If you don't know me that well, let me introduce you to the wild and wonderful world of The Urgo Gene. All Blood Urgos (so you are safe is you married into the family- but not your children, they're fucked. Adopt.) Having The Urgo Gene ensures you a life of emergency room visits and fearing not having health insurance.
I myself have broken all my fingers and toes (some a few times), fractured my foot, had two high grade stress fractures in the same bone at the same time (the doctor said that's a new one for him, go me), broke my collar bone climbing up a slide when I was 3, banged my elbow so hard i had to have massive amounts of blood pocketed inside sucked out, broke my wrist in the same spot 6 weeks after getting the cast off the first time, and in one incident tore off half the right side of my face, cracked my head open in two spots, received "stigmata like" wounds on both wrists, tore off my right shoulder and left knee. Thats at least what I can remember. I've been to the emergency room in 3 different countries, and I can't tell you how many states or ERs in general.
This isn't just me. My father, uncle, their cousins, my cousins, etc, all have the similar lists of maladies, some of them much worse, and their ER visits also extend to various countries across the globe.
After injuring yourself so many times, you get to know when its time for the ER or when you can just tough it out and be a man. Broken fingers and toes for instance, constitute as toughing it out. This past Christmas a friend of mind called me and asked where to go if one broke a finger and had no insurance. I told her "My house, I'll put that sucker back into place and wrap it up." She said "no thanks, my brother will find a clinic." Pussies.
Anyway, "toughing it out" is more a less another term for "sheer stupidity." For instance, 3 years ago my pinky toe was oddly swollen and discolored for some time. I would de-puss it every few days. It grew larger and grosser. One particularly gross day, I was digging around and pulled out a big piece of glass from inside it. My toe at this point was a sort of greenish color. I washed it in pure alcohol, bandaged it, and considered it a victory I found the glass.
Same thing when I almost cut off me finger while chopping carrots with a dull knife earlier last year. While the knife was too effing dull to cut the carrots, it was sharp enough to cut my finger to the bone. While I lost blood and stared into space my boyfriend of the time begged me to go to the hospital. Instead I wrapped another paper towel around the wound (I had no bandaids) and passed out.
This brings me to this very moment, as I type this with my arm in a makeshift sling made out of two bandanas. I get cocky snowboarding this weekend and took a jump not meant for me yet and had one of those crashes that stopped all activity on the mountain. As I lay there trying not to throw up all I could think about was how my mentor would think I was a pussy if I didn't show up at the bottom to meet him, so get your ass up girl. After 3 days of being unable to raise my arm above my head and sleeping on the couch so I can't move and wedging my arm inbetween me and the couch to keep it immobile while I slept, I decided to make the sling to keep it immobilized all the time.
I probably should go to the hospital, but I hear my father's voice in my head saying "well, what are they going to do, take some IBprofein and stay still, you'll be fine" and then he'd launch into a story about a similar moment in his life when he was wrestling in high school or throwing rocks off the roof at his Nanna and managed to maim himself. And, to be honest, I can't help hurting myself. It's in the genetics.
After thinking about this, and a long conversation about birth on the way to the mountains today, I decided its best I not have children. I can't possibly pass this retarded gene on, AND stupidity at the same time. It's just too much for any one child to bear. Instead I'll just adopt some poor bastard and he'll receive excellent lessons in survival simply by being my child, and be the next Survivor Man (Not man VS wild, he's a wimp with a camera crew).
Monday, February 21, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Nietzche, Beer, & Advertising
This is absolutely sick. I would love to be back in college right now, but not to party.
I would kill to write a paper on Camus, or to bury myself in 17th century poetry trying to figure out what the EFF those crazy people are saying.
“The Mller was a stout carl fur the nones. Full big he was of brawn and eek of bones.” – The Miller’s Tale, Canterbury Tales (yes, that is from memory)
I would even do Algebra. For some reason I always really liked Algebra. Those nice neat lines you make going down the page. I really liked Algebra. And logic problems. God I loved logic problems.
Right now I’m in the CU (Colorado) library, staring at all the crazy college kids. I’m 26, but I could probably pass for one of them. I want to tell them they don’t know how easy they have it, I mean I just got done with an internship where they rolled in kegs at noon, fed us cereal and easy mac, and we spent a good portion of work time chatting.
By all rights I could very well have BEEN in college. Except I wasn’t. Except as fun as advertising is it is a hell of a lot harder than anything I did in college. I got by with great grades bullshitting my way through Shakespeare papers 3 hours before they were due.
I dove deep in philosophy, beating myself over the head with questions like “what does it mean to live a good life?” (A harder question to answer than you think given the christian roots).
And damn, what I wouldn’t give to go back and spend 6 months just trying to answer that question, or comparing Nietzsche's take on atheism to the Buddhist’s ten fold path.
