305does212

A New Low, Unifinished Building Has FB Page

Yesterday I went to the Santa Monica Pier for something they call the Twilight Dance Series. Every Thursday from 7 - 10 p.m. one can jam to free live music from international artists and local bands alike. Pretty awesome (and famous and largest longest-running free concert series in the country and you can read about it here - http://www.santamonicapier.org - if you want to know more.

But that’s not what inspired this piece of outstanding genius. No. What struck me about Santa Monica was not its insane beauty, or the fact that everyone seemed like the chillest most chill mother effer on Earth (arguably all of California is probably more chill than my hometown will ever EVER be), it was this:



Here’s the development site of what is clearly going to turn into a shopping/entertainment type center. With a name like Santa Monica Place there is little else that it could blossom into. Fine, that’s cool. Nestled between the Pier and the 3rd Street Promenade (read: expensive shit), I’m sure it will be a big hit. Sweet. Awesome. Can’t wait to see it.

What doesn’t make any goddamn sense about this is the huge font yelling about the not-finished mall’s fucking Facebook page. Speaking as a young person and half-brainwashed student of Advertising (half because I will always harbor a healthy distrust for this shit) WHY THE HELL DO YOU NEED A FB PAGE SMP?

Honestly, could you not track my slight if not purely-out-of-boredom interest in your soon-to-be establishment by just tracking visits to your damn website? (www.santamonicaplace.com)

People on FB tend to have very high number of ‘friends’ and unless you are constantly putting out news about your not-yet-a-mall mall, your one occasional update on the king of all social networks is going to get lost in a sea of mobile photo uploads. I call it occasional because how much can you really say about the shit while it’s not even fucking FINISHED yet?

“Hey guys, check it out we added three spots to one aisle on level two of the parking garage.”

Just send out a press release and invite everyone to the grand opening JAM and be done with it.

Maybe you want us to join you on Facebook so that once everything is settled and you open those glimmering doors, you can let us know about events and deals and blah blah blah. I get that. BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD does EVERYTHING need to have a Facebook page? It’s getting a little bit ridiculous.

Just because all of our moms are now on Facebook doesn’t mean you need to encourage them by adding your freaking mall to the list of shit that will keep them online and in our photo albums of friends who are passed out drunk and extremely stoned!

I realize the gargantuan opportunity that Facebook offers its users. I’m not stupid, and I’ve been a student of the game for (feels like too many) years now. But there comes a time when enough is enough. A run-of-the-mill branded FB page is about as dry and useless as I imagine my first Thanksgiving turkey will turn out, seeing as how I have no idea how to cook much of anything.

Brands, if your page isn’t offering any utility to wash down all the bullshit, then you simply won’t cut it on FB. Not to mention that the people can see through your vain attempts at relating to them when you can’t even talk on their terms. Thanks to the fact you pretty damn near never try to create some kind of link between what you’re about and what people care about.

I guess my point is that not every single thing on the planet needs a freakin’ Facebook page.

::end rant::

xXx

Whenever I get annoyed I remind myself that soon I’ll get paid to stare out the window.

QR Codes, Advertising’s Crop Circles

I was brushing my teeth this morning, thinking about my portfolio - what to leave in for now, what to set on fire and throw off a cliff - and found myself revisiting an old idea that I hope to work on in the near future.

An idea that involves QR codes.

Yes, QR codes - the same things that everyone (some people?) poops out a few garbage ideas for and flushes because they are QR codes.

This is not to say that there are no examples out there somewhere on the webternets/life that showcase QR codes in the most brilliant way known to man (like the one I saw in New York by Sport Illustrated - a picture of a hot swimsuit model featured a QR code with a headline that read, “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” but I’ve not seen it. I don’t think anyone has. (The Sports Illustrated one isn’t BRILLIANT.)

The only thing I know for sure is that companies use them to link to websites. Cool.

This is what I think: QR codes are a conspiracy.

Question:
How is it possible that we have yet to find an amazing way to implement these things and make them an integral part of any fabulous, ready-for-hire portfolio?

Answer:
QR codes are crop circles of the Advertising world.

What ARE those things?
If half of the people in the industry aren’t sure exactly what they are good for, the rest of the planet really doesn’t get it. Even if they do know what they ARE, they aren’t sure why they exist after they take a picture of one and are simply linked to that company’s website. Woop-dee-doo.

Who put them there?
Aliens.

Companies want you to believe that they are the ones responsible, but given their inability to use them correctly, who are they trying to fool?

Clearly QR codes are some highly elevated form of communication between aliens and big companies trying to get us to “engage” with their products and services. Once we do, we’re beamed some place far away, probed with cold steel, and our brain is wiped of any recollection of what just happened. QR codes make abductions without pesky UFOs a reality.

We will never see the true death of QR codes because we can’t remember what happens when we use one. And because we don’t remember our abduction, we don’t remember that we need to get rid of the thing that made it possible.

Nothing new will come of them, either. These invaders are the ones stalling any development of effective QR code usage. Aliens are in charge of making sure QR codes never do anything but boringly link to a website I could easily type into my browser. So they can butt-rape us and study our insides. And the rapists are probably just a screwy bunch of 8th-grader aliens studying for this week’s anatomy test. Chapter 9: The Digestive Tract.

What do they mean?!
Nothing. Everything. Nothing and everything.
They mean that you need to download something. And they mean that companies are making money from us at more than the cost of whatever it is they are selling. These COMPANIES are selling US to ALIENS.

Here we’ve been thinking that these QR codes are a thing of the (recent) past. We wouldn’t be caught dead showing off a case-study involving silly QR codes. But are QR codes just ahead of their time? Will we ever use them without an Independence Day type battle of Will Smith proportions?

