Okay today I had the biggest presentation of my life (thus far), so pardon the break I have taken for the last few days in the interest of that assignment and subsequently trying to graduate college.

BUT ALAS!

Today's entry is lighthearted and really has nothing to do with advertising other than the fact that it was an article in Ad Age. The topic: LOLcats.

Oh that's right!, the online phenomena which has lovingly filled many a google search for me over the years has made it into advertising trade publications. I opened my Ad Age email to find the following sub-head: Theyz In Ur Ad Budjit, Steelin Ur Dolarz. I then proceeded to laugh for a good 20 minutes, two of my loves, advertising and silly internet humor united as one. Why did Ad Age feel the need to embrace Lolcats? I'm not quite sure, but I'm glad they did. It just goes to show the true impact of the internet and viral content in today's world.


Now for any of you out there in internet land who might be completely lost....
I present to you, useless knowledge you need to know according to Kristin: lolcatz edition.


I was introduced to the world of lolcatz by a dear friend who sent me a picture to brighten my day. This image captured my heart and has remained to this day my favorite lolcat: Invisible bike! I feel that invisible bike captures the heart of lolcats....which is simply: take picture of cat, insert funny line.

However there is more to understanding lolcats than meets the eye.

For instance, many lolcat photos rely on leet-speak. To fully understand the humor of lolcats you need to at least somewhat understand leet.

Leet, or 1337, is a internet slang deriving from the description of hackers as elite, which often used in chat rooms and online gaming. Letters are replaced by numbers and words are abbreviated and commonly mispelled. ie: lol, brb, omg, ftl, ur, w00t, and plenty of other words/expressions found in Lolcats!





Lolcats often feature geek humor such as IT, internet, and video game references




But there's even more...

Many lolcats depend on the formula of "I'm in ur (noun)(verb ending in ing) ur (noun)"
Huh?....Think:"I'm in your base killing your d00ds"

This was the origin of the saying, beginning with an online game like Counterstrike, Red Alert, or Starcraft (the exact origin is debated). Basically while one player was out of their base, another snuck in and attacked, announcing "I'm in your base, killing your d00ds"
Quickly this became the shortened leet of "Im in ur base killin ur d00ds" and then blazed into internet glory with many parodies including, of course, lolcats.

I even have a parody over my fireplace....
A wonderful print done by Married to the Sea reading, "Im in your mountains transporting your passengers"
Still confused? Scroll down for more examples, try visiting icanhasacheezburger, or doing a flickr search.


And so there it is.....Lolcats. Pictures of cats with funny sayings.

Is it advertising? I dont think so.
Is it funny? I definitely find it to be.
Is it a prime example of viral phenomena? Oh yes!
I guess just another one of those things you either get or you don't.





More "in ur" fun:






oh and of course...

no cats, but a brilliant combo of kevin spacey, super-lore, and the caption of "omg spoiler alert"

So it's been about 4 months....


but after seeing this film I really need to write some things down. Smokin' Aces is the most ridiculously absurd movie I think I have ever seen (and this is coming from someone who just watched 'Cat Women of the Moon' last night).

It's as if Joe Carnahan (the writer/director) took every movie, tv show, and album he currently is in love with and either referenced it somehow or made some sort of an homage.

Let's list some thoughts Mr. Carnahan may have had:

Oh man Ben Affleck is ridiculous, I'm going to put him in my movie....and kill him.
Oh and let's set it in Las Vegas...and make it all Ocean's 11-like
but more clever...like Lock,Stock
oh and it will have to involve mobsters...a mob family, like the Godfather,
lets cast Andy Garcia....but we'll give him a weird southern accent.
you know what else is sweet...Goodfellas...oh shit let's cast Ray Liotta
and lets throw in some russians
oh and some angry black thugs
well then there will have to be hookers!
oh shit, and what if there is a hit woman who pretends to be a hooker
but she's really a lesbian!
Let's not forget neo-nazis.....but what if they're really rednecks
and then there can be this spaz kid who's like Napoleon Dynamite....on crack
but we'll dress him up like Ralph Macchio and make him have a boner.
And his grandma can be huge and manly and have a dildo by her bathtub.
Now who else can we cast?
I've been watching a lot of Entourage lately....maybe Jeremey Piven can be in it
Oh and Alicia Keyes and Common have amazing new albums...them too
I loved Ryan Reynolds in Blade Trinity....but lets make him not funny
You know what my favorite shows are though?
Lost and Arrested Development
Oh shit, Matthew Fox can be in my movie...but I can't really think of a role
He'll just be a pointless security guard
and Jason Bateman!
He'll be a sleezy lawyer with low self esteem...and an alcohol problem.
Oh and he'll just sit around and masterbate all day....in women's underwear..
AND have herpes!!!
So what else is cool...
Oh I know torture...like in Saw
and crazy disguises
and 50 caliber machine guns
and old timey FBI footage
and of course hacking people to bits with chainsaws


Yeah that'd be a sweet movie




So maybe that's not what he was thinking....buuuut that's definitely what made it into the film.

