My name is Josh, and this is my corner of the internet.
Got anyone you hate with a birthday coming up? Maybe they’d like a steaming pile of hate and misery.
Who’s greenlighting and funding this garbage? Stop it! You’re bastardizing my childhood, and it hurts.
Can’t wait until I’m independently wealthy and funding/directing my own blockbuster movies. Wait’ll you see what I’ve got in mind.
Lots of things have happened since I last spoke to you, blog. Wars have raged. I’ve thrice changed time zones. Christmas merried and Hanukkah happied. So, it’s time for some gift giving: a month of my life, jam-packed into one overwhelming post. You don’t have anything better to do in the last few days before classes start, anyway.
Here’s to a happy new year full of adventure, misfortune, action, romance, suspense, and a barrel-o-monkeys full of humor. Let’s get started.
/// (Winter Break Recap) ///
I spent the last 10 days in Israel on Birthright. It wasn’t the trip of my lifetime (that prestigious honor will probably go to my , 23-day tour-de-Europe last June), but I could understand why some of my fellow right-ers might be inclined to think it was.
You certainly get your money’s worth, though. You’re absolutely idiotic not to take birthright up on the bargain if you’ve got any remote kind of an inkling of Judaism in your blood. I practice my religion by visiting synagogue twice a year on the high holidays, buys some gifts during December break, and observes Passover by skipping the hamburger line at the food court, and I’d put myself in the 25th-percentile most-Jewish person there. There were a number of participants who haven’t been Bar Mitzvah’d, a couple who can’t read Hebrew, and possibly even a majority whose parents weren’t both Jewish. And if you really can’t handle spending an hour or so a day playing ice-breakers and discussing your opinion on given topics in exchange for 10 days in a foreign country, your level of sanity is beyond my control. If you’re worried about your own safety, then I don’t know who let you out of your germ-free plastic bubble long enough to use a computer. Really – figure out what the deal is with your Hillel on campus and go on this trip. No arguments.
/// (Israeli Lightning Round) ///
/// (Hodge-Podge) ///
///(New Years Resolutions)///
In the past three years, the most frustrating part of New Years to me has been the fact that the gym gets obnoxiously crowded for the first few weeks of school in January, no thanks to all of the “I’m going to get fit and cute this year!” pudgy college students. I’ve found that the biggest problem with setting a New Year’s resolution is that trying to do something for an entire year is far too long a commitment for any normal human being. I mean, if people can only commit to marriage at around a 50% success rate, how could you expect anyone to stick to a New Year’s Resolution for longer than a month. Fortunately for me, this means that come February I won’t have to wait in lines to use the bench press anymore.
Instead of setting resolutions for the whole year, for the past few years I’ve set out to accomplish goals for only a month at a time. It’s definitely easier to internally argue “dude, just stick this out for 7 more days” than “dude, just stick this out for 11 more months.” And I’ve found that I’ve been able to succeed in my self-improvement a number of times. In the past, for example, I’ve picked up among other things:
Unsurprisingly (though ironically), I’ve never been able to make it past more than April or May with monthly improvements, though I credit this more to lack of ideas than to lack of motive. I’d still definitely argue that I’ve accomplished more than those bastards in the weight room. Here’s what’s on the chopping block this year:
We’ll see what happens.
///(Conclusion)///
It’s been a great break. I don’t think I’ll have anything else to comment on until school starts. Enjoy whatever you’ve got left, and see you soon!
…Man, that was an uninspiring conclusion. Whatever.
The last two lines of an email I just received from my RCD:
PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS SYSTEM NOTIFICATION VIA E-MAIL.
You may contact me directly at the email address or phone number listed above.
Oh, bureacracy.
I burned some study time productively the other day and flipped through some recent articles posted on BrandWeek. I came across this one in particular, and felt that I had something constructive to say about it.
The article itself is fairly boring; I wouldn’t bother reading it if I were you. Basically the idea in the article is that P&G is struggling to sell its shampoo line, Pantene. They’re throwing some hundred million dollars into a new ad campaign that will tout better quality, stronger hair, or something, and will feature some pretty girl with glossy hair in the commercials. Pricing and positioning stays the same, though. According to the article, Pantene’s position is “a value buy that’s just as good as salon brands, but less expensive.”
I guess they think that will work. I don’t see the logic or the niche behind a “value” brand that’s the most expensive of all the value products. But I suppose I’m maybe not the target market here.
Why am I writing about a women’s shampoo product, then?
