Zoo Knew?

I was recently sorting through the perpetual flow of Groupon and Living Social promotional deal emails that had accumulated in my inbox over the previous weeks (you buy one pair of discounted movie tickets once and you're marked for life) and amid the 75% off tango lessons, $15 for $30 random restaurant credit offers, and free first months of yoga classes, I was completely shocked to find a discounted offer for a one-year subscription to Zoobooks Magazine.

I had to briefly check my calendar just to make sure that some unseen cosmic force hadn't randomly transported me back to 1993. Sure enough, as it had been for the past eight months, it was still 2011. It was still 2011 where printed media was being assailed on all fronts with the newspaper and magazine industry engaged in a particularly conspicuous slow death spiral. It was still 2011 where every Borders bookstore had just gone completely out of business, while Kindles and other eReaders were entering the mainstream. It was still 2011 where even a young adolescent could have easy access to all the accumulated information of the internet over their smartphone. It was still 2011 and I was staring at an offer for Zoobooks magazine; the educational monthly animal magazine for kids whose commercials looked outdated and lame even to my 9 year old self in 1993.

How could any kid over the age of 5 have any possible interest in a magazine subscription to Zoobooks? Forgetting the fact that it is competing against Xboxes, digital cable TV, Angry Birds, and the internet for their actual attention; even if a kid was way into animals, what could Zoobooks possibly provide, with its thin collection of frozen nature photographs and drawings with captions delivered at the relatively glacial pace of one animal a month, that an interactive website or a DVRed Discovery channel documentary watched on an iPad couldn't? Even back in the 90s when they were more relevant I never knew any kid who actually had a superscription beyond that ubiquitous first free Elephants issue (which I assume is the most printed single magazine issue in the history of publishing). I always figured Zoobooks were almost exclusively subscribed to by pediatricians for their waiting rooms, alongside Highlights (which is also amazingly still in print).

Although writing this little cranky observation about the differences between my adolescent years and how outdated and incongruous an item from that period, like Zoobooks, now appears in the present has made me feel older than I've ever felt, it's still sort of nice to see this ancient creature of the 90s still somehow managing to thrive in this harsh environment of the present. To think that perhaps I may actually be able to give my child the free elephants issue of Zoobooks is a mind blowing but not unagreeable notion. Now if they could only bring back Disney Adventures.

What the Fax?

I had the superfluous task of sending an "official fax" to my bank earlier this week and, like many modern individuals who don't have easy access to an office fax machine and no longer have landlines in their home, I had to go a nearby copy place and pay the exploitative price of $1.50 a page to use an ancient monolithic fax machine made circa 1992. We just retired the space shuttle and have long since gotten over Joe Piscapo and yet this living fossil from the over three decades ago still somehow remains in our 21st century homes alongside our flat screens and iPads, is a fixture of even the slickest, modern office, and is still sold (do companies even bother to make new models anymore?) alongside the latest tech gear at Staples.

Try as we might, it appears that contemporary society still cannot completely obsolete the dusty fax machine. I think it's quite ironic that of all the farout retro visions of 2015 as shown in "Back to the Future II" from hover cars to up to the second weather prediction to $50 bottles of Pepsi, the one thing they may still end up unintentionally getting right will be the continued relevance of fax machines (although they may not be as ubiquitous as to be in every room of the house). So given the seemingly invincible, obsolescence proof, recession proof, public need for basic faxing services combined with the sharp decline of people actually having fax machines in their homes, there might be a market for an outlet store whose whole purpose is to provide reasonably priced faxing services (like a laundromat for faxes).

I'll take care of the name if you're willing to provide the capital, time, labor, and is okay with assuming all the risks. Take your choice:

1. Just The Fax
   
2. Reasonable Facsimile
3. Faxonomy
4. Faximum Overdrive
5. Faxination
6. The Fax Man
7. F.A.X. (Fax Access eXchange)
8. Fax In The Box
9. Fax Solo
10. Yes We Have Fax Machines Here
11. The Faxin' Invasion
12. Death and Faxes
13. Lord Faxondale's Faxtastic Faxdom
14. Fax On The Run
15. Fax City, USA, Population You

Ice To See You

Today was a welcome relief from the recent stifling heatwave. I even earned the right to complain about the high temperatures after spending all of Saturday grilling alongside the meat at a sweltering backyard BBQ. In my brief time outside today I enjoyed the seemingly forgotten feeling of a cool breeze again and, at the end of the day, gladly welcomed walking back to the car in a thundershower. Ironically, the cooler weather made the building turn down the AC so it actually felt a lot warmer than usual in the office. The day wasn't exactly like the twist in the "Twilight Zone" episode where the earth kept moving closer to the sun until it turned out that it was only a dream and that the earth was actually moving away from the sun so everyone was going to slowly freeze to death; but it was still a notably refreshing change of pace.

So in honor of this terrifically temperate day and in step with maintaining the balance of the universe, given the last heat-centric post, I figured I should blog about something cold; and really what's colder than three random personal thoughts on long time Batman villain "Mr. Freeze" (thought I was going to go with the Snow Miser didn't you? Well here's the song as a consolation prize):

• I become quite heavily reliant on AC during the last few days. I spent most of my time as a sort of prisoner to whatever room or building that had a functioning air conditioner. Only under the most necessary of circumstances would I have left the comforts of recirculated air for the baking oven that was the natural world. I suppose this must be a taste of what it's like to be Mr. Freeze. Anytime he walks out of his random freezer hideout or his cold suit springs a leak or he leaves the special cold area of his prison cell, it must be like walking into the worst heatwave imaginable. I can kind of relate to that now, it sort of humanizes the character (definitely a lot more than the whole mourning over his frozen wife stuff. I ain't married).
• Speaking of Freeze's trademark handicap, I also came to a realization about Arnold Schwarzenegger's portrayal of Mr. Freeze in the much maligned "Batman & Robin". His character's notorious compulsion to drop a never-ending stream of increasingly ridiculous, groan inducing ice related puns makes a lot more sense if you go into the film with the assumption that, in addition to constant sub-zero temperatures, his unfortunate condition actually forces him to keep spouting cold based one-liners to stay alive. It's like his body cannot stop producing terrible freeze themed jokes and if he doesn't find an outlet for them he'll suffer a stroke or a maybe aneurysm. Why else would he keep saying those lines? It's definitely not to be funny or amusing.
• Of course as wacky as the film adaptation of Mr. Freeze was, it was practically cinema verite compared to any of the character's portrayals on the wonderfully campy 1960s "Batman" TV series. The series Mr. Freeze went through three different incarnations featuring three incredibly unlikely guest actors. He was first played by Academy Award winner George Sanders, who instead of using that sophisticated yet sinister Shere Khan/Addison DeWitt voice spoke with a clunky German accent. He was then replaced by acclaimed director Otto Preminger in one of his rare acting roles. This was the Mr. Freeze I always remembered grown up (also it always feels more right for Mr. Freeze to be bald); at least the German accent was more legit this time around. Finally, the third version was played by the immortal Eli Wallach (seriously he's 95 and still actively working) who looked downright pixieish in the role; sort of like an elf who went rogue from Santa's workshop. Really a strange trio and it is fairly debatable who was the best.

