All posts by PopCultureGangster

Current Affairs

Colors, Fast Cars, Garbage Collectors and Ramen Noodles

A couple of quick notes to call your attention to:

First, an absolutely fascinating article on "The Color Association of the United States," a meeting of which is probably either best or worst place to wear clashing colors.  They talk about color trends and how they are picked out and how they influence what we buy.  Apparently we need to be on the look out for fluorescent colors to make a come back.  Awesome.  Can’t wait for ducktails to come back into fashion as well.

I never thought that Lamborghini was a struggling company, since you know, they sell cars for $100,000 a pop and all.  But according to this, they are just "turning the corner" towards success.  Who knew?!!?

While there are people trying to figure out how to market high end sports cars and which neon colors are going to be adorning our winter coats in two years from now, the official baseball cap of the New York Sanitation Department is a hot seller.  Maybe Lamborghini should try making a garbage truck?

Last, but certainly not least…  RIP Momofuku Ando – inventor of the Ramen instant noodle.  Many a poor college student owe him their sodium-soaked lives.  Note that he died of heart failure – one has to wonder if it was after eating a bowl of his own noodles.  On a side note: "Momofoku" is the coolest name EVER.

Web/Tech

Thought They Needed A Little Publicity

1 Comment

I hate to jump on a bandwagon of any sort, but even though I still don’t own an iPod, I have heard about the new iPhone, and as a loyal Treo user, I found myself drooling over the features shown on the new web site.  The Treo has one of the better interfaces out there, but there are plenty of times I wish it was better.  In typical Apple fashion, they have improved the interface to the point where it is like functional art.  If they make it available through the Verizon network I will be hard pressed to not want to get it instead of a new Treo. 

At the very least one would hope that it will have the same effect on cell phone and cell phone interface design that Macs have had on computer and operating system design: to become more intuitive, attractive, and functional.

Marketing

Date Night at Olive Garden

There is an Olive Garden commercial that has been on for a while that shoes an attractive woman walking into an Olive Garden restaurant (doesn’t matter which one, now does it?) and being asked by the hostess if she can be of assistance.  The woman says she’s looking for her date, who is "very handsome… and his shoes are probably untied."  At this point they cut away to the infuriatingly cute kid calling out "MOMMY!" which makes us all chuckle and laugh oh so much.

However, every time that commercial comes on, there’s a little part of me that hopes the camera will cut away to someone resembling Barney from The Simpsons bending over to tie his shoes, exposing his plumber ass crack, then falling over himself, landing at the woman’s feet in a drunken stupor, looking up at her and saying "Heeeey baby!" 

As the final payoff, after the Olive Garden the drunken fool looks up her dress and declares "Whoa… no underwear! It’s my lucky night! *hic*"

Just once…

Current Affairs

Catching Up

I’ve been a baaaaaad blogger, I know.   It has been nearly a month since my last post, which is inexcusable on my part, but I’ll try my hardest to give one anyway!  It was the whole holiday season thing, really – the month of December just kind of passed me by it feels like.  It was a very busy month and while it was all fun and good, I’m kind of glad the holidays are over and things are somewhat back to normal.

A few things I have wanted to mention: went to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra again.  Nearly the same show as last year, but highly entertaining.  It has become a sort of holiday tradition for my family. 

Holiday traditions have been on my mind a lot this year – this being the first year with a serious girlfriend, it is amazing how important otherwise silly little things can become to people.  Specific holiday shows and movies; specific things that we bake and cook; and how we spend time with loved ones.  This year Meghan brought her tradition of doing gingerbread houses to the holidays.  My family did our usual Christmas Eve celebration of Chinese food and old Christmas TV specials with her. 

Speaking of holiday traditions, I got to experience two new ones this year.  Adding to my list of firsts this year, I went to see the Nutcracker, my first ballet.  Many people assumed that I was getting dragged to the performance, since apparently it is virtually a law that no straight man can enjoy ballet.  While I could have done without the dudes who were wearing tights that were… well, so tight that you could see more on him than I really ever want to see, I have always been a fan of the music of The Nutcracker and Tchaikovsky.  I treated it as an excellent concert with visual accompaniment.

The next day we went to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, which is a real throwback to the musical productions of yesteryear.  It reminded me of the type of shows that were being put on in the movie "White Christmas" which is a type of show you just don’t see any more – dancing, singing, stylized sets… not a feature performer or central plot line – just a collection of entertaining performances loosely strung together.  It was so different to be entertained by just that, and not sheer star power or story lines or over the top production.

The show ended with "The Living Nativity" and the story of the birth of Jesus – a.k.a. the real meaning of Christmas.  Now, I’m not the most religious of people but I appreciate the origin of Christmas and find the over-commercialization of it as gratuitous as many others.  I also think that the spirit of Christmas (giving, loving, generosity, reflection, time with friends and family) can be kept intact without offending anyone.  However, showing the origins of Christmas at a Christmas show that everyone has paid to see shouldn’t be a problem.  The production of this segment was gorgeous, complete with live animals and performers coming down the aisles. 

