Author: Jim Cofer

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Mad Men: “The Rejected”

This episode begins with Don and Roger having a conference call with Lee Garner, Jr. Lee is worried about how some new tobacco advertising restrictions will affect Lucky Strike. Don frequently puts the phone down and uses the down time to pour drinks, approve Peggy’s idea for Pond’s, and to give his okay for Dr. Miller to have a focus group with the 18-25 year old secretaries at the agency. Roger excuses himself to go to the restroom while Don continues the call. While talking to Lee, Don goes through his mail and finds a letter from Anna:

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Roger and Lane (who has just arrived with Pete in tow) walk into the hallway and the two older men tell Pete that SCDP must drop the Clearasil account (which the agency got through Pete’s father-in-law) because Pond’s thinks it will cause a conflict of interest in the agency. It’s strictly about money: Clearasil is being dropped because Pond’s brings in almost twice as much money.

Back on the conference call, Lee worries that SCDP is overbilling him. Roger says that he will have Lane by his side in 20 minutes if he wants to go through the billings line-by-line. Don then fakes a fire near Radio City Music Hall, giving them an excuse to get off the phone.

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Happy Birthday, Madonna!

Every year since I’ve had this website (2002, for those of you keeping count) I have wished Madonna a happy birthday. This year is no exception, although I’m doing so with the minimal amount of enthusiasm. I love the woman, but she needs to a) eat something for God’s sake; b) stop trying to be an actress\director; and c) stop trying to be culturally relevant.

Again, I love you girl, but we’re now getting to a generation of kids who have no idea who you are. You influenced Britney, Christina and Gwen Stafani, and already those women are giving way to Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. Continue to make music, sure, but don’t try to grab all the headlines. Act like the 52 year-old you are.

madonna

Anyways, happy birthday, Madge!

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-15

  • Just after five today it will be 5:06:07 08-09-10!!! #
  • Quick: name the five NFL teams that aren't named after cities. You have 30 seconds… GO! #
  • The best bass line of all time: "Love Hangover" by Henry Davis. Discuss. #
  • In other news, Obama approves Shinto temple at Pearl Harbor. #
  • "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free." – O'Rourke #
  • "The best government is the one that charges you the least blackmail for leaving you alone.“ – Rudmose-Brown #
  • "A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.“ – O’Rourke #
  • "Government at its best is a necessary evil, and at its worst, an intolerant one.“ – Paine #
  • "What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.“ – Langley #
  • "To compel a man to furnish money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.“ – Jefferson #
  • "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.“ – Murrow #
  • "The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced.“ – Frank Zappa #

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FRIDAY FUN: Christina & Audrey

Here are a couple of nice pictures to close out the week.

The first is from Christina Hendricks’ shoot from the September 2010 issue of GQ UK (more pics here):

Christina Hendricks
(click to embiggen)

The second is of Audrey Hepburn:

Audrey Hepburn
(click to embiggen)

Rawr!

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Friday’s Tab Closer

From the “Holy Crap I have 84 tabs open in Firefox!” Department:

– Glass-bottomed boats are old school and boring. How about a glass-bottomed hot air balloon instead? Looks like freaky fun to me!

– Michael Dick (yes, that’s his real name) hadn’t seen his daughter since he divorced her mother a decade ago. Of course he’d looked for her, but all he knew was that she’d moved to Suffolk (the one in England). He gathered his two other daughters and they went looking for her. Michael contacted the Suffolk Free Press newspaper for help, and they sent out a photographer to snap some photos and get his story. Little did they know that Dick’s daughter ended up in the background of the picture!

– You’ve probably already heard this by now, but a man from Brewster, Massachusetts named Ron Sveden accidentally inhaled a pea one day (it “went down the wrong road”, as my grandma used to say). When Ron later complained of chest pains and difficulty breathing, his doctors were shocked to find that it had sprouted and was growing in his lungs!

– Archaeologists in the UK have found a house that is around 10,500 years old, making it the oldest dwelling ever found in Europe.

