I saw Elektra today, courtesy of some movie passes from The Original Schlocker (he was the first one to pay me for original Schlock artwork back in 2000, so he gets the title). The movie was okay. The best part of the film was the tatooed guy. But the best part of going to see the movie was the “Esuvee” spot.

This quicktime version doesn’t do the 60-second cinema version justice.

We could argue all day over whether or not this is an appropriate use of the 27 million dollar settlement from Ford Motor Company. Me, I think it’s just cool to watch. And I’ll keep driving my Beetle, thank you.

–Howard

There are a couple of billboards along Interstate 15 in Orem that drive me nuts. Most billboards are simply eyesores or distractions. These, however, are insulting.

The newer one of the two is from Qwest, the telecom most folks are stuck with. It talks about DSL, and other internet-ish stuff, and says “shop for services from the neighbor you already know.”

Okay, first of all, you’re not my neighbor no matter how you stretch the word.

Secondly, I don’t think of my neighbors as sources for these “services.” Not even the neighbors I already know.

This billboard makes me happy that my internet connection is provided by Comcast. At least they don’t pretend that they live next door and want to borrow sugar.

The second one REALLY bugs me. It’s got a picture of Heather Beers, the actress in the popular LDS movie-from-a-book “Charly,” holding a couple of wedding-related items. It’s an ad for a bridal shop, or maybe shoppe. I’m not sure.

This is a really pretty picture of Heather. It’s the same EXACT pose — same photograph — used on a much nicer billboard that has since been replaced. See, I think she only agreed to provide them with a single photograph, and they re-used the photograph and changed the props she was holding. The result is that you have this very attractive person standing very naturally, holding things that would not be naturally held in this pose.

But that’s not the part that really bugs me. The part that bugs me is the tagline… “Icing on the cake, and everything in between.”

There are two ways to interpret this: First, Icing is only ONE ITEM ON THE LIST for brides-to-be, so there can’t be anything “between” it and the missing next item.
The other interpretation is that both icing and cake are mentioned… but the way they’re listed, they’re ADJACENT. The icing, as they’ve said themselves, is ON THE CAKE. THERE IS NOTHING BETWEEN THE ICING AND THE CAKE, UNLESS YOU ARE TRYING TO POISON THE GUESTS.

Oh I know what they’re TRYING to say. “We have lots of stuff that you wouldn’t think of buying at a bridal shop/shoppe/minimart.” This got said much better in an ad I saw for a bridal show — “everything but the groom.” Were I a potential groom, that would actually turn me on a little bit, and maybe, in some alternate universe where I’m single, desperate, and yet very confident, I’d go to the bridal show and try to pick up on women who don’t yet have a groom. That ad didn’t have a recycled picture of Heather Beers, though.

I hope Heather is as bugged by this as I am. Especially since a little Googling for biographical information shows that she has worked in the advertising business.

In writing that last journal entry, I remember that one of the people who helped us move the drafting table was my neighbor’s son Ben. I barely knew him, but he sure was helpful, and genuinely enjoyed carting the table into our home and down two flights of stairs. This is the same Ben who later committed suicide. I couldn’t call up my memory of him at the time I learned of his death, but now I’ve stepped right into the middle of it.

I’m not sure whether to think of this as a landmine or a forgotten patch of flowers, here in the untracked forests of my mind. At least now I know where it is.

When we purchased the drafting table I use, we thought we needed to take it apart in order to move it. As it turns out, we didn’t HAVE to, but we did anyway, and in taking it apart that first time, we discovered just what “unwinding” means.

There’s a spring in the table that supports the drafting surface, and enables the user to, with the flip of a switch, effortlessly raise and lower the surface. This spring, under constant tension for (probably) decades, does 90% of the work.

Well, when we removed the drafting surface, that spring unwound all at once. GRRRRTTT! We had no idea what that sound meant, but suspected it wasn’t good. A little investigation once the table was down in the basement proved out some of my suspcion. Nothing was broken, but that spring would need to be wound, by hand, to a couple hundred pounds of tension (or whatever the measurement unit is for springs). So a tool was fashioned for the job, and I hand-cranked that spring while others supported the table. A little trial and error showed how much to wind it up before dropping the surface into place. The answer: uncomfortably lots. Once or twice it let go while I was winding it up. GRRRRTTT and everyone jumped.

So, now you know the story of the drafting table spring. When I’m “wound up” on a project, that noise, and the associated half-second earthquake-in-miniature, is my benchmark for what it’s going to take to unwind me. There’s no slow release. Once you lift the load off, once the teeth on the struts clear the gears affixed to the spring, it lets go. Last night at midnight I finished a week’s worth of 14-hour days. Today, with the exception of some coloring for Schlock Mercenary, has been pretty non-productive. It went GRRRRTTT.

I did have a nice nap.