Tuesday, January 29, 2008

War for the White House... .com

So, The Onion (America's [self-professed] Finest News Source) has launched a new spin-off Web site--http://www.warforthewhitehouse.com/--dedicated to sarcastically covering America's 2008 presidential election. The content is really nothing new for fans of The Onion's printed or Web formats, but the fact that a current event as hot as the election now warrants its own mock-site deserves some attention.
I don't think anyone would argue that kids these days are getting a lot of their news from entertainment vehicles such as The Onion or--probably more likely--The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. My question is: How long before communications/public relations practitioners begin earnestly pitching hard news (with a comedic slant) to outlets such as these? Is this already happening? Let me know if it is, because if there's a firm that specializes in that kind of thing; I must work there. I would love to spend my work-days coming up with slick ways to embed strategic messages into entertainment pieces.
Now then, let me get back to reading more about Mike Huckabee's signature issue: retrieving the Ark of the Covenant.

Friday, January 18, 2008

My Cream Cheese

Last Friday I made a decision.
I decided to save $2 per day by skipping my daily bagel and cream cheese from the deli in my building. Instead, I sauntered over to the Safeway down the street and bought a bag of bagels and a tub of Philadelphia cream cheese (with 1/3 the fat of regular cream cheese). I toasted my bagel, slathered on the cream cheese product, and enjoyed it with coffee. Yum.
On Monday, I arrived to the office eager to enjoy another bagel. Unfortunately, the cream cheese that I had left in the community fridge was gone--not used--GONE. Going over my morning email, I ate my dry bagel... seething.
You know, I used to scoff at the people who would leave passive aggressive notes on their food products in the fridge (e.g. "Nelson's butter - DO NOT USE" or "Kelly's margarine food product spread - DO NOT USE"), but now I see where they are coming from. It's likely that they--like me--were violated at one time. It doesn't feel good. I mean... here I am--a poor graduate student who just took out a bunch of loans and is rubbing nickels together to try and scrape up some breakfast and some... person just decides to claim my reduced-fat spread (that's been used once). Not cool.
So, anyway, after I cooled down (Wednesday) I went ahead and bought another tub. I immediately put a dated Post-It on it saying, "Toby's Cream Cheese." I am happy to report that it still resides safely in the fridge, but this morning my last two bagels went missing. I'm not kidding.