My favorite spam yet

The other day I received what remains my favorite spam email message yet:  An offer from a funeral home to help me with my "special event."  These folks, the message made clear, were standing by to help me in my time of need.

Now, as good fortune would have it, no one in my family has died recently.  The message made me wonder, therefore, exactly what my special event was, and how a funeral home might help me. 

I then recalled that I'm heading out for a short trip next week, so that had to be my special event. 

Maybe the funeral home has branched out into related areas, such as travel planning.  They could specialize in the very most dangerous sorts of trips.  Sure, I could fly American Airlines to Portland as I always do, but wouldn't I rather be the first to attempt the same trip in a small prop plane with a blindfolded pilot whose lover recently dumped her and whose veins are pulsing with crystal meth? 

If not travel, perhaps they're offering packing services.  It's not that far a leap from filling coffins with well-dressed corpses to coming to my house, suggesting outfits for my trip, and folding them neatly for transport in my small suitcase.

Maybe make-overs is their new business, and this message is a clear statement that I am far from looking my best and in serious need of a waxy skin treatment.

So many possibilities.  I do hope they email me again with more information.

Fun show, no awards

In yesterday's blog entry, I wrote about our trip to the 2014 Addy's, the American Advertising Awards.  We indeed attended the event earlier tonight, and we had a fun time studying the works of others and watching the awards ceremony.  None of the work we entered won an award, but I'm fine with that.  I'm proud of what we entered, and after having seen the competition, I still believe our work was good enough to win.

Next year, we hope to enter even more pieces of even better work!

Wish us luck

Tomorrow night (Friday, 7 February), I'm heading with most of the members of PT's studio team to the local 2014 American Advertising Awards gathering, RE:MIX.  Last year, the team went to check out what other local video and design teams were doing and to serve notice that PT had gotten very serious indeed about its agency capabilities.  This year, we've taken another step and submitted these two videos for consideration in one awards category.

Our Labs.  Your Labs.



Our Studio.  Your Studio.



As I've said before, I'm very proud of the entire PT team, and I feel honored to be able to work with such a great group.  Regardless of whether these videos earn the studio team any awards, I know they make it clear that this is a very talented team indeed.

Wish us luck!

A new PT sabbatical video

In this one, John talks about the first PT sabbatical trip to take one of us to Africa, and what he and a group of others did to help some kids there.

I'm very proud of John and all the others at PT who have used some of their sabbatical time to help make the world a better place.



Enjoy.

On my mind for no particular reason

The cult classic Harold and Maude, and then this short Cat Stevens tune. 



I make no apologies for still loving much of Cat Stevens'/Yusuf Islam's music.  Never will.

The best thing I got from the Super Bowl

is an expression that everyone who's seen or heard about the game instantly understands:  Broncos Bad, or, in the full form, Denver Broncos Bad.

As in,

Me:  How's that project going?

Colleague:  Pretty bad right now.

Me:  Denver Broncos Bad?

Colleague (shaking his head):  Oh, no, nothing like that. 

I love it when sports helps language.

Well, damn: Philip Seymour Hoffman died today

Many news outlets have reported that Philip Seymour Hoffman died earlier today of a drug overdose.  From various reports and his own statements, he'd fought with drug abuse for a long time, and today he lost in a very final way.

He was, to my taste, one of the best actors of the last several decades, always becoming the characters he played.  I can't think of a film in which he turned in a bad performance. 

One of my favorite of his roles, of course, was as the Count in The Boat That Rocked.  I love that film, I love the character he and Richard Curtis created, and I will always love his final speech, as the boat is going down.

Damn.