Fantacrap (adj): a combination of Fantasea and Crap

The last time I was this embarrassed I was rinsing a dirty plunger in the bathtub at a friend's apartment. But that was lifetimes before the Shedd Aquarium's new show Fantasea.

Before the Shedd calls me a family-fun hating monster, let me say in my defense, "Shedd, I don't get any special joy out of nicknaming your new production Fantacrap. The show isn't even open yet, and you can bet when it does there will be dozens, if not hundreds, flocking to the internet to bash the show you've called Fantasea. Besides, Shedd, if you're going to get criticized, wouldn't you rather hear it from someone who loves you?"--At least, that's what my Mom always said to me...

Fantasea could have been interesting, if it were kept under an 30 minutes, ditched the Disney/Sea World feel, and was altogether redeveloped. The one thing Fantasea has going for it is, for the first time Shedd audiences can go to the Oceanarium and see several animals, including the dolphins, do tricks. (Yes tricks... because if you try to tell me that a sea lion tugging a rope with the word pull on it is a "natural behavior", I'll go from embarasse to ashamed.) Every other element in the show is working against Fantasea, from the colorful seaweed hoola dancers, to the out of place Mary Poppins-type characters with umbrellas suspended from the ceiling, to that poor young girl who's planted in the audience with her "mom".

The emcee of Fantasea had asked everyone in the audience not to discuss the show because it's official release is still a few days away... so I won't give any more spoilers, but I cannot say this enough: The show is embarassing! It's embarrassing to watch he Shedd Aquarium endeavor to put on a Disney-esque performance and miss the mark completely, becoming a corny production with no value in entertainment, education, nor otherwise. I don't have kids, and I can't tell if any in the audience were buying the show, although my boyfriend swears he saw one 2-year-old roll his eyes.

Fantasea completely undermines the great and interesting things going on at the Shedd. It's a shame Fantasea reached the point of expensive lesson to be learned, when any dopey focus group would have axed it in pre-production phases and helped the Shedd avoid what will certainly become a big black eye.

Do you know "good" pick up lines?

Add your pickup lines to the comments section of this article I wrote for Denver Six Shooter.

Pickup lines are the frisky, bastard cousins of the Hallmark's Valentine. They're the one- or two- liners that could get you laid, but more likely get a drink thrown in your face. I asked dozens of people from six different Capitol Hill bars for pickup lines, and this is what happened.

Buffalo Wild Wings Trivia

The bad mood began when the DJ announced a competitor's team name was "Multiple Scoregasm", which clearly trumped our team name, "Scoregasm."

"Yes, that's right," said the DJ (i.e. Wade). "There are two teams who have the word 'Scoregasm' in their name."

How humiliating!

Things continued to go down hill as I displayed unjustified confidence in topics I should really start considering lessons in the Golden Rule. On trivia of "Name-D-Year" variety, I should be seen and not heard.

Yet I'm not completely useless at bar trivia. I jumped up quickly at "What is the largest organ of the body?"

At the DJ booth, a regular stands, looks at me, and says ironically:"Blah blah blah largest organ in MY body."

I laugh a sarcastic, "Har, har, har" giving him the three elbow jab, and I remembered something that happened last Halloween.

My boss's son wanted me to print him out pictures of skeletons. I printed on, and he comes up to me and says, "No! Not a girl skeleton! I want a picture of a boy skeleton!"

"Kid," I says, "that's not a bone."

He looks at me incredulously... made me second guess myself.

In the midst of this internal dialogue, I return to my seat and continue to do piss poor at Buffalo Wild Wings Trivia.

One word, via Facebook

I keep getting all of these things via Facebook. I think there used to be a time when these were forwarded endlessly throughout a circle of friends via email. I like the Facebook method better; keeps my inbox clean. Anyway, here's my responses to ONE word answers.


Type only ONE word answers

It's harder than you think!! Here is what you are supposed to do...and please don't spoil the fun...copy and paste into your own note, type in your answers and tag a bunch of people - including me.

