Mad Men: “Public Relations”

This episode begins with Don giving an interview to a reporter from Advertising Age. Unfortunately, Don doesn’t see the point in it, and comes off as aloof and secretive. This leaves the reporter to fill in the blanks, something that will haunt both Don and his new firm in the near future.

mad_men_s4_e01_01

Roger and Pete approach the table where Don is sitting with the reporter. They’re there to take Don to the Sheraton, where the agency will take place in a “cattle call” with representatives of the Jantzen (swimwear) company. The meeting doesn’t go as well as they might have hoped: Murray emphasizes that Jantzen is a family company, and they’re not about to stoop to (what they consider to be) the near pornography of their competitor’s ads.

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It never happens to me…

So… ten years ago, a British guy named Rick Norsigian went to a garage sale in California and picked up a set of photo negatives he found interesting. His cost? £30 ($46).

He made prints of them from time to time, and his relatives always commented about how much they looked like Ansel Adams’ work.

After a decade of hearing this, the man finally took the negatives to a Beverly Hills art gallery… who not only confirmed that it is Adams’ work… but estimated that they’re worth around £128 million (almost $200 million).

Sigh.

Story here.

“One Parishioner’s Boycott”

Stand Firm has a link to this interesting article about one man’s boycott of the Episcopal Church:

67% of Episcopal clergy identify themselves as Democrats, 8% Independents, and 22% Republicans. Maybe that helps explain this:49% of Episcopal clergy say that gay couples should be allowed to legally marry and 38% say that civil unions should be allowed. Of course this majority might claim that politics has nothing to do with their quest for gay marriage. In fact, I have read the claim that the Holy Spirit has is guiding them to this er…, um…, position. Unfortunately, they are lying because they have failed to back up their claims by using scriptural sources. There is a good possibility that an unholy spirit is doing the leading, and that the filthy spirit of politics has a lot to do with the current course of the Church.

Linked within that article is this post, entitled “Red Pew, Blue Pulpit”, which goes through some interesting numbers about the PCUSA. Of course, the PCUSA isn’t the TEC… the TEC is worse.

via Stand Firm.

A Brief Update on Mad Men Recaps

The season premiere of Mad Men was last night (hooray!) and I just wanted to let you know that I’m changing the format of the recaps. As much as I love the show, I just don’t have it in me to do the “full blown” recaps I’ve done in the past.

When I first started with the recaps, I decided to make them as comprehensive as possible, so that if you missed an episode you could read my recap and know everything that happened in that episode. This often led to episode “summaries” of 7,000 words (or more). This is something I just can’t do any more.

So, starting this season, I’m drastically cutting down on the “summary” part, making it more like the recaps you see at other websites. However, I’m keeping the “Other Stuff” section (the part of the recaps I enjoyed doing the most) as well as the “My Thoughts” section.

I have a couple of errands to run just now, but hope to start on the season opener some time later this afternoon.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-25

  • failed at being a plumber today… 🙁 #
  • AAAAAUUUUGGGGHHH! Giant black snake under the deck! I wanted to scream like a little girl! #
  • Question: Which golf club is best for killing a snake? I like the compactness of a 9 iron, but think the heft of a 5 iron might do better. #
  • Anyone up for a game of Mornington Crescent? I'll start: Parsons Green #
  • "Adobe Reader Protected Mode… is a new mitigation feature scheduled for the next major version release of Adobe Reader." AMEN!!!! #
  • is starting season 2 of "Underbelly"! #
  • "The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” – Sowell #
  • has entirely too many remote desktops and virtual machines going on at once! #
  • Apple the new world leader in software insecurity: http://tinyurl.com/26t2ceh #
  • "One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." – Reed #
  • @rlaw1971 Because Twitter is pointless fun! #
  • Thoughts and prayers to the Cowher family on the loss of Kaye! 🙁 #
  • Ice cold Diet Dr Pepper? Check! Hawaiian pizza? Check! "Mad Men" season premiere tonight? HELL YEAH! #

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FRIDAY FUN: The Women of Mad Men

Mad Men returns this Sunday, and I’m so excited I could almost pee in my pants! Let’s hope that doesn’t happen… and in the meantime, enjoy this new promo picture of January Jones, Elisabeth Moss and Christina Hendricks:

Mad Men S4 Promo
(click to make bigger, yo)

Wow… They’re all so pretty!

Don’t forget folks… THIS SUNDAY at 10pm on AMC! Squeeeeeeeeee!

A Vacation Story

I’ve told this story on the website before, but the original version is tucked away inside a long post in the Old Site Archive, so I thought I’d share it again.

Lisa and I were in London from December 26, 2005 to January 2, 2006. We had a lot of fun the first few days, going to the V&A, Hampton Court Palace, Borough Market, and several other historic or interesting sites. But on New Year’s Eve we joined the throng of 450,000+ people to watch the fireworks near the London Eye. As you might guess, we had a few drinks. OK, more than a few. Quite a bit, actually. But we weren’t stumbling around, out of control drunk or anything.

The next day we were feeling less than 100%. We both agreed that we wanted something greasy and familiar to eat, and lots of it. One of us (I don’t remember who) suggested a Chinese buffet we had seen a few days prior. So off we went to Mr Wu’s Chinese Buffet at 58 Shaftesbury Avenue.

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