For now one thing is clear. No one really understands them.

simple description of my day:

(pointless.)

Road rage explained and textified: This is why I cry at stoplights.

Miami drivers have their phones to their ear and their heads up their ass, but they are not the only reason it genuinely sucks to drive around here.

Sometimes it has nothing to do with the drivers themselves, but the incredibly high degree of absolutely-mindbogglingly-WOW-YOU’RE-STUPID-stupidity that the people who are merely walking actually possess.

This is not a new sentiment by any means, but I think it’s time to put all the reasons why pedestrians can kiss my ass on the table. If this applies to you, what follows may save your life.

Unacceptable Act of Pedestrian #1: The Windshield Stare Down

Some pedestrians find it necessary to send bone-melting X-ray beams through my windshield if I am approaching a stop sign while they happen to be walking across that very intersection.

I suppose that If I were walking across the street and a car came barreling towards a stop sign as if the people inside just ate $500 worth of fried rice at China Grill and ditched the bill, I too would perhaps stare into the driver’s eyes as if to say, “It would really blow to be charged with vehicular manslaughter.”

But, chances are that someone who just ate and ran on that much of a bill doesn’t give two shits about a stop sign. In which case, I’d be dead and have no time for staring in windshields at people.

That said, don’t stare at me.

This is why:
1. I’m not blind. Yes, I did see you. You were already half way safely across the street before I even got to the stop sign, of course I saw you and I plan on letting you pass.

2. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

Unacceptable Act of Pedestrian #2: The Vacation Stroll

OH MY GOD get out of the way. There is slow, and then there is my horrible hair cut that I just got 4 minutes ago that I’m still crying alone in the car about grew out by the time you crossed the road.

This action also includes the mentality that, “I’m hot and wearing skimpy clothes and strappy stilettos at 10 in the morning, so I can take my time getting out of your way, because I rule the universe with the swipe of my black AMEX.”

You might not look so hot plastered on the grill of my 96’ Celica.

YOU might be on vacation, but I am not. YOU might not have a care in the world, but I do. YOU might have just seen a cloud that looks like a fatter Ashley Olsen having a tea party with a dragon made out of legos, but I don’t care.

I wouldn’t complain about this if it was something that I too was guilty of, but I’m not. You know why? Because I have more than four brain cells and the capacity to understand that I am not a princess and maybe people have things to do instead of watch me make my way across the street.

Unacceptable Act of Pedestrian #3:The Lincoln Meridian

The stop lights at the intersection of Lincoln Road and Meridian Avenue may as well be octagonal screens with wait times on them. Sure, Lincoln Road is a mall, but people seem to forget that it is also OUTDOORS and that cars travel on streets punctuated with colorful lights that tell drivers when to stop or go and, in general, green to the driver means go and a big red hand means don’t walk because you’ll die. The pedestrians at Lincoln and Meridian are a different breed of pedestrian - one that regularly laughs in the face of Death.

Unacceptable Act of Pedestrian #4: The Catch Up With an Old Friend

In the middle of the street. (Coupled with zero flinching at oncoming vehicle spotted in periphery.)

Unacceptable Act of Pedestrian #5: The Perma Pedestrian

Yep, I’m talking about the guy standing there with a “God Bless” sign. This is not an attempt at bum bashing and I’m not trying to sound all, “GET A JOB,” but I do mean, “Get out of the way, and don’t stare at me.”

I know it must be uncomfortable to sleep in the rain,  but ever since the “Got any coffee change?” lady totally forgot me from one day to the next, even though I brought her delicious, filling and let’s not forget free pitas every day for a week, I have little sympathy.  Here I thought I could really make a difference by at the very least hooking this woman up with a hot meal, but she forgot about the food probably the moment I turned my back, and instantly reverted to asking me for money. I’m no savior, and I know that now.

I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re going to ask for money, could you refrain from using a busy street light as your spot? The last thing I need on my conscience is failing to offer you the spare change I don’t have and then running you over by mistake.


All in all, if one puts drivers and pedestrians together and allows them to work together, it’s a wonder anyone can get anywhere in this city.

Individualism is important, especially here in the good old USA, but no one cares about anyone anymore, and it’s getting really freaking annoying and is almost impossible to tolerate. Common courtesy has been replaced with a general “SCREW YOU” attitude, and it’s disconcerting and really sad. How anyone feigns a smile in anything closely resembling customer service is insane to me. A person can only deal with so many entitled assholes in a given period of time.

One day I’ll wake up and suddenly everyone will be over themselves. This day being the day I die, probably. Till then, I’ll have to deal.

regression! glorious regression to happy timez.

I’ve fallen out of like with work (again) and have taken to old pastimes.

I started with this, a visual free write:

This piece, made using a technique I’ve dubbed Gluing Random Shit Together, includes acrylic paint, rhinestones, origami paper, old greeting cards, and magazine clippings.

Check them goggles.

Going back to only the fondest middle school memories:

and:

 Available for purchase at SOFLO in the GROVE!: 3301 Grand Avenue

While you’re there, picture yourself on a new skateboard or fixie or in some sweet new sneakers.

from Co-owners Bass

and Cris, the bike doctor.

—fin—

hibyeokaythx

get up, get up, get out of bed

Vacation is over, but I’m not going to cry about it. My laziness this break between quarters could be described as DISGUSTING, so the next first day in a life of first days could not come at a better time.

Internship at Iris starts tomorrow, and while this 305 might be back in the 305, I’m doing it in an entirely new way - bilingual. I guess I’m doing it two ways. I like it both ways?

Finally got around to NY pictures and just as I thought, I wish I wish I wish I was back there.

Only a matter of time.

and a few more NY pictures for your viewing pleasure:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43362102@N03/sets/72157623769616992/show/