It's Onion Friday!

Despondex: "A huge step forward in the battle against exuberance."

If you personalize your license plates and participate in community theater, this could help.

Hilarious.

Have a good weekend!


FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful

Another year older....

Wiser? Eh, not so much....

So yesterday was my birthday.

I don't like my birthday.

I stopped liking my birthday after I turned 21.

But that's not to say that I haven't been happy with how the day's been celebrated in recent years.

Last night I had an amazing dinner with my family at Foreign Cinema, complete with Rosemary's Baby playing on a big screen in the courtyard.

Getting ready for bed after this amazing meal somehow triggered a curious and unexpected nostalgia for my birthday in Missouri.

Nostalgia for my birthday in Missouri. Words I never thought I would write.

But my 27th birthday marked one of my best memories of graduate school. It was the first of many in our 7-girl house. It was semi-formal.

It was the beginning of a series of insane cakes custom baked for each roommate's birthday.

There were amazing decorations and appetizers.

There was champagne.

There were photos taken with people I hardly knew who would go on to become good friends.

And there was a keg stand in my black dress that my roommates still won't let me live down.

There was a party the next year also. You can't expect people to dress in semi-formal attire two years in a row, but it was a great time--with an unbelievable and very very thoughtful pumpkin shaped, pumpkin flavored cake that would make Betty Crocker jealous. Lord knows I loves me some pumpkin.


Thank you to everyone who made those birthdays so special.

I do miss my life there.

Though I did just see flash flood warnings are plaguing central Missouri today. They're seeing a potential 9 inches of rain.

I suppose that helps a bit...

Unemployment and the art of couch sitting.....

In the early days of this looking for work debacle, I had a "no TV during the day" policy, in hopes of stimulating my brain through reading and other like productive activity.

Thanks to Hulu and all-day marathons that mysteriously suck your will to get off the couch, things have changed a bit. Additionally, the regular baseball season is over, and the Giants have hung up their cleats, clearing 3-hour blocks of my evening to fill.

I didn't watch TV in graduate school. Short of the Thursday night lineup, I was strictly an NPR girl, and proud of it.

TV, after all, is the culture of the unemployed. And I was a busy girl. Between class, school work, and my six roommates, I was rarely hurting for plans.

Now, I don't know if my standards are getting lower, or if I just have way too much time on my hands, but there are a lot of television shows on right now that I'm pretty impressed with.

So as both therapy for me and advice to you, I thought I would share the programs I like this season. I watch a lot of this online, but with research I've broken it down into a weekly schedule for your viewing pleasure.

Note: as a rule, I avoid like the plague: vampire shows, reality TV (with one super awesome exception), and cheesy high school dramas.

Monday: How I Met Your Mother. This show is legend--wait for it---dary. Still funny, even after all of these seasons.

The Rachel Zoe Project. My one reality exception. It's so obnoxious, but like any good weekly train wreck, I need to watch. Every week. As Rachel herself would say, "It's bananas."

Wednesday: Glee. The best new show on TV. Hopefully you already watch it, so I'll say no more.

Modern Family. A mockumentary-style take on a typical family sitcom, except the families are far from typical. So funny. Watch it on Hulu.

The Middle. Another dysfunctional family show, set in Indiana. Watched it last night on Hulu with low expectations and was very pleasantly surprised.

Thursday: Parks and Recreation. The Office. 30 Rock. Best shows on TV.

And the jury's still out on Community. People like it. I don't, but feel I should give it another chance since it resides within the beloved Thursday night lineup.

Saturday: SNL. One of the reasons I love Hulu so much is that you don't have to watch an entire episode--they have it broken down by sketches. I watched some of the Ryan Reynolds show the other day, and I was definitely laughing.

Sunday: Mad Men is sooooo awesome. It's "mesmerizing," as my mom would say.

I watch the Today Show but stay away from CNN, MSNBC and any other 24-hour news network because I think they make Americans hateful and fearful and compliant for no reason.

Anything else I could be missing?

I got time.

I will write about public relations...

...because that is ultimately what I want to do with my life.