So How Hot Is It?

I don't know about you but it was pretty hot day. I guess the Siberian fans of the blog can't really relate but I'm pretty sure most of the US is currently in the midst of a stifling summer heatwave. From all the comments I read about the high temperatures on the old Facebook wall, it's almost as if we were all suddenly in that episode of the "Twilight Zone" where the earth kept moving closer to the sun and all of society started agonizingly melting apart from the hopelessly extreme heat.

It was indeed a scorcher, probably the hottest day in recent memory. Walking across the scorching black pavement of the parking lot from my car to the office, I felt like a sizzling pat of butter on a large hot skillet. The few times I went out during the day the heat felt like hot sand being thrown in my face. And when I left for the evening it was just as relentless and suffocating as the morning. It was hot.

However as I was driving home, in my comfortably cool air conditioned car I wondered to myself: was it really that hot? I mean between leaving my air conditioned home to commute in my air conditioned car to my air conditioned office and back again, I experienced maybe a grand total of five minutes tops of exposure to uncomfortable temperatures. If anything the prevailing sensation of the day for my was probably chilliness from the over compensating central air in the office. All these record breaking triple digit temperatures and heat indexes might as well have been abstract concepts to me; it could just as well been 150 degrees outside. Thanks to the comforts of modern climate control technology I really had nothing much to complain about, and I suspect more than of few of these people out there complaining were in the same boat.

What's the point of making a big fuss about the weather if it hardly affects you at all? Especially the temperature, which in modern times has been reduced to one of the least relevant parts of the weather. Sure a blizzard could ruin your commute, a shower can cancel a ballgame, a hurricane and obliterate everything dear to you, but what's the temperature really going to do to you if you have basic shelter? Obviously people do freeze to death and die of heatstroke and the homeless are particularly vulnerable in such extreme scenarios. However for those folks who have a heated place to be in the winter and a cool place to be the in the summer and spend most of their time in them, what's their right to complain?

I think there should be a specific time requirements for people to complain about the temperature. One should be personally affected by elements for at least 1 hour before they can make a critique. I spent the great majority of the day in a generally comfortable climate, I have nothing to complain about (I guess except to complain about people who complain about things). The Victor from most of three years of law school who lived in apartments and drove a miserable car without air had every right to sweat and vent during the summer months. The Victor who spent a sweltering June backpacking in Costa Rica and Panama without experiencing a single kiss of reconditioned air could say a few things. But the Victor from today, who consciously wore a long sleeve shirt because he knew he'd be cold in the office has no standing.

So really, hysterical suffering nation of overheated victims; if you spent most of the day just looking a number that said it was 100 degrees outside, you didn't actually suffer and your point will not be noted. Relax, before you know it you'll be complaining about how bitter cold it is and how much you're looking forward to summer soon enough.

Extended Cut

So it would appear that a while back Youtube extended their video limit to a staggeringly long 10 hours. Upon hearing of this development it didn't take long for the denizens of Youtube nation to respond by posting insane 10 hour versions of already notable Youtube videos. A quick search for "10 hour" videos reveals marathon length editions of viral classics like Trololo, Peanut Butter Jelly Time, and that flying toaster cat thing that all the kids are keen on these days. Actually upon closer inspection almost all of these videos seem to be uploaded by the same insane poster.

While I shudder at the thought of the demented amount of patience and dedication an individual would have to render and upload 10 hour long videos to Youtube (I remember getting frustrated uploading a 2 minute video back in the day; of course that was like 2007, maybe things a lot easier) I sort of dig them; the edited video of Justin Bieber's character getting shot on CSI is down right hypnotic.

My humble request to this dedicated Youtube user or some other benevolent member would be to take the time to put up a continuous 10 hour version of "The 900 Number" by DJ Mark the 45 King aka "The Ed Lover Dance Song" aka the sample from DJ Kool's "Let Me Clear My Throat". I could listen to that funky looping sax solo and breakbeat for forever. I don't think I've ever had one sitting of listening to the track where I felt I've heard it long enough; perhaps 10 hours or so of it will finally satisfy my hunger. If anyone ever gets around to doing this I will actually throw a party with "The 900 Number" playing the entire time in the background (that or the Epic Sax Guy). Of course I could just put a mp3 of it on repeat but it's totally not the same as having one dedicated Youtube video going for nearly half a day. Imagine the sense of accomplishment one would get from surviving through that and getting that end screen with all the other video links at its conclusion.

Internet, you have your orders.

Power Rankings!: Bazooka Joe Raps

Nobody buys Bazooka Joe Gum for the actual gum. It's quite possibly the lowest quality gum available on the market, right below stale gumballs from a machine and Double Bubble. It's like chewing flavored shoe leather and even then the flavor doesn't last more than a minute. No, the only reason anyone would ever willingly purchase Bazooka Joe Gum is because of the sweet comics that accompany it. For over 50 years humorous little vignettes, plus jokey fortune readings, starring everyone's favorite one eyed (I always wondered how he ended up losing an eye at such a young age), blue baseball cap wearing teen protagonist and his ever changing gang of oddball characters have rewarded those willing to purchase a piece.

The success and longevity of the Bazooka Joe comics can be attributed to its many changes over the years to keep up with emerging trends. Through the decades, Bazooka Joe and crew have demonstrated a Madonna-like ability to constantly reinvent themselves; from evolving drawing styles, tweaking fashions, shamelessly co-oping fads, to straight up replacing members of the gang. Sure the eyepatch and cap remained but the modern day Bazooka Joe is a far cry from the moon faced youth of the 50s.

