play us some Baby Einstein and soon afterwards park us in front of the Sesame Street. But, one has to still wonder, what unforeseen effects (positive or negative) all this exposure is having on us?

Again, this is all pretty obvious, general stuff; you'll get essentially the same message if you listen to any Devo album or The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy's "Television, the Drug of the Nation" (Using the medium of the televised music video to denounce television? Now that's Hiphoprisy!). However it's good context for the main point of my post, which is just simply the indisputable fact that I will remember the Shoprite Can Can Ad until the day I die. While everyone is split over whether this modern mediated world is devolving us, alienating us, distracting us, improving us, informing us, uniting us, and everything in between; I can say on a personal level it's definitely making me remember some random shit.

Case in point, the titular ShopRite Can Can ads. For readers from outside of the northeastern United Shop who may not be familiar with ShopRite; it's basically a standard local supermarket chain (circulars, price club cards, no fancy breads, cheap awful DVD racks). Since as far as I could remember (since 1971 according to the wikipedia article) they've had a yearly "Can Can" sale which they offered significant discounted sale prices for a bulk of their canned goods and sodas (as an aside, these sales are actually pretty sweet. They keep me in soda cans and Hormel chili for a long time. Militant survivalists should take note). These sales were advertised by a series of frequent commercials with a French Can Can Dancer theme (get it?) and altered lyrics to Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld" (or until I just looked it up, "that French can can song"). For as long as I recall, while the commercials changed every year in terms of themes and lyrics depending on products promoted, there were two constants: can-can dancing girls, and the music.

Maybe it's just me, but growing up with these ubiquitous can-can commercials have forever imprinted them on my mind. They were arguably my first introduction to can-can dancing, operetta music, and French culture. It's like when you hear a Weird Al parody song before the actual original song and you feel like the original is just ripping off Weird Al. The constant exposure to those ShopRite ads since birth have rendered them to have priority in my mind over anything else I learn that may relate to them. If I took a class on French culture and history, I'll probably come out of it with newfound knowledge about Rococo style art and about the life of Georges Pompidou but any mental image of France will still have the ShopRite theme as its soundtrack. It'd probably be even worse if I took a trip to France, I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about the theme and uncontrollably sing it at least for the first couple of weeks. An enlightening trip to the Louvre? Now ShopRite's got the can can... A breathtaking view of Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower? Save on lots of brand brands... Soaking up the sun on a beach in Nice opposite the warm Mediterranean? Can cans!

The really messed up thing is that since no two commercials are the same, the lyrics in my head are a nonsensical amalgam of a half a dozen commercials. It's not even a real song. It's my personal idea of a song! So thus another strange and bizarre side effect of this modern age and its relentless production of instant nostalgia, a life long pseudo-commercial brain tattoo. I just hope that when I'm lying, weak and feeble on my death bed, surrounded by mourning family members, entering in and out of consciousness, muttering senile non-sense with my fading breaths; that they'll still be running those ShopRite ads (or I guess one of my descendants find this blog post) so someone can at least have some sense where that random catchy theme song is coming from.

1983
The dancers are a lot more lifelike and suggestive then more recent ones, despite it being aired knee-deep in conservative Reagan-Era America.


2004
The more familiar version I'm used to, with the cartoonish French painter guy. Does anyone else notice how the dancers are now multicultural? Now that's progress!