Where is your cell phone?..... dunno
Your hair? ......... oily :(
Your father? ........ daddy
Your favorite thing? ........... Kyle
Your dream last night?....... forgotten
Your favorite drink? ........... smoothie
Your dream/goal? ........... mastery
The room you are in? ...... bedroom
Your fear? ......... trickery
Where do you want to be in 6 years?..... adventuring
Muffins? ............. nope
One of your wish list items?.......... money
Where you grew up? ........ Chicago
The last thing you did? ....... cleaned
What are you wearing?....... pajamas
Your TV?........... nonexistent
Your pets? ......... dead
Your computer? ..... sux
Your life? ......... cluttered
Your mood? ........ resourceful
Missing someone? ...... constantly
Your car? .... sold
Favorite store?..... museum
Your summer? ..... unplanned
Your favorite color? ........ changes
When is the last time you laughed? .....yesterday
Last time you cried? ....... dunno
Last person to email me? ally
My favorite food? ........ all
A place I would rather be right now? ..... home

International Snow Sculpture Competition (Breckinridge, CO, 2009)

Jump Into Boulder Dive Bars

So another fun and exciting thing I've been up to: Drinking!

I've got a little gig going around to bars and chronicling the escapades for DenverSixShooter.com

Check out my first post, Dive Bars Beneath the Streets of Boulder.

Disney World Marathon... check!

"No!" in response to: "Are you ready?"

Maybe I shouldn't be so brutally honest to the staff of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, but honestly, I was not feeling very ready to run that marathon.

But Sunday rolled around, and I showed up, started, and I finished the Walt Disney World Marathon! It was my first and last.

Kyle and I met with my parents in Florida on Thursday, January 8th. We had a few great days hopping around parks before my 6 hour run/walk on the 11th.

Some things to note

• The altitude made a huge difference! I ran the first 18 miles wihtout getting the least bit winded.
• Running stinks! One should only engage in running to save one's life, and often that decision should really be weighed more carefully.
• I walked from 18 to 25. Although my cardio system felt great, the altitude didn't save discomfort from ligaments and muscles in my feet, of all places.
• Disney has characters throughout the course. Many racers stopped to take photos, I did not.
• I spent almost 30 minutes in line for port-o-lets along the way.
• During the race I ate 2 bananas, 2 cups of honey, and probably drank more than 2L of water.
• I finished the 1/2 marathon in about 2 hours and I crawled through the second half to come in at 6hrs.
• No injuries. No joint paint. No major muscle soreness. I crossed the finish line on my feet, and each of the succeeding days were pain-free, with only slight stiffness in my shoulders.
• Goals accomplished: (1) completed the race, (2) didn't get hurt, and (3) won't be in a state of recovery for any part fo the following week.

Now onto a bigger and better 2009, in which there are no marathons, but plenty of chocolate cake.

"Newly" Published Article about Politickin'

I scoured the internet and found an article I sold to an unknown bidder last month.

Check it out: Dear John...That Sarah Palin Thing... it was a joke, wasn't it?

Dear John...congratulations on a hard fought Presidential campaign. I have a lot of respect for you. Still, I voted for Barack Obama. It's only fair, I think, that I tell you the ten reasons why I did not vote for you, John McCain. (And, may I call you John?)

1. Sarah Palin.

I got the joke, John. You chose Palin to stick it to the GOP. They demanded right wing; they got it! Maybe you called your pal Lieberman and you both had a good bipartisan laugh. Who would have thought they would go along with Palin, who's so inexperienced? (Even Castro said Sarah Palin ""doesn't know anything about anything.")

2. Overuse of the word "maverick".

I sympathize, John. Obama seized the younger generation. You wanted to compete, to appeal to the kids. Give them a simple, yet fun, drinking game. Pull them into your speeches. Alas, after 5 minutes and 15 drinks, they all sat around talking about Obama, and everyone still sober wondered, "Why would a real maverick need to keep pointing it out?"

