CardioGirl asked the following [...]]]>

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Capitol One slogan “What’s in your wallet”.  I posted a couple of the company’s commercials starring David Spade which are hysterically funny, and mentioned that I wasn’t a huge fan of the rampaging Vikings they also use in their commercials.

CardioGirl asked the following questions:

“…Remember the FreeCreditReport dot Com band? I liked that but now they’re looking for a new band. Do you think there’s consistency there? And how do you drop one campaign/style and move to the other without losing your audience?”

First off, CardioGirl, I think I love you.

I don’t know if changing the FreeCreditReport dot Com band will kill the campaign. I think they’ve garnered quite a following, and I personally think their front guy is pretty cute. In any case, it got me to thinking about marketing campaigns and commercials and how sometimes a company holds fast to the elements and message of an original campaign, but still doesn’t manage to capture the “magic” of the original commercial.

For example, I love the following commercial. Yes, I can definitely relate to it. Yes, there have been times in my life where I have been “Deb”. Too many times, really. Anyway, it kills me every single time I see it.

Yet their subsequent ad, using the same actress, Anna Silk, the same environment, the same message, didn’t have the same effect on me.

Funny, especially the “chicken or fish?!” part, but just doesn’t work as well. At least not for me, and, I think, not for others either since Nicoderm then changed up the commercials. What do you think?

Coming, Mother....

Oscar Wilde said that. He was a smart man.

I’m sure you’ve all been missing Mike. Of course you have, Mike’s great! He’s wonderful. He’s funny. He’s smart. He tells interesting stories. Who doesn’t love Mike?!

Me.

While you all haven’t had the pleasure of Mike’s presence in your lives lately, he has still been [...]]]>

Coming, Mother....

Oscar Wilde said that. He was a smart man.

I’m sure you’ve all been missing Mike. Of course you have, Mike’s great! He’s wonderful. He’s funny. He’s smart. He tells interesting stories. Who doesn’t love Mike?!

Me.

While you all haven’t had the pleasure of Mike’s presence in your lives lately, he has still been checking in with me. I’d like to tell you about a phone conversation I had with Mike this past week.

The backstory: Mike writes for another blog, and has another co-blogger, Dan. I know. It upsets me too. It’s like he has this whole other life, without cheese.

The actual story: He called me at work. I was working. He was not.

Did I mention I hate Mike?

A legacy to survive the ages

WWFC Mourns

Morrie R. Yohai, inventor of Cheez Doodles, has died. He was 90.  Yohai developed the snack at his Old London Foods factory in the 1950s. The company already was selling Dipsy Doodles rippled corn chips. He applied a similar concept for the Cheez Doodles, adapting [...]]]>

A legacy to survive the ages

WWFC Mourns

Morrie R. Yohai, inventor of Cheez Doodles, has died. He was 90.  Yohai developed the snack at his Old London Foods factory in the 1950s. The company already was selling Dipsy Doodles rippled corn chips. He applied a similar concept for the Cheez Doodles, adapting the machine to extrude liquefied cornmeal into a “more roundish, pinhole shape”. Yum. The snack was coated with seasoning and cheddar cheese that colors hands bright orange. Double yum. To make the Cheez Doodles healthier, they were baked, not fried. Triple yum.  You know they’re good because he even had a picture of Julia Child eating a bag of Cheez Doodles with a caption that called it her favorite snack.

Cheesy Carnage Of Epic Proportions

A semitrailer carrying more than 39,000 pounds of shredded cheese caught fire on Interstate 10, in Florida. The fire is being blamed on a failure of the semi’s brakes, igniting the trailer and its contents. Damage was estimated at $30,000. The white, five-cheese blend was headed to a Little Caesars Pizza, but no one knows which one. Our thoughts are with them, wherever they are, during this difficult time. The driver was not injured. He was able to disconnect the cab from the trailer and escape. Of course, he didn’t even bother to try and save the cheese, just his own bacon. The cheese was scooped from the interstate with a front-end loader and placed in a large metal container on the shoulder of the road until a proper burial can be arranged.

Oooooh, that can't be good

In This Case, I Love Saying I Told You So!

Shares of CEC Entertainment plummeted nearly 10% Friday morning after the operator of Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurants forecast earnings below Wall Street’s expectations. CEC Entertainment said it now expects to earn between $2.52 and $2.62 per share in 2010, down from its previous guidance for earnings of $2.70 to $2.80 per shares. “We believe our pricing strategy to reduce coupon discounts at a time when the economy not only did not improve but may have in fact softened somewhat hurt our topline,” CEO Michael Magusiak said on a conference call with investors and analysts. Ya think? Or maybe it’s the pedophiles, robberies, assaults and murders? Nah.