As someone who came of age in the 90s, it's that 90s era Bazooka Joe gang (actually "gang" was replaced by "and Company" due to negative connotations with all the gang violence going on at the time. Hey this was the same decade the the Bullets become the Wizards.) of Bazooka Joe, Metal Dude, Mort, Zena, and Ursula that I'll always associate the comic with. In addition to the hip new 90s cast, the comic creators also co-opted the emerging new genre of "Rap" music by releasing a set of Bazooka Joe "Raps" comics featuring all of the characters laying down some laughably crude rhymes about themselves and their wild gum fueled times together. Of all the comics I read then, these definitely stand out the most prominently in my mind; I'm afraid to admit I can probably recite a couple of these from memory. So given that I've had about 20 years of reflection and hindsight, here are my definitive Bazooka Joe Raps power rankings:

7. Bazooka Joe (#37)

Bazooka Joe may be "extra cool" and the iconic leader of the gang but his rap skills leave much to be desired. Here he's sort of all over the place. He starts with a possible shout out rap about his loving girlfriend Zena and then suddenly he throws in a line about how he likes to prank on people (and yes he actually used the word "jive") only to end with essentially a promotional message to buy Bazooka Joe gum. I guess since he is the namesake of the product he has to plug whenever he can. Overall, the weakest of the Raps.
Fortune: The fortune was pretty clever. I liked the visual pun of the upside down message; not easy to pull off. Additional points for being a line that could actually be a fortune, some times Bazooka Joe fortunes are merely just punchlines.

6. Bazooka Joe (#15)

The bottom two Raps and they both turn out to be ones by the great Bazooka Joe. While the fact that he is the only character that gets multiple raps does make it more likely that he would be pulling up the rear, it's still a poor showing. Once again, Bazooka is done in by the lack of focus in his lyrics. The image on the left of a football uniform wearing Bazooka with a hockey stick and a basketball is symbolic of his slapdash approach to these Raps (plus, as we all know, the Chicago Bears Shuffling Crew has been the only hip hop artists to successfully merge the disparate elements of sports and rap). I also get the feeling that he's dissing on baseball, since his one positive line about ballplayers is they "pose for cards". Compared to the high praise he heaps on the other 3 sports, it does come off a little insulting. He also once again concludes the Rap with another plug for his gum. Give it a rest, Joe.
Fortune: Some nice word play there. It may be an irreverent pun, but it also has a relevant implied message about the importance of independence and being self reliant.

5. Zena

Our first contribution from a member of Joe's crew. I will give Zena credit, her Raps' themes of gross materialism and conspicuous consumption are a bit ahead of their times for the early 90s. I could totally see Lil' Kim or Nicki Minaj dropping similarly themed lyrics, perhaps with a bit more complexity. Had she stayed on her original topic for the whole rap she would have been ranked higher. However Zena loses significant points for turning her rap into a declaration of love her for beau Bazooka Joe. You can't talk about how bad you are and how much you drop at the mall and then say how all those things are secondary to your love of Bazooka Joe.
Fortune: This one sounds like a real fortune that you'd get from a fortune cookie or wherever. The humor element is a bit too subtle for what I expect from a Bazooka Joe comic. The best ones are groan inducing and read like they need to end with a rim shot. It's still good advice I suppose.

4. Bazooka Joe (#23)

Bazooka Joe comes back for his third and final appearance on the rankings. It's not that much of a leap forward from the previous two Raps but I do like how it gives a nice overview of the entire gang. Metal Dude may be a wild man but I don't know how well he'll take being labeled a "maniac". As for his view of Ursula, nobody wants to brag about a new pair of sweatpants. Really this should have been the first Bazooka Joe Rap in the series but going by comic numbers it's apparently the fourth. While the rhymes are lacking I do have to admit it's quite impressive how he can spit them out while blowing a gigantic bubble gum bubble. Of course no Bazooka Joe helmed rap can be complete without another aggressive push for the gum.
Fortune: This one is even more a straightforward fortune than Zena's. I can't really find the joke here. Nevertheless it's a good message about living for today and making every moment count. You won't get that from a pack of Chiclets.

3. Ursula

If I were the sort of person to rely on broad generalizations and unfair stereotypes I may have assumed that Ursula, being the only black member of the group, would have been the odds on favorite to top the Power Rankings. Fortunately I don't see color and it's not the case here. Overall Ursula's risque gym room rap is commendable and does come up in the top half of the the rankings. I find Ursula's steamy rhymes about looking hot in tights, checking out the sights, compromising workout positions, and making many "friends" at the gym to be the perfect compliment to Zena's previous rap about her obsession with shopping and her envious high end lifestyle. Put those two together and you get the ultimate empowered female rapper. This Rap also looks like the comic version of Oliva Newton-John's music video for "Physical" with its mix of sexy exercise chic and rampant homoeroticism.
Fortune: Now this is an example of a classic Bazooka Joe fortune. It starts off with a well known saying and then flips it at the end with a cheesy one liner. The fact that the joke is about jokes itself, just makes it all the better.

2. Metal Dude

Metal Dude's Rap is quite an important and pioneering track. Instead of insulating himself in his familiar genre of heavy metal rock, he took the impressively progressive step of incorporating his metal with the emerging rap sound. As far as I'm concerned, Metal Dude's Rap is right up there with Anthrax and Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise" as critical landmarks of 90s rap metal. You also get to see a rare vulnerable side to the usually wild and outrageous Metal Dude when he talks about his admiration and loyalty to his friend and shockingly admits his long held secret that he is actually deaf. Heavy stuff, dude.
Fortune: This is one of those fortunes you get from a cookie where instead of predicting anything it just gives you a random observation about yourself. It still has a bit of the classic Bazooka Joe cheekiness to it.

1. Mort

Full disclosure, I admit that there is a little bit of personal bias here. Mort was always my favorite Bazooka Joe character and the Mort Rap comic is by far the Rap I received the most growing up. I'll probably be able to recite it until the day I die. That being said, I also remember it so well because it's a pretty decent rap. It stays true to the Mort character (gifted in the sciences while lacking even the most basic of social skills) and the lyrics don't sound as arbitratry or forced. Anyone else always suspected that Mort's unseen lower face was horrifically scarred, possibly from an unfortunate lab accident?
Fortune: A solid Bazooka Joe fortune pun, having fun with another tired old saying. Compared to a lot of the other fortunes, however, that preach seizing the day and being self sufficient, letting nature takes its course and hoping for the best seems somewhat incongruous.


