There is currently a State Farm insurance commercial where an ice cream truck gives out popsicles without the stick. There may be some kind of message to these commercials, but it is hard to get considering there is a sign on the ice cream truck that lists flavors on a field of color that corresponds to that flavor (e.g. "cherry"=red, "grape"=purple). There's also a picture of each flavor next to its name. One problem. The word "orange" is on a background of orange and right next to a picture of a...banana.

Life would be so much better (not to mention organized and efficient) if the guy from the UPS "whiteboard" commercials were there to diagram everything. Just imagine if he followed you around and illustrated preparing toast in the morning, checking email at work and doing laundry in the evening. Even the seemingly mundane would take on a whole new level of excitement. He's just so precise and calming. It would be far more comforting than the "easy button" that also shows up in commercials. Life's most challenging obstacles (including a few today) could be modified with a few added lines or eraser swipes and things would just be better. Unfortunately life is not made to be that simple, but sometimes things fall into place and it is.

Ok, so some research reveals the guy is named Andy Azula and he is the creative direction of that particularly ad campaign. He also is actually drawing the pictures.

More, source, etc.

Sunday observations:

-Strange sight this morning as a young couple were at a vacant gas station vacuuming out their car with industrial strength. This isn't really remarkable, but it was made odd by the female of the couple just sitting in a folding "camp" chair watching her beau crawl throughout the car with the vacuum hose. Again, this isn't that remarkable, but it was 10am on a Sunday and she was just sitting there, lounging like it was many hours later in the day and they were on a porch enjoying a beverage. It was just one of those momentary visages that sounds far less interesting in hindsight, but was interesting at the moment. Life is probably full of those.

-Another of these instances occurred just a few block around the corner from the vacuuming couple in Sylvan Park. It didn't involve people, though. Rather, it was a piece of fabric. A flag to be exact. It was the flag of Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys from Revolutionary War days. Flying on a front porch. In Nashville. In 2009. What leads someone to proudly flying this flay these days? Nothing wrong with it necessarily, just strange. On a Sunday morning, strange things are afoot.



-Breakfast is still good, even on the weekends. Even when Star Bagel is packed. Even when those strange ladies behind running the register are being their own special kind of strange.

-There is nothing more thug than rolling up to a coin-operated carwash on a Sunday morning with your subwoofers vibrating the entire building and drowning out the sound of high-pressure water and even the "minute left" beeper. That's quite an accomplishment. If the racket hadn't been so annoying, it might have actually been amusing since they had to turn it up louder than the vacuum, but then couldn't hear each other when giving an assessment of how crunk they were at the coin-op vacuum. So hard.

The secret formula for cardiovascular success at the gym has been discovered. It requires just the right mix of NCAA Tournament basketball on a large nearby TV, Jets to Brazil on the headphones and a decent amount of sunlight coming in through the windows. It also helps for the gym not to be mobbed out, reducing the amount of squawky conversations and weird looks in your personal space.

However, this exercise tranquility was almost fatally disrupted by smells. Distracting odors come with the territory when at the gym, but you are expecting the musty and sweaty stuff. What is less expected, and therefore more distracting, are the scents of coffee and old-lady perfume. The idea of drinking coffee while exercising seems completely ridiculous, but it has been substantiated time and time again, including today. As if that thought isn't bad enough, the nose-filling smell of coffee in close proximity is almost nauseating. Maybe coffee drinkers would feel differently about this, but it's hard to imagine. Within minutes of coffee dude showing up, there was the old lady with her hair "done" and jewelry on, that reeked of some Louie the Lilac concoction. What made this all the more troubling what that she was about 20 feet away, but the scent permeated everyone's breathing room. Again, nothing wrong with perfume in principle, but not really a smell compatible with the gym. There are, however, plenty of times where perfume is great and significantly accomplishes its seemingly insignificant purpose.

In closing, just a word about Jets to Brazil. They are/were so insanely good. Perfecting Loneliness is pretty much a perfect soundtrack to anything. Just try it. Same goes for Four Cornered Night.

Some people are probably having a more exciting week than the one described in the previous entry. Obviously that entry was solely intended to set this one up...and make a few veiled references, just in case someone actually read it.

This week is South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. It's probably the biggest "industry" event in modern music each year. It's where thousands of bands, record labels, producers, radio programmers, agents and fans come together to impress each other at 20-minute performances of bands during the middle of the afternoon. Sounds lovely.