3. I own fewer than one home.

John, when you need to count on your toes to keep track of your property, you've lost my vote. I know you're a little on the older side. You've had plenty of time to accumulate wealth, and then forget about it. Still, I don't think we'd have anything to talk about at a party. Maybe, we wouldn't understand each other at all.

4. Sarah Palin.

Remember when she said she could see Russia from Alaska? That was cute.

5. Victory obsession.

I like winning: Scrabble, gaining possession of the remote control from my brother. These competitions cost relatively little, and there's very little chance of death. Sure winning is great, but at what cost, and isn't protecting your country from real threats more important?

6. Not a good fireman.

When a fireman witnesses a fire, she attempts to put it out or help in some way. John, at your rallies people were "screaming "kill him" and "terrorist about Obama. If you want to be President, shouldn't you try to lead?

7. Sarah Palin.

"Ak-me-DEEn-a-shad." Look, John! Pookey pronounced her first foreign leader!

8. Does not play well with others.

Each time you have a clever Obama zinger, or when you refused to look at him during Debate 1, or when you called Obama "That one" in Debate 2, I have to wonder, how would your represent the U.S. to, say, the Prime Minister of Pakistan?

9. Kept referring to me as "friend."

I'm flattered, John, but before this letter, we hardly knew each other.

10. Men in Black.

I liked you a lot going into this race, John. You sponsored middle of the road bills. You like Joe Lieberman; I like Joe Lieberman. But right around the time of the Republican Convention, I got a feeling that recalled the movie Men in Black. You were no longer John McCain; you were like a right-wing alien wearing a McCain suit.

Anyway, John, I hope there are no hard feelings. At least we still have the Sarah Palin joke. It was a joke, wasn't it?

How Amazon.com Users Describe Products

Paranormal Romance.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "No shit! I just tagged about 50 items on Amazon.com with the phrase 'paranormal romance'." Well, you're not alone. Of all the phrases and words in the English dictionary, "paranormal romance" is the 6th most popular adjective that comes to the minds of Amazon.com users when they want to describe Amazon products.

Nearly 42,000 products on Amazon.com are tagged with the phrase "paranormal romance".

Tagging is the Web 2.0 practice of labeling items with keywords. As far as I can tell, the theory is to "tag" web content with keywords to improve search engine rankings.

I was initially shocked to learn that 42,000 items exists on Amazon.com that are worthy of the tag "paranormal romance". Then I became shocked at the number of common terms that get used less than "paranormal romance". Here's just a couple:

• "Book" only had 32,000 tags.
• "Disney" owns 14,000 tags.
• "Christmas" gets a nearly 13,000 tags.
• "Toys" and "Sex" (not one phrase) each get fewer than 9,000 tags.

Please feel free to not believe one word of this, and check out the Amazon.com Tag Map for yourself. Hover over the words to get stats on the number of tags for each of the "popular" phrases.

World War Z, you should read it this weekend!

Everyone should read World War Z or at least listen to it on tape as soon as possible!

The World War Z is the story of the great zombie war told through the words of dozens of individuals throughout the globe, and in the end, you get a fantastic book, excitingly action-filled and forebodingly satirical. I just finished World War Z, and I am completely in awe at how engaging and evocative the experience was!

The story begins in rural China with a doctor witnessing Case Zero, the first documented case of the living dead. From there the story takes off across the globe crafting the stories of different nations: from how they become aware of the zombie epidemic to their progression of reactions including denial, concern, panic, retreat, and finally, regrouping and offensive.

Each of the characters had unique stories to tell, and each of them had unique mannerisms and culture backing them up. The military figures have a broad command of weapon and strategy terminology. The Israeli scholars speak methodically yet conversationally. The businessmen seem to swagger and strut.

