There's Always Room for Jello...

What is it about Jello that makes people eat it when they’re sick? Since I was 5 years old, my mom has tried to feed me Jello when I’m feeling the slightest bit of illness coming on, like sugar and gelatin mixed with artificial food dyes have some special healing powers. Last time I checked, this slimy and disturbingly translucent dessert wasn’t chock-full of vitamins and nutrients.

Let me just say in writing so that my family might eventually see this, I don’t like Jello. I have never once enjoyed eating it. There, I said it. I think a food that comes in so many different colors and flavors while withstanding that awful texture is just not right. And if I don’t like Jello on an everyday basis, why on earth would it make me feel better to eat it while I’m sick?

Well, I faced this dilemma again this past week when I somehow picked up mono in the middle of the summer, while spending the last month completely alone in my parent’s tiny apartment. But that’s a mystery I don’t want to tackle right now. Anyway, the first food my mom suggested was, you guessed it, JELLO. Even after repeatedly resisting her offer, somehow my dessert always ended up as a bowl of Jello with some heavy encouragement on the side. And every time, I’d gag through one bite and push it away with, “Again, no thank you.” Eventually, though, my manners only took me so far and it was “I…..HATE…..JELLO” that finally stopped the seemingly endless supply that came out of the fridge.

After that, my mom decided she was tired of feeding me and sent me to my grandma’s house for some much needed rest and comfort food. I was truly looking forward to being pampered for the week in my ill state and filling up on chicken pot pie and chocolate pudding. The first morning, or should I say afternoon since I slept for about 14 hours with the exhaustion that mono brings, I sat myself up at the kitchen table ready to see what my grandmother had been cooking for me. I stare down at the bowl that’s set in front of me and low and behold, JELLO. Damn it.

Moves Like Shaq

There was a time when I thought, no, I knew, basketball was my sport. All of my friends in middle school and high school were athletes and by tenth grade, every one of them were on the basketball team at school. Naturally, I felt left out because after 12 years straight of playing softball, I had lost the chance to acquire the skills needed for any other sport.

For example, the 5-second blitz rule in touch football bewildered me nor did I ever let it apply. If the quarterback is standing right there, with the ball, completely open, why on earth do I have to wait “5 Mississippi’s” before I can tag them!? I now understand that without blockers, being the quarterback in a touch game would be nearly impossible without a rule like that, but still, it seemed unfair. In fact, more often than not I would just tag the quarterback immediately and justify it by saying that I was simply a quick counter. I’m gifted I guess.

Anyway, the girls on my softball teams were never exactly the friendly type, and by the time I was in high school, I was feeling both burnt out and left out since my friends spent their afternoons together at basketball. That’s when I knew basketball needed to become my sport.

I joined a community basketball league in hopes that I could learn the rules fast enough to think about joining the school team. My community team had a wide range of skill amongst the players, so it’s unfortunate when I say that I was one of the best on the team. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I was a pretty good at shooting and dribbling. I was fairly unaggressive though, and couldn’t resist flinching and moving my feet during a screen, so I was taken off the list for defensive positions.  By process of elimination, the position I was put at was….point guard. That’s right. The leader of each play, the ball carrier, the player expected to know what was happening on the court at all times.

It’s beyond me why the coach thought I could play this position without knowing any of the rules, but he put me there anyway. After that season, this is what I could tell you about the game of basketball: my job was to run back and forth across the court dribbling the ball. That’s all I knew and know now.

Maybe I should blame the coach, who was well informed that I had never played basketball before (yes Coach, as shocking as it may be, I’m 15 and have never played a formal game of basketball). Or maybe it’s my parents’ fault for not teaching me the rules of other sports during my childhood. Maybe it’s even my own fault for not reading up on the rules before signing up for a team. I hear Basketball for Dummies works wonders.

