The rants, ravings, opinions, beliefs, and general day to day events of a typical (and yet, not so typical) young American living in (but not limited to) the Central Coast of California.
Mahopin Eesti Kiilt (not the proper spelling). Translation: I am learning Estonian.
This day in history in 1918, the good and oppressed people of Estonia took up arms in a brave battle against the Russian overlords of their land, and reached out in an attempt to obtain freedom from subjugation under the tyrannical rule of czars and Bolsheviks. An attempt, which was successful.
Well… for about twenty years before being invaded by Nazis, then being “liberated” only to re-gobbled up by Russians.
Now, if I was in Australia for 4th of July, I know I would have a longing for home, and want to do something American to celebrate my own homeland’s struggle for Independence.
So, I went out to the bottle shop, got some vodka, printed out some pictures, got a toy gun, got some Styrofoam, and set up a bit of a game for my new friends. We went to the store, bought the ingredients for pizza (not because it’s such an Estonian thing, but because that’s what we happened to be in the mood for) went back to the apartment to make our pizzas and while they were in the oven we started up a game of shoot the Russian!
For the history impaired…
From left to right: Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev, Yeltsin, and (most recently) Putin.
When I announced that the winner gets a bottle of vodka, the competition intensified to take out the most Russians. The rules where simple. Best of three rounds cumulative points, five shots each per round, and don’t pass a certain line when you fire.
Marty led off.
Followed by Markus.
And then Richard.
Why the huge celebration on Richard’s part?
He was the first one to take out Putin:
An even greater accomplishment than Richard being the first to take out Putin, was Marty in the 3rd round taking out an impressive 4 out of 5 Russians (leaving on Brezhnev standing after a misfire).
This of course led to the final score:
Marty the winner of the vodka, and Markus & Richard left to take out the disappointment of their loss on the Russians.
And so, a good night was had by all!
Then of course there was even a 92nd birthday cake for Estonia.
I wrote using the very little bit of Eesti (Estonian) that I know:
“Kai Victu Venemaa”
That is to say, “F^<% you Russia”.
And then there was more laughter at the expense of communism:
Now anyone should be able to post a comment whether they have gmail or not, but, it will come up as "Anonymous" so, might want to mention your name if you want me to know it was from you
…and I neither had myself a gun, nor did I feel like P. Diddy (those of you who listen to a wide variety of music, help out those who don’t).
So, if we thought we failed at orange picking last week… we REALLY failed today. So embarrassing…
I wake up, and I actually get to the Estonian’s place perfectly at 0600, the problem… the lights were off. Oh no! So, I park, I walk up to their apartment, let myself in with my key, and Markus instantly is up and is yelling something in Estonian which I gathered to mean something along the lines of “shit shit guys… we slept to long! Battle Stations! Battle Stations!”
They have their breakfast, and we are ready to go, we get to the field and we were so thankful to see the ground still far too wet for our liking due to the previous night’s rain.
So… we went back to the apartment. We texted our boss on the way back. Once we got there, we all decided, a nap would be a good idea. And so… we napped. Waking up just after noon, only to find a text message that read, “The girls are working today, it’ll dry up”.
FAIL
After that, we watched the United States hockey team beat down the Canuks. Came to the house, “exercised” for awhile and then went to the Pool/Tennis Courts. Goose (Martin) and I went to the pool, while Ice (Markus) and Slider (Richard) went to play tennis. I took 20 seconds off my 450 meter swim and set a time of 11:01 on my 500 yard swim.
In the end… an alright day.
There was however some bad news from home. For those of you whose gift is prayer and/or healing, please keep in mind my friend Ken from my Mother’s Bible study group who had a stroke last night.
Tomorrow, rain or shine, we pick (not really, just shine)!
At long last! I have caught up on the Super Bowl Ads. And, after going over them, there are a few that stood out, either they worked for me, they failed for me, or they left me going… “what?!” And of course, being a Business Major, I LOVE commercials, I LOVE Super Bowl Sunday, oh sure… there’s a big game on, but!!! There are also commercials! (Prof. Bryant, aren’t you proud)
AT LAST
The list of the ones I feel WON!:
SLUG BUG!!!
I love this commercial!
VW has taken a game, that EVERYONE either plays or has played, and instead of denying its existence (though it has no reason to) it has taken ownership of it! It has made it its own!
PLUS!
A blind guy who can see. B-E-A-utiful! Win, full on win!
What better way to display how inefficient the traditional way of doing things is than Clark Griswold. The epic failure of failures. Good to see him on the road after all these years, and I can’t believe his wife hasn’t killed him yet.
My major problem with this ad is the French reference. Besides that, I LOVE how Google flat out says, “We will provide you with anything and everything” After all, according to one of the 12 billion doomsday shows on History Channel, Google can predict the future.
You all know I am a Pepsico person, BUT, I highly respect the Coke Marketing Department (not the Coke Zero Marketing Department, those guys are shmucks). Watch closely!
