The Stupidity of Advertisements

On Friday, my AP Lang class had a discussion on advertisements and there either brilliance or stupidity. I find the stupid ones to be the funniest. We discussed the AT&T advertisement with Luke Wilson defending themselves against the recent Verizon advertisements.

The following advertisement was presented by Verizon and was not taken well by the people at AT&T. However, as you will see later, their response is comical.


The above Verizon advertisement presented AT&T's 3G coverage map. And just see for yourself the rebuttal of AT&T.



AT&T uses their coverage map to hide the fact that their 3G service sucks. They lead their audience to believe that that is actually what Verizon was talking about but in fact they completely switched the accusation around.

Another advertisement I consider to be "stupid" would be the Snuggie commercials. Granted, Snuggies ARE amazing, the commercials don't do them justice. As you watch them, you wonder who was stupid enough to come up with the idea of the "one size fits all" thing for the Snuggie. I've been in one, they are actually more of a one size fits one giant kind of thing. No normal sized human being is going to fit into that Snuggie with easy access of the arms.

I may be overreacting. But I just think that the advertisement is extremely corny.

Though some of these advertisements may capture their audiences, when you actually look at them, you understand that the thought process behind them was slim to none. Congratulations all you unintelligent companies out there, you managed to make yourselves look like idiots.

Will you give in to the advertisements?

You Got Me Lookin So Crazy Right Now

Currently, I am listening to Pandora radio while I attempt to blog. Some people have that ability to listen to music as they do their work, but I am finding out I am not one of those people. I tend to get lost in the music and just stop functioning all together. I can no longer come up with interesting ideas. I took me literally ten minutes of listening to music before I discovered that the root of the problem was the music. So I'm thinking, "I'll blog about that!"

Ever since I was a kid, I've been in to music. I don't really care what music it is, just something to listen to. As I stated above though, the more I am listening to it, the less I am able to focus on blogging and more on just listening. Oh man, this is seriously one of the hardest things I've had to do.

"I Gotta Feeling" by The Black-Eyed Peas just came on and I feel like I may need to take a break here pretty quick.

Will you be distracted by the music?

Do you believe in Santa?

There is a huge debate out in the world about how old a kid should be before they know if Santa is real or not. For me, I found out pretty early. I was never flat out TOLD that there wasn't a Santa, though. I just kind of figured out. In my house however, we still have Santa bring presents.

Every Christmas Eve we go to church, and while we're out, Santa comes and lays our presents out on the couch. This has happened for as long as I can remember. My parents always told me, "Santa makes a special trip just for you to deliver your presents early." Well, though I thought "That's so nice of him, to take time out of his busy schedule just for ME."

Once I figured out he wasn't real though, my heart became set on finding out who the Santa at our house is. Every time I would ask my mother who Santa is she would just say that it's Santa, who else would it be. At our house, we believe the idea of Santa Clause is ever present in our lives. We believe that there is that person out there that solely believes in giving without any intention of receiving. His purpose in life is to please others.

I present this to my parents that I understand the idea of Santa but I just really want to know who Santa is in our house. I make sure I am the last out the door when we leave, and the first in the house on the way back, but the presents are always out, so that rules out my parents.

To this day, I still have no clue who our Santa is and though I am extremely curious, I think I might just stop trying to find out. After all, what if when I find out, we stop having Santa because the last remaining child who doesn't know found out? So yep, I'm going to stop. Merry Christmas!

Will Santa be real in your life?

"Oh. My. God. Chandla Bing!"

-Janice

Yep that's right, post number FOUR about Friends. This never really gets old for me because I am truly a Friends addict. What is amazing, is that yet again, I have found another addict just like me. She is a friend of mine's friend from college, from Chicago. She felt pretty awkward in our little group of friends so I decided to talk to her.

Low and behold, she is a Friends addict. Hardcore too, she has all ten seasons and little extra books on each one. We determined that this is over $500 dedicated to Friends. We had a pretty lengthy conversation about who our favorite characters are. We both agreed that Monica is our least favorite.

Our reasoning. Monica is just simply and unlike-able character. It's not that Courteney Cox's acting is bad in any way. Monica is just ANNOYING. Her little things that she does that make her annoying would be her awkward laughing, her obnoxious voice, her obsessive compulsive-ness, her overuse of the phrase "I Know," (to name a few).

It only makes sense that our next least favorite would be Ross, the loving brother of Monica. We couldn't really decide why we didn't like him, it could be just the nature of Ross. Not David Schwimmer (by the way I think it is sad that I am not using any outside sources for the actors OR any of the quotes I use, a tad pathetic, I know).

From then on the list was jumbled, her favorite was Rachel and mine is obviously Phoebe.

We then discussed having an actually Friends marathon over the summer. We would have to devote about a week of time to this because altogether there's about 72 hours of straight footage in all ten seasons. And we have planned that if they make a movie of this show, as seen here, she would drive in from Chicago and we would go to the midnight showing.

I am sooooo happy to have found another person (besides Smooth like Shea Butter) that is completely in love with Friends.

Will you be a Friends addict?