Finally, I would like to give a hearty shout out to The Bazooka Joe Page at Caltech, clearly a holdover website from the early days of the internet when only members of large research universities had the technology and the time to create websites devoted to trivial pop culture minutiae, which featured quality scans of all 90's era Bazooka Joe comics.

An Alternative Approach

About a week and a half ago I gave my armchair adman commentary on a recent TV campaign featuring Nutrigrain Bars; praising how, through subtle editing, its creators cleverly managed to tie a product of questionable nutrition and wholesomeness with an effective message of all purpose wellness and self improvement. I thought it was a pretty nifty bit of soft selling.

In STARK contrast to those ads, here is a previous Nutrigrain Bar spot from around five years ago I found that also promises similar themes of great self improvement using what I can be considered an alternative approach:

From what the ad indicates, it would appear that Kelloggs was experimenting with a new line of Nutrigrain Bars containing significant doses of PCP in the mid oughts. While the current spots says choosing to eat a Nutrigrain Bar will bring you happiness and self improvement by leading you to make other modest but effective positive lifestyle choices, this ad seems to say that eating a Nutrigrain Bar will bring you happiness and self improvement through reckless and insane decisions and actions. What I don't understand is why is everyone else also insane? The main character is the only one who actually ate the laced Nutrigrain Bar. Shouldn't they all dismiss his wild eyed, hyper intense behavior? Maybe that's just how powerful these new bars were, they would give you the power (in addition to invulnerability from physical attacks) to get everyone on your side (whether it be quitting your job or having hundreds of babies), no matter how ludicrous your proposition was, through sheer force of will.

Now is this a "good" advertisement. Well, people remember it and I'm writing about it for free aren't I? Did it move Nutrigrain Bars? I'm not sure. I suspect that this ad might not even have aired publicly. It's all part of that age old advertising debate of whether the quality of an advert is judged solely on it's effectiveness in the market place or is there an inherent creative, cultural value regardless of sales? Ideally it should be both but more often it's one or another. As for me I don't know, I just liked the ad (Nutrigrain Bars still sorta suck though).


Also, did you notice the protagonist's friend Larry was handling woman's lingerie right before he burst into his office to tell him he was quitting? I must have seen video like five times before I spotted that. Not sure how that contributes to the story.

Double Vision

Every once in a while I will come across an advertisement or campaign that will really catch the eye of the former communications student/aspiring copywriter in me and make me say "wow, that was pretty good". With that being said I find the two recent television spots for Kellogg's Nutrigrain Bars to be subtly brilliant.

The two spots have been running for at least a couple of years, but there's really nothing flashy or buzzworthy, or even outwardly memorable about them. They don't have any gimmicks or jokes and their biggest visual firework is a simple split screen (cutting edge!). Ostensibly the story is about as straightforward as they come, in both commercials you have the unhappy woman on the left who didn't start their day with a Nutrigrain Bar and the happy woman on the right who made the great decision to start their day with a Nutrigrain Bar. Message to viewer: eat Nutrigrain Bars to be happy.

Reading a little deeper into the commercials though, it's impressive how subtly the advertisers put forth what is really quite a powerful message.

First and foremost, the commercial never explicitly states that Nutrigrain Bars are really any good for you; and as someone who ate his fair share of Nutrigrain bars in high school, it's sort of true. On the whole they're just slightly better for you than eating a candy bar. In both ads the first and only time you see the bars is when they are compared with blatantly unhealthy food. A Nutrigrain bar is not the best thing you can have for breakfast but it is certainly better than a chocolate frosted doughnut with sprinkles or a monstrous pastry the size of your head. That's the only thing the commercials can say about the actual nutritional merits of their product, all the other scenes simply show the general benefits of healthy life choices (taking the stairs, opting for fruit, drinking more water) completely unrelated to Nutrigrain bars.

The commercials manage the clever trick of associating the simple act of eating a Nutrigrain bar in the morning to living a better, happier life and simultaneously shows the quiet sadness and misery that comes with not starting your day with one. They deftly manufacture this fairly impossible correlation between eating these marginally not unhealthy bars and achieving almost every general healthy lifestyle goal. In reality, if starting your day off with a Nutrigrain bar would cause you to make so many healthy choices in your life, you would end up replacing the Nutrigrain bar the next day with oatmeal and fruit. The ads may appear to be geared primarily towards woman, but it has a general appeal that taps into everyone's inherent desire for self improvement, to better oneself whether it be to lose weight, to get a better job, spend more time with loved ones, read more, to live a better life.

It's the subtlety of the two simultaneous scenes that really drives home the message. While they are in sharp contrast to each other neither of them are extreme scenarios. This is far more effective than the hard sell of an infomercial where they give you a totally unrelatable scene of a monochromatic hell of laughably exaggerated horrors where even the simplest of tasks is a surreal ordeal and then show you how unbelievably happy your entire life would be after this one peeve is eliminated. In these commercials there is no exaggeration of the happy or sad lives. One side isn't losing a foot to diabetes while the other side is winning a triathlon. One just has a little bit more pep, a few more smiles, and bit more energy than the other which makes both scenes utterly relatable which makes it far more affecting on a personal level. We can see ourselves in both windows. We've all had days or moments where we felt like we were trapped in the unhappy left side of the screen and that a ticket to the happier more productive right side was just an adjustment or a routine change (or in this case a purchase) away.

This is the all powerful message of improvement that every ad for a consumer product is trying to get through to the viewer; your life will be better for buying this good. With just a simple concept and some effective editing, Nutrigrain bars has managed to associate their product with a universally desired picture of health and happiness while never explicitly saying their product is even all that healthy. Pretty good.

It's Like...

Recently I've developed a mild fascination with the above frequently run commercial for Dunkin' Donuts' new Frozen Hot Chocolate drink. For such a brief 15 second spot for a product that would appear to be essentially dressed up chocolate milk (isn't that what a "frozen hot chocolate" really is?) this shouldn't be taking up so much of my attention, that is any of it.

Maybe it's just me but the more I watch it the more I'm convinced that the white man and woman on the other side of the table are totally high (I do often tend to jump to conclusions about characters' drug use). Right off the bat you have poor man's Lizzy Caplan way too emphatically describing her drink as an "iceberg volcano" while even poorer man's Ryan Gosling quickly interjects with equally unnatural zeal that it's like "lightning in a snowball". When the afroed straight man dryly tells them that it's like Frozen Hot Chocolate they bust out into a completely genuine and un-ironic expression of wide eyed amazement (If someone could go ahead and make me an animated gif of that brief scene, it would be much appreciated) at his normal observation . Our big haired protagonist reacts to all this with a look of perplexed disgusted as if he's asking himself "why am I hanging out with these ridiculous degenerates?" Even the final tagline for the commercial "It's like Frozen Hot Chocolate" sounds like it was written by someone totally baked.