They take what is going on in current day America. They take two classic icons of America, The Simpsons and Coke. THEN they mix all 3 together! And everyone has a smile by the end of the commercial.
It showed its audience what using it can help them achieve, in this case, turn a scrawny guy who plays like Betty White, into a guy who can perfectly catch a pass. Oh ya, and it was friggin flaggin hilarious!
It played to an audience of men who have probably been saying quotes from “The Hangover” all day. And of course, it’s hilarious! You are left wondering “How the hell did they get an orca in the back of the truck!?!” and so, your mind begins to wonder, and fill in the gap, but then you think, who cares, it’s friggin hilarious. Then you and your buddies get into discussion on tires and are Bridgestone really that good?
I don’t know, I’m not a tire guy, but I do know, I really really liked this commercial.
2010 Super Bowl, these are the winners… the cream of the crop who rose up to the challenge of their rivals. Good commercials… I salute you!
At long last! I have caught up on the Super Bowl Ads. And, after going over them, there are a few that stood out, either they worked for me, they failed for me, or they left me going… “what?!” And of course, being a Business Major, I LOVE commercials, I LOVE Super Bowl Sunday, oh sure… there’s a big game on, but!!! There are also commercials! (Prof. Bryant, aren’t you proud)
Cutting through all the CBS Promos and the movie trailers, when you get to the ones that were really creative, these stood out over a lot of the rest, maybe not for the best reasons, but stood out. These are a list of the ones I feel didn’t quite fail, but where damn near close, but also not close enough to success:
Ahhh didn’t know that your kid’s toys could have their own acid trip adventures did ya! I like the concept that the Kia is like a toy for grownups, and it’s so awesome, even kid toys want to grow up to drive one.
Then of course, you have the beautiful irony of a robot DOING the robot on the dance floor. And, like any party like montage, the gang MUST end up in Vegas which just goes to show you how much fun you and a group of friends can have on an adventure. I’ll admit it, this commercial made that Kia look like a lot of fun, but… it also made the Kia marketing department look like they are on some drug. MAYBE! They took my advice I gave to the Bud Light astronomers and they tried some of the Green Fairy, unfortunately, it made them hallucinate. I don’t know… this is very very close to a successful add for me, but just something in me can’t quite fully admit to it, not sure why, but I do enjoy watching it. Props Kia… props.
Really? People would jump through hoops for your product?
Well, I’m sure every brand name would sure like to think so. I like the creativity, and the optimism of the product to have the balls to say that people are so addicted to their product, and is so good, that they would leap out of the air and summersault their way through a ring of fire… but… at the same time, you can look at it that the product compares its customers to trick animals whose purpose is to consume for the shear amusement of the company. Now, in a lot of ways that’s true of many companies, but I don’t know if you necessarily have to be so honest about it.
To quote Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of Capt. J. Hook:
“Bad form Jack… bad form”
This from a marketing department that I look up to and have a lot of respect for. Jack, last superbowl I (nearly… not really) wept for you when you where hit by that bus! You should be much more careful with yourself, you might really get hurt one of these days… YOU HAVE A FAMILY and funny commercials to make. This year… just didn’t quite cut it for me Jack, sorry. But, I still like you, I might not be able to eat your food after all this weight loss when I go home, but I still like ya.
I did like the concept that, he makes this announcement of new things, and then takes a leap into the un-known, the leap might have failed, but it did tie in well with his speech, so, points for that.
Huh… I kinda want to say I like it… but WHY? It doesn’t fully make sense why chickens are playing pool. More importantly… WHY is this guy ruining it for humans everywhere?! He should be tared and feathered for giving secrets to the enemy.
I liked the creativity of the story line, it was cute in parts and funny in others… but you’re telling me a guy like that is going to have that much trouble with cars, even though he probably put together a working model of the combustion engine in like the 3rd grade…
I don’t think so… not happening for me.
2010 Super Bowl, this is the middle of the road… the ones that almost but didn’t quite work, or just left me thinking. Next we’ll take a look at what I thought was the cream of the crop who rose up to the challenge of their rivals.
At long last! I have caught up on the Super Bowl Ads. And, after going over them, there are a few that stood out, either they worked for me, they failed for me, or they left me going… “what?!” And of course, being a Business Major, I LOVE commercials, I LOVE Super Bowl Sunday, oh sure… there’s a big game on, but!!! There are also commercials! (Prof. Bryant, aren’t you proud)
These are a list of the ones I feel failed, in some cases, failed epically:
In some ways it pains me to say this but… United States, you get the first fail on the list. Not the entire US, only the Department of Commerce – Census Bureau.
Really? Seriously? That’s the best you guys could come up with? This completely did not scream, “BE COUNTED! IT’S IMPORTANT!”
