Make it Happen

Sometimes life isn't going to work out exactly the way you want. Don't sit around and bitch about it - look for a way to make it better. I found this video tonight in between my nap and going to bed. Turns out in Hawaii there is an area of beach where a natural sand dam is built up by the waves and about every month someone comes and creates these man made waves by connecting the fresh water stream with the ocean. Pretty sick.

Here's where it goes down if you're going to be back in Hawaii soon. Zoom in on the green arrow to check it out.

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She likes girls, and so do I.

• She Likes Girls by Griffin House

More Griffin House music on iLike

I've been listening to this one on and off since my good buddy Adam Peake shared it with me. My favorite part of the song is when he gives the pick up line. Enjoy.

Procrastination: Part 2

I always lay out these detailed plans for how I'm going to change things. I'll document everything I'm going to do down to the minute. Workout, eat, shower, class, home, chores, read, write, Netflix and sleep each detailed out on a weekly calendar whiteboard that sits on my bathroom wall. I bought it when I was still doing sales and had tons of free time on my hands.

Lately, I've found myself ignoring most every bit of my weekly schedule. Right now there are no less than six different piles of laundry scattered through my house; Red Dawn has been sitting in an envelope to be mailed back since last Tuesday; and my workout regimen usually falls flat on day two. I don't think it's for a lack of trying. Every morning I wake up at 7:30 - OK sometimes it's more like 8:30 or 9:30 if I feel particularly shitty - then one of two things happens. Either I jump out of bed and head downstairs to start the day right, or I roll over and lay in bed fighting off the day.

I'm not lazy, but no one is going to write a testament to my work ethic, either. I guess I'm just impatient. I want everything now. When I started at Circus I wanted to be a great writer. Then I got pissy when I hit my first case of writer's block. I don't like to finish things when they aren't perfect. That's why I struggle to get back in shape because all I can think of is how much worse I'm doing. I expect great things from myself and when I don't deliver I just fall into a repetitive cycle of putting it off, then getting pissed, then putting it off that just goes on and on till moments like this when I realize what a whiny bitch I'm being.

Anyway, it's always good to have a little introspection when you can't sleep. Better stuff is coming.

Superfail

First off, welcome back to the Will Benham Experience. I apologize for the long respit, but juggling the new job, wedding planning and the rest of my life took a little adjustment. Now that I'm back on track the updates should be coming pretty regularly.

To get you up to speed I'm now waiting tables at Marlow's Tavern in East Cobb. It's been incredibly busy, but totally worth it since I have managed to stop hemorrhaging money every month. Saving money is definitely a priority since Lorelei and I have started to plan for our wedding/honeymoon. Bora Bora is currently in the lead for our honeymoon with the Greek Isles trailing by a nose. Either way it's going to be a great break before gearing up for my last quarter at Circus and getting my career in gear.

So now to talk about something besides me - the epic fail that was the superbowl commercial lineup. To be fair, I was working the first time I saw the ads, but I watched them again this morning and overall was unimpressed. There just didn't seem to be very much going on in terms of creative execution this year. Luke Sullivan's Twitter play by play did provide excellent comic relief amid the dissapointment, though.

 Pepsi Max takes home my "Worst of Show" award for their dedication to multiple ads that seem to be based off of Oww, My Balls from Idiocracy. 

You compare and tell me if I'm wrong.

I was also interested to see that they seemed to have shied away from Pepsi Max as the ultimate man cola and seem to just be positioning it as a Coke 0 competitor.

Now for the ads that were good.

First off, I'm going to go with Chrysler's "Imported from Detroit". Of course, since I'm a copywriter I love a good long copy story, but this literally gave me goosebumps watching it. I thought it had a great message that seemed well targeted to the upper class that had to earn it. I like the position of "We're the luxury brand for the workers". Seems like a great area that wasn't being hit.

Next up is Bridgestone's "Carma". I thought this was an awesome build off of last year's campaign with the cute screaming animals into something a little less obnoxious.

Finally, my favorite VW's Darth Vader. The story and the directing in this one were awesome, and I can totally relate to both the kid running around trying to use the force, and the dad's helping him out. Heartwarming, funny and well executed.

