possibly the greatest use of your time EVAR

Thanks to the Dewey Decimal Mistress, we can all see ourselves as ponies. My Little Ponies.


From the make-me-a-pony site's homepage, "This pony generator lets you create your dream pony, test generate a starter pony, or see what the pony of two existing parents looks like." Essentially, we have complete artistic license & full reign of the place.

So before you go around smacking people upside the head or overturning desks 'cause you just can't take another damn "hump day joke, take a couple minutes to create your pony (that's me in that picture, if you didn't recognize...I lost some more weight). Just imagine what pretty ponies we all can be.

And if you're all good little ponies, then--maybe--I'll sing you the My Little Pony song I wrote this summer.

thank you notes: the toughest job in writing

They're the unsung heroes of the job search, the wedding scene and the newly graduated. Yeah, great thank you notes are hard to find, harder still to write. You have to gush without gushing, praise without pandering or condescending, reference specifics only the thanked will understand. There's a secret code to it all; it's both a science and an art form.

Just this morning, I sent out one of my very own -- a thank you note for a job interview at a dream agency and a CD (Creative Director, for you non-ad-types) for whom I really want to work. Hell, I may even ache for this. So this note had a big job to do. I literally dreamed about it & woke up writing it. I'll keep you posted on how it fairs.

Now, please enjoy my Thank You to Gary at TBWA/Chiat/Day:


I feel sorry for this thank you note, really. It bears the heavy burden of great desire, and knows that it'll probably never up to the expectations of its creator. That's a lot of pressure. In the immortal words of the great Glenn Frey, "The heat is on."

Ask anyone who knows me -- disruption is in my very nature. It could even be said that I was born for the job. Every fiber of my being strives to challenge opinions and create new standards. Is she a -happy-homemaking-how-was-your-day-dear-stitching-
stiletto-wearing-pink-adoring-girlie-girl, or is she a jeans-t-shirt-combat-boots-
wearing-muscle-car-gearhead-red-meat-and-football-loving-rough-and-tumble-tough-
enough-for-roller-derby-and-then-some-tomboy? Maybe no one will ever know the full extent. But who am I to fight nature?

All I know is, opportunities like this -- to be there in the beginning, lighting a fire that'll lead an entire industry out of the dark ages -- well, they don't come around everyday. Full disclosure: I'm grabbing this one. Yep, I've got it bad for this job, and I'm ready when you are. Thanks for seeing the spark in me, and thanks for carving out so much time for me yesterday. I hope the feeling's mutual.


UPDATE: Yes, the feeling IS mutual -- I start freelancing at one of the best ad shops in the world on Tuesday!! Hoot, holler, congratulate me, people!

brilliant little music monkeys in Portland

As I've said before, "There are frustrated writers everywhere -- fantastic writers, stifled by narrow constraints, untrusting superiors and a lack of vision." But sometimes, constraints begin to widen, superiors begin to trust & vision gets checked & picked up in droves. I know that most of you lovely readers aren't advertising geeks like I am, but I always love to share great examples with you fine folks anyway.

Some of my favorite advertising comes when companies least expect consumers to be paying attention -- in legal disclaimers, and instructional copy. When they don't drop their personality and tone, their brands shine through even better to me.

Take, for instance, this brilliant email from a company from whom the man recently purchased a CD. When he read it, he told me to read it. When I read it, I immediately wanted to share it. So, get a cup of coffee, sit back, and enjoy the read. Then tell me. Who will you think of when you order your next CD?


From: "CD Baby loves "

Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure
it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Saturday, January 5th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all
exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh...

--
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent music

still sayin' no in '08

As many of you already know, I'm not a big fan of social networking sites. I've poo-pooed MySpace & Friendster for years, assuring my loved ones that our friendships would survive without them.


And the years went on without anyone dying catastrophically from my missing presence on Dogster, Catster & Bebo. A few "friendships" died along the way, not casualties of my choosing not to join their trusted network of friends on Reunion or Classmates, but of my not wanting fake people cluttering up my inbox with spam & my address book with their important information. Miss Missouri's phone numbers & birthday? Delete.