I do feel a bit sorry for the main protagonist. When he's not wasting his weekends with these goobers, as seen in this recent Zyrtec ad he gets plenty more of this idiosyncratic nonsense at work (also what happens when you mix juice and Allegra, does it turn into mustard gas or something?). So it would appear that he is forever doomed to hang out in parks as the black third wheel to a quirky white couple.

Bear-ly News

I noticed that the most popular story in Yahoo! News today was the the following Reuters article with the attention grabbing headline: "Flying Bear Kills Two Canadians in Freak Accident"

Now I don't want to make light of a tragic car accident that leaves two people dead, but I expected a far more interesting story if it was going to lead with such a sensational headline. I mean essentially the car hit a bear while traveling at a high rate of speed. It's obviously an appallingly unlucky break for such a collision to lead to fatalities and the unusual manner in which the bear's body ended up entering and exiting the car could be considered freakish in its uniqueness but to categorize the bear as a "flying bear" is just irresponsible journalism.

Many animals involved in a drive by collision are technically "flying" for varying periods of time. If I hit a deer or a moose or a possum at the right angle, I can claim to have been accosted by a "flying" variant of that species. If I pulled a hit and run on a drifter "I Know What You Did Last Summer"-style, would that be considered the vehicular manslaughter of a special flying man? The next time I see a headline about a bear that slips the surly bonds of Earth it better have been piloting a Piper Cub or was accidentally shot out of a cannon in a terrible circus mishap, or was the first of a new and terrifying breed of winged ursine.

The Foot Fist Way

The main subject of this post may be a little belated, but i figured better a late post than no post at all.

For those who haven't been aware already, last Sunday June 5th marked the twelfth anniversary of the infamous on-field fight between Chan Ho Park and Tim Belcher where Park unexpectedly attempted to jump kick Belcher in the midsection. Sure it's at best a minor footnote in modern MLB history, and probably even a footnote in modern MLB on-field brawling history (its obscurity was quite apparent when I could only find one mildly racist clip of the fight in a foreign language on some random website); but it will always have a special place in my memories of Chan Ho Park.

The current MLB baseball season is the first since I started following baseball around 1994, coincidentally Park's rookie year, that he isn't in the majors. As the first South Korean player in major league history, for years Chan Ho Park was South Korean baseball and as a fellow Korean and long time fan, I have thoroughly enjoyed rooting for him and watching his funky pioneering seventeen season journey through the big leagues from the good (his successful early years with the Dodgers, 2001 All Star Selection, becoming the winningest Asian pitcher in MLB history) to the bad (his bust Texas Ranger years, giving up 2 grand slams to Fernando Tatis in the same inning, seeing him in that Phillies uniform) and everything in between.

I think the fight falls somewhere in the "in between" category. As supposedly bad-ass as jump kicking someone in a on field fight sounds and the impressive look of the still frames; as the video shows he was sort of sloppy kicking while running away and it really didn't connect too well (it definitely wasn't Liu Kang's bicycle kick). As one would suspect with a fight between two pitchers, the whole affair was brief and mildly lame with Park at best claiming a tie with Belcher. Still, when I first heard about it and saw it, I couldn't deny a slight bit of pride at the whole thing. Sure it reinforced stereotypes about Asians, but I totally dug the fact that it was the lone Korean player that was breaking out the jump kick on Tim Belcher (who looked like a bit like a cracker and allegedly incited Park with racist comments), straight representing on Sports Center.

Tune in next April when the Chan Ho Park nostalgia tour will cover the two year anniversary of his overly frank explanation of his 2010 opening day pitching problems.

Victor's Ultimate Birthday "Meh"-ga Mix '11

I hope everyone out there enjoyed or is still enjoying all the standout tracks of my personal best of birthday mixes compilation from yesterday. For me it was as fun to list as it was to listen. However, it is an undeniable truth that a standout track cannot exist without other lesser tracks for it to stand in front of. While I, for one, will be the first to admit that almost every time I make a mix I can't help but think that it's my most greatest mix yet with every song a home run (now this may be the case, I have only received limited feedback about my mixes over the years), such masterpieces are extremely rare if even existent. So, in the spirit of equal time and comprehensive coverage that have always defined this blog (that and my mild obsession with making 8track mixes right now) I've decided to compile a smaller 10 track supplemental mix comprised of what I consider the 2 weakest tracks off of my 5 birthday mix CDs.

I just want to preface that none of these selected tracks were objectively terrible. I didn't go through any deep critical analysis or anything, just personal first blush impressions; songs I recalled just not having positive reactions to (actually if you want to get all deep about it, maybe the weakest songs should be the enjoyable middle of the curve songs that are neither memorably positive or memorably negative). Also, note that since I was working with a 2 song quota for each mix, even an absolutely flawless mix would have had to give up 2, or if one is viewing it the other way, even the worse mix only had to give up 2 (I'm not going to say whether either was the case). Finally for the mix authors and for folks who may want to make mixes for me in the future, these selections should have no influence on future mixes you make for me. If I singled out a certain artist, or genre, or sound, etc. do not hesitate to put that same artist, genre, sound, etc. on a mix in the future. Mix free and unfettered, I would rather be challenged than pandered to...well maybe a little pandering is nice (however if you're going to put on any song over 6 minutes, you better be confident in it, I do acknowledge a slight bias against them):

Victor's Ultimate Birthday Mega Mix '11

I just want to start off with a grand formal final thank you to everyone who acknowledged my birthday last month from those who actually brought me gifts or hung around with me until the wee hours at the bar to those Facebook friends who I have never met nor talked to but still manage to post a birthday greeting on my wall every year like clockwork and everyone in between (don't think I didn't forget you, automatic emails from internet sites I've registered with). If I had to spend a whole day being reminded of the depressing, immutable truth of my mortality I guess there were worse ways to have spent it.