Sadly enough though....I kinda wanna see it again.

Marvel Universe, an obvious reason to blog


Sooo I was sitting down to do my account management homework and be a diligent student when I got distracted by a link to an article about the Iron Man movie which is pre-production right now. So far I'm pretty stoked about what I've heard as far as who's doing what.

Jon Favreau as director. Money baby, money! I think Favreau could really take Tony Stark to a new level. Favreau sticks to his stories and to his gut, I don't think he'd allow the movie to become to hollywooded-out which seems to be a favored trend in comic movies today.

Gough and Millar for screenplay. I hope that this is the case, Ive also read that it's been rewritten since they had a stab at it. I think they did an awesome job with Smallville and could do well with Iron Man, with 2 important caveates. One being that they can escape the writing constraints of television, making a WB show that can stretch on the lore is a little different that going with a full blown film about a mature character. Also they need to die down with the cheeky dialogue. I mean sometimes Smallville gets a little hard to swallow....but they've been doing better in later seasons. Plus wasn't it rumoured that they were working on a possible Aquaman adapt?

Now just who can play our beloved millionaire turned armored superhero?? Some friends and I were having this discussion a few weeks ago and I really was stumped! They mentioned Wentworth Miller, of Prison Break fame, and I think that could work but I'm not completely sold. I guess I'd have to see him bulk up a bit. However his counterpart in the show, Dominic Purcell could also be a viable option now that I think about it. I've heard people suggest Clive Owen, who I definitely think it smart bad ass that could pull off the driven troubled millionaire part well, but I just don't think Owen is the superhero role type of guy. I mean he went into the comic-esque realm with Sin City, but that was a whole other ballgame (but damn if he didn't rock Dwight on that one....wish they had decided to include more of him from the other books not used for the s.play). Some have suggested Jim Caviesel but I just can't get myself behind him...and not just because he was Jesus either. He just doesn't seem to have much presence on screen (I mean it's hard not to when you're playing Jesus but other than that he's kindve forgettable...like Frequency...I just wasn't enthralled with his performance.) I've also heard Oded Fehr as a possibility. Now first off I didn't have a clue who this guy was....but once I saw his mug on IMDB I was like holy crap Tony Stark...esp Civil War look..which is the most prominent in my mind at the moment. He also did some work with the new Justic League cartoon, which gives him a little comic cred in my book. But not having seen him in anything I'm not sold just yet.

You know what I am pretty rocked about in my mind though....the thought of Hugo Weaving playing Prince Namor! Now this hasn't been mentioned at all...hell who knows if they'd ever even make a Namor movie...maybe in an Avengers story though...

Oh man...make an Avengers movie...maybe that's just because I've been watching the new animated ones....and reading Civil War. But if i'm thinking it obviously other people are. I'd even suggest making a 1602 film adapt if I wasn't absolutely terrified they screw it up royally and bring me to tears. Not that it takes much to sell me on comic/superhero films just the 30 second clip of the Aquaman movie on Entourage got me on a whole Aquaman movie soapbox.

Hooooooly Crap. I totally suck at keeping up with a blog.

Well there used to be a good excuse for it, being that school took over my life, but that was the case in May, and now it is July. So really my excuse is that I suck at life. So here I am, at work, blogging.
So lets talk about how I'm really starting to freak out about about being "adult-esque". I say "adult-esque" because I really don't feel I can call myself an adult yet, maybe it's just denial. BUT! I do know that a lot of adult-like things are coming into my scope....and this freaks me out. I'm entering into my senior year of college and coming to grips with the fact that come next year I could possibly not be in school anymore (I'm thinking grad school is going to be in the works...). Okay so I know that most kids out there can't wait for the day they can say goodbye to school, but that is not me. Not one bit. I love school, I may complain about it but at heart I love it, especially more that having a real job. Here's my thought pattern on the matter: I've been in school since I was 4, so 17 years, plus it's really the only thing I've ever done besides a few part time jobs. Not to mention I'm freaking awesome at school!. So basically I'm just terrified that one, I wont like what I'm doing, and two, I won't be good at it. So here I am trying to get into grad school. Now this isn't just an avoidance tactic, I really don't feel like I possess enough knowledge and skill to really be doing what I want to be doing at this point (working in the advertising industry) so I figure two years of intense study should help me get to that point. And help me be awesome at it too....I need to be awesome at it, seriously. So yeah that covers "adult-esque freak out" numero uno.