– Hey Google… whatever happened to “not being evil“?

– The Smoking Gun has pictures of the weed seized from Willie Nelson’s tour bus a while back. Yep, it’s a lot!

– Lastly, the Cassini spacecraft has captured some incredible pictures of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The moon has geysers that send water and ice into space, and it seems that Saturn’s faint G ring was created by those geysers. The pictures are beautiful – you should really check them out!

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Mad Men: “The Good News”

This episode begins with Joan visiting her gynecologist. She wants to get off birth control pills and start a family, and the physician says that she shouldn’t have any problems… even after having two abortions.

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We then see Don walking into the office. Whatever awkwardness he and Allison had seems to be been smoothed over. Harry walks in to Don’s office, where he says that he’s noticed that Don will spend a day in Los Angeles before heading down to Acapulco. He recommends a restaurant to Don and gives him the name of a director he should look up whilst there. Lane then walks in Don’s office, and while Harry tells him to have fun in London, Lane indicates that he has much work to do.

Meanwhile, Joan asks Lane for some time off during January, as Greg is working during the holidays. Lane gruffly rebuffs her, and after the two have some words, Joan calmly walks out of his office.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-08

  • What happened to DedicatedTV? #
  • Bring back @DedicatedTVnet, you asshole #
  • By reading this, you now have the theme song to "3-2-1 Contact" in your head. #
  • First Caller ID ruins the fun of a harmless prank… next Skynet decides to destroy all humans. #
  • We're #17 We're #17 #
  • Why is the anticipation of pain almost as bad as pain itself? #

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Feel small yet?

Here’s a picture of earth, taken from the surface of Mars by the Spirit rover on March 8, 2004. It’s the first photograph of the earth taken from the surface of another planet.

Earth From Mars
(click to enlarge)

Wow!

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Texas A&M

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Mad Men: “Christmas Comes But Once a Year”

This episode kicks off the “Francis family” looking at Christmas trees. As the rest of the family walks off, Sally hears a familiar voice calling out to her: Glen, the neighborhood kid with whom Betty has had an… “interesting” relationship. Glen’s mother has gotten married, and he gives her advice about dealing with her new family.

The next morning, we see Don typing away when his secretary, Allison, comes in with the mail, which includes a “Santa Claus” letter from his kids. She reads the letter to Don, and at first it’s your typical, light-hearted letter to Santa Claus. But things become emotional near the end, when Sally says the thing she wants the most is for Don to be home for Christmas. Don gives Allison some money to buy the kids gifts, then tells her that Lane’s cost cutting prevents her (or anyone else) from bringing guests to the office Christmas party.

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Meanwhile, Roger welcomes the newly-sober Freddy Rumsen into his office. Freddy says that he’s left JWT and can bring SCDP the Pond’s Cold Cream account, a $2 million deal. When Roger asks how, Freddy only says that he and the Pond’s contact are “in a fraternity together”. Freddy’s only condition is that Pete, who got him fried from Sterling Cooper, not me let anywhere near the account. Roger agrees, then takes him to Don’s office. Peggy welcomes him back with open arms.

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The Heist of the (14th) Century

Dick Puddlecote was angry. And not your average “oh, I forgot to pick up the dry cleaning” angry, either. He was angry to the very core of his being. Trillions of cells made up Dick’s body, and every last one of them was furious with the King of England.

Dick had been born in London, sometime in the 1270s or 1280s, to what we would today call a lower middle-class family. Dick was educated enough to read and write, a skill he parlayed into a series of low-paying assistant jobs. But Dick had dreams, dreams of one day owning his own business exporting wool, butter and cheese to the cities of northern Europe. So Dick scrimped, saved and called in every favor he could until his dream came true.

But then the King of England defaulted on a loan given to him by the merchants of Flanders. In retaliation, those merchants seized the trade goods of every English merchant in the area, and threw every Englishman they could find into prison… which was where Dick was, and why he was so angry.

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