Ah, Wisconsin. I read this and loved it. Whether you have a healthy appreciation of the Badger State (go Pack go!) or can't point America's Dairyland out on a US map, it's funny. And it's an interesting look at a public relations decision.

Here's the story:

The Wisconsin Tourism Federation (yes, WTF) quietly changed their name to the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin (TFW), according to the AP.

WTF has been around since 1979, before I was born and way way before people who say "wtf" were born. But rather than just laughing about it and chalking it up to victimhood of modern-day acronym omnipresence, WTF backed down.

Some people say that this was a huge mistake--that embracing WTF could help rake in the tourism dollars.

Picture it: one minute someone is typing "wtf" into Google to learn to talk with his kids in modern slang, and the next he's planning a lovely trip to lovely Sturgeon Beach, WI, with stops at the Maritime Museum and a chilly jaunt on a rented snowmobile. Everyone wins!

One blogger said, "What I fail to understand is why people who wear cheese on their heads at football games are this sensitive about being called WTF.”

If it were up to me, I would have capitalized on it. It's a ballsy move, but it seems that so much success these days is the direct result of ballsy moves.

I suppose you gotta give the Midwest props for being wholesome. You betcha!

No big post today...

..but something I saw this morning that I thought was hilarious, if also very sad and disturbingly accurate:

(if you can't see it, there's a better view here.)

Maybe you've seen it before. I hadn't. And it makes me laugh. I love how Canada is "uninhabited."

In other disturbing news, I read the other day that 75 percent of Oklahoma high school students can't name the first president of the United States.

Sad reflection on our educational system. Not ok, OK!

You can read the questions and responses from OK students here. See how you do :)

"Most Americans feel that being out of shape and unhappy are core American values..."

Onion Friday!!!!

I loved this video--hilarious.

"He's frolicking with Michelle while most of the country is trying to make it through one more day with their intolerable spouses."


Poll: Happy, Healthy Obamas Out Of Touch With Miserable Americans

One more thing:

I follow a lot of career coaches and recruiters on Twitter, and usually the posts are full of pretty serious, thoughtful advice, especially in this tough economic climate.

But one of them posted this this morning, and I liked it. A little bit of humor in an otherwise very serious time. And a nod to my fellow Big Lebowski fans out there.

My fav line:

"I’ll tell you what I’m blathering about…I’ve got information man! New shit has come to light!”

Noting to myself to use this in my next conversation with my future boss. I'm sure it will win me serious brownie points :)

Have a wonderful weekend, all!

News from the Bucks

In case you fell like you haven't been adequately inundated with Starbucks marketing as of late, I thought I would discuss it, inspired by the extremely heavy rotation of their commercials in the mornings.

I've never been a big fan of Starbucks coffee. I think it's too expensive.

I think it tastes burnt.

And at the risk of exposing my serious lack of sophistication, I admit that the bottomless coffee at IHOP rivals it.

But that's not to say that their most recent ad blitz isn't interesting. I appreciate them for embracing the fundamentals of modern marketing--getting the customer involved.

Talking with them rather than at them.

Letting the product speak for itself.

Apparently they've been developing Via, their instant coffee product, for 20 years. It's a scary thing to move to instant. You don't want to cheapen your $4/cup brand, but you want to make it accessible to peeps who aren't near a store at a given moment, but have a hankering for a nice cup o bucks.

After all, instant coffee is a $20 billion market.

Starbucks just had to tap that eventually.

As far as the marketing goes, the idea is to get customers into one of the 7,500 Starbucks stores in the US to do a taste test of the real stuff and the instant stuff. Regardless of your coffee tasting prowess, the thank-you card is good for a free cup of coffee and $1 off the instant stuff.

As it is now, the instant stuff is only available at Starbucks stores, REI (I've always said that camping should not equate to terrible coffee), Office Depot, Compass, United Airlines, Barnes & Noble cafes, and Marriott and Omni Hotels.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued.

Would you guys try it out?

In other innovative Starbucks news, the coffee giant is now accepting mobile payments. In short, your iPhone = your Starbucks card. Ah, technology.