It's Christmas Time

Christmas carols have been playing nonstop for the past month or so. I like Christmas carols, don't get me wrong, but when they star playing before Thanksgiving. I think that's a little much. It always seems that they begin hype of the next holiday before the previous one has even happened. I am just waiting for the Valentine's Day commercials to start up on Christmas Eve.

To go along with the Christmas carols, I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. This year, it looks as if that is going to happen. We recently had a major snow storm and it hasn't really warmed up since. My hopes are that it stays for the next couple of weeks, and hopefully we get more snow to add on to that.

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" has been stuck in my head since we had to sing it for Cocoa and Carols, except in my head it doesnt have the normal version, it has the version where you leave out certain words and replace them with actions or "WOOOO!" You can just imagine what is going on in my head right about this time.

Well folks, it's Christmas time in the city.

Will you be ready for Christmas?

Hate is Not and Iowan Value

At Thespian Festival last year, I auditioned to be in the Iowa All-Chapter show, The Laramie Project. I got cast as 1 of 16 actors and received my script about a month later. We had then had a second audition for parts sometime in December-ish and then found out maybe in February who we were?

Anyway, we spent about a week rehearsing in July and then put on the actual show for Thespian Festival this year in November. At that particular show we were being adjudicated to go to International Thespian Conference. It was quite a sad day when we found out Friday that we were not accepted to go. Kind of a bummer that neither of the shows I was in got accepted (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change and The Laramie Project).

The Laramie Project was quite possibly one of the best shows I have ever been in. I got to work with some of the top actors/actresses in the state and we got to spend a week just purely bonding and building upon our acting skills. Our "summer camp" was spent with 16 hour days running through the script, working with acting coaches scene by scene, doing runthroughs, and eating. You can imagine how tired we were by the end of the week.

This experience let me meet some of the coolest people I have ever met in my life. I am pretty sure the people of the Pleasant Valley region are the most fun people I have ever met in my life. One of them, who I injured many times unintentionally, and I spent just about the entire camp laughing, and this continued to the actual Thespian Festival practices. A person from Des Moines could potentially be the kookiest, goofy kid I have ever met in my life. He spent the summer camp making inappropriate jokes and provided the comic relief for the week.

I just wanna say that I miss everyone greatly and I am bummed that we aren't going on to Internationals. But oh well, I know we will all remain friends even after the fact. This little bump in the road (not being accepted) will not pull us apart.

Will you stay together?

Glee

I am going to break down and state...I LOVE Glee. This past week was the season finale and I must say I am pretty upset that it won't return until the Spring.

This show is supposed to be about show choir, but really, it comes no where close to being show choir/reality. As seen in the final episode, they miraculously learn a new song and throw some old ones together and can dance all the numbers, when they literally learned them a half hour before performing.

I can't put my finger on it, but there is just something I (and everybody else who watches it) like and just cannot get enough of Glee. It isn't necessarily good acting either, but it is just quality entertainment and fun to watch.

Two of my friends and I have "Glee Night" every Wednesday. It is kind of a bummer that I have only been able to attend two of these nights, but it was a fun time because we just got together to watch Glee. During this so-called "Glee Night," we just sit and chat about show choir and it is basically our time to catch up with each other on our lives. Of course, this catching up takes place beforehand or during the commercials because we CANNOT talk during the show. When Springtime rolls around, you can bet that these nights will start up once again.

A particular thing I love about Glee are the harmonies that are brought to each song. They are almost "Barber Shop-y" sounding. They seem to stick to those major triads and create a feel-good tone.

Whether it be the drama, the acting, the music, or the overall feel. You are sure to love Glee.

Will you be entranced by Glee?



Image from http://annehelenpetersen.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/glee/

The Olympic Divers

This weekend we had Cocoa and Carols out our school. Cocoa and Carols is when a bunch of feeder schools come to our school and perform Christmas carols and such, and afterward eat cookies and drink hot cocoa.

After this long day of little kids and singing, we had our show choir Christmas party, where we had a big gift exchange/secret Santa. After the exchange a few people went into a guest bedroom and started up an Olympic Diving game. It was basically like something you would do when you were a little kid (possibly one of the most fun experiences of my entire life).

There were two judges, two audience members, an announcer, and numerous divers (all from different countries). Each round of diving had a different style, and the judges scored on precision and technique (bonus points for focus). I believe that when I left, China was winning? But I'm not sure. We were just having a fun time when suddenly I checked my phone and there were some Tweets (twitter updates) that said some things about us being a cult/clique. Well, we decided if that was what they thought we were, that's what we were going to be.

We got it so that we had a special knock so that we knew you were involved and you could enter. If the knock was incorrect, half of us would hide in the closet while the other half acted as if they were just bored and hanging out. Also, we established a special way to walk around if we were not in the room, and we had practically everyone confused.

You could have called us a cult. But if you look here, that is obviously not what we were. We were just having fun, it made for an extremely enjoyable night. So what if it didn't include everybody, had we been out in the big room, it would have still been clique-y. We just wanted to have fun and apparently that is with diving.

Will you be and Olympic Diver?