One of the most notable things about this year's birthday was the unexpected motherlode of birthday mix CDs I received. In my largest haul yet, I got five fully loaded CD-Rs comprising of over 120 songs and individual artists (although there were two Ash songs, the only repeat artist throughout). Fortunately I had just recently started a job that involved about a one hour driving commute (personally, I believe driving on a highway is the single most ideal position for listening to music) round trip so it all oddly serendipitous. So after finally making my way through all the CDs, getting around to uploading them, and giving them a week or two of perspective I decided to make a 20 track compilation mix of my own to share with everyone featuring my top 4 selections from the 5 mixes.

Now these are by no means the most definitive of rankings. All of this is basically based on first impressions and maybe further listens down the line my tastes will change. However until then, just in time for summer, it's Victor's Ultimate Birthday Mega Mix '11 (a note on ordering: I tried to stay true to the original track orderings of the mixes; surprisingly there were only a few overlaps):

Now while you're enjoying the sweet tunes good reader ponder a question that I as a long time mix enthusiast have often pondered while listening to and making mixes: who is the mix reflecting? If you're making a mix for someone is it a reflection of yourself, the mix maker, with your tastes, personality, and preferences being represented in the music and arrangement that the listener is interpreting? Or is the individual receiving the mix finding something out about themselves from listening to a mix made specifically for them? Or is the mix you are making a reflection of what you think the mix listener's reflection of you is? This line of thinking can basically go on forever like one of those infinite recursion effects. I think the answer (as with all such questions with unsatisfying answers) lies somewhere in between. It's one of the enduring charms of the mix, both sides are getting perspectives on each other by uniquely interpreting the same list of songs (at least with a well crafted mix that someone actually put the work into, if you're going to dump 20 random songs together without any context or meaning you might as well be a psychopath mimicking human emotions and empathy).

Picture This!

Just a warning, this may be my most obscure edition of "Picture This!" yet. So, the other night I was hanging out at my friend Matt's house. At one point the topic of discussion turned to vintage shareware games from the 90's and eventually we started looking up videos of them on youtube (well, how did you spend your Tuesday night, big shot?). I found it beyond disturbing that there was space in my brain devoted to remembering and quickly recalling the handful of times I played a profoundly shitty game like "Nitemare 3D" or the hyper esoteric "Heavy Water Jogger" on some cheap 1,001 shareware game CD in 1994 (yet after a week I still cannot retain the name of the guy in the cubicle next to me...priorities I suppose).

While a majority of the games I recalled had more nostalgia value than play value, there were still a few quality games that I remembered based on merit (motherfuckin' "Raptor: Call of the Shadows" represent). One standout game for the period was the vastly underrated 2D platformer "Bio Menace". It was basically a more adult knockoff of the classic "Commander Keen" games, but whole presentation was solid and game play was surprisingly fun if not wholly original.

I also noticed that the protagonist, the derivatively named, Snake Logan (he's the guy on the right if you're not sure) appeared to be the digitized doppelganger of....

The late great WWE wrestling legend, "Ravishing" Rick Rude (of course if it really was based on Rick Rude the programmers wouldn't have denied the ladies the "Sexiest Man Alive" by hiding that bod under a green shirt)

I know, another old school wrestling reference. With the recent passing of the Macho Man, I guess I've just been an old school wrestling sort of mind. Also I wanted to note that while looking for a suitable picture of the Ravishing one, I came across this sweet Rick Rude t-shirt (only 11 more months until my birthday!). Since I was completely surprised last week when somebody actually gave me the custom made Arnold Shirt that I flippantly mentioned as a possible birthday gift (a million thanks again, Desi!), I've come to the conclusion that the internet is a random wish granting machine and that I should be constantly making requests on it.

Feel the Sadness...Oh Yeah!

It's an unyielding, universal truth that many of us often times have great difficulty remembering: there are no guaranteed tomorrows. In our bounded rationality we just assume that at least more new day waits for us all. Every so often though we are given a sobering reminder at just how tenuous and illusory life can be. When I heard the news over the phone from a friend that "Macho Man" Randy Savage had suddenly died in a car accident, I never would have expected that my post about him from Tuesday to be a sad preemptive eulogy for him Friday (and if it turned out that heart attack was due to damage from years of cocaine abuses, it will just get beyond eerie). With this depressing news and the end of the world scheduled for tomorrow, this is all just turning out to be the worst day.

Well, what else can I say about the Macho Man that I haven't already said. He was endlessly entertaining, charismatic, larger than life, an excellent wrestler (something Hogan can never claim), and the true definition of an iconoclast. In short he was an absolute legend that, as it sadly seems to be the case with a disturbing amount of former members of this rough business, left as far too soon. If I actually recognized the WWE Hall of Fame as a legitimate institution I would consider the fact that the Macho Man never lived to see himself be enshrined to be a complete and utter travesty (I mean really, what's Pete Rose and William "Refrigerator" Perry doing in there? You know they just inducted Drew Carey this year? Seriously!). In reality though the Macho Man doesn't need that empty title to prove he was an all time great. Anyone who ever saw his historic match with Ricky Steamboat in Wrestlemania III, or cheered as he carried Miss Elizabeth off on his shoulders after a victory, or was enthralled by one of his out of his mind promos, or lost their shit when he teamed up Hulk to form the Mega Powers, or listened to his ringside commentaries with JR, or was even inspired to snap into a Slim Jim from his ads, knew his greatness.

I don't know what everyone else is doing, but tonight I think I'm going to have a myself a few drinks in his honor, maybe get myself a twin pack of Slim Jims and see if the bartender will play anything from "Be A Man".

Now That's What I Call Armageddon! Vol. 1

If you haven't heard already, apparently the world is going to end Saturday. I guess that's kind of a bummer (this is really going to bite into the opening weekend box office numbers for the new "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie). All things considered though, there are some positives to take away from this: I won't have to pay off the rest of my student loans, no more worrying about the world ending on 2012, and "Chuck" will finally be put off the air. Also, I think it's a bit comforting to know that everyone would be going at the same time. For people who fear dying alone, this is really a best case scenario.

Of course there are a few skeptics out there who suspect that there might be a slight chance Mr. Camping's Biblical number crunching may not be adding up to the end of days. It would appear that some of them are even planning end of the world events of their own; although I do think that exploiting the minority view of one small group to mock organized religion as a whole is as obnoxious as those people who go out of their way to celebrate anti-Valentines Day. Either way it looks like there will be some serious partying on both sides of the fence and things are shaping up to be an interesting weekend.

