Say my name.

So I'm in kinkos before panel at around 3 am, printing some ads and talking with a guy who works there. There are these HORRIBLE business cards that he is trying to print to my right. Some lame sports management business man thought it would be cool to have a logo of a half earth/half soccer ball. WHAT WAS HE THINKING? All his card said to me was you are jerk who thinks your job is the most important thing in the world. It's soccer, and as an Italian, I give it to you, soccer is a great sport. But you manage the players, so you aren't the one scoring the goals. You are like the baseball coach wearing a baseball uniform. News alert: you will not be playing in the game. Get that earth out of there.
And so I tell the guy who works there, "worst business cards ever. LAME." He laughed and pointed to the man behind me, who apparently was printing out his business cards at 3 am to give out later that morning. Needless to say, the kinkos guy gave me all my print outs for free. Thanks friend.


And.... here are a few business cards that I found.

Business card for an acupuncturist. Oh thats right, they poke you with needles. No thanks. But cool card.
Hi dave. Nice card. Cool Name.
Business card for a prank/toy shop. Not sure if they actually work...


Too bad the overall design is kind of lame. Bad fonts but great idea.
If the owner of this card gave one to my mom, her house would be on the town garden tour.

New England

We talk funny. Sometimes it can be confused with retardation. Or maybe just a speech impediment. Either way, we talk different. And you don't realize this until you leave the state, go some place foreign, like Atlanta, and come back again. I love it though. We talk like we are in a hurry because why waste time? Life's too short for pronouncing R's and those stupid thing called vowels. We also drive like we talk: moving right along.

So I'm in Maine for the next few weeks. Loving it already. Went to Bennett's subs for lunch with a friend and saw like 20 people I know, including the owner and my former science teacher, Mr. Bennett. Went to Feds for beer, Gritty McDuffs for Beer, Bull Feneys for beer... It was a good day.

Also, Puffins are great. They are a mix between a waddling duck and Toucan Sam. Very rare.

P.S my friend Robert needs to stop Puffin.

And the winner is....

So panel went well. Yea. They really liked my campaign for Auntie Anne's Pretzels and thought that with some actual cross-stitching and a few touch ups, this could be a book piece. Great copywriter: Lauren Silva. Thoughts anyone? Like it, hate it, either way, want to hear it.

So glad that panel went well. It can make or break the next two week of summer vacation so now I can surf with no worries. Always good to see hard work pay off, thanks Luke Sullivan for the motivation.
Now I'm in Maine eating lobsters, enjoying the weather and catching up with long lost ones. It's amazing how this place changes very little and I love it.

RITA

So back in the day, I used to be really bad at speaking spanish. But when I got to college, it was able to click perfectly thanks to painful years of hard work in high school. The woman responsible for ALL A's in my college spanish minor is Senorita Karen Moore. I may have been awful back in the day, but without all her persistence and coolness, I would never had been able to work with hispanic middle school students or have everything click in Spanish lit. So gracias Ms. Moore.

AND

Rita, as I prefer to call Ms. Moore, is also an amazing fractal maker. Random, I know. My goal is to one day be able to incorporate her art into my work. One day, rita, una dia.


UPDATE: I've been asked how I knew that Rita was into fractals. Well, Joey darling, as many people knew in High school, I am kind of into this art thing. I used to draw cartoons of my teachers, and Rita was so encouraging of my talent that she hung some of these pictures up by her desk. Rita, however, could never be sidetracked. No tangents. Except when it came to fractals and art. So every now and then, when the spanish got too much, we would get into a convo about some fractals. I loved it. And so did some of the students with senioritis.

It's 5am and it's almost Breakfast time.

Copy by the fabulous Kim Healy. Tagline says "It's something to get up for."

And on that note, I'm going to bed.

Sallie Mae is the Devil

School costs money. More than what most people have. So, for the majority of us, we need loans. Sallie Mae is supposed to help students get loans for an education but instead make it so difficult that it becomes a full time job just getting a loan to go through. Now imagine being a student with no cosigner and having to deal with these spawns of satan.

I thought money lending was illegal...

Quick story: In florence, there is Palazzo degli Strozzi (where Fendi and my old school are located). The family Strozzi were a bunch of money lenders who charged so much interest in their loans that people ended up paying twice as much and more for what they borrowed. People became broke, economy suffered, life sucked. The government put a stop to this nonsense and the word Strozzi eventually materialized into Stronzo... which means asshole. So the government needs to step in and get rid of these Sallie Mae Stronzos.

Dave Holloway, the reason the Circus has a tent.

Once upon a time, a junior at James Madison University interested in getting the advertising club back on track, contacted a JMU alum in the advertising world. I was that junior, Dave Holloway was that alum, and now I'm at the circus and not at Law school.
Dave just came to speak at the Circus, second time for me and a few others hearing him speak. Always awesome. For those who don't know, he's the godfather in the advertising industry and has done some of the coolest stuff, written an amazing book and just all around really great at helping out the creative newbies. So this guy helped me figure out how I need to go to the creative circus and what I need to do to break in this steel bolted industry - mucho inspiring. I'm still amazed that I had enough courage to call him and if I have any success in advertising, I pretty much owe it to him.
check out his website,AMAZING stuff, buy his book: www.daveholloway.net

streetwise

So I was looking at the White+Partners blog and they found this new idea in South Korea of a virtual wall for a crosswalk. I know a million places where this should be.... a million places in Atlanta. To people in this city, stop sign means pause, and red light means maybe look both ways before you gun it across the intersection.

oh and speaking of car stuff... $4 a gallon??!?! I want a mo-ped. stat.