Hurt the cheese, suffer the consequences

Why We Shouldn’t Rule Out Corporal Punishment So Quickly

A Utah man was charged in a semitrailer crash that dumped more than eight tons of cheese onto Interstate 90 in South Dakota. He then failed to show up for his court hearing. A warrant has been issued for 25-year-old Ronald Jessop, of Washington, Utah. The charges include driving with a suspended commercial driver’s license and grand cheese larceny. Apparently breaking the law is exhausting. It would seem Jessop fell asleep at the wheel and struck a vehicle being towed behind an RV. The semi rolled and ended up in a ditch, spilling 25 blocks of cheese weighing about 700 pounds each. Two people in the RV suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The cheese has been upgraded to a stable condition.

I'd rather eat headcheese

Yes, It Is Possible To Ruin Cheese

Unbelievable. With obesity levels at an all-time high, Denny’s is coming out with a gut-buster sandwich.  As of August 24, a Fried Cheese Melt has been added to the menu. The sandwich is “made with four fried mozzarella sticks and melted American cheese grilled between two slices of sourdough bread.” It comes with fries, marinara sauce and Lipitor on the side. It could be worse. Earlier this summer, Friendly’s restaurants introduced their Grilled Cheese Burger Melt. The burger is between two grilled cheese sandwiches, in place of a bun. It has 1500 calories , 870 fat calories and an elastic waistband.

‘Cause We Canadians Are Just As Crazy About Cheese As Those Brits

Or is that just crazy? We told you about the Brits’ tradition of chasing a wheel of cheese down a steep hill.  Little did we know that there is also a Canadian Cheese Rolling Festival. It was held this month in Whistler, British Columbia. I could tell you all about it, but just watch and see for yourselves! I am SO proud to be Canadian.

I'm the one in the middle.

You Never Think It Could Happen Where You Live…Until It Does.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is warning Quebec and Ontario residents to avoid Le Belle de Jersey brand cheese, as it could contain Listeria. The affected cheeses were produced in Saguenay, Quebec, and were sold in July  and August. So far, nobody’s gotten sick except me. Sick at the thought that this could happen here. In my town, my province. It’s an outrage, I tell you. An outrage! How could this happen? What is going to be done about this? Is no one being held accountable?! I will NOT rest until someone is held accountable! Was it you? Are you the one who did this?! It was you, wasn’t it?!?! How could you?!?!?!?

Please forgive me. I seem to have gotten quite listerical there.

Dammit, people! I'm not even female!

My God! How big was the goat?

The Guinness World Record people officially recognized an Italian goat cheese, pecorino, weighing in at almost 535 kg (1,179 pounds) as the largest in the world. It is 158 cm (5.1 feet) in diameter and 29 cm (11.4 inches) in height. It took 25 volunteers, 3,500 liters (924 gallons) of milk and one bad-ass breast pump.

Now it would appear that Weems found George’s life to be a little…lacking. Sure, [...]]]>

Do you know who Mason Locke Weems is? He was also known as Parson Weems, if that helps. No? Well, he was the guy who wrote the unofficial, and somewhat creative, biography of George Washington, not so creatively named “The Life Of Washington“.

Now it would appear that Weems found George’s life to be a little…lacking. Sure, George was a successful farmer, then a successful soldier, then 1st Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, then drafter of the United States Constitution and then the 1st President of the United States of America.

I mean, really, so what if he single-handedly kicked the British army’s butt back to jolly old England so the United States of America wouldn’t be known as the United States of Her Majesty’s Summer Home? How on earth would Mister and Missus Mayflower relate?

So, Parson Weems embellished and invented, and created one of the most well-known myths ever: the famous story of the cherry tree. As he told it, George, as a boy, (or Boy George, if you prefer) received a new hatchet and immediately went outside to wreak havoc. He chopped down a cherry tree. When his dad saw the tree and was all “Boy, tell me you did not cut down the tree!” George came clean. Dad forgave him. All was well in the world. Mister and Missus Mayflower could totally relate.

Where am I going with this? Here’s the thing: I’ve always had trouble telling lies, especially when someone asks me a direct question. I may evade, or joke it off  or redirect the conversation away if I really don’t want to answer a question. Sometimes, though, a question is asked by somebody I respect and admire too much to blow off and I have to ‘fess up.

So, MikeWJ, the answer to your question is yes. And while he is very much like the persona he has created here, he is also very sweet and thoughtful and caring and funny and while it often makes me question my own sanity, I love him. Now stop being so nosy. Oh yeah, and stop putting an “e” in the word nosy!