Regardless of where you think you'll end up on Sunday morning, I think we call all agree that this is a good time for a sweet themed mix. Here are my top ten end of the world themed tracks (specifically no R.E.M., too obvious) plus a special bonus track if you make it to the end (assuming 8 tracks didn't screw up my ordering) for your weekend playlist, guaranteed to keep you in rapture:

Feel The Madness...Oh Yeah!

"Macho Man" Randy Savage has got to be the most unique and idiosyncratic character in the history of professional wresting. There's really no one else like him and he defies all attempts at labeling or categorization. In a "sport" where everybody is identified by a preconceived gimmick, one has a difficult time trying to figure out what exactly the Macho Man was all about. He gave insane, borderline incoherent interviews in that distinct, raspy, screaming voice. He was a writhing muscular mass of bizarre ticks and personal mannerisms, all clad in an ever changing, endless wardrobe of hyper-flamboyant ring costumes that were somewhere between a neon cowboy, rejected member of Parliament Funkadelic, and an 80s hair metal front man (then there was his "Macho King" era where he added a crown and scepter). He casually walked the line between despised heel and heroic face, never really settling himself as either. Even his ring music "Pomp and Circumstance" seemed completely incongruous but still felt oddly appropriate.

So if you had to get down to it, what really was the Macho Man? Given all I've seen, I think the Macho Man's gimmick seemed to be just well...being the Macho Man, which encompassed everything above and then some; a singularly wonderful entity that was extremely fun and entertaining to watch in and out of the ring.

However if you don't find that characterization to be all that satisfying, the gimmick of the Macho Man also starts to make a lot more sense under another theory: that his character is someone with an out of control cocaine problem.

Reading the Macho Man as a degenerate coke fiend gives a lot of interesting context to his behavior: the alertness, feelings of well-being and euphoria, boundless energy, exaggerated self confidence, and the enhanced athletic performance. You also have the anxiety, unpredictable behavior, wild mood swings, restlessness, excessive sweating, and tremors. I'm not an addictions counselor but just viewing a small sampling of his many manic interviews and intense promos on youtube (not to mention his Slim Jim commercial canon), I would be more inclined to say that this man at the very least may not be in the right frame of mind. In addition there are also straight up clips of the Macho Man on youtube unambiguously titled "macho man on coke" ("180 DEGREES! THEN ANOTHER 360!") and "macho man randy savage on cocaine" ("CUP OF COFFEE IN THE BIG TIME, YEAH!"). Coincidence?

Now I'm not saying that Randy Savage had a problem with cocaine (although with basically any wrestler coming out of the 80s the odds are high), but that he may have played a character whose implied gimmick may have been a guy who did a lot of coke (which if you think about it would probably make him more representative of the 1980s than even the Million Dollar Man). I personally, am not taking the cynical route, and believe it's just Macho being Macho. However I'm just saying some things make a lot more sense if you see if read between the white lines.

Brand New Brand New Key

The other day I found myself listening to "Brand New Key" by Melanie in the car. While Melanie's quirky, novelty number one hit has managed to endure in the pop consciousness for the four decades since its release, from "Boogie Nights" (oh Heather Graham how you still roller skate around in my dreams) to that recent HP commercial with the baby on the highway, it became quite apparent while listening that the overall roller skate/roller skate key analogy behind the song had become completely outdated. The overall theme of a girl trying to attract the attention of a boy is timeless and the cheeky sexual innuendo of finding a key for her lock, was controversial and subtly progressive then and is just as relevant now, but I figured there had to be a better way to convey that without using roller skates as the example.

Even for a roller skating reference it is woefully ancient. Assuming there are kids out there still riding roller skates (and judging by the diminishing number of skating rinks across the country I assume there aren't too many who still do), they would probably be using roller blades (or maybe those stupid Heelys that were kind of popular a few years ago) over the old quad variety. Even if there are some anachronistic kids out there somewhere with the old quad skates, they would have to be using quad skates that are so outmoded that they still required skate keys. To this day I have never seen such skates and am still not quite sure why roller skates would even require keys when you can just put them on like regular shoes or even ice skates. The entire sum of my knowledge of roller skates with keys consists of, aside from "Brand New Key", an old episode of "Muppet Babies" where Fozzie loses his skate key and the whole gang goes on an adventure to find it.

Given how antiquated the analogy was, I tried to think of a more updated comparison. In being faithful to the original song it had to relate to a seemingly innocent children's toy or activity but could possibly also be construed to be about sex. This actually proved to be far more difficult then I had originally imagined. In fact, I couldn't even think of a single good relevant replacement. I've got a brand new...pack of Silly Bandz? Bakugan figurine? Nintendo 3DS game? Maybe something about getting new smartphones so they can sext each other? There really weren't any better options (although if they did a reboot of the song in the 90's I think it should be about POGs and slammers).

So I guess the lesson here may be not to mess with a classic. Any better suggestions out there?

The Discreet Charm of Jason Bourgeois

Part II of my continuing season long series spotlighting speedy, yet marginal, replacement National League outfielders that I acquired off the waiver wire for my injury consumed, offensively challenged, fantasy baseball team shines the spotlight today on Houston Astros OF Jason Bourgeois.

Since picking him up off the waiver wire last week, Bourgeois has, in his past seven starts, hit a blistering 14 of 27 and stole seven bases. As it stands he is currently hitting .407 and is tied for second in the majors (behind teammate Michael Bourn) in steals with 12 despite his limited appearances. Suffice to say the batting average boost and the infusion of hot, cheap, speed has been most appreciated.

If Bourgeois can maintain a decent fraction of his currently unsustainable hitting and continue to rack up the steals, the lowly Astros will at least have an impressive one-two top of the order with the speedy duo of Bourn and Bourgeois. I also faintly hope that if Bourgeois continues his hot play he will not only help my team but become enough of a fan favorite in Houston that a ramdom motivated Astros fan/foreign film enthusiast will create some variation of a poster referencing Luis Buñuel's 1972 Best Foreign Language Oscar winning film "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie". While there is obviously no connection between the journeyman outfielder and this classic French surrealist film and admittedly the tenses don't even match up; when will one ever have another opportunity like this to make such an esoteric reference in connection with a baseball player? Given the odds, I think you have to strike at the first chance.

A crude artist's rendering

*Update: In news that should be of absolutely no surprise to me I just found out that Bourgeois has been placed on the DL with a strained left oblique and appears likely to be out for the rest of the month. However, I also learned that Roger "The Shark" Bernadina has just recently been brought back up by the Nationals to replace the injured Rick Ankiel, proving the old adage that when God injures a light hitting outfielder he brings up another one.