Anyway, I guess all of these factors played a part in making my days of basketball fame short-lived. By the last game of the season, we had not won one single game.  This was our last chance to break our defeated streak. I, obviously, was playing point guard for the entire game and I was feeling confident and ready to make this one count. With a couple minutes left, I made a steal from an opposing player that created uproar from the crowd. And by crowd, I mean the six or seven parents that consistently attended our games.

With a close score and now having possession of the ball, I was sure this was the break my team needed to get ahead. I dribbled as fast as I could, leaving the other team behind with only the whip of my ponytail as I ran. I was going to run to the other end of the court and make my lay up and my team, the Comets, would win their first community league basketball game. I ran, dodged, faked, dodged again, kept running, and then….the whistle blew. Uh excuse me ref, I’m only at half court…I haven’t made my winning shot yet.

“OVER AND BACK.” …what? Nuh uh! Wait, what’s over and back? It doesn’t even matter I had an open court ahead of me! Turns out, no. No I didn’t. I had completely forgotten about the fact that my steal was not in fact a steal. It was taking the ball back after an opposing player had stolen it from us. Therefore, of COURSE they weren’t going to chase me into that “open court” space I had ahead. That was their side. I was carrying the ball away from our basket and going to shoot for them.

Luckily, this isn’t one of those horror stories that you see on TV where the young child runs and scores for the wrong team, jumping and cheering feeling so damn proud of themselves that it breaks your heart. But it was still pretty humiliating. The awkward stares from my teammates, the smug grins from the other team, and my parents awkwardly clapping since they got excited any time the ball was passed in my general direction.   

But…that was the day I knew that basketball wasn’t, nor will it ever be, my sport. That was my first and last season as a basketball player. I can’t say that I learned a lot, or that I had a lot of fun doing it, but at least I did it….Next up, soccer.

Revolving Chamber of Death

This is a continuation of one of my previous posts, “WARNING: Penn State Campus Lies Ahead.”  This is a story about the time I got stuck in the revolving door at Pattee Library.

It was just like any ordinary fall day at Penn State, cool but sunny. I had decided to spend my break between classes in the library reading as I sometimes do, so I entered through the push/pull doors of the Paterno (northern) side of the library, headed to the third floor and proceeded to have a pleasant 2 hours of quiet reading time. My next class was in Willard, south of the library, so naturally I chose to leave out the other side.

Now, I actually had often avoided this entrance as much as possible because I’ve always had an apprehension about revolving doors. I’m extremely uncomfortable with the fact that the speed of the door can change and rely on the person that enters before or after you. You can be walking at a relaxing pace, thinking you are going to make it calmly into whatever building you are entering, and that can change in an instant if God forbid the guy behind you is late for a meeting. Suddenly not only he is running through the door, but you and everyone else in any of the quadrants have been taken to a sprint completely against their will. There’s just something not right about that.

Anyway, on this particular day, that apprehension turned into a distinct fear of these doors. As usual, I waited like a child boarding an escalator for the first time in order to gauge the speed of the door and a space that I could dive into the door. When people began to line up behind me I figured it was my time to go for it whether I could find the perfect break or not, so I walked toward the door and hopped in the first open space.

I will never know what happened in the next 3 seconds that shrunk that door space from the normal 4 foot space to approximately one foot, but whatever occurred had me trapped in a space in which I could not move my feet one in front of the other. I’ll also add now that in addition to revolving doors I have a slight fear of small spaces, otherwise known as claustrophobia. In this very instant, two of my fears were slapping me in the face in the form of a glass door. I continued to push, fall really, into the door pane in front of me and as it moved my feet shuffled below me. I could see through the glass that the line of students flowing through the library doors had come to a halt and most of them were looking to see what the hold up was. That would be me. My body, still stuck in the right side of this revolving door at Pattee.

I’m not quite sure how long I was actually stuck in the door, but in my mind it felt like 5 minutes. As more and more people gathered outside of the door, I started to wonder if they were now lining up to get into the library or to simply watch me struggle. Somehow I had finally shuffled far enough to see daylight and I burst through the opening like I had never experienced a breath of oxygen.

