ADVENTURES in ADVERTISING

Orgasm IQ

2009-05-21T17:20:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the long delay in updating my AIA. I've just started a new job at CDM, a big ad agency in mid-town. I'm supervising the work on the cancer drug Sutent. Obviously I won't be producing my usually witty or edgy ads for this account. But I'm looking forward to doing good work for a product that actually does some good.

And of course when I'm not working I'm spending my free time with Marcella. She even has her own Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1770384574&ref=ts

The article about the study:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1180583/Bad-luck-bimbos-Intelligent-women-better-sex-study-reveals.html

ShamWow!

2009-03-29T12:33:00.001-04:00

I just couldn't pass this up.

ShamWow pitchman Vince Shlomi arrested for punching prostitute:
http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/people/1500466,shamwow-guy-vince-shlomi-arrested-032809.article

Puffy Boobs

2009-03-12T21:32:00.002-04:00

I think I'm experiencing the side-effects of sleep deprivation. Twice today Giselle and my mom asked me a question and I thought I said "No." but Giselle and my mom told me I said "Yeah." Either that or they're messing with my head.

Giving up for Lent

2009-03-04T16:10:00.003-05:00

Things I've learned in the 2.5 weeks of being a new father.

Babies spit up a lot. Usually immediately after you've changed their shirt.

Babies who sleep like angels during the day, wail like banshees at around 3:30am

They refuse to fall asleep if they're uncomfortable: wet diaper, gas, or hungry

Congested babies are always uncomfortable.

Marcella's Birthday

2009-02-13T00:16:00.002-05:00

The nurse said, "So you're baby's born on the 12th?"
I said, "Abraham Lincoln's birthday."
She said, "And Albert Einstein."
I said, "It's not like we have low expectations."

Marcella Simone Palacios DelMundo
Born 6:27pm
February 12, 2009
6lb 9oz

Mom and Dad doing fine.

Phelps Bongs

2009-02-03T17:36:00.004-05:00

Giselle's heading into the last two weeks or so of her pregnancy and is more than ready for the baby to be out. Cranky and sore is an understatement. But its her birthday so I'm taking her out for a little dinner to bring up her sprits. We finally got the baby room done.

Baby Room

Blog-o-jevich

2009-01-29T22:03:00.003-05:00

We were just told by Giselle's OB that she's going to be induced on Feb 12th! That's just 2 weeks from now! I can see the baby moving Giselle's belly when it hiccups.

Baby Shower Photos

Obama Inauguration

2009-01-21T02:43:00.002-05:00

What an historic day for America.

Giselle and I watched the inauguration on the TV in the waiting room of Roosevelt Hospital with about 15 other couples waiting for their appointments for sonograms. We caught most of Obama's speech before her name was called and we got to see flickering images of a 4lb girl yet to be.

I really do hope the country returns to prosperity sooner rather than later. Though I have some concerns. Obama has been likened to JFK in many ways and I couldn't help but think of JFK's own inauguration speech where he said famously, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

And yet, the financial sector, auto industry, sub-prime mortgage holders, alternative-energy carpet-baggers and everybody else asking how much the Governement can give to them?

We're off to a shaky start so far.

Hypoallergenic Dogs

2009-01-08T02:55:00.002-05:00

I've been a bit lazy to post due to the holidays and suffering through the flu or stomach flu or whatever the hell it was. I was out for a week but am better now.

G's in her last trimester and doing well, though having a harder time getting around. Being stuck at home she's started her own Ebay store getting rid of most of my office clutter to make space for the baby's room.
http://stores.ebay.com/gippy-design_Garage-Sale-Bargains_W0QQfsubZ653942016QQfrsrcZ1

Welcome to 2009. May it be better than 2008.

Shoe Pitcher

2008-12-18T12:45:00.005-05:00

I had a good 40th birthday last week. I went out to play airsoft with my friends and team mates and had drinks and karaoke during the week. I helped organize a Toys for Tots toy drive with my airsoft team which collected over 100 toys and $1000 worth of donations. The sad thing is that toy donations overall are down more than 50% from last year.

Giselle's doing well. Two months to go on the pregnancy and one week to Christmas!

Obama Tchochke

2008-12-04T14:12:00.007-05:00

Plymouth and Cape Cod photos

Hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving. Giselle and I went back to Plymouth, MA. I noted a couple of things on the trip.

1. Gas was below $1.89/gallon!

2. Watching ads for President Elect commemorative tchochkes are a lot less annoying than 9-11 tchochkes. Obama Plates

http://www.headostate.com/

3. The parking lot at the Plymouth Walmart was full but nobody was rioting. Obviously the folks there were more civilized than the shoppers from southern Long Island and Queens.

I couldn't believe the news about crazy Walmart shoppers in Long Island trampling that poor guy to death. And now his family is suing Walmart; rather than try and go after the shoppers who actually broke down the door and pushed their way in. Idiocy follows tragedy.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T20:36:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving.