I actually never suspected that Pantene was in trouble as a brand. Truth is, I’m a longtime Pantene user – not that I’ve ever bought the stuff myself. All through growing up, I left the shampoo decision making to my mom and sister. So there’d always be a bottle of Pantene in the shower, next to some old bottle of slum-poo. Figuring my sister had better knowledge on the benefits of hair care products than I, I’d always use her shampoo instead of my own. (I wonder if my mom ever picked up on the fact that my sister was eating through her shampoo about 100 times faster than I was.)
Do any of you guys do this?
Anyway, here’s the point: Pantene (or some shampoo company) should do something unique and remarkable, and drop a new advertising campaign as “The shampoo product your hip sister uses.” Here’s what follows:
Granted, there are a lot of other things to consider. I’m not terribly positive that Pantene’s current target demographic would adhere well to the new campaign. It’s a big risk to take. But then again, maybe it’s time for them to jump ship anyway.
We went to see the Islanders play the Penguins over Thanksgiving break. Hockey is a big deal for me; it used to be bigger back when the NHL actually meant something, but I still enjoy making the pilgrimage out to Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum every Thanksgiving and Winter break.
It’s no secret that the NHL is a shell of its former self today. You could say that the NHL is the Detroit Lions of professional sports leagues – formerly rich with history and cherished by loyal fans, currently horribly mismanaging its players and coming up with one hair-brained quick fix solution after another (the latest being Daunte Culpepper for the Lions, and I guess the new-and-improved jerseys system in the NHL), and stuck with a guy in charge who easily should have been fired half a decade ago.
The Islanders have a quagmire of problems themselves. Games never sell out (yeah, even when it’s Thanksgiving break and the kids are home, and a ton of people are off from work the next day, and the most exciting club in the league is coming to play that night). It’s next-to-impossible to get excited about the team because we’re never really that good, and we’re also never really bad enough to land a string of super picks to propel us back to the top. The Penguins were miserable for two years, and now they’ve ended up with two of the best three players in the NHL. Granted, a Sidney Crosby won’t fall into your lap just any given off-season.
Well, there’s no changing the past. What excited me most about the Isles epic 5-3 loss/collapse to the Penguins was all of the changes I got to look at around the stadium. At least the Islanders have realized that business as usual won’t work anymore. Here are some of the things that have changed recently, and my thoughts on them (you’re here to read my thoughts on things, aren’t you?):
Girls: The Islanders now have Ice Girls – a team of buxom, scantily-clad vixens who come on the ice during TV timeouts to scoop up the ice flakes kicked up from the players’ skates. This wasn’t a bad idea. NFL and NBA teams have cheerleaders; a little sex couldn’t hurt fans’ general enjoyment of games. To a point. Plus, they’re keeping the ice cleaner, which makes for faster skating and a better game.
New this season, the Isles have also added the Ice Breakers – a team of buxom, scantily-clad vixens who walk around and dance and stuff. I don’t really remember what their excuse was for being there (maybe I was just distracted?). It seemed excessive, and seemed like they watered down a good thing.
In fact, I’d say it seemed like something the XFL might do. 99 times out of 100, that’s not a good thing – the one exception being the XFL allowing players to put whatever name they wanted on their jerseys. I’m still upset that Chad Ocho Cinco never saw the light of day, even after he legally had his name changed.
T-Shirts: Like any other sporting event you’ve been to in the past 10 years, the Isles launched t-shirts into the crowds during breaks. But now, they occasionally do it via a rapid-fire Tommy Gun. The gun was awesome. The shirts, in sum total, excessive.
By the end of the game, the fans sitting in just our seating section must have gone home with 5-7 tee’s. One nearly fell into my dad’s lap. My brother caught one while standing up to go to the concession stand – it nearly hit him on the side of the head.
This might not be a decision the Isles are making directly – I imagine some sponsors are paying them handsomely for the right to launch the shirts – but how excited could you get when the the staff rolls out the t-shirt launchers for the fifth time in one game? I could explain how diminishing marginal returns works, but for simplicity’s sake: the launchers are boring me.
Polite Ushers: As per usual operating procedure, the three of us ended up sitting in entirely the wrong section, because we always end up with two sets of two tickets in different areas and want to sit together. We ended up getting caught by an usher who was taking some other fans to their seats. Now, at a normal sports venue, the usher might amicably suggest “GET THE !@#* OUT OF MY SECTION AND GO BACK TO YOUR SEATS.” Instead, he just politely said “you guys can go where you like, I just need these two seats.” This was revolutionary – the guy knows that we can sit pretty much anywhere we damn well please, so instead of being obnoxious about it, he smiled and let us go for it. It wouldn’t work in any other context where fans might actually pay to fill a stadium.
