Did you see the Old Milwaukee commercial where Will Farrell
tongue kissed an older Asian lady?Chances are you missed it unless you happened to live in one of the
three small towns it aired in.This isn’t
the first time Will Farrell has made a low budget commercial for Old Milwaukee,
only to release it in a small market.Last year’s commercial showed him walking through a field towards the
camera while triumphant music played.He
comes to a stop and raises a hand to catch a can of beer thrown to him from off
camera.Suds spill out as he cracks open
the can and the commercial ends halfway through him saying “Old Milwaukee”.
This unconventional advertising scheme costs very little
compared to the massive costs of Super Bowl commercials.It isn’t even clear if Old Milwaukee pays for
these commercials or it is just Will Farrell being Will Farrell.Regardless of which it is, the results speak
for themselves.The commercials become a
hot topic on social media and rise to the top of Reddit.The most recent commercial has over three and
a half million views.Not bad for a low
budget commercial that only aired in Sherman, Texas, Ardmore, Oklahoma, and
Glendive, Montana.
Calvin Klein followed up last year’s David Beckham
commercial with an equally hunky guy posing in equally awkward positions while
staring down the camera.Unlike Beckham,
this year’s model, Mathew Terry, was relatively unknown prior to strutting
around in his banana hammock for millions of television watchers.Rather than bending it like Beckham in Major
League Soccer, Terry abandoned his career of stocking groceries to become the
face of Calvin Klein.
So who were they trying to target with this commercial?Matthew Terry sport the physique of the
average football fan.And the underwear
he wears aren’t exactly fat guy approved.The best answer I can come up with is that the commercial was designed
to attract the interest of women, who would then by said underwear in the hopes
that their husbands would suddenly transform into a sexier version of themselves.I fear that the actual result might more
closely resemble Chris Farley as a Chippendale’s dancer.
Writing a sarcastic phrase can be dangerous.Too often, the writer’s intent is lost to the
readers preconceived notions.Because of
this, I am asking that the Washington Post join in making Comic Sans the
official font of sarcasm.
The need for such a device is evident.A routine sarcastic response like “Oh yeah, I’d
love to” is easy to confuse with a genuine answer.Comic
Sans
fixes that confusion.Now when a friend
asks if you would like to help him move out of his third story apartment, he won’t
be misled by your response of “Oh
yeah, I’d love to”.
I’m not the first to suggest this solution.It pops up every now and then on Facebook or
Tumblr, then bounces around for a bit before disappearing into obscurity.The problem is that no voice of authority
steps in to give the idea credibility.The Washington Post can be
just such a voice. With the Post's rich history of being a leader and pioneer in the written word it is uniquely qualified to propel this idea into mainstream usage.
It will take some time for texting technologies to adapt
to the use of Comic Sans.But as usage increases, users will that demand
this feature be included into their texting applications.Let’s not forget that once upon a time
emoticons were not a standard feature.
If this plan works, we could share a world where sarcastic words are used
without fear of misunderstanding.A
world where writers can finally harness the full power of sarcasm.With
your help, we can make this dream a reality.
There is an injustice that our
earliest and most influential memories are also the ones we struggle the
hardest to remember as adults.The
people and events that mold us as children into the adults we become are the
first memories we lose.That is what led
me to sit down and interview my daughter Sadie.She is in the middle of what may very well be the most instrumental year
of her life and I want to capture what I can.I know I can’t bottle all of her memories up into a fifteen minute
interview.But maybe, years down the
road, she can look back and see her five year old self and remember where it
all started.
Sadie is like most five year olds,
in that what her attention span lacks she more than makes up for in energy.Her last year has been pretty eventful.She started kindergarten this year and even
occasionally rides the bus to and from school.This December, just before Christmas, Sadie lost her grandmother.They were very close and Sadie mentions her
several times throughout the interview.
She begins by talking about a school
project where they make number bracelets.They are currently on the number five bracelet, an amazing coincidence
considering she is five years old and rides bus number five.Her favorite food is oatmeal, but that is
subject to change at a moment’s notice.When asked where in the world she would like to travel to, she answers
without hesitation “Florida”.Her recent
infatuation with Florida is directly tied to her love of everything Disney.
The interview takes an interesting
turn when she is asked what she wants to be when she grows up.She concludes that she wants to be a nurse
just like her mother.When asked why she
wouldn’t want to be a doctor instead she says “Doctors are really for boys and
nurses are for girls”.Even after being
told that isn’t the case, Sadie concludes that she still wants to be a nurse just
like her mommy.It is worth noting that
Sadie is also very stubborn like her mother.
When asked about the best part of
her year she responds “Easter, the last Easter that grandma gotted to have”.This is the first reference to her deceased
grandmother.The Easter she fondly
recalls was a family get-together in Kansas, and one of the last days Sadie spent
with her Nana.When asked to name some of
the bad parts to her year Sadie paused to consider, then replied “sometimes
people be mean to me at school”.She
goes on to talk about a boy that used to be at her recess table named Colton
that says mean stuff to her.Sadie
stresses the importance of people being nice to each other.
After discussing the importance of
being nice Sadie explains how her school rewards random acts of kindness.If a student performs a random act of
kindness they get to wear a “kindness medalie”, I have to assume she meant
kindness medallion.She has received that
honor three times this school year.Once
for helping a student up that fell to the ground and another time when a
student accidentally smashed their finger.The third time she couldn’t remember.
The conversation was then steered (rather
forcefully) into the subject of her doing anything bad this last year.After some coaxing she admitted that she
stole a tube of ChapStick from Wal-Mart.The memory is a difficult one for her.Once it was discovered she stole from the store, it was decided that the
next day we would return and she would confess to her crime.After a restless night she did just that, and
even paid for the stolen merchandise with her own money.It was a difficult lesson to learn, but
hopefully one she will remember for a long time to come.
The subject of holidays came up and
Sadie listed her favorites as Christmas, Easter, and Valentine’s Day.Her favorite part of Christmas was the cupcake
maker Santa got her.When the day comes
that she stops believing in Santa, we will have to tell her that the gift was
actually from her Nana.She says that
the worst part of Christmas was that her grandma couldn’t come.This was significant because, as Sadie puts
it, “It was the first day without her being with us on a holiday”.From here Sadie talks about her favorite
memories with her grandma.She states
her Nana was great because “She did everything for me”. Her face lights up as she talks about playing
on Nana’s laptop and she smiles as she remembers the princess play they went
to.
This is a good point to confess my
ulterior motive in doing this interview.My true goal was to capture Sadie’s love and memories of her grandmother
on tape.After the funeral everyone
commented that in a few years she would forget all about her Nana.They said it like it was a good thing, like
forgetting about her would make everything better.I don’t want that.I don’t want her to ever forget that for the
first five years of her life she had the best grandmother on the planet.And should her memories ever fade, all she
needs to do is watch her interview and see how her face shines when she talks
about her Nana.
