Look before you sleep at work

Like Woody Allen, I sleep with my glasses on.

When I sleep, I dream.

Which is why I've looked under my work desk many a time and fantasized about having a work/bed setup just like George Costanza had on Seinfeld:

Ahh, I feel more relaxed already.

Who among us hasn't wanted to catch 40 winks at 3 p.m. after the standard, 2 p.m. maple-leaf martini allotted to every man, woman, and child in Canada under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

The area under my desk is airy and spacious, and I do have some stolen (not by me) hotel linens and pillows from the Chicago trip I don't have to return until August; I could swing a pretty awesome bed 'neath my work area if I put my mind to it.

Why it reminds me of the time (cue wavy lines and harp music)...

Flashback

When I was but a lad, working in the Communications department of a large, faceless corporation, I drove to Minneapolis to see the Psychedelic Furs and came back the same night - a seven-hour drive either way.

Great band. Great trip. But I made it back just in time to report to work, sans sleep.

Sitting at my desk, I was ready to tackle the day with guns blazing. But first, I just needed to close my eyes for a... I jolted awake moments - hours? - later and was so startled, I flipped my glasses off my head and shot them into the air. Where they landed, I knew not where.

I got up to find them and - crunch - I felt them flatten beneath my foot, not unlike Messy Marvin did in A Christmas Story. Blind and stressed, I had no choice but to go home early, lie down, and sleep for 12 hours straight.

Dogs just wanna have - errr - fun

 

"Mom - what are those dogs doing?"

Are we having fun yet?

When I was five or six, my mother walked me to my piano lesson every week.

On one of these walks, we happened upon two dogs going at it in the schoolyard.

Out of the blue, I said: "Some people would say those dogs are f***ing, but I say they're just having fun."

To this day, when I walk to work in the morning, I believe I'm having fun.

A wacky and terrible game of "Would you rather?" on Winnipeg Transit

Stairway to Hell.

The more you drive, the less you take the bus, and the fewer great stories you have to tell.

I give you my favorite scene from Repo Man (the payoff is at 2:23):



I take the bus most every day, which means I have a backlog of 10,000 stories - one, great long-winded story for every bar in town. Totally worth the $3 bus fare.

The best and worst story ever

My favorite story is about the greatest - and worst - thing I saw years ago on one of those classic Winnipeg Transit buses with three, steep stairs leading up to the fare box. 

A woman at the top of the stairs dropped her bus ticket, so she bent down to pick it up. Behind her was a guy ascending the stairs while talking to someone behind him. He turned his face around as he took the next step, but it was too late - and the rest of us were treated to a display of full face-to-butt contact, like a horrifying twist on the old Reeses ads:



Which would you rather not?

So, I've told this story about a million times, and it's slowly morphed into one of those "Would you rather?" games, where I end by asking, "So which one of these people had it worse - the person who suddenly had a face in her butt, or the person who suddenly found his face was in a butt?"

The responses really run the gamut, but men tend to feel sorry for the guy and women tend to feel sorry for the woman. But my favorite is my friend's response:

"It wouldn't be so bad either way if you wanted to do it, but if you were forced to do it - either one would be terrible."

Truer words were never spoken. Thank you, friend, for the philosophy, and thank you, Winnipeg Transit, for the memories.

Scenes from a mall: the great underwear incident

It happened here. 

True story:

As I walked with my friend through Polo Park mall on our way to see a movie, a pair of old, balled-up underwear fell out of his pant leg and landed on his foot.

Me: "What the hell is that?!

Him: "That's not mine!" 

He kicked the gitch off his foot, and it landed a few feet away in a depressing pile of shame.

We continued walking to the movie theatre in silence, leaving the sad and abandoned briefs behind us.

After the movie, on our way back through the mall, we returned to the scene of the crime. There, we saw a janitor sweeping up my friend's disavowed underwear into a dustpan.

