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Monday Miscellany (the Back-to-Work edition)

1. Dear Charmin - You know what will not sell your toilet paper? Cartoons of bear butts with little pieces of toilet paper stuck all over them. I appreciate the particular feature of your product you're trying to sell, there, but that image is too gross even in cartoon form to get me to do anything but change the channel.*

2. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The Wire is a really good show. Like, unbelievably good. If it were a different kind of show, it would be better than My So-Called Life, but it's not, so it's not. That's right, you heard it here first: The Wire is almost as good as My So-Called Life.**

3. Today I had to do a list of projects that I'm working on for Agent Ted (we're getting ready to start submitting The Book, so he wanted to see what I'm up to w/r/t future projects). I really only focus on one project at a time, but I have little fledgling ideas waiting their turn in line. But actually seeing the line, seeing "I'm working on A and B and C," like, in writing, is really odd. Also odd? Trying to write pitches for books I haven't done in draft yet. I wanted to put a little asterisk by each sentence with the footnote "events described in this pitch may not appear in the actual text."

4. It was almost 40 degrees today in January, in Cleveland. While I was home over the holidays it was 60 degrees. In December. In Wisconsin. Global Warning: Totally Real.

5. The only problem with really long vacations is that they stop feeling like vacations and start feeling like real life. And now I have to actually go back to real life, a different real life that involves me showing up at an office every day. Wearing stockings. I suppose it's for the best--there's only so much daytime television any one person can take.

~~~

* Also too gross: the foot fungus commercial where the cartoon fungus lifts up someone's toenail and climbs underneath it; the Lysol commercial where the little girl picks up the phone covered with germs and holds it up to her face, and the salsa commercial where the salsa is so good that the girl licks it off her feet. Think, people!

**The Wire should probably get bonus points because it was really really good for five seasons as opposed to one season of My So-Called Life, but it's not my fault ABC didn't recognize genius when it had it.
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Anonymous said…
It was some time ago but I thought I once read that the folks who make Charmin did massive marketing studies and those stupid bears were extremely popular, especially in Europe. I don't get it. Unless there's a "if a bear craps in the woods" reference that I'm missing. That might almost make the whole cartoon bears thing worthwhile. Throw in a gratuitous Timothy Treadwell reference and I'd run out and buy enough Charmin to last me the rest of my life.
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 9:28:00 PM CST
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