Of course interesting characters are nothing without action and conflict and with millions of zombies hungry for human flesh, there was plenty of decapitation, skull-busting, disembowelment, and cannibalism (on both ends of the fence). Even before the Great Panic, international tensions are high. Palestinians fear that offers to take asylum in voluntarily quarantined territory may just be Israelis trying to lure their enemies in for enslavement. Without diplomatic relationships, misunderstandings lead to nuclear war. Celebrities become torn off their pedestals by the very people that initially instated them. Civilians flee in all directions, and everyone falls under the category of refugee.

Above the action and the impeccably crafted characters, is the satire. Every character that told a personal story in World War Z had some keen insight into our modern world, without being corny. The book was rampant with topical themes such as community vs. isolation, selfishness vs. cooperation, practical vs. prodigal.

The setting in time added tremendously to the book's allure as well. The author constantly references the Cold War and pop figures so that you know exactly when this story took place. In short, if World War Z was a prophetic book, zombies will be taking over the globe in something like 2 to 5 years from right now! Keeping within the frame of reference of the reader only enhances the illusion of World War Z.


The audio version of this book is like listening to a movie! Its only 6 hours long, and whereas many audiobooks are done by one reader playing voices for each individual character, World War Z featured a new reader for each character. readers included, among more than 12 others, John Turturro, Mark Hamill, and Alan Alda.

Download it from audible.com, listen to it on your way to work next week or while you're at the gym, and you won't be sorry.

Vote for my TShirt

Well, the infamous flying fish drawing is now a TShirt design and available for you to vote on Threadless.com... so please do!

Threadless.com, Everyone should look and critique my TShirt Design

Okay, I would post and post and post some more, but this little gal is pooped and needs to get her beauty rest because she starts marathon training (again) tomorrow early morning-style!

If you come across this post, you should check out Threadless.com or at least go to this site and critique my TShirt submission! There will be a day very soon that I will ask for voters. Hurray. And goodnight.

The Walrus (a poem)

Let's all be on the outside,
Who we are on the inside.

Let's go to the Walrus on Tuesday,
Dressed as your spouse.

Shame what?
Embarrassed, huh?

Fall on your face while dancing.

Queue up with the other guys,
Glazed over eyes,
Waiting to put their "drink order"
Into the waitress.

Respond: "I am a robot."
When a stranger says,
"Someone drew lines
And wrote numbers one through six
on your back."
Respond: "Robots don't sing."
When the same person
Asks you to duet Meatloaf.

Do the monkey on stage as
Your new best friend
What's-his-name
Sings "Baby Got Back".

"Unchained Melody", "Eclipse of the Heart", "Big Booty Bitches"
An entire genre of songs use
Lyrics such as mlaah la la la.
Dhaaa.

When you're asked if you'd
Like another Cherry Coke,
Feel free to say, "No thanks.
I'm driving."

Because here at the Walrus,
Singing karaoke with the mic
Parallel to the floor
With your eyes closed,
Here at the Walrus
We are all
Openly retarded.

The Best Dating Method Ever: Get over yourself and get a girl

I knew I was going to be sitting down with my friend W last time I came into town, and I knew that our enjoyable conversations were going to go toward love troubles. We all have them. I was trying to come up with a good plan to get W out of his head and into a girl.

Thus the Krenn Method was born!

I have to say it is a pretty great, nay INGENIOUS Method!

Let me set this Method up a little better with some of the fundamental observations that lead to its conception:

1. Everyone gets rejected a lot. Here I'm using a loose definition of the word "rejected." It's not so much as having a girl tell you she won't go on a date with you. It includes a member of the target gender bailing out on plans, not being interested enough while conversing with you, etc. The trick is that most people rack up rejections at an early age (junior high-ish). By the time they hit college, they can read signals well enough to make good decisions on who is worthy of their attention.
   