Power Rankings!: Twilight Zone Episodes Featuring Star Trek Actors

I believe I've made it pretty clear over the years that I am a huge"Twilight Zone" fan. Aside from the writing, acting, filmmaking, etc. one of the great supplemental joys of watching the show is all the interesting guest stars you get to see. Since the show was a strict anthology series with every episode featuring a completely different story and set of characters, the large list of actors who found themselves in the zone range from young future icons (Robert Redford, Carol Burnett, Burt Reynolds), old Hollywood stars (Buster Keaton, Joseph Schildkraut), BURGESS MOTHER FUCKING MEREDITH, and every quality contemporary character actor in-between.

Of the varied group of actors to have appeared on the show I've always found it interesting to see future main cast members of another highly influential 1960's science fiction series, "Star Trek", finding themselves crossing over into the Twilight Zone. While Shatner's two appearances on the show are by far the most well known, future Enterprise crew members Leonard Nimoy, George Takei, and James Doohan have been part of some (mostly) choice episodes. How would I rank all five of these episodes based on my personal opinion as a fan?

Well, I'm glad you asked:

5. "A Quality of Mercy"

I said that not all the Star Trek cast featuring episodes would be home runs and this is one is the unfortunate odd man out. The story takes place during the waining days of World War II in the Pacific where a platoon of war weary American soldiers are laying siege to a cave of starved Japanese soldiers. The hawkish, newly promoted, asshole Lieutenant (played by Dean Stockwell) wants to show no mercy to the enemy and orders a full assault on the cave much to the anger of the platoon. Before the assault is carried out, the Lieutenant suddenly finds himself as a Japanese soldier in 1942 in an exact reverse of the previous situation (OMG!), laying siege to a cave of starving Americans, which gives him a new perspective.

The whole thing comes off about as simplistic and preachy as it sounds. The performances and production are still pretty good (although the "Japanese" makeup job on Stockwell is pretty flimsy) but there are no real surprises here. As for Leonard Nimoy, he's in it for like 30 seconds as one of the American soldiers and has about one line of dialog; also quite weak. Additionally, aside from being an average episode at best, it's also indirectly responsible for the deaths of Vic Morrow and two child actors since they were killed filming a remake of the episode for the ill-fated "Twilight Zone: The Movie" in 1983.

4. "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"

I already gave my two cents on this classic "Twilight Zone" episode in a blog post few years ago.

"What more can I say about this episode that most already don't know. If you somehow have no idea what this episode is about, by all means watch it before someone ruins the entire story for you. A sharp looking William Shatner plays the mentally fragile airplane passenger desperately trying to stop a mysterious monster from downing the plane while struggling to find someone who believes him. This episode might be better known to you many as that Simpson's Treehouse of Horror segment "Terror at 5 1/2 Feet". While it has lost some of its power, the tense, claustrophobic directing of a young Richard Donner and Shatner's going mental performance still make it a keeper."

The Shat may have plenty of criticisms about his idiosyncratic acting style, but he is one of the all time masters of playing crazy.

3. "Valley of the Shadow"

I have also visited the "Valley of the Shadow" in a previous post.

"A young man accidentally stumbles across a town where its inhabitants possess scientific knowledge that is light years headed of our own time. This is one of the few hour long Twilight Zone episodes I like. This is not a real famous episode or anything and the main plot itself is fairly flat, but I just dug the soliloquies the town leaders give about how screwed up modern civilization is. The Twilight Zone was always good at waving its finger at modern times, in an entertaining way."

I didn't bother to mention James Doohan's role in the episode back then because well, I didn't even notice him. He plays some random guy in the town that does some exposition and we never see again. I probably watched this episode three or four times before I even noticed that he was in it. As a fan of mainly the "Star Trek" movies, I've grown up with lovable fat, white haired, mustachioed Scotty as opposed to the younger version.

2. "The Encounter"

The setup of the "The Encounter" involves a bigoted World War II veteran and a young assimilated Japanese-American hired to help him clean his attic finding themselves trapped there by some mysterious force. Forced together in this tense, hot, cramped space surrounded by the veteran's old WWII items (including a samurai sword that he took from a dead solider) the two start to go crazy, not unlike that Simpsons episode where Homer and Mr. Burns got stuck in a mountain cabin, leading to a pretty shocking conclusion.

It would ostensibly appear by the premise that the episode would touch upon similar themes of compassion and empathy as "A Quality of Mercy", but it really gets more interesting and complicated then that. The theme of the episode is really an exploration of guilt and the inability to escape the ghosts of the past, figuratively and (since this is the "Twilight Zone") somewhat literally, with both sides coming off as never completely being good or bad. It's a really well made bottle episode carried by the excellent, increasingly sweaty performances of George Takei and Neville Brand (who was a real life war hero). I can't imagine there were too many opportunities for an Asian actor to have such a featured role on a major prime time program in 1964. In an unfortunately note, it is almost impossible to find this episode rerun on syndication since it has received complaints in the past about the racial epithets and characterizations in the story (sort of like how it's difficult to catch the infamous "Puerto Rican Day" episode of "Seinfeld")

1. "Nick of Time"

"Nick of Time" has slowly grown on my over the years to become one of my all time top 10 episodes. One of the things I like about it, is it's a well known episode but isn't doesn't have quite have the level of fame (and number of parodies) as episodes like "Time Enough At Last" or "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", which kind of makes it feel more "mine" like an great album track from your favorite band. If you don't know, the story is a simple one about a young couple on their honeymoon who stop at a random town dinner while their car is being fixed. The husband eventually discovers that the novelty fortune telling machine at their table can magically answer all their questions (in yes or no, maybe later, 8 ball form). However he becomes obsessed with the machine's ability and finds himself unable to leave the dinner and continue his life without its guidance.

As someone who is always anxious about the future, this show really does hit close to home. It is a timeless, life affirming, message of living for today and not being paralyzed by the future told in the Zone's uniquely dark manner. It also has one of the more surprisingly satisfying and positive (well, sort of positive) endings of the series. As for Shatner, it is similar to his other performance as he is an anxious man that's gradually being driven mad, but this is a more subtle and subdued type of madness for him. I also have to give props to the "mystic seer" machine itself which was a really well designed prop piece and gave off a creeping malevolence that made the story work (and is available as a replica bobblehead on Amazon if anyone is looking for a present for my birthday this weekend).

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.