For those of you who weren’t paying attention, you can find MikeWJ’s question here. Just follow the trail of skeletons in the comments section.

****Sidenote: For those of you who haven’t been over to read Jayne of InJaynesWorld, please take a moment to do so. She has an incredible guest post up that you really should take a look at. Thanks!

This looks like what I sound like. Or is that this sounds like what I look like?

I bet you couldn’t tell by reading that I am feeling under the weather, could you? Nope, which is why I was compelled to write something. You see, to you, my voice may still sound like a [...]]]>

This looks like what I sound like. Or is that this sounds like what I look like?

I bet you couldn’t tell by reading that I am feeling under the weather, could you? Nope, which is why I was compelled to write something. You see, to you, my voice may still sound like a smoky, sexy Kathleen Turner instead of a screechy, grating Roseanne. Also, because co-blogger Mike is off in his canoe somewhere, I promised I would attempt to fill the void left by his absence. So here I am, tired, feverish, possibly breathing my last rattling breath, writing to entertain you. Or at least kill a few minutes while you’re waiting for your popcorn to finish popping. Selflessness, thy name is Nicky.

Anyway, I slept away most of the afternoon and awoke to discover that all is not as it should be in my House Of Cheese. For those of you not “in the know”, my family is currently comprised of myself, my man, my 3 boys and my cat, Lola. Lola is the only other female in the house besides me. No, neither Lola nor I are knocked up. We are both females of the “fixed” persuasion.  

Last week, we discovered an uninvited guest in our house. Meet Charlotte. Original, I know. What can I tell you? My kids are lucky they didn’t end up like George Foreman’s kids. Now, my dear friend Linda told a lovely story about her parents-in-law’s pet spider (and I would link to it if I could find it!) which rendered me unable to kill the little bugger. 

Since she spun her web in the kitchen window, I figured it wouldn’t be so terrible to let her stay. I always leave that window open and this way Charlotte could dispose of any creepy crawlies that dared to enter. And her web was actually quite pretty. Welcome to the family Charlotte.

But this afternoon, as I said, everything changed. Charlotte, the little tramp, is considerably fatter than she was last week. Noticeably fatter. Now I’m Googling the gestational period for spiders. Linda, could you please write a post about how to deal with an impending spider infestation?

When I opened my laptop today, I was disgusted to realize that there was a crushed earwig on the keyboard. It must have been sitting there without me realizing it the night before, and when I went to shut the lid…CRUNCH.

I kind of saw that as a parallel to my life and my [...]]]>

When I opened my laptop today, I was disgusted to realize that there was a crushed earwig on the keyboard. It must have been sitting there without me realizing it the night before, and when I went to shut the lid…CRUNCH.

I kind of saw that as a parallel to my life and my job. Maybe I’m the earwig and I’m being crushed under the weight of our technology heavy world. Or perhaps I’m a crappy programmer, destroying bugs swiftly and without grace…

Or maybe it just meant that some hapless earwig was dumb enough to take a nap on the 5 key.

Anyway, this week over at Tribal Blogs, Cardiogirl had asked the question, “Do you announce a blog hiatus to your readers?”

Well that got me thinking about hiatuses in general and how I need to take one (By the way, is hiatuses the correct plural? Should is be hiati? Like Octopus/Octopi?).

Come on, come on. Focus.

Right, so hiatuses, vacations, breaks, checking out, gone fishin’ and ‘fuck it’. These are all ways of saying that you’re temporarily or maybe permanently relieving yourself of your responsibilities.

Speaking of which, have any of you read ‘Happiness’ by Will Ferguson? Pretty much everybody ‘goes fishin” in that one. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. It’s a bed wettingly funny read (I like to read in bed).

Boy, I’m scattered today, but there’s a point to all this if I can just focus for 3 seconds or more.

Oh yeah. Cathy Mumford. I caught this article about her yesterday, and basically this quote pretty much sums up what I’m talking about:

“My kids were grown and gone, I’d been laid off from a job that I loved and was sending out resumes but getting no response,” Mumford said. “So I said, ‘You know what? I’m going camping.’”

So camping she did. For 58 days. Alone. With a kayak.

Yep. She traveled the whole 740-mile Northern Canoe Forest Trail alone, and she became the first woman to do it solo. At the age of 50.

Pretty incredible.

After this week, I have 2 weeks of vacation coming to me. Whether I split town or not remains to be seen, but I think I’ll ‘check out’ for a bit. Maybe I’ll just jump in kayak and start paddling.