However, SXSW might embody more of the annoying parts of the genres of music that it is supposedly championing. If your job is directly connected to the events that unfold there, go ahead and enjoy it, but don't forget that some of the most over-hyped and unsubstantiated acts are "discovered" at SXSW with magazine features and The O.C. soundtrack appearances following. Again, sounds lovely.

In defense of SXSW, it isn't Spring Break. Well, it could be for some. But it's not "Woo! Panama City Beach! Spring Break". One of the (many) problems with Facbeook is that it provides a forum for people still in school to brag about their Spring Break plans, while people that are out of school and should have already long-since accepted the fact that Spring Break is no longer "theirs"...um, don't. Eventually you just have to let it go. If you take a week off work to go on Spring Break with the college kids, you're missing the point that the beauty of being out of school is that you can take a week off whenever you want and have Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter Break at your leisure.

So, to sum it up, SXSW and SB are fine for those its intended for. For the rest of mankind there is work, the couch and Randy and Jason Sklar in The Comebacks. Wake up.

Ok, so the county code challenge didn't go as well as hoped, but there's always a chance for a reprieve. All it takes to clear out the memory is watching some truly awful movies (The Comebacks and, to a lesser extent, 10,000 B.C. qualify. Then there's work, which makes to great drool-inducing experience to erase whatever useful information might be making residence in the brain.

This week has been far from stressful in terms of having too much to do. The weather has been quite amazing and yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, which is probably the best annual commemorative day named for a saint. Sure, it's overdone in much the same way as Halloween and Valentines, but overall, it usually results in a good time. Yesterday was no exception and scoring that table on the patio at 12 South Taproom clearly had some kind of "luck of the Irish" involved.

Then there's breakfast. The whole "most important meal of the day" thing is probably more old wives' tale than scientific fact, but when consumed at the right time, in the right form and with the right company, it's pretty amazing. The entire day seems to just move at a more productive pace, thanks to nothing more than a bagel and a great reason to come into work a few minutes late.

Ok, so the uneventfulness of the week has truly manifested itself here in this blog. Nothing better to discuss than St. Patrick's, breakfast and license plate trivia. Such is life.

Ok, in honor of the 100th post in this blog, this is a very special entry. It coincides with a recently completed drive from Birmingham to Nashville. The drive goes much faster when there's a lot on your mind and tonight was a prime example. In the midst of less important thoughts like the meaning of life and such, there are important brain-occupying thoughts like...what are the county codes on Alabama license plates? There are 67 of them and there are 60 minutes in an hour, so the challenge is set. If you don't buy the legitimacy of this demonstration, you may request to see it in person anytime it is convenient if you provide paper, pencil and an hour of time. So without any assistance, here goes:

1 - Jefferson
2 - Mobile
3 - Montgomery
4 - Autauga
5 - Baldwin
6 - Barbour
7 - Bibb
8 - Blount
9 -
10 - Butler
11 - Calhoun
12 - Chambers
13 - Cherokee
14 - Chickasaw
15 - Chilton
16 - Choctaw
17 - Clarke
18 - Clay
19 - Coffee
20 - Colbert
21 - Conecuh
22 - Coosa
23 - Covington
24 - Crenshaw
25 - Cullman
Dale
Dallas
Dekalb
Escambia
31- Etowah
32 - Fayette
33 - Franklin
34 - Geneva
35 - Greene
36 - Hale
37 - Henry
38 - Houston
39 - Jackson
40 - Lamar
41 - Lauderdale
42 - Lawrence
43 - Lee
44 - Limestone
45 - Lowndes
46 - Macon
47 - Madison
48 - Marengo
49 - Marion
50 - Marshall
51 - Monroe
52 - Morgan
53 - Perry
54 - Pickens
55 - Pike
56 - Randolph
57 - Russell
58 - Shelby
59 - St. Clair
60 - Sumter
61 - Talladega
62 - Tallapoosa
63 - Tuscaloosa
64 - Walker
65 - Washington
66 - Wilcox
67 - Winston

Oh well, complete and utter failure. 65 out of 67. Unacceptable.

Since every single one of you know exactly which two I'm missing, I'll confirm your suspicions. It's Bullock and Elmore.

Ok, this concludes a demonstration of how to be as lame and unexciting as possible on a Saturday night.

Julio Jones, big time recruit and freshman standout wide receiver for The University of Alabama football team, has been elected as an SGA senator for his degree program, strictly on write-in votes. He wasn't a candidate and didn't campaign, but he's going to accept the nomination. More.

Easily today's greastest story.

Ok, this is starting to get a bit ridiculous. Last weekend=snow, this weekend=wearing shorts and washing the car in the driveway. And no, there are no lame global warming jokes to be found here. It's just misery on sinuses and deciding what clothes to wear in the morning.

