At The End Of The Day

Pre-Earth Day Ideas

Our client, HP Hood, has a newsletter with some tips on sustainability. These are good and easy. One is also relevant to tax day (ugh).

1. Change the default margins on your word docs from 1.25" to .75" Save 5% on paper, especially for multi-page docs (also makes it easier to do those "one pagers").

2. E-file and get an e-refund. You use much less paper. Check paper in particular is high quality and uses a lot of resources.

3. Move your refrigerator away from the wall. Air circulation around the coils makes it work more efficiently.

4. Park your car in the shade. Your car is cooler, and fuel doesn't evaporate in the tank as quickly when the tank is cooler.

Bonus Quiz - when was the first Earth Day celebration?

Complain Complain

Latest is that the TV networks are complaining about the amount of air time New President is taking to bring his economic stimulus package to the masses. According to The Washington Post, one network executive (wisely anonymous) said, "His economic stimulus package apparently does not extend to the TV networks."

The first appearance is tonight, the second next Monday. We here are having to work hard to reschedule client advertising around these pre-emptions. What really bugs me is on 2/24, he's planning a 2-hour address to a joint session of Congress. He better have a really good speech ready to hold an audience for two hours. But that's not what bugs me. 2/24 is a Tuesday. He's pre-empting Idol.

How Would You Save The Economy?

If you're Phil Geier, Chairman Emeritus of Interpublic, you think you do. So, with extra money lying around, you take out a full page ad in the NY Times and tell the new President that spurring consumer spending is the way to go.

Not to trash my own industry, but it comes off sounding like a typical ad man, going for the simple answer, when the problem is much more complex. The previous administration tried to spur consumer spending, and it was a short-term band aid that only served to hide weaknesses inherent in the easy credit markets.

For another take on the Geier's expertise, read this. Sorry to trash this so thoroughly, but this is nothing more than a band aid, and a poor one at that.

Have A Seat In The Oval Office

Not you, Mr. New President. Last week, Ikea built a replica Oval Office in Union Station filled completely with Ikea furniture and even Secret Service (more pictures here). Commuters could sit in the President's chair and sign a guest book to welcome Obamas to the White House. The replica Oval Office was on display for two days, then Ikea made a mock motorcade (a limo and two Suburbans with furniture strapped to the roof) that moved through the D.C. area for another couple of days.

I love it and I love Ikea.

Courage and Grace

You think you have it tough? Try having someone throw acid on you because you're a girl who decided to go to school. Read this from the NY Times.

Your 15 Minutes Starts Now

If your name is Joe, and you are a plumber, you have no more than a few days to make the most of your newfound fame. Promote the hell out of yourself and get on TV as much as possible. Like Ray's Pizza in New York, before you know it, every Joe The Plumber will try to claim the original title as their own.

You think politics is mean? Wait til you try to compete with all those other Joe's.

Toys of the Times

The front page of the NY Times today has an interactive photo of the Republican Convention, offering a panoramic view of the convention floor during a particular, confetti-streaming moment.  While not particularly newsworthy, I give the Newspaper of Record credit for trying some new stuff to make the front page a little more fun.

Usually they hide their interactive stuff, message boards, etc., a little deeper. 

If you do scan the photo, look at the guy in the press section looking up at the ceiling.  He looks like something went wrong.  I wonder what it was.

Eating as Fashion

The Newspaper of Record has uncovered the latest fashion, do-it-for-me home gardening. It's enough to make you sick. Seems that people with a penchant for the cachet of home-grown foods, but not the inclination, can hire people to tend and harvest their own home gardens, and can even use caterers that promise to use only locally grown foods.

Clearly, these people are not interested in the taste, or the experience, of growing their own. But are more interested in the fashion statement of sustainable practice rather than the benefit, either to others or to their own psyches.  I have no doubt that, if their friends told them that driving a Hummer was the right thing to do, they'd be the first ones to buy.

"I'll serve you dishwater. You won't be able to tell the difference." Name the movie.

Life In The Big City

Last night, my lady and I went to Green Drinks hosted at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Wow. What an excellent way to meet people (I don’t network, that term seems more shallow than a Nevada puddle).

Free, delicious drinks provided by Peak Organic and Rosemont made the conversation flow freely with a crowd of smiling people eager to say hi. If this sounds like a Prozac induced rave, I don’t blame you. If I were reading this I’d say the writer has either a. OD’d on the little blue happy pills or b. some sort of involvement in the cause. If you guessed a or b, you are wrong.

The event also made Portland seem so much bigger, there was this huge crowd of people that I had never seen before. I didn’t recognize one face. The bar has been set for social events for us working folk, I think the only way the next one could be better is if it had a whole lot of this:

Can you believe how expensive it is?

I was doing research for an unrelated topic, and came across this archived article on CNNmoney.com.

Can you believe it?  Gas is going to negatively effect the economy because it cost $2 per gallon.  Back then (2004), did you think those were the days?  I didn't then. I still don't but I do marvel at the perspective of time.