On the one hand, I was personally pleasantly surprised. But on the other, this is a definite white flag – the Isles don’t fill the stadium anyway, and everyone from the guys in the office to the ushers knows it. So they’re not even fighting it anymore. Of course, this is only going to make matters worse for them in the long run – why should I pay for $120 seats on top of the ice when I can just grab a $20 nosebleeder and sit wherever I find a space?
New “Goal!” Cheer: For years, when the Isles would score a goal (rare), they’d blast Rock and Roll, pt. 2 over the loudspeaker, and everyone would get up, cheer, and “Hey!” along with the song. They changed it this year, to some song I don’t know the name to, the lyrics to, or the chorus to. All I know is that every now and again, you’re supposed to cheer “Hey! You suck!” Seriously. Not “go our team!”, not “hooray we’re the best!,” but “you suck!” This is easily the most Long Island cheer I could imagine. And it’s precisely the reason why I went to a university in St. Louis.
Furthermore, how exactly does “you suck!” fit under the NHL’s goals of becoming more family-friendly? I think the NHL sucks.
///
The Islanders don’t need to continually distract me from the game by throwing breasts and t-shirts at my face. The game itself should be enough. Hockey is an incredibly fast game, with constant action and lots of physical play, and if you’re quick enough, you can even follow strategy and watch different plays develop – try observing any of that at a baseball game. What the Islanders need to do is revitalize the event, make it more engaging, and make it something I’m more emotionally connected to.
Fortunately for the integrity of the team’s marketing staff, the Isles have already taken a few baby steps in the right direction. They’ve introduced Loudville, one section in the stadium where they’ve wardened off all of the college students under the premise that if you want to sit there, you’ve got to be yelling a LOT. Which is a fantastic idea – college students love yelling at things, and other fans who saw them yelling on the Jumbotron were inclined to get excited, too. It was the only remotely close to capacity section in the Coliseum.
The Islanders can also thank Wendy’s for another great idea. I found out after the Isles went up 3-1 that any time the Islanders score 3 goals in a home game, you can go to any Wendy’s on Long Island, tell the clerk “I want my free chili, Let’s go Islanders!”, and you get a free chili. On the other hand, every time an Islander scores a goal in general, the Jumbotron says that the person sitting in Section X, Seat Y just won an autographed puck. Which excites me more: that some theoretical random set of numbers just won a puck, or that I get to swing through a Wendy’s on the drive home and enjoy a chili? Am I going to stand up and cheer harder for the 1/3000 chance that I win a puck, or the 1/1 chance that I get a delicious chili later? Hell yeah I want my free food. If they Isles do a good job hyping up the promotion, I’m a lot more emotionally invested in the success of the team.
Even better – the Islanders introduced a “Victory Plan,” for select games this year, where if the team wins, you win seats to see another game – no questions, no catch. NOW how hard am I going to cheer when the game is tied late in the 3rd period? (Incidentally, I wrote a longer article this summer about the Victory Plan here, if this is something that really gets you all hot and bothered.)
What it breaks down to is this:
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[The Most Important Section!!] Here are a few other ideas I’ve got to push the emotional investment idea:
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In the end, give us fans a reason to love the game, and we’ll love the game. Keep distracting us and looking for quick-fix solutions, and we’ll be sure to find something that can hold our attention.
Any other ideas you guys want to share?
Today was presentation day. I had to wear a suit.
This prompted absolutely *everyone* I bumped into over the course of the day to rattle off one of the following comments:
“Hey! Why’re you looking so snazzy?”
“Nice threads today!”
“Big presentation / interview today?”
“You look good today!”
“Why are you all dressed up?”
Of course, everyone’s got their own little cutesy way of saying it to make it sound totally original. But it’s not. You’re complimenting your buddy on his suit before you even know the words are coming out of your mouth. I know you’ve done this, too. Probably every time you’ve ever seen a colleague in a suit on their way to class. You don’t even think about making the comment, it just happens. Suit day automatically changes commentary from “what’s up?” to “looking good!”
What’s curious to me is how blatantly apparent it is every single person I talk to is making judgments and assumptions based on my clothing. Moreover, you don’t suddenly notice your buddy is wearing a suit when you started talking to him; you’ve got that figured out as soon as you made eye contact with him all the way down the hall. You could even further conjecture from here that even the people I don’t talk to are judging me based on my clothing. If you’ve read anything by Malcolm Gladwell or have ever taken a Psychology class, this isn’t really anything groundbreaking. It’s just interesting to see such a blatant real life example. Makes me wonder how many people make judgments about me based on whether or not I gel my hair in the morning, or shave the night before.