Number two is weddings. Holy crap everyone I freaking know is getting married. Yes, I know when you're in your twenties that's what happens but I'm barely in my twenties here, I wasn't expecting this until at least 23-24. My best friend from high school just got engaged, she's not getting married til next fall but we've been looking at all kinds of stuff trying to get ideas and a basic plan down. And they swore I'd get married first, haHA! I win. Still eerie though, I remember being in eighth grade together....now weddings?! In addition to that another old friend's sister is getting married, we had the bacherlorette party this weekend. Me at a bacheloretty party, I'm also not okay with that. It was fun though, nothing too cheeky, just hanging out with the girls. And THEN if that wasn't enough I had to go buy a bridesmaid dress for yet annnoooother friend's wedding which is this fall. It's okay though because she's the one person I'm really not freaked out about it happening with....plus I adore my dress. ADORE! There are also a whole other slew of people getting married that I know but am not as directly involved with. Blah. But hey the way I look at it....at least I'm not freaked out that it's not me getting married, I'm just freaked out that I'm old enough to have friends getting married :). I have enough trouble committing to things like new earrings or perfume let alone picking a man I want to spend my life with....maybe when I become an adult and less "adult-esque"

the whole reason for this is corn dog nuggets.



So I started thinking about corn dog nuggets, these delicious little corn dogs bites sans stick. It really is an ingenious creation.

I mean one, I'm a huuuuuge fan of corn dogs in general. Growing up whenever we went to Myrtle Beach for the summer my older sister and I would only want 3 things from the grocery store for the week. Drumstick ice creams, cereal, and corn dogs. Our schedule: wake up, eat cereal, go play in the ocean for hours, eat corn dogs, play in ocean more, pass out from exhaustion. Ohhhhh man was it fun!

Secondly, I'm a big patron of bite-sized foods. Especially candies. Kit kat bites....bum. M&M's.....bum. Bite-sized Snickers....bum. Hell even the Mr. Goodbar allows for the transformation into bite-sized form via careful scoring. So yeah I don't understand why more people don't buy into the bite-sized craze. I mean why wouldn't they?! Your food it already divided into small enough pieces for your mouth, you can have the illusion of eating a whole lot more. Instead of being like ooooh 1 candy bar, you can be like ooooooh 10 mini candy bars. And well I'm no expert but I think 10 sounds a lot cooler than 1. At least when it comes to candy.

But anyways, the joy of bite-sizing is not just for candy. Lets take a look at some other foodstuffs divided into delightful smallish pieces. MMM grapes! One of nature's own bite sized creations. They're so small but so delicious and fun filled! I personally enjoy peeling the skin off of them with my teeth then eating them. This usually lasts for about 3 grapes before I give up. Strawberries however are the work of Satan, I do not endorse them at all. What about, what abouuuuut.....TATER TOTS! whooooooa do I need even explain....the world of deep friend hashbrown-esque potato-y goodness all in tot form. And may I also say, these buggers are exxxxcelllent when eaten by the bucket with sushi :D. And well of course there are chicken nuggets, probably the most common of smallish foods, even if not privy to the wide world of bite-size most people have tasted these little poultry delicacies. As a child I was quite taken with the chicken nugget, more specifically the chicken MCnugget. I did not want anything to do with any non MCnugget. Strangely enough now I will not go anywhere near the MCnugget, while I am still a fan of the chicken nugget in general. Aside, it is also great fun to heavily emphasize the MC in mcnugget.

So enough on the separate worlds of corn dogs and bite-sized foods, TOGETHER I say! Yes, the corn dog nugget, one of the most amazing innovations of the 20th century. The way I see it: Television, Internet, Corn Dog Nugget. Here is actually the real meat of my blogging, the catalyst** for this entire train of thought.