Now I had to decide what to do with myself to minimize the humiliation I felt as everyone watched in shock, probably never having witnessed a human having such a struggle with a manmade object. I decided to do what any self-respecting person might do after they fall face-first on the ground. Get back up and act like nothing happened. So, I stood up straight and continued walking at a normal pace, took out my cell phone, and began texting every single person I knew about what had just happened.

Cher Impersonator for Hire

One of the hobbies I enjoy most throughout my everyday life is music. I sing quite a bit, or should I say, belt. I’ll tell you that I have an okay singing voice when the volume is at an appropriate level, but once I hit a certain decibel, I’ll admit it becomes very unpleasant.

Due to this, I’m well known amongst my friends for my Cher impression. I have a low range of notes I can hit, so naturally she is my first choice when it comes to choosing a number I can belt all the way through. I just hope to God I don’t sound like this girl.

I sing during most of my daily activities whether I’m cooking, doing my hair, etc. And don’t try to get in my way during shower time. “If I Could Turn Back Time: Shower Style” is one of my most popular performances, occasionally requested by my roommates.

This love for Cher stems from an early friendship my sister and I had with my mom’s best friend’s son (complicated, I know). He’s the most unique, talented person I know, currently living in NYC trying to make it as an actor and singer. He loved Cher as a kid and decided that I, at the age of 10, with my tiny frame of under 70 pounds would make the perfect “Cher” for the shows we put on for our parents. He and my sister threw a jumbled, gaudy black wig on my head making me look like a 40-year old prostitute on the morning after. But once Cher’s music started blasting through our stereo system, the hot pants and leafy fall decorations (in other words, the most bizarre costumes we could possibly put together from our parents’ storage closets) didn’t matter anymore. We were all taken to a place that was filled with so much joy, laughter, and pure enjoyment of our new-found stardom, and I think that’s why I still love theater and music so much today.

My childhood with Cher is something I’ll never forget. It’s funny how much those little weekend shows can affect my life this many years later, but it’s helped me to realize that growing up is about the little moments that still make you who you are. I loved those happy childhood memories, and now, here I am, snapping my fingers to Cher and wondering what will come next.  Do you believe in life after love?

Read Owner's Manual Before Use

I’ve recently made a life-shattering discovery. No matter how hard I try, I will never learn how to properly use a microwave.

It’s not like I haven’t tried or had the opportunity to learn…my family has had a microwave in our home since I was born. The appliance seems almost too good to be true: it’s a simple and speedy way to heat up, and in some cases fully cook, a meal. And discounting the minor fact that microwave radiation can cause cancer, who wouldn’t want to use one?

That answer would be me. Well, I guess it’s “shouldn’t” use one. I have burnt, exploded, inflamed, melted just about everything there is to perform any of these actions to in a microwave.

The most memorable would be in my high school cafeteria, during a time when I wanted to slip under the radar and fit in more than anything. Microwaves were a new purchase for our school that year, one that many students like myself were ecstatic about due to the endless supply of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches our parents had provided for us since we were able to eat solid foods.

I tossed an unpopped bag of popcorn into my brown paper bag that morning and was on my way. At about 11:30 am at the start of my lunch period, I waited patiently in the line to use the microwave, preparing myself for the snack of buttery goodness I was about to consume. I put the bag in, set the timer for 3 minutes, and proceeded to chat with a friend. We were still laughing about something that had happened earlier that day when I caught sight of smoke streaming out of the microwave about a foot away from me. Naturally, my “friend” chose to act like she didn’t know me and slip away to another lunch table. Nice. I was left alone to deal with what was happening in the microwave.

I opened the door to stop the power, but that did not stop the cloud of smoke and stench of burnt popcorn from entering the entire 200 foot cafeteria. Not only had I managed to burn my popcorn, but I had managed to start a FIRE in the microwave from the paper bag, stream smoke as I sprinted with the fireball across the cafeteria to the back door, and acquire more looks from fellow students than I was or will ever be comfortable with in my entire life.