2. Rejection leads to relationship maturity. Let's face it. Girls in their mid-twenties and beyond expect guys to behave and react in certain ways. Don't ask me for examples. I don't have any. All I know is that things I hear my female cohort describe can often be shielded under the umbrella of relationship immaturity or inexperience. Unfortunately, it seems that the most socially mature individual can still be relatively immature in a dating relationship. These immature daters are at a terrible disadvantage because the relationship maturity is what intelligent women base their romantic (not to be mistaken as sexual) decisions on.
3. Time is constantly being wasted. Pining over the target gender was fine and dandy for Shakespeare. Afterall, the dating pool in any play is only a max of 5 people. In the real world, every second you waste pining is time you're out of the game and missing opportunities to find the next best thing.

These observations lead to conflict.

1. How can an immature dater rack up the experience to get a girl? Only through rejection. But how do you get those worried about rejection to throw caution to the wind and try anyway?
2. What advice can you give an inexperienced dater so that he stops wasting time on girls that are not worthy of him?
   

The answers to question one lie in The Seventy Five. The answers to question two lie in The Steps.

As my friend has already done such an amazing job of explaining the method on his Live Journal page, I'm not even going to bother getting into it.

Check out Don Burleson on Live Journal.

An omen of better times to come

Acupuncture: My deeper sensation

Today I got stabbed in the back with a needle, and I immediately was reminded of having my teeth drilled at the dentist. It was my 2nd acupuncture treatment.



Magic Ingredients

Acupuncturists do this thing where they light herbs on fire and stick them to your body. When you feel the heat, it gets removed. The herb is called Moxa (possibly misspelled).

On my first acupuncture treatment, I was told that I was going to get Moxa in my belly button. To disperse the heat evenly and prevent burning, my acupuncturist was going to put salt into my belly button. I immediately envision some magical Chinese salt that you have to buy from the same store where that kid picked up Gizmo from the movie Gremlins. Limited edition, thousand-year-old salt from the bottom of an ancient sea. And as I'm in the middle of this imagination frenzy, my acupuncture gal begins to pour into my belly button the salt from none other than a standard blue Morton Salt container... I felt a bit like a cake...

Today there was Moxa, sans salt, all over the place and lots of it! I don't know if the Moxa was a compounding factor or what, but there were plenty of "deeper sensations" today as well.


Deeper Sensation

When you hear about acupuncture, maybe you're used to hearing phrases such as "really works" or "balances energy". What you do not hear tossed around is "deeper sensation".

I owe my deeper sensations to luck. I've always been curious about acupuncture, but my curiosity has never motivated me to open up my wallet. My first two visits to this acupuncturist have been pro bono on account of my going to a health fair to get my cholesterol checked and getting my name picked out of the magic acupuncture hat.

Anyway, the first visit my acupuncture gal was prepping me on what to expect. She said, "You're going to feel a pin prick, and then you may feel a deeper sensation."

"What is a deeper sensation?"

"Well, it could be a dull pain, or like a shock of electricity..."

"So you're telling me, something bad."

For that first treatment, she had drawn four X's around my ankles. These were the treasure map to the points she intended to jut a needle into to aleviate the following symptoms: stress, cold extremities, and mood swings.

First needle goes in and out, and there wasn't much in the way of a deeper sensation. Second needle, things stay boring. Third needle, starting to yawn. Forth needle, a huge rush of energy from the needle point shooting out my toes. (Days later, I recounted this to my mom who thought this could have been a "hit nerve". I've been wondering about that, and decided that it was somewhat different: Pinching nerves leave a pain after you remove the simulus. In my case, the needle came out and the excitement was immediately over.)

Anyway, this "deeper sensation" left me on an "acupuncture high" until at least the following day. I felt drunk, to be quite honest, and that evening when I was talking with my friend Kara, I found myself more eager to laugh than usual--quite a feat, because Kara is generally funny anyway and this was definately a heightened experience.

So today I had my second treatment.

One point in my back and I mistakenly thought my teeth were getting drilled. A point on my calf and I thought I was standing on hot coals. Probably 4 deeper sensations in all, all somewhat unpleasant, and this was with about 10 points.

Also I got stuck in the stomach. I didn't like that very much.