So there you have it, my thoughts on the Superbowl ads this year. I've already picked out tomorrow's topic, and I hope you guys are looking forward to some nerd nostalgia. Later.

Thanksgiving Act I

Ah, Thanksgiving. The time for family and binge eating. Very few holidays bring the same joy as this most sacred celebration of the Native Americans saving the original settlers from starvation. A quick aside, Lies My Teacher Told Me has a great breakdown of how the original Thanksgiving actually went down and is a great book if you want to learn what your US History textbook should have taught you.

I digress. For me, Thanksgiving is a pain in the ass. It's gotten better over the years, though, so I guess I shouldn't complain. Most Thanksgivings I will celebrate three times - my Mom's house, my Dad's house, and my fiance's house. Prior to this year the schedule went something like this:

• 9:30 - Wake up
• 9:30:04 - Shut eyes tightly and hope today is not Thanksgiving
• 9:35 - Hear beginning sounds of Thanksgiving Mother Edition
• 9:40 - Call fiance make sure we are still doing this
• 9:45 - 10:00 - Shower, select pants and shirt with most breathing room
• 10:00-11:00 - Parades, dog wrangling and table setting. At some point fiance arrives with great gift my mom loves.
• 11:00-12:30 - Thanksgiving Mother Edition
• 12:30-1:00 - Drive to Dad's
• 1:00-4:00 - Recovery. Watch football, nap and set the table for Spicy Thanksgiving
• 4:00-5:30 - Eat Thanksgiving classics so spicy you long for thai food to break the heat
• 5:30-6:00 - Drive to future in-law's
• 6:00-8:00 - Football, small talk, prayer to a higher power that if I survive I promise to live life differently.
• 8:00-10:00 - Thanksgiving Round 3. Struggle through a plate of food.
• 10:01 - Slip into a food coma on the couch

This year is different, though. I spent yesterday with my Mom and today will be spent with my fiance's family. So far it has made Thanksgiving a much more enjoyable experience.

Solid Speech, Little Dude.

This has been all over the web, but in case anyone missed it...

A teacher in Howell, Michigan, the current home of the KKK, kicked a student out of class for making anti-gay comments. The teacher told him to shut it and get out of his classroom. Anywho, the teacher was later suspended without pay for the day. At a hearing regarding all these shenanigans a 14 year old openly gay student gave a pretty impressive speech in support of his teacher.

Follow the link for the video. It's well worth the two minutes it will take from your day.

http://tv.gawker.com/5689407/openly-gay-student-defends-teacher-at-school-board-meeting

Pickles and Python

Every week I try something new for my Creative Thinking class. It started simple. I brushed my teeth with my left hand. From there I progressed to more serious topics like Thai food. This week I doubled up and tried two new things, homemade pickles and Python programming.

First, the pickles. I had a list of 10 things I wanted to learn/try before the end of the quarter and make my own pickles was number 6 on the list. Lucky for me I was trolling through old Men's Health magazines to clip ads when I found a recipe for not one, but three different types of pickles. Being a big wuss I started with the classic pickle. Boiled up 1.5 cups of vinegar, added 1 tbsp salt, 1 tbsp sugar, 1.5 tbsp pickling spice, 15 peppercorns, 3 cloves of garlic and a dash of crushed red pepper. After 24 hours of marinating in that batch of miracle juice I crunched in to the first spear. Holy Jesus! Why did I wait this long to learn how to do this. Not only do they have a better crunch than store bough, but they taste better, too. I'm definitely doing this again next week and tinkering with the recipe. Sweet and spicy is on the way!

Now for the nerdery. Since our creative brief was for ThinkGeek.com I figured I would get in to the spirit and try my hand at a little programming. There are two free introductory books on Python and it's supposed to be one of the easier languages to pick up so I'm giving it a shot. Four lessons in I'm enjoying the challenge, but not much else. The deeper I dive in to the language the more I have flashbacks to multivariable calculus cram sessions in my dorm. Oh well, at least at the end of this I'll be able to say I gave it a shot.

Next week holds another challenge for something new and I have a few ideas. I'm not going to drop them here, but if it goes according to plan I should have something fun to write about next week.