Obama Code Name

2008-11-18T13:42:00.000-05:00

So the car companies are asking for some of that $700B because they need short term loans to make payroll. And to pay the guys they've laid off $20-$26 an hour to watch TV and sit around? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5185887

They warn that if they don't get the loans, they may have to declare bankruptcy and people wouldn't buy US cars. Nobody's buying their cars now, so what's the difference?

But the news isn't all bad. G's getting bigger, so life's good.

Post Election News Bites

2008-11-14T13:45:00.009-05:00

Change has come to America.

Namely that the nearly two year long news coverage of the 2008 election is finally at an end. It's hard to know what to do with ourselves. The credit crisis isn't solved, more layoffs are coming, and we're still involved in two undeclared wars in foreign countries. Cheer up, we have Madonna's divorce, Angelina Jolie's new baby and Lindsay Lohan's train wreck of a life to keep us distracted.

I thought I'd share the Onion's take on Post Election Blues

http://reason.tv/picks/show/602.html

News Pron

2008-11-03T22:43:00.003-05:00

Take the Anchor or Porn Star Test

Don't forget to vote.

Everybody bellyaches about how crappy the two parties are. So they don't vote as a form of protest or because they think their vote won't matter because they live in a solid blue or red state.

In States where it's overwhelmingly going to one party (ie. NY is a blue state) it makes little difference if you vote for a Dem or Rep. But it makes a huge difference if you vote for a 3rd party, because your vote shows up statistically as growing support for 3rd parties. Groups like Libertarians or Greens don't get taken seriously because their candidates get so few votes and thus they get so little press coverage and campaign donations. So if you're mad at how both the Rep and the Dem's have served themselves and got us into this war and financial mess, then vote 3rd party.

Me I'm voting Libertarian. Any party that's for holding people accountable for their actions (and not just scapegoats), reducing taxes and Fed spending and legalizing pot sounds good to me: http://www.lp.org/issues/crime-and-violence

Candidates Wear Masks

2008-10-30T01:17:00.003-04:00

Halloween's here though I was bit disturbed with the rather nasty effigies of Palin and Obama getting hanged that I've seen in the news. It's just mean for no good reason. Common, they haven't really screwed up anything yet.

Here's a candidate match up test. It was built before the primaries so it includes the party nominees. I was surprised by which candidate I was actually matched to (I'm not telling):

http://www.dehp.net/candidate/

Giselle's sister is out from San Francisco visiting her very pregnant sister. The baby is growing fine thus far, though no new sonograms to post (the print outs were disappointing). I almost found myself wanting to art direct her last exam.

Reassuring the Market

2008-10-17T10:23:00.006-04:00

I watched all the debates and was underwhelmed. Except for the third one, all they did was repeat the same sound bites and talking points they've been giving at their rallies. To his credit McCain did drop the bomb that he was going to call for a spending 'freeze' which to me is a good start but not enough since we also need to cut spending as well as taxes. Anybody who thinks the government can run services well, just take a look at the DMV or the Post Office.

When both were asked again if there were any specific programs they would cut, McCain gave a paltry handful. But Obamma just said 'We will look at them and cut where we need to cut". So a non-answer. Instead he promised to 'invest' in 'needed programs'. But then you can't 'invest' in something without putting money into it: it's political slang for 'more spending', not cuts.

In fact the best and most truthful debate was the Alfred E. Smith Catholic charity roast they were both at. I wish all the debates were more like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU1IgIURqnU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk5YJkhizRs

On another up note, Giselle had an anatomical sonogram this week and we found out that the baby will be a girl! Yay. G's already picked out a name: Marcella Palacios DelMundo.

What's your excuse?

2008-10-09T17:53:00.002-04:00

Today was the 1 year anniversary of a historic high of the Dow Jones Industrial average. Lots of fools and novices selling off their stocks out of fear. Look on the bright side there's lots of stocks that are cheap now, like GM and Citibank.

Giselle is doing well. More sonogram photos and a video to share. Before G's pregnancy, all I'd ever seen of sonograms are the printouts people share but what I never knew until now is that you can see the baby actually move around.

Sonogram video 1

Sonogram Video 2

Politics of Arousal

2008-10-02T15:50:00.004-04:00

In case your wondering, the photo is a fake. Apparently one of a number of Photoshop'd hoax photos that have been circulating.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2008/09/03/more-sarah-palin-hot-pictures.htm

The news (especially CNN) can be so freak'n irresponsible. I just watched them do a segment with an economic expert who states (quite accurately) that the reason there's a credit crisis is that institutions are worried that people may panic due to lack of confidence. Then immediately their next segment is a 'Man On the Street' piece where the reporter asks everybody "On a scale of 1-10, how worried are you about the economic crisis?" and proceed to show a montage of people saying they're worried.

And I hate that BOTH candidates are pushing hard for that $700 billion bailout package (now closer to $950 because of extra additions added by the Senate yesterday), when there are alternative solutions that will do the same thing for far less cost: Restore lender confidence.

