whizdumb

Ricky Gervais blends comedy and purpose

A brilliant piece of subversive and crerative comedy from the man himself. It starts slow but go with it. What do you think? Thanks to Erin

The Tao of Poo

The other day I looked in the cupboard where we store our used plastic bags. And I realized something. There were only a handful there.

In the year since we brought home our dog Sydney, our acquisition of hundreds of plastic grocery and newspaper bags has been perfectly equal to the number of bags we need on her walks.

Apparently the amount of groceries and newspaper reading we consume is in cosmic proportion to, well, the poop she poops.

A little dumb, but isn't it nice when things just balance out?

Calling all navel gazing strategy types: take the survey!

Every year this enterprising planner named Heather LeFevre launches a little study among planners.  Give her some love!

Hello Planners!
It's time for the third annual planner survey. If you haven't participated before, the survey is designed to let us all see what planners at different agencies think about their jobs, understand what drives salaries, anhopefully learn more about how our discipline is changing. Each year it has grown and changed. 192 people participated last year and you are a receiving this email by blind copy. If you are not a planner, we're hopeful that you can forward this email to the planners you know. The first link below will send you to the survey - please only take the survey if you are working as a planner (freelance and those who work outside the US are welcome). The second link captures your email so I can send you the results and your answers stay anonymous. Please forward this email to all the planners you know, and if you have a blog, would you post the links so we can get the most responses possible?

Please feel free to email me with questions and as always, thanks for playing!

Heather LeFevre

 

Survey: http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2267NSQC4N8

Email capture: http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB226A4SQTQMA

POS doggy style

This is one of three purported executions by McCann Eriksson in Brazil.  I'm not sure how these really worked in store but they certainly have stopping power.  And the dog coming out of the ground is a nice play on perspective for the floor decal medium.

Thanks Paul.

 

Garrison Keillor on humor

This represents the best and the worst of A Prairie Home Companion. But altogether, I love the dive into jokes, what makes things funny, and how human humor is. Listening to the best jokes here makes you realize how much power a good storyteller brings to his or her subject.

Which reminds me of a quote, a metaphor about brands telling vs. doing. I'm not sure where it comes from:

"Don't tell me you're funny. Make me laugh."

Reminder: Coffee this Friday

Details here.

Make a funny

Every week the New Yorker dangles a captionless cartoon for the masses to complete. I think it's kind of fun to give it a try sometimes. Good for a random creative challenge. My attempt for this one:

"Sir, are you aware the car pool lane requires two persons or more?"

Okay, pretty lame. But these can be hard. And it's late. You try!

Vista punk'd

Via coolasfunk

Like, this is like, really interesting

Here is truly an interesting piece of video by Ira Glass of This American Life. I listen to the show a lot so naturally when I saw this bit by Russell on the video I took a look. The videos are broken up into several parts. There's a lot of wisdom there. A lot about how not to overlook the human side of storytelling and how telling stories is so much different than the traditional journalistic story format of laying out the facts. It should be almost like bread crumbs of anecdotes that bring you along a trail of someone's point of view, their experience. That is what the show has always done well.

But the overuse of the neutral filler "like" in nearly every other sentence drives me slightly nuts. It takes me back to high school, even earlier. I know that's, like, part of the charm and stuff but it's a bit wearing. Perhaps it's the American teen cousin of the British "sort of"?

Coffee Morning Denver: 3/23

Please join Paul and me for lively conversation with caffiene and likemends on March 23 at 7:00 AM at Common Grounds which is in downtown Denver at the corner of 17th and Wazee.

Our last one was in Lakewood so we're switching things around a bit. While there is no agenda, we'll at least talk about a permanent-ish location (the 'wood vs. downtown). And if you're wondering what the heck this is all about here is a previous post about it.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

photo by tiffibunny