For the rest of the day, I listened to conversations coming from students in the later lunch periods about the smell of burnt popcorn in the cafeteria. “My god the cafeteria smelled lie burnt ass today.” (It was high school, so throwing in a curse word every sentence or two was still incredibly cool, even if it didn’t make sense).

While my roommates would agree with the fact that I have neither improved my ability to pop popcorn (last night’s smoke alarm incident would vouch for that) nor increased my microwave skills in general, I realize that I am not fully to blame here. No, it runs in the family.

My sister, upon her first attempt at “softening” butter for cookie dough when she was about 13 years old placed the unwrapped stick of butter directly on the microwave bottom and hit “Time Cook” for about 2 minutes. As you can imagine, the yellow pool that was our microwave took quite a while to clean.

Even my dad has had failures in the past. On a night when he was the only one home about 7 years ago, he decided to cook himself a steak and baked potato. He put the potato in the microwave and went on out to the back deck to cook his steak. He believes now that he “accidentally pressed an extra zero” on the cook time. Instead of 3 minutes, the potato cooked for 30 minutes. In a microwave.  

What was left of the potato reminded me of the turkey in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, just a shell, with no substance on the inside. Needless to say the firemen that showed up at our house were less than amused.

The one thing I can give myself credit for is that I am a skilled chef and baker. When it comes to using a real oven and stove, I can whip up some scrumptious food. I had even considered attending culinary school at one point.

Instead….I chose college. Where my freezer is full of meals that are microwaved on a daily basis. Where I currently consume more burnt food than is healthy for any human being. I figure I’ll learn to use a microwave one day, or maybe get rid of it all together for the safety of my family and myself. After all, if this incapacity is genetic, I would never wish this on any of my children or the generations to come. 

 

The Typo

            Let me tell you about the worst typo in American history. It all started this past summer, in May 2011. I had acquired an internship in Atlanta with a marketing agency; I gained a lot of insight to the advertising industry that summer. More importantly, though, it taught me to always proofread emails before I press send.

            You’d think by now I would’ve learned to do this. Not to brag or anything, but I’m an upstanding member of the Penn State Dean’s List. However, it seems even that could not stop me from making this mistake. One important thing I should mention is that this internship was paid. Fifty dollars a day, which is considerably less than minimum wage especially for a 9 to 5 job, but it was money, so as a college student I was overjoyed and immediately accepted the offer.

            I worked from May to August, working on different research projects on current trends in the advertising industry, sitting in on meetings with clients, even changing website product line-ups and distribution lists. By the week of August 5^th, I was ready to say my goodbyes and head back to Penn State.

            I started packing up my desk to ready myself for my last day (Friday). And then it happened. I was leaving on Wednesday afternoon and stopped by my account manger’s office to drop off a copy of my résumé for her to look over. She was on the phone, though, and I didn’t want to interrupt so I simply set the paper on her desk and waved goodbye. On my way out to the parking lot, I realized I had forgotten to ask if my boss (the CEO of the company) would be in on Friday so that I could pick up my paycheck on my last day. I wrote up a quick email on my trusty iPhone that went something like this: 
     

 Hi Amanda,

I left a copy of my resume and was hoping you could look over it so we can discuss it on Friday. I know I should probably cut and move some things around.                     

Also, I was wondering if Jerry was going to be in Friday. I wanted to make sure I would be able to say goodbye and well.... get laid. :)

Let me know! Thanks!

Laura Kreiser

I pressed, “Send” just like that. And as that little loading bar moved across the bottom of the screen, I realized what I had just done. I’ve never been so embarrassed sitting alone in my car than I was at that very moment. My face burning, I frantically sent another “Oh my god, oh my god…that word was supposed to be PAID” email.

