Wake Up On The Wrong Side Of The Earth?

Sometimes blogs write themselves. I was sitting around this morning trying to figure out what to write about today. I've been sick nearly all week with a nasty, nasty cold, so my ambition to write has been sorely lacking, to say the least and my idea generation suffers.

But then I saw this video on YouTube!



Whooo-weeeeee! Not only does it get me an easy blog post, it also goes to show you how childish and immature most people in show business can be. It also means that "I Heart Huckabees" wasn't only a bad film, it was also a bad environment to make a movie in. I love how Jason Schwartzman is just sitting at the desk with his feet up the whole time while the director goes insane on Lily Tomlin. I love how the director comes back in through the door and throws another fit. I love all of this!

Ambigore

I was so happy to open the Boston Globe this morning that find that the music staff is catching on to The Whigs. The writers saw them down in Austin, TX last week during South By Southwest, the industry's annual get together which has always been about food and beer and not discussion panels. To celebrate, I'll post another song from their superb debut album: Can't Hear You Coming. Hopefully the Whigs train is just getting rolling.

Steph and I finally watched An Inconvenient Truth last night, after the Netflix envelope sat for a couple of months. There's definitely some captivating information in this film, but goodness, Al Gore's voice should bottled up and sold over-the-counter as a sleep aid, because I drifted off a few times, something that normally does not happen to me on the couch.

Think I'll Buy Me A Football Team

Because I love the internet and new technologies and because I work for an internet company, I spend a lot of time looking at new and emerging businesses. Lots of them are copycats of other recently launched websites, so I'll fool around on those sites for 15 minutes and never go back again. Some of them are good enough ideas but I know I won't have the time to ever make it a habit. Some of them are just home runs - Flickr (member since 2004), LinkedIn (member since 2004), Netflix (member since 2000), Bloglines (2004) and Twitter (2006) are sites I use pretty much every day, to name a few.

Recently I discovered Wesabe.com, a site which helps you to track finances and gives recommendations & tips on how you're spending your money. It sounds like any other boring financial advice website until you find out that the tips and recommendations are given by the site's users and not some dude on staff at the company. I signed up and found out right away how helpful it was. Each of your financial transactions comes with several tips based on the category - in other words, if you recently bought some furniture from Pottery Barn, there are recommendations for furniture of equal quality for cheaper somewhere else. If you grocery shop (don't we all?) there are tips for shopping more smartly. If you buy music from ITunes, there are tips about how you have more freedom with your music if you buy elsewhere. It's extremely valuable.

For example, our taxes this year were more complicated then usual, so I just dumped them off at H&R Block. Via Wesabe, I was able to find a tip that most banks offer a money market account where the interest you make is exempt to federal taxes. That would be a huge help for me as I've been maxing out my 401K the last two years and need to find somewhere to put money tax free after I've maxed out the retirement amount. It's only a couple of months where that's the case, but every little bit helps. Wesabe is really a terrific tool! Try it out.

And if the people at Quicken don't acquire them, then their heads are not in the game!

How I Love You, AFLAC Duck

A few nights ago, I either heard on television or read somewhere that AFLAC was retiring their mascot duck from their now well-known television commercials. Upon hearing this, I nearly cried, because for some strange reason, I laugh my ass off when those commercials come on. I can't explain it, but I LOVE the AFLAC duck. The funniest thing about it is seeing Steph's reaction when I'm sitting there laughing at the duck and rewinding the DVR so I can watch the commercial again. She can't really figure out why I seem to get such a kick out of it, but I just think it's a genius line of TV commercials.

My favorite one might be the Yogi Berra one, but I think what got me hooked was a single moment in the very first AFLAC duck ad - and I challenge you to watch this and then tell me which moment about this particular ad that I find so ridiculously funny. There are plenty of others, too. This one has a couple of classic moments - particularly the duck walking down the street singing to itself and then flying through a wall. I'm telling you, each one of these ads has a moment of genius in it, if you really stop and pay attention. For example, go back to that Yogi Berra one and check out the duck standing in front of the hairstyle poster. Classic.

So I did some digging this morning and much to my delight found that AFLAC is not abandoning the duck, which is music to my ears!

Of course, with any popular mascot, inevitably there's bound to be folks out there who try to latch onto the trend - name that annoying Geico lizard or whatever it is. And then there's this, which explores the seedy undercurrent of animal mascots and their, uh, personal lives. Hearing the duck swear after sex is, admittedly, funny.