The janitor had a beleaguered look on his face; had there been a camera, I'm pretty sure he would have shrugged, looked directly into the lens, and sighed: "It's a living."

"Are you sure you don't want to go get your gitch?" I asked my friend.

'It's not mine," he said.

And we never talked about it again.

Don't smoke - we know who you are!!

If you are "Hungary" for great food or signage, look no further than the Regina Hungarian Cultural & Social Club.

I love the very idea of this sign on the men's room door, which claims to know who's doing the smoking. But if you know who's doing the smoking, why hang the sign when you could just give the offender a knock to the noggin?

And why put the quotation marks around "No?" And phrase the rule as a prediction?

A miracle of graphic design and communications...but, I swear to God, the crepes, schnitzel, and perogies kick ass!

Advertising is cheap and solves all of your problems: I Love You, Man

I Love Your Billboard, Man (photo from Franklin Ave.)

I finally got around to seeing I Love You, Man, which first hit theatres, oh, about the same time that Socrates was condemned to drink a decanter of hemlock.

I liked the film a lot, which doesn't surprise me, considering that it features Canadian sci-fi rockers Rush, a guy with a man-cave, and Lou Ferrigno - the Hulk himself.

Though the film doesn't strive for realism, I must point out that I've seen Rush in concert twice, met Lou Ferrigno twice, and if I don't have a man-cave, I do have a "room" with books, a drum set, CDs, action figures, a computer, and comics...wait a sec - it is a man-cave!

The thing that did surprise me is that the moral of the film is: "$8,000 worth of advertising can save your life."

*Spoiler alert*

In the film, Paul Rudd's character loans Jason Segal $8,000 bucks (a plot point that doesn't make a lot of sense, given what Segal says about his financial situation at the end of the film).

The loan creates a rift between the two, as personal loans often do, and Rudd decides that he no longer wants Segal to be the best man at his wedding.

Turns out that Segal has actually used the $8,000 to buy about $1 million worth of out-of-home ads in Los Angeles to promote Rudd's real-estate business ("I got a deal from a friend," is how Segal explains the disparity between the cash and the media buy. Hmmmm....).

Surprise: the advertising works and solves all of Rudd's problems: his friendship with Segal, his relationship with his family, his business, the sale of Lou Ferrigno's house, the wedding, and maybe even the marriage. Wow - neat trick.

While the film is a great ad for getting married, having a bro-mance, and seeing Rush in concert, it's even a better ad for out-of-home advertising.

Which reminds me: "Dude, can I borrow $8,000 for this investment thing? I'll totally pay you back."

More fine out-of-home work from Boost Mobile

The good folks at Boost Mobile are at it again. Some more fine out-of-home treatments in Chicago:

This is really great: a paper shredder is contained within this window. Every so often, the contract above it runs through the shredder, depositing the shreds at the bottom of the window. Uncontract'd indeed!

This one is racier. On the side of the bus, Boost tells us how to get "Unscrew'd." For once!

Some great Chicago out-of-home ad treatments

Exhibit one: an ad for Boost Mobile. It's a bus shelter ad that features an actual hose under the glass. Of course, the creative means "unhosed." Or is that "unscrewed?" Or is that "untangled?" "Unwrapped?" "Unwound?" OK, I don't know what it means, but it's cool nonetheless. And maybe I'm just dense.

Exhibit two is a campaign you can't avoid in Chicago. Quaker Oats' "Go Humans Go" campaign is everywhere: billboards, transit wraps, taxi tops, bus benches... It's impactful and simple, and it made me actually visit the website to find out what it's about. And, oh yeah, now I'm hungry for Quaker Oats.

Exibit three is ingenious. You check out the peep show and it's a display of... Marshmallow Peeps for Easter! I saw person after person peep into the (glory?) holes and each one died laughing or had a bashful smile after "peeping." Great idea, perfectly matched to the brand.

Nothing like some great creative to remind ourselves that just because most ads are boring doesn't mean that they all have to be.