            I still can’t really laugh about it; although most of my friends got a huge kick out of it. Looking back, the worst part was the smiley face. I didn’t want to sound too focused on the money, so I tried to add a little friendliness that in turn came off completely creepy. Even the account managers found it hilarious, joking that as much as I might admire him, he is a married man. To this day I don’t know if they told Jerry, and I don’t think I want to know. Let’s just say I no longer trust my iPhone as I did before and I don’t trust the first draft of anything, even a simple email.

WARNING: Penn State Campus Lies Ahead

            The Penn State campus can be a hazardous place sometimes. I recently saw a meme on the PSU Facebook group that played off of the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” ads:

Let me just say that there was a time when memes were not funny to me in the slightest. However, I hit a point where many of them were so unbelievably accurate that I had to accept them for what they were. I laughed quite a bit at this one about the Forum, considering I have been the victim of those tiles multiple times during my Penn State career. In fact, if you set up a video camera there during the first ice of the winter season I would be willing to bet you’d get a YouTube video similar to this one: Beaver Ave Slips & Falls.

This footage was taken downtown last year during State Patty’s day, and while the considerable levels of inebriation probably contributed to the falls, this is pretty typical of any icy or rainy day at Penn State. In other words, Penn State students as a whole probably have a higher average of weekly tumbles than any school set in a more hospitable environment.

To the architect that chose to use tile and marble in any and every opportunity on this campus, I’d like to ask if you had any ulterior motive besides just the look and appearance of the buildings. I’m sure Penn State students would agree with me that they have felt personally attacked by the materials on this campus at one point or another, such as the time I found myself sliding on my backside down the stairs outside Carnegie in the pouring rain.

While there may be some rough spots on campus, I can’t deny that I love each and every square foot of Penn State University, and if the laughs from these falls can’t outweigh the pain that results, then maybe we just need to lighten up. I mean if you can’t watch that YouTube video without laughing or at least feeling a small amount of pleasure from watching people’s feet fly above their heads while caught in a total state of shock, then maybe Penn State isn’t the school for you.

Cookie With a Hat!

In the spirit of THON happening this past weekend, the 46 hour no sleeping, no sitting student run Dance Marathon at Penn State, I thought I’d talk about something strange that happened during last year’s THON weekend. It’s a known fact that the dancers in THON often become delirious after so many hours of standing up dancing with no sleep. Last year, my roommate Jess and I were both on a committee called Morale, where our job is to be assigned a dancer that we will keep pumped up and moving throughout the weekend. I expected for my dancer to be delirious at a certain point, but I didn’t expect it as much for myself.

Around hour 32, Jess and I were on the dance floor when we saw a dressed up sugar cookie wearing a baseball cap walking past us. Since there are many dressed up characters that come onto the floor during THON, we didn’t think anything of it, until it registered to us about 3 seconds later that the character seemed….odd. We both did a double take then looked at each other, and since we have that special roommate bond, we both knew we were thinking the same thing. WHAT… was that? “Did that thing seem…really, freakishly short to you?” Now for Jess, with a stature of 5’1”, for anything to seem short to her needs to be, childlike.  Since the purpose of THON is to raise money for the Four Diamonds Fund, supporting families with kids who have pediatric cancer, there are many kids running around the Bryce Jordan Center during the weekend. Naturally, when you see anything less than 5 feet tall you think, “Was that a child?” But then we realized, it was almost 2 o’clock in the morning! What on earth is a child, unaccompanied by a parent I might add, doing walking around in a cookie costume at that time of night??

Then the next freakish thing hit me. While most costumes have visible places for the wearer to see out, in the 0.2 seconds I saw this thing, there was no such hole or screen. It didn’t have eyes! As we discussed this and got more and more confused by what we had just seen, we were determined to find it again. We thought, don’t worry, it couldn’t have gone far, it’s only been a few minutes.

We looked around and saw nothing resembling this character. Nothing. And at 2 o’clock in the morning, the floor at THON isn’t extremely crowded, yet we could not seem to find this mysterious…thing. We began asking, “Did you see that cookie? That cookie walking around with a hat on?” “Do you know which way that walking cookie went?” Based on the looks we got, we may as well have been walking around in coconut bras singing Christina Aguilera songs (…that’s really a story for another time).