To me it said more like, “what? Wtf is a census? OH! That’s this year… huh… ya know… I think I might have maybe gotten something in the mail about that, but it wasn’t my tax return so I threw it out”
Oh accents hahaha. What fun to make fun of not being able to understand people. You know what, if I was that woman, I’d be happy to no longer be with an asshole who cares more about his tires then the woman he promised to have and to hold till death do them part. Besides being a stupid commercial, it also shows how little we care about marriage these days.
Please God! Don’t let him ever try sing/rap/rhyming again. Horrible, just… just horrible. I mean, come on Taco Bell… are you really the same geniuses who where behind the Chihuahua?! You can’t be, you just can’t be, because, they where creative and knew how to exploit a sterotype! This, this is just sad and makes me not want to watch basketball for awhile. Maybe in the rest of the time I have in Australia, I might re-gain my hunger for a double decker or a Mexican pizza, but this certainly put a damper on it.
And so you reach for… Bud LIGHT? Come on people, number 1, you all fail epically as astronomers, I mean, I may suck at math, but I at least know that you can TRY to do some calculations. Number 2, if your that sure the world will end, why are you going out with Bud LIGHT, you are going to die… now is the time for Tequila, Rum, OR Absinth!
Have fun explaining that and cleaning up the dome the next day with that… oh wait… no, you won’t even have a hangover, so nevermind, no pity.
If this had a point, I would put it in the “What?” category. Unfortunatly, I don’t really think it did… and so… I must say, fail. If I can at least identify one the goal in mind was… maybe… but I couldn’t… and I tried. Oh well…
OH, so that’s all I need, just some Sketchers, ok, but when I walk into the Navy Recruiters office and he tells me, “Nice try fat ass” I’m SOOOO suing you for false advertising! Can we… oh I don’t know, maybe see some medical proof to back this ricockulous statement? Naw… of course not, that would take away the magic.
Ok, I am marking this as a fail, but not because of a lack of creativity, story line, or plot. I am counting this as a loser because of the poor product placement. You see, while all other Beavers are doing their Beaver thing… ONE chooses to stand out and be different, one chooses to make something unique about himself. Then it cuts to a shot of him on Monster.com, and then, the very next scene, he is out in the streets, then he catches a lucky break, and makes it big, and life is amazingly great for the lil guy. But… Where did Monster.com come into play in all of this? To me, it seems like it failed the poor Beaver, cause, he logged on, and searched, and next thing you know, he was homeless and on the streets. If Monster had tied in the fact that all that success was a result of him going to their website, well, by golly, then that would be a success, but it didn’t.
What this commercial told me was, “Come to Monster.com, fail miserably, become homeless, get a lucky break, make it big, and we didn’t have anything to do with it, because it was all just your own skill and luck that got you to where you are, we only got you out on your ass in the street”
And so, as touching a tale as this might be… it must be placed onto my fail list for not making a connection between attaining success, and going to Monster.com. I might be bias though, because if I had just used Montster.com, I might end up homeless. (Sorry Prof. Bryant, not the resume, it’s the website’s case I’m on, love the resume)
I think I want to throw up. The SOBE lizard thing was weird enough last year, and at least that somewhat resembled cool because it was 3-d, and involved dancing lizards. This?!?!?!
MIKE! What are you doing?! You can’t really be hurting for money can you? Oh… sad day… sad day… I don’t even remember the product, I just remember running away screaming “HEAR NO EVIL SEE NO EVIL”
2010 Super Bowl, this is the down side of things… but, next we’ll take a look at what would normally have just been the middle of the pack had it not intrigued me so much.
Another Mass en Italiano. I should have gone picking oranges, but, when I went to pick up the Estonians, my tummy made it known to me that it was not going to be my friend this morning. I asked what they thought about me not working and they said they would be alright without me. All though my body was happy with their opinion, I was actually not happy with myself for accepting the opportunity to rest. I really really don’t want whatever illness is running through the rest of the family, but as I type this, I feel the beginning of a headache as well some bad thing going on in my throat.
So, I went to Mass. The priest’s Italian was about as good as mine (if that). I think it helped me to understand what he was saying being that he had to take his time as he read the words. I really liked his lesson though. He talked about how the temptations of Christ in the wilderness follow the pattern of the temptations in different stages of our life. I talked to him afterwards, and might finally have my first communion (I know, I shouldn’t rush into it, after all, I’m only 24).
This year for Lent, I am giving up any type of candy, and any soda other then Pepsi, which, being that I’m also detoxing from Pepsi, might mean that I end up completely soda free by the end. I’m also going to try to go to Mass every Sunday (at least the ones that I’m not working) and Yom Kippur style fasting on Sunday’s (go until sundown). Then there is the Rosary, but I don’t like doing the Hail Mary, so, I fill in those with a personal new and original prayer. I know what my prayer is right now…
I really hope I’m not going to get sick also, cause that will suck highly. I can’t afford to get sick… UNLESS! I get so sick that I drop like another 15 pounds… in which case… bring it on!
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