The monologue that was being played and shown during the segment kept to the Nativity story for the most part.  There was one part which caught my attention: it said that all the kings, rulers, presidents and leaders of the world combined have not had as much of an impact as Jesus Christ.   The more cynical in the audience probably were raising an eyebrow at the particular wording of that, since if you want to start talking about that, then you could also start talking about things like the Inquisition, wars fought over religion, scandal cover-ups, etc.  A cynical view for sure, but a realistic one as well – one wonders if they have considered changing that wording over the years.   

But I digress – my point is that at the end of the show, I heard people several rows behind me say "that was great, except for that last part – could have done with out that."  I kinda hate the whole "politically correct" thing, but I also have a good amount of tolerance for it as well, as I understand we live in a world with diverse cultures.  However, I went to a CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR and while it was strange to see a production involving the Nativity, it was only strange because it isn’t that much of a part of Christmas in popular culture, not because I found it offensive.  I came to a Christmas show and they talked about the origins of Christmas.  What do people want?  A story about the Easter Bunny?  You can take political correctness only so far, especially when you’ve paid to go to see a show about Christmas.  Take it or leave it, it was a gorgeous production and is a great story that deserves to be told during the season. 

Current Affairs, Music

Aging rockers set to lose rights on early hits

Good article today about copyright issues in Great Britian.  I didn’t know that copyright was good for only 50 years in the UK.

I am surprised that it doesn’t mention the fact that it was only 50 years in the U.S. until some of the earliest movies were in danger of losing their copyright status,  particularly some of the earlier Disney cartoons and creations such as Mickey Mouse himself.  Lobbying led to it  being 98 years.  One wonders what will happen at the end of that.

While I should probably be all for being able to buy the Beatles catalog without paying an arm and a leg for it and I really don’t think anyone associated with the Beatles actually needs MORE money, I do feel like things have probably changed since the 50 year rule was initially instated.  A musician who does his first copyrighted song at age 20 now is much more likely to live to be 70 now than artists were over 50 years ago when the law was probably written.  While the public does deserve access to art, the artist also deserves compensation for his work enough so that he or she doesn’t end up destitute.  It is particularly unfair since the songwriters get covered for their entire life PLUS 70 years, as it says in the article.

Its what keeps the lawyers in Benz and Beamers, I guess…

Culture

Make A Note Of This…

About 5 years ago while interviewing for a job, I was diligent about collecting business cards from everyone I interviewed so that I could follow up with a thank you note via e-mail.  However, I forgot to get the card from the one guy who could potentially become my boss and who, in the end, would decide whether or not to hire me.  Since I was at home with no email address, I pulled out one of the personalized note cards that my parents had given me as a graduation gift a few years before and sent him a hand-written note, thanking him for his time.

When they eventually hired me, he mentioned that the personally hand-written note made me really stand out among the candidates and it influenced his decision.   If he only knew it was a last-ditch effort (I eventually told him about it and we had a good laugh over it and complimented me on my ingenuity).

This article from the International Herald Tribune talks about how stationary and old-fashioned hand-written notes are becoming slightly more popular as a counter-trend towards email, text messaging and instant messaging.  All this instantaneous electronic messaging means that a note that someone has taken the time to write by hand really stands out.   

The article discusses some pretty high-end stationary options, but it doesn’t need to be hand-made paper to be a good experience.  Paper with a good feel and that absorbs ink well and feels good while writing – a slightly scratchy (but pleasantly so) tactile feel is ideal – makes it a pleasure to write and helps to slow your writing down, so that you actually think about what you’re writing.

Television

Careful, It’s Catchy!

TV Land has created a list of the "The 100 Greatest TV Quotes & Catch Phrases."

The list is an interesting assortment of cultural catch phrases, and I am intrigued to see which is considered to be the top one.   Personally, I don’t agree with a few of their choices, just because they were one-off things, like "Ask not what your country can do for you…" or "Do you believe in miracles?". 

Yes, they happened on TV, and became part of the American lexicon, but they belong in the "greatest political catchphrases" and "greatest sports catchphrases" of all time, but not necessarily here.  Also, "Oh, my nose" is in the list, attributed to Macia Brady, when we all know that "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" is the far more popular quote from the Brady Bunch.  They mention it in TV Land’s page for the upcoming event, but it isn’t on the list in the news story. 

Overall, I think that the omission of "eat my shorts" by Bart Simpson is a travesty.  Anyone who grew up in the 90’s saw that phrase on bumper stickers, t-shirts and posters everywhere.   "They killed Kenny" is listed for South Park, but I think that "You will respect my authority" is right up there as well.

Culture

Adding Fuel To The Fire…. Let’s Burn Paris!

On this All-American of holidays, how much more of an appropriate article to link to than this one about the Paris Hilton Phenomenon.  I hate Paris Hilton as much as anyone AND I don’t find her attractive, so the article really resonated with me personally, and I’m sure it will with others.

I think that one interesting fall-out of Paris Hilton doing… um… whatever it is she does is that I think that there’s a definite backlash against the "hot chick.’  I find myself doing it, assuming that if a woman is good looking and made-up, she’s probably dumb, selfish, self-centered, and/or slutty.  Paris is doing a real disservice to her fellow females and any woman who obsesses about her goings-ons should be aware of that.