Jess and I started to think this cookie character didn’t exist. After all, we couldn’t find it anywhere and no one else had seemed to notice it, so…maybe we had imagined it? We hadn’t slept in almost 40 hours, so maybe we, like the dancers, were starting to experience some delirium. But how had we hallucinated the same thing?

It wasn’t until about 40 minutes later that we finally added some clarity to our story. The walking cookie passed by again. And we were not about to let it get away this time. We started running after it yelling, “COOKIE WITH A HAT!!! COME BACK! COOKIE WITH A HAT!” We practically tackled it before it realized we were chasing it. And I say “it” because it still remains an extremely ambiguous character. We finally had proof that it was real and immediately whipped out our camera.

By the time THON had ended on Sunday afternoon, we had completely forgotten about the whole thing. Later that night, I loaded my camera card on my computer and it all came rushing back to me. I couldn’t show her the pictures fast enough.

 

We had located Cookie With a Hat, which appears to have been a mascot for Eat n’ Park, and gotten hard proof that it existed. However, the photos still did not answer many of our questions.

To this day, Jess still insists that the character and these pictures only exist in our minds due to the bizarre level of obliviousness displayed by the people in the background of the pictures. I’m more confused about how and where in the world this person, if what is underneath this costume is in fact human, sees where they are going. And I don’t think either of us will ever lose our concern about the fact that Jess, about 5 feet tall, is squatting next to this thing resulting in what appears to be a freakishly short cookie. A freakishly short, aimlessly wandering, forever mysterious cookie with a hat.

An Introduction

In an attempt to define my life and make every day a little different, I try and take notice to the ridiculous things that happen to me on a daily basis. I’m not sure why I choose this to help define myself; it’s just something I’ve always done. I text my best friends every day about the little things in a day that make me laugh, make me want to scream or hide, make me happy to be where I am, make me feel unbelievably stupid, or just give me pure entertainment. I figure that they’re relatable in some ways, so why not post them for others to read?

Most likely, I’m going to express some opinions that are not agreeable to everyone. However, so as not to offend, I will warn that my tone is often not meant to be taken seriously. This is simply the way I interpret different events, piquing my own curiosity through sarcasm and rhetorical questions.

In thinking about this blog and what would come of it, I thought of a lyric written by one of my favorite artists, Idina Menzel. “I wonder if God is trying to make a fool out of me.” I’ve always been a spiritual person, but not necessarily a religious one. In fact this will probably be the only religious reference I ever make in this blog, but it’s an interesting and sometimes humorous thought to wonder if the little nuances that happen in a day are put there on purpose. I wonder if the mishaps that leave me frustrated, bitter, or even laughing during the day are actually inconveniences, or whether they are put there by some higher power for God’s own entertainment or even for other reasons. The following dialogue that I recently found on a friend’s Facebook wall sparked many of these thoughts:

Me: God, can I ask You a question?
God: Sure.
Me: Promise You won't get mad.
God: I promise.
Me: Why did You let so much stuff happen to me today?
God: What do u mean?
Me: Well, I woke up late.
God: Yes.
Me: My car took forever to start.
God: Okay.
Me: At lunch they made my sandwich wrong & I had to wait.
God: Huummm.
Me: On the way home, my phone went DEAD, just as I picked up a call.
God: All right.
Me: And to top it all off, when I got home, I just wanted to soak my feet in my new foot massager & relax. BUT it wouldn't work!!! Nothing went right today! Why did You do that?
God: Well, let me see. The death angel was at your bed this morning & I had to send one of My Angels to battle him for your life. I let you sleep through that.
Me (humbled): OH.
GOD: I didn't let your car start because there was a drunk driver on your route that would have hit you if you were on the road.
Me: (ashamed)
God: The first person who made your sandwich today was sick & I didn't want you to catch what they have, I knew you couldn't afford to miss work.
Me (embarrassed):Okay.
God: Your phone went dead because the person that was calling was going to give false witness about what you said on that call, I didn't even let you talk to them so you would be covered.
Me (softly): I see.
God: Oh and that foot massager, it had a shortage that was going to throw out all of the power in your house tonight. I didn't think you wanted to be in the dark.
Me: I'm sorry, God.
God: Don't be sorry, just learn to trust Me.... in all things, the good & the bad.
Me: I will trust You.
God: And don't doubt that My plan for your day is always better than your plan.