So here’s experiment #1: How many days in a row would I have to wear my suit before people stop complimenting me on my apparel? How many days until the day I switch back and people start asking “ew, what happened today?”
Even better was when I bumped into a friend on my way to Physics class. It was outdoors, and my winter coat was zipped up to the brim. So she asked “why are you wearing a suit today?” based solely on my pants.
Experiment #2: I’m going to go out one day with just the suit pants on. Under my winter coat, I’ll wear a dirty t-shirt with a giant penis or something drawn on the front in sharpie marker. Someone will comment “Looking good today!”, and I’ll unzip my coat and say “actually, I’m wearing a dirty t-shirt with a penis on the front!” I wonder how people would react to that.
Experiment #3: Why should I have to wait for presentation / interview day for people to give compliments on how I look? Try this one: Tomorrow, compliment any one person on how they look (especially if it’s me!). No reason, other than that they happen to look particularly good today. Let’s start sharing the love.
Why are people wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving via text message? Is this the new thing? Is this going to happen again come Christmas? Should I be flattered? Do I need to send a response? So many unanswered questions!
Action Steve points out that the overwhelming majority of the text-givers are iPhone users. I wonder if Apple is prompting people to start text spamming their buddies. Those egomaniacal pricks.
In any case, I’m glad so many people thought of checking my name off as they went down their cell phone contact lists. Sad though, that despite their best efforts, it’s been kind of a downer of a holiday. That’s not what you’re here to read about though, this a happy blog. Go watch…I don’t know, House? ER? Curb your Enthusiasm? Whatever show it is that’s all about sad people being miserable. Watch that if that’s the kind of crap that gets you off. Though I guess you really shouldn’t have needed me to tell you that, which would render the last four sentences or so moot.
On the plus side of things, I ate a whole freaking lot. As any of you who know me even remotely, this is not a normal occurrence, even for Thanksgiving where binge eating is cool like listening to indie radio. Three heaping plates of food, followed by a half tub of Ben & Jerry’s. And I’m still hungry – I’m currently eying a stray can of Chunky New England Clam Chowder in the pantry. Mommy is frightened that I am going to go back to school all pudgy-like. I’m thinking it’s just making up for all the beer calories I haven’t been consuming this week. Hope everyone else’s parents cook like mommy does =)
What am I thankful for this year? I’m thankful that there are still five very healthy, mostly happy though largely bat crazy members of my family. And I’m thankful that you people take enough interest in me to keep tabs on my thoughts instead of looking up the latest Lolcat or what have you that’s the new big thing on YouTube.
I hate it when people use Papyrus font because they think it looks artsy.
I don’t consider myself a visual design elitist, by any means. I’ve learned a little about the subtle art through my work with Eleven, particularly during epic layout sessions with Strom. I can pretty effectively tell the difference now between Helvetica font and Arial, though I wouldn’t look down on you for not being able to do so.
But still, Papyrus abuse is egregious. It’s stupid awful, and it shows me that you really just half-assed your brand image. Which, naturally (and for once, not sarcastically), leads me to believe that you’re half-assing and cutting corners everywhere else in your business. I’ve declined to eat at restaurants before because the place used a Papyrus typeface on its banner.
Moral of the story is, if you want to be unique, do it right and be unique. Using a glitzy font that’s available for free in every single package ever of Microsoft Office won’t get you there.
This brings me to two easy points.
1) Here’s a page of awesome fonts that are still free, but will make you look like a bad ass. Not Layout Editor of a magazine bad ass, but ass enough.
2) Someone is apparently even more enfuriated by Papyrus than I am, and made an entire blog devoted to it. As per the title of this post, it’s called Papyrus Patrol. It’s worth a quick sift-through if you’re an aggravated fontophile like me.
Seth Godin wrote a post today that pretty much describes me in full. Read it here.
Well hell, it’s about time somebody did this. From Amazon,
So long, blisterpack.
The blisterpack, ironically, was implemented with the purpose of making packages ridiculously difficult to open. Blame guys like Best Buy, who like to make cutesy little devices that cost over a hundred dollars but you can fit them in your back pocket once they’re out of the pack. I think I still have a small scar on my left hand from when I wanted to use my brand new laptop mouse but the packaging had different feelings.
Good for Amazon for realizing “uh, no, people aren’t stealing our crap this is stupid”, and getting rid of all the packaging garbage. And they’re even cutting costs in doing this. Everybody wins, except maybe the Band-Aid companies.