Questionable Decisions

I missed a spot on my neck shaving today. I cannot stop obsessing about it. I don’t think anyone can notice, but in my mind, I imagine it’s all people can see when they look at me. There is a patch of hair there that is longer that the ones around it, and it bothers me, and is a constant reminder of how useless and shameful I am as a human being.

I should never have left the house today.

This is literally the worst day of my life. Literally.

– Take a look at this slow motion wedding photo booth from a wedding between Quang and Ellie. I think this is very lovely and a nice wedding…thing. Yes. That is the only reason I am posting this. Also, that song is actually like super annoying, even without all the Miley Cyrus nonsense attached to it, right? It’s not just me?

– It took some time, but Chase Utley has finally responded to Mac’s letter. It is not really like all that conventionally funny, but I am amused that someone actually talked him into doing this. Maybe some production assistant at the MLB Fan Cave just finally started watching the show and thinks it’s the funniest thing ever now? Regardless this link gives me an excuse to post clips of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, so who are you to question what I do? Do you know how rare power hitting second basemen are in the National League!?!

– I am a big fan of logo redesigns, especially so if they are those of professional sports teams. So I will now post some. I am still struggling with whether or not the Wizards logo in particular is just plain awesome or awesome because it’s bad. Though I suppose it doesn’t matter, you end up in the same place in the end anyway.

– Yahoo! has also just recently updated it’s logo, and the consensus from the eternally warm and friendly corners of the internet have been…less than exciting. I am hardly qualified to comment on something like this from a design perspective, as I am not a professional designer or graphic artist, as evidenced by this very website. But yeah, it really does kind of look very…meh. It’s just like some random free font someone found and put it together with the italicized exclamation point of another font (see: The WAMBAG circa 2002-2013). Certainly doesn’t really seem like it reflects the type of careful work that you would normally think a rebranding of a company with $17.1 billion in assets would require. And maybe indeed there’s a reason for that, as the CEO details essentially the non-existent creative process behind it. So over one weekend, the crack design team (which included just the CEO, two senior executives, a dude called Russ, and an intern) sat down, wrote some stuff on napkins, completely ignored the public’s thoughts on their pointless 29 decoy logos, and apparently just got kind of drunk, procrastinated, decided “ah fuck it, let’s see what’s in Microsoft Office WordArt”, and boom – here we are.

Beveled font!?!

Like this is insane right? Via the link from the CEO’s personal Tumblr post (seriously!?!), the Yahoo! brand equity was valued at $9.38 billion. Not the actual assets or revenue or overall value of the company – just their brand, their name, their logo is worth 9.38 BILLION DOLLARS. So if you’re going to mess with it, wouldn’t you think they’d go to some top notch creative agency and get it worked over by a professional team of Don Drapers (or least Peggy/Stans)? No, instead the story is that the CEO and two Senior Vice Presidents sat down with some dude and an intern and figured it all out themselves. Like this is insane right? How does this pass the approval of the board in a publicly traded company, that five random assholes (only one of which may be a professional designer) that no one has ever heard of, with zero experience are going to completely transform a company asset that is worth 9.38 BILLION DOLLARS!?! Obviously I’m not invested in the success or failure of this logo, but I am just so overwhelmed with confusion as to how these decisions get made at such high levels. And even if they were not completely insane and did get heavy consulting or foundation for this all done ahead of time with actual creative agencies…why not mention that? Instead you’re selling this crazy story that the CEO essentially personally created the logo herself in Adobe Illustrator? Why keep referring to one fifth of the creative team as an intern? That’s not a confidence builder in how qualified your team was in doing this! What narrative are you trying to push with this?

Well, at least we’re talking about it. So many questions. Endless amusement.

– Also of great interest to me is Google’s recent announcement that the next version of Android, long rumoured to be “Key Lime Pie” in following the alphabetical nomenclature of delightful sweets, is actually going to be called…KitKat. That’s right, the trademarked chocolate bar line from Nestle will also be the name of a smartphone operating system. Usually I think these cross brand synergies are so silly…but I don’t know why, I think this one is so cool! SYNERGIES, DUDE. KitKat’s already rolled out a fancy new website too that I think is brilliantly designed. And goddammit if I don’t want to break me off a piece of that KitKat bar right now. Damn you, advertising moguls! I am merely a slave in your massive corporate machine, a puppet bound by your cruel and invisible strings!

…hmm, perhaps my Android phone can tell me the closest location I can buy a KitKat product from.

– Unicycle football…whitest thing ever? It’s a contender, for sure.

– Now that the Flight of the Conchords is no longer active, we have to look elsewhere for our foreign musical comedy duos. Specifically, Norway. Interestingly there is also a big internet controversy brewing as to exactly who is the best Norwegian musical comedy duo…Ylvis (The Fox) or Kollektivet (Don’t Be Slappin’ My Penis). It’s probably too close to call, but at least in this battle, we are all winners.

– This is a video of a guy in Russia making shawarmas…I don’t know, it’s amazing, please watch it. For God’s sake it’s like a minute long, fat chance that you’re going to find something more important or meaningful to do with your life in that minute anyway. I watched this alone in my place late at night and still ended up shouting “WHAAAAAT!?!” aloud to myself multiple times.

– Here is a new still released showing Stringer Bell as old Nelson Mandela in that new biopic that I will totally watch right after Lincoln. Which will happen…let’s be honest, probably never. I usually like to hold off on judging movies before I watch them, especially about how things look outside the context and flow within a movie…but wow, this just looks rough. A shame that even a master thespian like Idris Elba couldn’t escape the stereotype of black actors only finding success in rubber fat suits and dressing drag. Seriously, he looks like a deleted character from Nutty Professor – I don’t think that’s the tone you want to set in a movie about apartheid. And this isn’t just some crappy outdoor candid shot of a set or a leak of some sort, it is through a deliberate action on the part of whoever is responsible for promoting this movie that our eyes can see this now. What was the thought process here? Did someone or a team of people actually think this was a good thing to release, and it passed multiple levels of checks? Or was it like just one guy in charge calling the shots, refusing to submit to better judgement and reason? This fascinates me now. But not enough to watch this movie.

We did 20 takes, and THAT was the best one.