It’s an interesting concept, for someone who isn’t very religious to wonder on the days when I feel that every single thing has gone wrong that maybe it was supposed to be that way. I may never figure it out, because then again, there’s the possibility that I’m just an unlucky person sometimes, finding myself in the wrong place at the wrong time, or that God is just trying to have some fun. The only thing I can do is to tell my stories and hope that others find the same enjoyment from them as I do, instead of trying to solve the mystery. Maybe I just have to give God the last laugh and accept the fact that life is funny that way.

Google Chrome

The Grammy Awards this year shocked me with their advertisements. I was more drawn in by the commercials shown during the Grammy air time than ANY of the Super Bowl ads from a couple weeks ago, which I find slightly disturbing considering the cost of Super Bowl air time. However, it made for a more entertaining awards show for me, as I am always glad to watch commercials that I actually enjoy.


My favorite from this week, which I felt compelled to Tweet about when I saw a spot aired during the Grammys, is the Google Chrome campaign. It first caught my eye last year sometime with the "It Gets Better" spot, involving the online project that is aimed at giving hope to struggling teens coping with their sexuality. It is an extremely moving ad- the interesting and rare thing about this campaign is that every spot gives me chills at some point. Other spots include "Dear Sophie" where a father keeps videos and journal-type posts about his baby daughter as she grows up, and "Justin Bieber" that chronicles his journey as an internet sensation.


Each and every one of these commercials is made as a montage, using different features of Google Chrome to transition between cuts. They show the features without the voice over blatantly talking about them, which let's face it, unless it's one of maybe 5 celebrities with an ear-catching voice, is extremely boring. The final tagline, "The web is what you make of it." It seems so simple and cliche, yet there is a stroke of genius in the fact that it's never actually been said in a way that is this blunt before. It resonates with me after each spot has ended and the TV has long since changed to the next ad. Most recently, the ads are less specified at one story or person, and much broader, in a way that I can only imagine was done to appeal to a wider audience.


However, the one thing I liked about the earlier spots of this campaign is the boldness of the topics. There is obviously a lot of debate about the gay community, and I suppose the same goes for Justin Bieber- not that one can really draw strong parallels between these two and the issues that face them (just bear with me). Either way, there are so many opinions amongst audience members that the advertisers simply cannot account for all of them. That was something I found very shocking about my search for a link to these ads- the third or fourth Google link that came up was a Yahoo question, "Was anyone else completely appalled by the new Google Chrome campaign? I will no longer be using any Google products." ....Really? This is something I suppose I should get used to, the fact that there will be extreme views of certain issues and products one way or another, but the fact that this was one of the immediate searches that came up with numerous comments agreeing with this post made me realize just how big of a step Google took with this campaign, and I applaud them for that.


I look forward to seeing where they take this campaign in the future because I think it is an extremely strong concept, and they could certainly adapt by placing the newest internet sensations and YouTube videos into their spots. I wonder, though, with a product with this many capabilities and this broad of a tagline, if Google will stick with this campaign path. The bigger question is if they will continue to do television advertising at all after they've made a big enough splash; after all, their other advertising has been solely online and maybe even unnecessary.