I remember how I used to get myself worked up over trying to figure out what the hell John Donne was saying in his famous poem “The Fly” (seducing a woman to have sex with him was the answer) but that seems like easy peasy mac and cheesy compared to trying to figure out how to sell Downy Wrinkle Release Spray to business women. THAT makes me want to beat myself over the head.
I must be a masochist. I love being beaten.
At least when I know I can win in the end.
I would kill to write a paper on Camus, or to bury myself in 17th century poetry trying to figure out what the EFF those crazy people are saying.
“The Mller was a stout carl fur the nones. Full big he was of brawn and eek of bones.” – The Miller’s Tale, Canterbury Tales (yes, that is from memory)
I would even do Algebra. For some reason I always really liked Algebra. Those nice neat lines you make going down the page. I really liked Algebra. And logic problems. God I loved logic problems.
Right now I’m in the CU (Colorado) library, staring at all the crazy college kids. I’m 26, but I could probably pass for one of them. I want to tell them they don’t know how easy they have it, I mean I just got done with an internship where they rolled in kegs at noon, fed us cereal and easy mac, and we spent a good portion of work time chatting.
By all rights I could very well have BEEN in college. Except I wasn’t. Except as fun as advertising is it is a hell of a lot harder than anything I did in college. I got by with great grades bullshitting my way through Shakespeare papers 3 hours before they were due.
I dove deep in philosophy, beating myself over the head with questions like “what does it mean to live a good life?” (A harder question to answer than you think given the christian roots).
And damn, what I wouldn’t give to go back and spend 6 months just trying to answer that question, or comparing Nietzsche's take on atheism to the Buddhist’s ten fold path.
I remember how I used to get myself worked up over trying to figure out what the hell John Donne was saying in his famous poem “The Fly” (seducing a woman to have sex with him was the answer) but that seems like easy peasy mac and cheesy compared to trying to figure out how to sell Downy Wrinkle Release Spray to business women. THAT makes me want to beat myself over the head.
I must be a masochist. I love being beaten.
At least when I know I can win in the end.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
DEAR GOD WHERE IS THE AC
It is SO effing hot and SO effing bright in the library, I am wearing sun glasses in doors and have stripped down to my tank top. Don't believe me? the guy sitting to the left of me WISHES he had sunglasses.
It's a whopping 20 degrees outside and I think they should put some sanddown and hand out margs and cold beers. The dude in the above picture just stripped down to his undershirt.
I leave you with this radical picture of my rockin sunglasses. This is my "job searching in a sauna face"
It's a whopping 20 degrees outside and I think they should put some sanddown and hand out margs and cold beers. The dude in the above picture just stripped down to his undershirt.
I leave you with this radical picture of my rockin sunglasses. This is my "job searching in a sauna face"
Monday, February 7, 2011
Quit Your Bitching- Groupon Rocked Your Faces.
Normally I keep this blog Advertising Free, however my mentors during my CP+B internship worked on the Groupon spots for last night's superbowl and they rock my face.
People are pissed and talking, and I love it. Why? Because every comment people make is free advertising.
And they are pissed for no good reason. Did anybody donate, care about, or talk about any of these charities prior to the commercials?
Nope.
Do they actually care about these charities now?
Nah.
Whats the probability they are going to go donate to the whales, tibet or the rainforest?
No likely.
Why all the craziness then? Because people like to get mad in the masses, that's it. Nobody can really be offended because nobody did anything in the first place, and while Groupon's first priority is definitely not helping these charities, they at least threw the links up there and set up a donation program- more effort than 105.5 million out of the 106 million who watched the superbowl will probably do.
Living Social, Google's version of Groupon, had a commercial in the beginning of the game. I bet 99% of the people don't remember it, and if they go to a group site the one they are going to go to is Groupon simply out of memory.
People are saying it's damaging to Groupon as a brand, but the reality is people are still signing up for it, and after the ad last night there was an increase in the number of Groupon users, not a decrease.
While I was at CP+B, I had the pleasure to work on Groupon. Nothing I did ended up getting produced or going far, in fact the height of my achievements was a print ad that made "the wall" which I considered something to be proud of. Out of every client I worked on, Groupon was by far the hardest, and the only client I didn't get anything produced or even sent to the client for. Out of that experience, I can say this (and I know the other Copy intern who worked with me agrees)- It's better to have fun, work on something a little evil, and get everyone talking than to work on crap and never be noticed.
You can say it was tasteless, but let's be real here- the half time show was a billion times more offensive. Fergie sounded like a dying cat, Slash is somewhere killing himself while Axl is stabbing himself in his grave, and Usher saved the day and they should have let him lipsync for the entire show.
People are pissed and talking, and I love it. Why? Because every comment people make is free advertising.