Flying Puppy

Question: What's worse than phoning your boyfriend at midnight-thirty to say that you have abandoned you room because no one is around to save you from the gigantic moth that slipped into bed with you?

Answer: Re-branding the nemesis from "fluttering menace" into a "flying puppy."


"Just trap it with your hands," he said. "It's soft."

"I don't care what it is," I said. "I tried to capture it with the tupperware, and it just started flying around!!" (Truly an outrage.)

The problem with moths, more so than other bugs, is that they're just as clumsy as I. Flies are easy to shoo out of the open door or window because they have a predictable trajectory. Moths, on the other hand, are all willy-nilly, and I find myself imitating their behavior, wiggling around as if I had no bones.

Let's be honest, I don't do well with other bugs either.

In college, I had two carpenter ants in my apartment. I had moved all of the lights into the affected room so that I could see their every move. It's debilitating. Like being a child that saw a scary movie too close to bedtime. In the end, I bought very hard soled shoes and mashed the ants into the carpet. Then I covered their little carpenter ant corpses with a desk.

One time, that same year, I had a big spider in my apartment. I was on the phone with Walter at the time, and I started panicking.

"Walter, what should I do!"

"Turn off all of the lights and hope it goes away!"

"Will you come over and kill it for me?"

"God no!" were his exact words.

Fastforward to two years after the carpet ant/spider apartment, and I was living in an apartment with straight up roaches! They were nice, because although very gross, the adults were very secretive. You never had to look at a live moving adult roach in my apartment. Just the little baby roaches would hang around in the sink, and the remedy was simple: Turn on the hot water, dump a cap full of bleach into the drain, and spend the night at a friends house for about a week.

Earlier this month there were two big wasps in our apartment. Wade lured them toward the screen door by turning on a nearby light. Then he crawled GI-style toward the screen door and slid the door open without getting so much as 4 inches from the ground.

It was pretty impressive, and luckily for me, his demonstration on how to rid the apartment of a wasp occurred before he left for his DJ gig. So when the second wasp was in the house and I was alone, I had the survival skills to get it out the door. Then I had the common sense to close all of the doors and windows and turn on the AC.

Well, I've procrastinated long enough... its time to leave the lights on in the hall, build a fort out of my blankets, and get some sleep.

beat that!

I had a friend in college who maintained that her father's dream was to have a photograph of her and her mother wearing matching floral dresses.

Summer Book Review #1

The Books
Positioning--Al Reis and Jack Trout

The 22 Immutable Truths of Branding--Al Reis and Laura Reis

The Sort-of Review
Okay, so I've finished two books this week--never mind that one was an audio book! Both of them are from my Additional Work-Related Reading list, leaving only one left in that caegory for the summer.

These two books, both related to marketing, branding, and positioning were incredibly insightful for me, being that I'm the "Marketing Director" despite being entirely clueless about marketing.

The point is that if anyone is interested in marketing, these two books are quick, easy-to-reads. They are very instructional, i.e. repetitive and full of good examples. They were perfect starting points for me to get my feet wet in the first step of marketing a new product--branding it. Even if you're not interested in marketing, these books provide fun insight into the way that people think when they go to the store.

While reading, I identified a dichotomy in myself between when I am a consumer and when I am a marketer.

The rule? Repetition creates a brand and a position in the mind of the consumer.

As a consumer, I best remember things that have been repeated over and over again. That "how many licks to the center of the tootsie pop?" commercial. Perfect example. I don't think the Tootsie Roll people made any other commercials. So in my mind, I have a special, uncontested place for Tootsie Pops. I also have a unique place in my brain where I store tips from Louie the Lightning Bug with regards to power lines.

As a marketer, I enjoy coming up with different looks to our brochures. Although it's fun for me to keep coming up with new designs, it doesn't help establish a singular idea of our company's brand in the mind. As it turns out, a singular, uncontested version of your company is the best way to go.

For more on these things, read the books!


NOTE
You can download a 1-hour audio version of The 22 Immutable Truths of Branding from Audible.com for less than $7.

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