For example the DeFazio 'No Bailout Act' proposed by Democratic Congressmen and based on the Reagan Administrations rescue package for the Savings and Loan crisis. How crazy is that? But it makes much more sense than the Bush/Paulson plan. It says something when both the Nation and the National Review, the leading Liberal and leading Conservative political magazines, are against the plan.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmVjZDFjNDIwMTA2MGMwMTJhODNkNTUzYjE2ZTQyMzk=

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/366595

P.S.
My personal contribution to the political landscape of campaign 2008
Angelina Jolie as Sarah Palin

Financial Change

2008-09-19T18:27:00.006-04:00

In the immortal words of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

Don't Panic.

The news media and their 'financial pundits' keep saying "This is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression", which upsets me because it's a flat out lie, designed I guess to increase ratings. Yes things are bad but common, every time there's a big 'crisis' they say that. They said that about the 1987 stock market crash, they said that about the Junk Bond trading scandal of 1989 and the Savings and Loan Crisis and every big drop in the market since the Great Depression.

Some facts to put things into perspective:

In the 1929 Stock Market Crash, the Dow lost over 40% of it's value (a value 10 times the budget of the Federal Government at that time. Of course the Govt. now spends so much more of our money...sigh.)

In in the 1987 Stock Market Crash, the Dow Jones lost 22.6% of it's value. The Savings and Loan crisis cost the Taxpayers $124.6 billion.

The AIG $85 billion 'bailout' isn't really a bailout because it's a loan. They will still have to pay it off.

Today, the Treasury has proposed purchasing $10 billion in mortgage-backed securities and is looking for Congressional approval to extend as much as $50 billion (or some rumors say $100 billion.)

Could this become another Great Depression. Yes, if politicians start creating government entities and laws to 'control' the economy.

http://www.fee.org/Publications/the-Freeman/article.asp?aid=3097

9/11 Black Hole

2008-09-11T17:15:00.003-04:00

It's a quiet day in New York. It's September 11th and I remember that morning 7 years ago when Giselle and I heard the news. We had just started living in Hawaii. Now we live just across the bridge from Ground Zero.

What's sad is that the rebuild of the site and 9/11 memorial is grossly over budget and behind schedule. It's a shining example of what's worst about big government – what happens when design is decided by committee and when nobody is accountable and the decision makers are political appointees.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122108768069121211.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Speaking of big government projects, the worlds most powerful science experiment just came on-line this week, the Large Hadron Colider or as we call it in the street the LHC.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/telegraphtv/tvplayer/?ID=News&bcpid=1452197391&bclid=1453516501&bctid=1753815421

2008 Presidential Candidates

2008-09-05T17:18:00.003-04:00

I'm glad the Dems and GOP national conventions are over. They're such a wasteful rah-rah fest. I'm waiting for the debates. The nomination campaigns have been so long and heated that I can't help feeling like the national election are a bit of a denouement. Me, I'm for Magneto.

The baby's growing nicely, though no new ultrasounds to show off, which is a bit disappointing. We've been staying home mostly and working on developing G's Dragonfli website and identity system. We'll also be staying in this weekend because tropical storm Hannah is going to be dumping all over us.

Mainstreet Olympic Light Parade

2008-08-28T12:31:00.004-04:00

Now that the Olympics are over we're starting to see the Gold winners showing up on the various talk shows and cereal boxes. The closing ceremonies was a bit like Cirque du Soleil gone amuck at the Superbowl. I actually got a little bored and muted the sound and played the Disney Electric Light Parade song instead.

Try it yourself
Closing ceremony footage
Electric Light Parade Song

Underage Gymnast

2008-08-20T22:06:00.003-04:00

We've been watching a lot of the Olympics. That opening ceremony was amazing. From a graphics standpoint, it's the best designed olympics since 1984. Even the outfits of the Chinese teams and event staff totally kick ass. I think that's the reason why Giselle and I are actually paying attention to it this year. That and our new hi-def big screen TV.

By the way, I think these ultrasound pix probably tells it all. We're expecting! The docs say the baby looks good so far. Giselle's at high risk because she's diabetic so we're going to the various doctors at least once a week right now. Baby is due in late Feb.

Evologue Retreats to NJ

2008-08-01T18:39:00.001-04:00

Advertising is not the best industry in the word for job security. There's a saying that no matter how bad the economy is, there are always advertising jobs in pharmaceutical advertising. Well that's not the case when your company closes its office.

I've been permalancing at a pharma agency called Evologue which has offices in Y&R's building in Madison Ave. Unfortunately Monday will be my last day there because they are closing their New York office and consolidating at their main offices in Parsipany, NJ. Given the choice of staying with the company and commuting to NJ...well, there's a reason I live in NY.

Concerning the new Trek movie. J.J. Abrams (creator of 'Lost', 'Alias' and producer of 'Cloverfield') is at the helm and has cast a mix of relative unknowns and sci-fi and comedy actors as the 'original' crew of the enterprise. I especially like the case of Zachary Quinto as Spock and Simon Pegg as Scotty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(film)

But I'm not liking the re-interpretation of the Enterpise which looks too 'pimped out'. Why the hell are the engine nacelle tops see-through?!