And they are pissed for no good reason. Did anybody donate, care about, or talk about any of these charities prior to the commercials?
Nope.
Do they actually care about these charities now?
Nah.
Whats the probability they are going to go donate to the whales, tibet or the rainforest?
No likely.
Why all the craziness then? Because people like to get mad in the masses, that's it. Nobody can really be offended because nobody did anything in the first place, and while Groupon's first priority is definitely not helping these charities, they at least threw the links up there and set up a donation program- more effort than 105.5 million out of the 106 million who watched the superbowl will probably do.
Living Social, Google's version of Groupon, had a commercial in the beginning of the game. I bet 99% of the people don't remember it, and if they go to a group site the one they are going to go to is Groupon simply out of memory.
People are saying it's damaging to Groupon as a brand, but the reality is people are still signing up for it, and after the ad last night there was an increase in the number of Groupon users, not a decrease.
While I was at CP+B, I had the pleasure to work on Groupon. Nothing I did ended up getting produced or going far, in fact the height of my achievements was a print ad that made "the wall" which I considered something to be proud of. Out of every client I worked on, Groupon was by far the hardest, and the only client I didn't get anything produced or even sent to the client for. Out of that experience, I can say this (and I know the other Copy intern who worked with me agrees)- It's better to have fun, work on something a little evil, and get everyone talking than to work on crap and never be noticed.
You can say it was tasteless, but let's be real here- the half time show was a billion times more offensive. Fergie sounded like a dying cat, Slash is somewhere killing himself while Axl is stabbing himself in his grave, and Usher saved the day and they should have let him lipsync for the entire show.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Soccer: The hate/love relationship, and why it should never be popular in the U.S.
The reason why I hate soccer is why most people (usually red-neck americans, anybody who loves politics (liberals and conservatives alike) and my college friend Niel's crazy Grandmother) hate anything.
I don't understand it.
However, I think my reasons for not understanding soccer are pretty legitimate.
For one, it's kind of like basketball- there's lots of running back and forth, there's netting, and some degree of pushing someone else down and punishment. I think my greatest problem with soccer is that I classify it has a semi-wimpy sport (I don't count things like golf or bowling as sports, so this places it very low on my list), and the only thing that saves it from ultimate wimpyness is that you can't possibly be a fat person and excel at this. If you aren't in shape, you'll only make it to the half way line and be pooped. There is just too much running back and forth.
As a marathoner and triathlete, I can't really discount anything that has to do with running as completely stupid, because I spend a lot of my time running in circles, and seeing who can get around the circle the quickest.
Also, any sport where it is more dangerous to be a fan causes me to raise an eyebrow. When I lived in Germany, I attended a few games. Like everyone else, I've heard of the crazy british "soccer hooligans" and just sort of assumed this was an exaggeration. Silly, silly me. Not only are british people crazy, but this extends to everywhere people actually care about soccer. My first game in Germany my jacket was pulle open and I was scrupulously searched for darts because apparently the home team had a habit of throwing REAL darts at the opposing teams fans- who weren't allowed to leave until 20 minutes after the completion of the game to avoid things like being killed.
When I attended these games, I couldn't help but notice the what seemed thousands of times a guy fell down and just laid there. I can't help but compare this to my beloved sport of Football, where a guy can get hit simultaneously by 5 different guys, lay under a pile of 10 people, and do it again 40 seconds later. I realize there is padding, but at some point that has just got to hurt. Whats more to this is, I was told a lot of it has to do with acting, (ACTING!!!!!), because they are hoping for a foul to be called. Can you imagine if a guy in football laid down and pretended to cry out in agony to get a flag thrown??! The fans would beat him over to Europe where he'd have to learn to become a soccer player. It'd be suicide.
Last year, one of the Chicago Cubs (Colvin) had his lung pierced by a rogue broken bat piece that flew straight into his chest and the guy PULLED IT OUT and continued running towards home. Sure, they pulled him for the rest of the season, but he didn't immediately lay down and start crying.
So why someone would want to sit there for hours and hours watching a bunch of wimps run back and forth, score only 1 goal, and act for 3 hours is beyond me.
I'd like to add that at these soccer games, the most popular food served was from a guy walking around with various types of breads in a large basket. I responded to the atrocity by drinking more beer and accosting the man later, forcing him to take many photos with me.
On to positive things. Why I love soccer- I love soccer boys. But this is also the reason why soccer can't become a phenomenon in the United States. I hate real soccer player boys. They are just douche bags. I do, however, have an obsession with guys who played soccer in high school and college. For whatever reason, my ears perk up. I spent most of college drooling over the boys on our team and, at one point, dating the goalie. I was especially impressed by this because he was rated the number 1 goalie in the league, or something. I didn't really like him all that much, but I was fascinated by his soccerness.