I started thinking about how McDonald's for a hot minute back in the early 90's sold corn dogs nuggets, and wondered if anyone else freaking remembered that. HOL-Y CRAP! those suckers were good. Any why the hell doesn't McDonald's still sell them? I mean even as just as seasonal item, like the McRib. I firmly believe that if the McRib were not a seasonal and limited time only menu item that not many people would buy it. I mean it's not even bite-sized, plus it's shaped like it has bones and does not, and well that's just odd. But it always makes me think of the Batmobile....I've been a sucker for advertising for faaaar longer than I'd like to believe. At least I'm hoping to capitalize on it now....but that's an entire other blog for another time.

But anyways the corn dog nugget from McDonald's was amazing, and short lived. I miss you little buddy. However, years later I found that A&W, which might have been called All American Food, might have been called Hot Dogs and More, I don't remember but I'm pulling for the latter, well they had corn dog nuggets on their menu. WHOA. Yes, so many a time in middle school and high school I remember sitting at the mall, being on of those non-driving mall dwellers who flat out freak me out now, waiting for the movie to start across the street and partaking in some delicious corn dog nuggets. See now I live right across the street from an A&W and you'd think "whooo hooo my time has come!" but no....they don't serve them! What the CRAP is up with that. I don't know. So alas I sit and wait for the time when my fairweather friends, the corn dog nugget will surface once more. And I remember better times, like every other Friday in high school when it was corn dog nugget day, and all of us in the broadcast studio cheered aloud when reading the lunch menu for the day.







**CATALYST-- so this was completely off the topic of corn dog nuggets so I decided to save it for a sort of post script or addendum to my blog. So as I was sitting there writing I hit a block in which I needed a word, a word that I knew exactly what it was, what it meant, and even how it started, but alas could not discern. I sat contemplating for about 3 mins, then turned to a friend on iM, and started searching on Google, all of which proved fruitless. So I'm sitting here RACKING my brain for this word, because once I get stuck on a word that I want to use and can't think of, I cannot move on until it has been figured out. Probably a good thing I'm not planning on being a professional writer.

But anyways, I'm not coming up with anything when I realize the saddest part of this situation, not only am I stuck with this word I know and can't think of....but I also have in my mind a film in which the word is used as well as the entire context of the scene it which it is used. This both saddens me as well and excites me to no end. The film you ask? Groove. It's an independent production based around rave-culture in the late 90's/early 00's. It's a really stellar film and gives a nice insight into the whole culture (not that I could really verify it as correct) that seems much more accurate and less Hollywood-ized than it's counterpart of the same period, Go (which I also enjoy quite thoroughly, don't get me wrong). But anyways there's this one part when the characters (which don't ask me who they are or their stories because I haven't seen this film since about 01 at the absolute latest) are at this rave and are taking some ecstasy and drinking orange juice. So what does this have to do with anything....well the orange juice they say acts as a CATALYST for the drug. BOOM!!! words in action. So yeah I remembered this moment, this word, and it's meaning, for yeaaaaars to come. And dredged it from the bottoms of the fen which is my mind to bring to this ever so illustrious blog, on the topic of corn dog nuggets.

so the squid and the whale.



I just finished watching this film and right off hand I feel kind of disappointed. It just seemed kind of overly pretentious to me, but that might have been because of the characters. Jeff Daniels' character, Bernard, is a college English professor and a struggling novelist. He plays the "holier-than-thou" academic quite well, which in itself makes me kind of despise him. His oldest son, Walt, is in high school and obviously holds his father on a very high pedestal and models himself after him quite closely. Whatever his father says is gospel. These two versions of the same person wear hard against my feelings towards this movie, but the dynamic nature of Walt as the movie progresses makes it better. By the end he kind of realizes that his father is not perfect and is pretty much the pretentious ass that the rest of us knew all along. Laura Linney did a good job as the mother, I'm beginning to like her more and more as I see her in different roles. Although her age in Love Actually still boggles me. Not to mention the fact that she has an eerie resemblance to Annette O'Toole of Smallville fame. But anyways characters aside you can definitely tell that Wes Anderson has his hand in this film, it being set in the 70's gives it a kind of Royal Tenenbaums feel, but the techniques of filming were different, although a few zooms here and there were trademark Zissou :P. I think this film intrigued me enough that I'll be thinking on it for the next few days. Maybe I'll have a different opinion after some pondering and a second viewing. I think the whole look and feel of it just left me wanting some humorous dialogue, a break from the severity of the story. But it's its own film, and I'm kinda glad it stood its own ground. The scene at the end with the squid and the whale was beautiful and really captures the moment of Walt's turning point in his
perspective on his parents and his life.

But note to all filmmakers: Do NOT cast a Baldwin in your film under any circumstances. No questions, just don't.