It Annoys Me When... (As Inspired by Cheer4Life)

...Weathermen say it's going to snow and it doesn't. Do you ever get the feeling that weathermen are just out to make you unhappy? They say, "Oh, we're going to get a huge ice storm and then the ice will be covered by a light dusting of snow." That is so bologna, countless times have they said that and the next morning I look outside and see the sun shining and maybe, just maybe the grass will be frosted over.

...People say "Don't worry about it!" More often than not, I am already worrying about it. Whatever they said to prompt me to ask the question what? and them respond with that horrible phrase had to have some sort of something to spark my interest. Those of you that know me know I am somewhat of a nosy person. I need to know what is going on at all times, I don't know why, but It's just the way I am. So you can see that that phrase would bug me.

...T.V. Show seasons end with cliffhangers. I know that they ALL do that so you come back for the next season. But it just annoys me, so I added it to this list.

...People don't practice what they preach. I know me even typing that makes me a hypocrite too, because I know that at times I have been a hypocrite, but that doesn't mean I don't get annoyed by it.

...People quote things incorrectly. For example, when people try to tell stories but tell them completely wrong. Or they try to quote a movie and completely butcher it.

...People use the word 'at' incorrectly. I.e. "Where are you at?" You really don't need the 'at.' It never really bugged me until I used it incorrectly in front of my sister and then she hounded on my every time I used it and I just started getting annoyed with it.

...People hint that you are doing something wrong without being upfront about it. For example, in show choir when people say, "Isn't the move like this? Not this?" And you see them staring at you while they do it. They put on the impression that they think they are better than you.

...People call but don't leave messages and just assume you will call them back. Just for that, I tend not to call them back because they didn't tell me if I should or even why they called. It is also just kind of awkward when you have to call them and they ask, "What do you want?" And you reply with, "I don't know, you called me." So people, just leave messages.

...People are afraid to try new food and use the phrase, "I don't like it" when they've never even had it.

In conclusion, these are just some things that annoy me. These are not in any way complaining or being whiny (*cough cough* MOM!). These are just simple things that annoy me. I found a funny website that I think you should look at, you can find it here.

Will you get annoyed?

P.S. I think it is okay to get annoyed now and then, it doesn't make you an angry person, it makes you normal. Not everyone can stay perfectly happy all the time.

"I'm Not Comin Out of My Shell!"

When I was a little kid, it was kind of a bummer because (as far as I can remember) I never got to go see Playtime Poppy. I do remember once, however, being an Oompa-Loompa in Kennedy's Playtime Poppy production when I was in 3rd grade, but other than that I never got to.

This year, we decided to do "A Year With Frog and Toad." I thought it was a great selection for little kids, because I remember reading those books when I was growing up and I'm sure they're still aroung now. I didn't have any high expectations for this show, simply because it is a Playtime Poppy show and they are never that great, but they do entertain the young children. Let's face it, I thought this show was going to be Playtime Poopy, rather than Playtime Poppy. I was proven wrong, though. The singing may have not been superb, and the acting may not have been mind blowing, but it was a lot of fun. I think all the actors will agree that when they stepped on stage they could feel the excitement of the kids and you knew they wanted to watch the show.

One of the coolest feelings in the world is when you are done with the show and signing autographs and talking to the kids. It is the coolest feeling when you ask who their favorite character was and they reply, "YOU!" I found it really funny though when they switched characters everytime they got asked. I took that to mean they liked them all!

Overall, the Playtime Poppy experience was fun and turned out to be well worth the time. The little kids were funny and though the costumes were less that appealing to me, it was still fun.

Will you have a Gaytime with Playtime Poppy?

"I think I can safely say that we all have family issues, work stuff, and/or are sick." -Chandler

If you didn't notice, Black Friday has a ton of sales. Well DUH!! It's Black Friday. However, the best sale I took notice to was that Friends seasons were less than $10 as opposed to their usual $40. I was in South Dakota at the time so I thought, what a more perfect way to spend my trip home than watch a new Friends season? I begged my parents to stop at Best Buy before we left Rapid City so I could buy a new season. I decided to purchase Season 9, which leaves me with only Seasons 5 and 10 to obtain.

We got in our mini van and went on our way. My mom put disc 1 in, hit play, and I was ready to go. The season starts of with "The One Where No One Proposes" and concludes with "The One in Barbados". I can safely say that "The One in Barbados" could be on my Top 5 list of favorite episodes. This episode begins with Charlie and Joey in a relationship and Phoebe and David together, with David's intentions to propose in Barbados, and Ross and Rachel are single. This episode ends with Mike surprising Phoebe in Barbados just as David is about to propose, Charlie ends up with Ross, and Joey ends up with Rachel (David is left alone and leaves).

I think the reason I like this episode so much is because it just takes so many turns and you never truly expect any of it to happen. Joey and Rachel?? Really?? There is kind of a build up in the previous episodes that foreshadows they may get together, but you never would predict it. In "The One with Rachel's Dream", Rachel has a dream where she is attracted to Joey, but then believes she is really just attracted to his Days of Our Lives character Dr. Drake Ramoray.

Barbados really mixed things up in Friends and, although I have seen the following episodes, I hope to get Season 10 soon so I can find out what happens next.

Will you get mixed up in Friends?