Even recently, Ex-Boy-Thing (See post- My ex-boy-thing is my Asian Mom) claimed he used to play soccer. I have no idea how true this is, but it didn't matter. Once I heard this, his fate was sealed and he was going to date me for at least a little while, whether he wanted to or not.
I don't understand this attraction, but it's one I've chosen not to fight.
If soccer were to become bigger in the states, all these wonderful soccer playing guys who quit after high school or college because soccer isn't a real american sport and they actually want to make money and have some sort of a career might actually make a go for it. Then I'm stuck with a bunch of guys I can't date because now they are 1) are actually famous or 2) have become a soccer playing douche bag.
I'd like to go on about this, but it's time for me to do Yoga. My type of Yoga is much cooler than regular yoga, because it is called Yoga For Warriors, and destroys your body. I try to be competitive in regular yoga, which doesn't work- but it's impossible to be competitive in Yoga For Warriors, because all you are trying to do is survive.
I don't understand it.
However, I think my reasons for not understanding soccer are pretty legitimate.
For one, it's kind of like basketball- there's lots of running back and forth, there's netting, and some degree of pushing someone else down and punishment. I think my greatest problem with soccer is that I classify it has a semi-wimpy sport (I don't count things like golf or bowling as sports, so this places it very low on my list), and the only thing that saves it from ultimate wimpyness is that you can't possibly be a fat person and excel at this. If you aren't in shape, you'll only make it to the half way line and be pooped. There is just too much running back and forth.
As a marathoner and triathlete, I can't really discount anything that has to do with running as completely stupid, because I spend a lot of my time running in circles, and seeing who can get around the circle the quickest.
Also, any sport where it is more dangerous to be a fan causes me to raise an eyebrow. When I lived in Germany, I attended a few games. Like everyone else, I've heard of the crazy british "soccer hooligans" and just sort of assumed this was an exaggeration. Silly, silly me. Not only are british people crazy, but this extends to everywhere people actually care about soccer. My first game in Germany my jacket was pulle open and I was scrupulously searched for darts because apparently the home team had a habit of throwing REAL darts at the opposing teams fans- who weren't allowed to leave until 20 minutes after the completion of the game to avoid things like being killed.
When I attended these games, I couldn't help but notice the what seemed thousands of times a guy fell down and just laid there. I can't help but compare this to my beloved sport of Football, where a guy can get hit simultaneously by 5 different guys, lay under a pile of 10 people, and do it again 40 seconds later. I realize there is padding, but at some point that has just got to hurt. Whats more to this is, I was told a lot of it has to do with acting, (ACTING!!!!!), because they are hoping for a foul to be called. Can you imagine if a guy in football laid down and pretended to cry out in agony to get a flag thrown??! The fans would beat him over to Europe where he'd have to learn to become a soccer player. It'd be suicide.
Last year, one of the Chicago Cubs (Colvin) had his lung pierced by a rogue broken bat piece that flew straight into his chest and the guy PULLED IT OUT and continued running towards home. Sure, they pulled him for the rest of the season, but he didn't immediately lay down and start crying.
So why someone would want to sit there for hours and hours watching a bunch of wimps run back and forth, score only 1 goal, and act for 3 hours is beyond me.
I'd like to add that at these soccer games, the most popular food served was from a guy walking around with various types of breads in a large basket. I responded to the atrocity by drinking more beer and accosting the man later, forcing him to take many photos with me.
On to positive things. Why I love soccer- I love soccer boys. But this is also the reason why soccer can't become a phenomenon in the United States. I hate real soccer player boys. They are just douche bags. I do, however, have an obsession with guys who played soccer in high school and college. For whatever reason, my ears perk up. I spent most of college drooling over the boys on our team and, at one point, dating the goalie. I was especially impressed by this because he was rated the number 1 goalie in the league, or something. I didn't really like him all that much, but I was fascinated by his soccerness.
Even recently, Ex-Boy-Thing (See post- My ex-boy-thing is my Asian Mom) claimed he used to play soccer. I have no idea how true this is, but it didn't matter. Once I heard this, his fate was sealed and he was going to date me for at least a little while, whether he wanted to or not.
I don't understand this attraction, but it's one I've chosen not to fight.
If soccer were to become bigger in the states, all these wonderful soccer playing guys who quit after high school or college because soccer isn't a real american sport and they actually want to make money and have some sort of a career might actually make a go for it. Then I'm stuck with a bunch of guys I can't date because now they are 1) are actually famous or 2) have become a soccer playing douche bag.
I'd like to go on about this, but it's time for me to do Yoga. My type of Yoga is much cooler than regular yoga, because it is called Yoga For Warriors, and destroys your body. I try to be competitive in regular yoga, which doesn't work- but it's impossible to be competitive in Yoga For Warriors, because all you are trying to do is survive.
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