sorry.

I considered posting that the reason I hadn't blogged here in so long (in internet years, at least) is because I was hit by a taxi cab and in the hospital regaining my memories for a few weeks.

However, that is an absurd lie. And I wouldn't really expect anyone to believe it.

Truthfully, all that happened was that everything suddenly got super super busy. And that's hardly an excuse since most people working in this industry are probably equally swamped... But I got a ton of new assignments plus was trekking out to daily interviews for a job for post-McCann and this little hole in the world wide web took a backseat to all of that. Let's try this once more, with feeling, okay?

I DID get a job, anyway. Part-time, since I've still got one more year of school to go. I'll be working as a junior at a production studio in Manhattan. I thought that before I invested upwards of $30K to get an adschool degree in copywriting, I'd go ahead and make sure I don't enjoy the production side of things more. And since I've already done sound/video editing for various side projects, I qualified. And there's that one small thing about a job being a job.... Since I'm trying to pay my way through an undergraduate degree in New York City, I also had to get a gig nannying 15 hours a week. So when I add it all up, I'll be working/taking classes for seventy hours a week. Not taking into consideration classwork I'll need to do at home or overtime I'll need to pull on either job. Of course, again with the complaining! I'm sure I'll work just as hard, or harder, at my first (second, third, fourth?) full time agency job.

Suddenly I'm tired....

The internship program at McCann ended last week. Which is both happy and sad. I've been doing the tour of adschools since then, stopping in Richmond to interview at The Adcenter and then Atlanta for The Creative Circus and The Portfolio Center, and next I'm heading to Miami for Miami Ad School. I'll fly back to NY to start my last year of undergrad and the two new jobs after Labor Day!

In other news, I was friends with Julie Roehm on Facebook before Ad Age made it cool, and I watched Mad Men last night and give it no stars.

I'll try to be a better blogger in the future.

Alien Invasion?

I've been sporadic with my postings because the office had to be closed down for the rest of the week after the steam explosion, and so we've been scrambling to catch up to the clients' schedules this week. Oh, fun.

But in the meantime, did any of you realize that counterfeit Harry Potter books are such a large problem in China? Which to me, seems bizarre --- faking a book. Maybe I'm naive, but it seemed like one of the very few objects you just couldn't make a knock off from. Yeah, sure - maybe making illegal copies of said book is a realistic problem. But these fake Harry Potters are actually books that CLAIM to be part of the series by JK Rowling, and make lots of money off of really excited Chinese children until it is (generally quickly) discovered they are of a much poorer quality, and leave out many of the main characters and settings. This isn't a problem in English speaking countries, because there was such hype and craze over the exact release date of all of these books. But the translated versions aren't as strictly distributed, since they usually don't get published in mass until after the English ones. So when that happens you get:



(actual book cover, actually sold.)

More soon.

Explosion in NYC

The building where I work is on 41st Street between Lexington and 3rd Avenue. This evening, just as people were starting to leave for home, there was a huge explosion just on the corner of Lexington and 41st. My AD was just outside at the time, she was so startled that she dropped and broke her phone. One man died of a heart attack, at least fifteen others were injured. Hundreds of people started screaming and the steam made it difficult to see anything. They evacuated our building, and those around it, they shut down the subways, people were running uptown in masses.

Apparently the problem was with an underground steam pipe that had been constructed in 1924. Cold water (from the rain this morning?) had gotten in the pipe and caused the explosion. To add to everything, reports say that the now-gaping-hole in the street may have released asbestos into the air, and that all of those evacuated people were breathing them in.




Somebody put that footage up on Gothamist.


I don't even know what to say. Just that it's terrifying.

FREE APPLES FOR EVERYONE!

Coming back from lunch today, I was in the elevator with a guy dressed as an apple, carrying a basket of apples.

"Umm. What floor?"

Him, the apple - "28, please."

And as the doors went to slide shut, his apple leaf head-dress got caught in between them and the leaf came off.

Later this afternoon, I found out that he was here to let us know we won the Applebee's account in the pitch against TBWA/Chiat/Day.

I guess that's what it must be like to be the lucky Applebee's intern.

Sprint regrets to inform you...

This letter was sent to 1,000 of Sprint's now-former customers because, according to the company, they complained too much.

Now, I really do like their newest advertisements with the light-images (http://sprintahead.com). But this move seems pretty idiotic. I'd think that part of being a global service provider would be putting up with a handful of whining customers. Firing them? Not so much. It seems most of Sprint's peers would rather go bankrupt before biting the hand that begrudgingly fed them. But I'm sure Amp'd Mobile wishes they'd written this letter several months ago...

I miss the wind

It's been busy this past week, and I haven't had as much time to spend on the blogosphere as I'd like. But I did come upon this gem via Brandflakes for Breakfast and I absolutely love it.



And this is what the kids in my neighborhood were doing yesterday evening - it's hot enough today that I might just do the same.

like a really big iPhone

Isn't this amazing?