So night number three of the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon experiment (let's hope?) is underway. So far it hasn't been downright terrible, but it has been far from good. Watching the past two days around lunchtime on Hulu was not inspiring, so maybe watching at the original late-night air time will make it better. Maybe late-night television is so enjoyable because of the deadened and tired senses of humor watching it right before bed. Maybe watching it in the middle of the day at work isn't fair. Ok, that's a load of crap. This show just isn't funny.

Jimmy Fallon was very nervous the first night, which might be understandable...if he weren't already supposedly an "established" performer that has done Saturday Night Live and feature films. His nervousness seems to have diminished, or at least it did on the second episode. Maybe that's because Tina Fey was his lead guest and they're obviously old friends/colleagues. So basically, he'll be fine if every single one of his guests are people he already knows and preferably has worked with. Thankfully that would only last about 2 week and NBC would try something else. Clearly, the true benefit of having Tina Fey as a guest was not that it made Jimmy able to not stutter quite so bad (which he still does about every 5 seconds); it just illustrated that Tina Fey would be so much better for the job than Jimmy. Maybe NBC will get the move right next time.

One of the potential highlights of the show was having The Roots as the house band. As confounding as this seemed when it was first announced, it's even more so now. They look bored. It might help if they went home each day thinking they were part of a hit show that everyone enjoyed, making it all worthwhile. However, as already well established, after 2.5 shows, it ain't happening.

Maybe this will change, but it's not promising. Early episodes of Letterman, O'Brien and even the comparatively not-funny Leno were much better than Fallon. He just sounds dumb so far.

A few quick observations:

-Jimmy tries to turn every interview into an opportunity to talk about himself. This tendency lends itself better a blog (duh) than following in Conan O'Brien's large footsteps.

-Jon Bon Jovi had no business being a guest on a talk show. He was promoting nothing. For that matter, Robert DeNiro and Justin Timberlake weren't really hyping anything either, but at least they are entertaining. Maybe Justin Timberlake would make a better host. He did a great job on the ESPYs last year. Plus, he found it in his capacity as a mentally-sound adult to not get on national television and say "Don't we have the coolest president?" That maybe the toolbag quote of the year and it has absolutely nothing to do with political preference.

-Would it be possible to have Conan O'Brien just host two hours of late night each night?

-This Jack In The Box commercial where the people in the office are trying to guess what new menu item they'll be serving in a bowl is about ten times funnier than Jimmy Fallon. There aren't even Jack In The Box locations anywhere near here, but it's still better viewing. On the the other hand, Bart Durham is local and his commercials are about 100 times more entertaining than Jimmy Fallon.

-Ridiculous dancing seems to be in every episode so far. It's already been done...by Ellen. Yes, Ellen. Ellen is better than Jimmy Fallon.

Ok, this will be twice that a 3 Doors Down video has found its way into this blog, but whatever, you're the one reading it. Somehow this video managed to go unnoticed until now, but thanks to that all-music channel on cable called "Palladia", it sees the light of day via this underwhelming outlet. Just to clarify, this might be the worst video ever, which is probably why Universal Music Group won't let it be embedded directly. You'll just have to click the link and watch on YouTube the way people back in 2007 had to.

This is a link that will take you to YouTube and show you the video that you are hoping to see by clicking on this link.

The complexity of what exactly makes this video so terrible is astounding. It's almost like a specific effort was made for it to be awful. This is in no way meant to bash 3 Doors Down specifically. They seem like decent people and they just do their thing without getting in the way of people that aren't interested in their music. That part is fine, but to consciously allow yourself to be represented in a very public way in this manner is troubling.

First, the snowy railroad live set. Why would that seem like a good move? The song is about "landing" in London, not "chugging" into London or "rolling" into London. The rest of the video takes place in a plane and clearly traveling by air is part of the song's theme, so why bother with these train tracks?

Back to that airplane. When the singer keeps looking at himself in the window and sometimes the reflection sings back at him, it's pretty creepy. It's nice that the singer appears to have lost a few pounds since becoming famous, but the self-adoration aspect of the video would have been best left out. As bad as that was, it can't touch the rad guitar solo that takes place back on those same snowy railroad tracks. That kind of self-isolation for purposes of conveying a guitar solo hasn't been seen since "November Rain". The only difference is "November Rain" rules.

So, the lesson to be learned is not to make videos like this. Everyone knows MTV doesn't play videos any more, so no worries there. However, Palladia is not going to let such atrocities go unnoticed and un-blogged, even if it takes a couple of years to surface.