But I'd still get razzed occasionally to conform. "Join the cult, Carol Anne. Just come toward the light. Then we can poke each other on Facebook." My response to which is, "We can poke each other at dinner next week, but I'm not signing up for yet another site where I can waste even more time online."

The weirdest plea came from a still unknown source, because I refused to sign up for the service just to read the goddamned profile of whoever sent me the following message, "daviso hates you! Join him to take over the world! Everybody loves to hate -- hate with him on Hatebook." Clearly, you can see. My interest was seriously piqued. Whose wouldn't be? But all the hate in the world still wasn't enough to pressure me into signing up & giving someone else more e-access to my life, friends, opinions & marketability as a female, living with partner, aged 25-34.

Granted, I joined Flickr so I could share photos with ease (check out my latest additions) & LinkedIn so I could network for work (anyone got a job I can have?), but that's where I've drawn the line. Last week alone, I received three new invitations -- two to join Spock & one to join Plaxo Pulse. I've never even heard of these nonsensical online locales, but I'm guessing one is for Star Trek fans & the bigger geeks who love them (yeah, totally sounds like me) & the other is for people with heart conditions & the people who go bankrupt to care for them (thanks for no universal health love, big pharma/private healthcare assholes).


All I know is -- I'm not signing up.

And until I get a REALLY good, legitimate reason for signing up for your favorite way to pass the time online, just leave me off the invite list. I won't be setting up any profiles today, thank you.

please, big tv, meet the writers' demands -- we need them back now

Who of you out there hasn't been on TV yet? Come on, who are you? Speak up now. It's a brand new day of the brand new year & I've just seen the rerun of a friend of my cousin's appearing as a contestant on Deal or No Deal, originally aired Christmas night. And oh, what an amazing feat of mediocrity it was. This girl, a rude, five-headed, socially irresponsible nitwit, whom I've been lucky enough to know for more than 20 years, has recently garnered worldwide housewife fame for delivering a litter of 6 in Arizona -- ooh, the first dog-lady there ever! Since dropping all six puppies this summer, she & her husband have trotted themselves & their progeny in front of any camera that seems to be on. "Does that red light mean we're being broadcast live in Shanghai?" Apparently, NBC owns the rights to their American fame, since they're now regulars on the Today show (love your non-hair, Lauer) & just accepted a lousy deal of $121k on the aforementioned DoND rerun. Jamie & I fear there'll be a reality show soon enough, following the daily lives of God's favorite baby factory.(Oh yeah, welcome my cousin Jamie to our family of dedicated readers, people.) Of course, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I looked at their blog & saw that even their proposal was on national TV. These two media hogs were absolutely destined for each other. Ahh, true love.

But Jenny the human uterus isn't the only one getting her 15 minutes. Seems everywhere I look, regular people are getting theirs on the ol' boob tube on ultra-amazing, uber-real reality and game shows. "Clash of the Choirs" featured superstar Patti LaBelle putting together a choir to compete against the hastily-assembled fighting choirs of posers Nick Lachey, Michael Bolton, Kelly Rowland and Blake Shelton, the last two of whom I've never even heard. I seriously doubt "The Moment of Truth," an elaborate, televised game of truth or dare, will pay off with naked boobies, bullies getting payback from their former victims or astonishing human insights -- all of which you'd imagine from the title. Of course, reality queen bee Carson Kressley couldn't help but jump back into the action with "How to Look Good Naked," which, we can only hope, will actually help an army of fat girls get naked for TV.

And the writers' strike promises to deliver even more of this teleterror (Copyright mine, 2008, bitches). Never before in my life have I valued great writing more than I do now -- now that I'm facing at least a season of these Hey-America-You're-On-TV-'Cause-We-Don't-Wanna-Pay-Real-Talent tablescraps on my beloved big-screen.


Do I say all this because I want my own reality show based on my already extensive body of TV appearances, two of which you can see here and here? No. I truly feel the loss of the brilliant writing we all take for granted.

Late & later tonight, after we should all be in bed, America will witness the real comic genius of Jay Leno & Conan O'Brien. Can you guess which one I predict may actually produce a quality show even without his trusty writers? Darwin said only one can survive. Tune in with me to see who goes down in flames & who proves to be worth his weight in jokes. And let's all work on each & every one of you getting some small-screen face time in 2008.