Superbowl Commercials. Best of the "Meh"

Being the Monday after the 2012 Superbowl, I felt compelled to write a post on the anxiously awaited flood of commercials we get on Superbowl Sunday during the pre-show, during, and post-show coverage. At an average of 3.5 million per 30 seconds this year, they should've all been eye-catching and memorable. When I saw the title of this article, "Best Superbowl Commercials 2012: The Best of the 'Meh'," that summarized my Superbowl commercial viewing experience. I'm not a die hard fan of any NFL team, so naturally I tune into the Superbowl simply as tradition and with an interest in advertising, for well, the commercials, but I was underwhelmed by what I saw. However, there were a few campaigns that stuck out to me and that I thought were incredibly clever.


Interestingly, I saw many more car commercials than I ever remembered. I don't know if that is a difference from previous years, or simply due to the fact that I am working on a campaign for Nissan right now with the National Student Advertising Competition. I was surprised to see that this site rated theVolkswagen ad "The Bark Side," on which I negatively wrote my last post on, as the best commercial from last night. I preferred their other ad "The Dog Strikes Back," rated here as #3. They brought in their last year's Star Wars concept at the very end in a comedic spoof, but the rest of it was focused on advertising the car, which I thought "The Bark Side" lacked.


My other favorites included the Acura "Transactions" ad featuring Jerry Seinfeld trying to get himself in the first slot for a new car, using his connections to bribe an everyday consumer and ends up losing to Jay Leno, and the Oikos yogurt "The Tease" ad with John Stamos annoyingly taunting his girlfriend over a bite of yogurt. Of course the E*Trade commercials have stayed amongst my favorites since they exploded a few years ago, but those are now going strong year-round so it wasn't a shock to see one of their ads featured during the Superbowl.


Overall, I did see some extremely creative concepts. Nothing that will last long as far as brand image, since many companies went with the route of celebrity endorsements for these ads, but they were nonetheless enjoyable. I have always wondered though, and I may be asking too much of the creative teams and copywriters for these companies, but my question has always been, besides an increased budget, why isn't this much effort put into the creative ideas behind these commercials all year long? Just a thought.

Volkswagen's Super Bowl Ad

An article on Ohmidog.com says that Volkswagen's Super Bowl ad this year will once again have a Star Wars theme. This article includes a teaser video of the ad released by the company featuring dogs barking "The Imperial March" from the movie soundtrack. However, apparently the ad that will show during the actual Super Bowl does not actually contain this type of video footage--instead, it will have dogs dressed as various characters from Star Wars still barking out "The Imperial March." The author notes, as I thought to myself while reading, why tease us with an ad that is nothing like the one that will be shown?


The way I look at this is that if VW can afford it, why not go ahead and release something that will begin circulating and make people aware that they are buying ad space for the Super Bowl again this year. For me, watching the Super Bowl is just as much about the commercials as it is for the game; however, as an audience we are overloaded that day with numerous highly invested and produced commercials, each competing with the next to be the most humorous or memorable. Volkswagen is surging ahead in my mind as a company that I will be looking out for, having already heard the description of the ad, and I am interested to see the final concept.


Honestly it's not a concept I am extremely excited about- I don't know that using dogs to bark out a theme song for advertising the revamped 2012 Beetle is an idea that says a lot about the brand identity.While I am a dog lover, I don't particularly enjoy listening to dogs bark, even if they do create a song; I only watched to the end to see the tagline "Back. And better than ever." I like the line, and I think it's one of the only parts of the ad that says anything about the product or company, but if it weren't for my interest in the article and the commercial, I probably wouldn't have watched until the end.


I remember thinking last year's commercial was incredibly well thought out, with a young boy dressed up as Darth Vader attempting and failing to use the Force until his father pulls in in his Volkswagen and uses his keys to turn the car on remotely, humoring his son and his imagination. The ad takes us through various scenes and tells us about the target consumer's life, family, job, etc. It is easily relateable and endearing, something that I am not getting from this year's concept. I guess I'll wait and see what my peers and I think of the actual ad once the Super Bowl airs, but right now, I'm not seeing a successful execution of the idea of, as the Ohmidog article says, "The only thing that trumps sex is a cute animal."