last post of 07

Straight up stream of consciousness on the last day of the year...

I'm glad to leave 2007 behind. I've had many ups and downs but despite it all I'm still here. For that I'm thankful.

I usually don't make new year's resolutions, I make resolutions for myself around my birthday. Personally that's my time to start afresh. Whenever I make new year's resolutions I hardly ever stick to them anyway.

A resolution I can actually stick with: make career moves in '08. I'm ready to explore other areas of internet advertising.

I have a secret fantasy: I want to be a food network star. They don't have any black cooking show hosts, although Paula Deen is as close as we get.

I recently found something out about myself: I'm an angry black woman. I admit it. Not all the time, but a lot of the time.

I'm glad the holiday season is about to be over. This seems like the longest holiday season ever. Can we get it over with already?

Peace and happy new year

BGI

have an affair

Yesterday afternoon I was driving down Sunset near the comedy store, house of blues, and all those places. Stuck in traffic, I look up and this billboard caught my eye. It showed a man and a woman embracing like lovers, in the nude. The caption read, "have an affair" and below that was a website, ashleymadison.com.

I didn't think much of it until today, when during my job interview for AP my interviewer and I were discussing advertising and its effectiveness. She mentioned an ad for Wachovia that she spotted on Hollywood and Highland the other day, and how it was huge, imposing, and gaudy. I brought up the ad I saw on Sunset, and we pulled up the site together. Tell me why was the site a dating site for married people? Their slogan is, "When monogamy becomes monotony." What part of the game is that?

The first thing I thought when I saw the billboard was that it promoted a message of infidelity. Sure it's only one billboard and one ad, but such messages tend to infiltrate other areas of media, and like it or not, that's what shapes most people's perception of themselves and others. A billboard or website today can become the inspiration for a play or a show tomorrow, and it could very well end up a reality show the day after that. Like it or not, the bullshit that we read and see on TV and other media influences people and shapes their perceptions.

From an advertising standpoint, the billboard was effective. Shit, it caught my eye. I work in advertising. I'm supposed to be jaded against stuff like that. It was effective enough to make me bring it up in conversation to someone, and to sit here and write about on my blog. However, I think the message contained in the ad is questionable. The service that the company is providing seeks to capitalize on extramarital affairs. But, it could be argued that there's a market for that type of thing, and that it's only bringing to the forefront things that are already happening on the low anyway. Married people cheat all the time.

Technology makes it very easy to cheat. The site says that it has over a million registered members. This site and sites like it aren't making people cheat, but it's definitely enabling it. I guess you can't knock this company's hustle, but it's a hell of a hustle.

sippin on some sizzurp

I'm sick as a damn dog. This is the worst cold I've had in my entire life. My head is congested, so are my nasal passages, I don't really have a voice and I'm coughing nonstop. I was sick in Vegas, but when I came home it really hit me.

I've been taking Tylenol head cold capsules which have been helping. They're non-drowsy, really non-drowsy, because you know that there are some cold drugs that claim to be non-drowsy but still have you high as a kite and ready to lay it down. Yesterday evening I took some Nyquil for the coughing, and that shit had me throwed.

I ended up dozing off and I had some crazy ass dreams. The first one involved my cousin, who died on Christmas 14 years ago. He died as a result of gang violence at the age of 21. In this dream, somehow I got involved in that life, and we were doing drive-bys together. We were doing walk-bys too, we were chasing people on foot with sawed-off shot guns. We were also on some sniper shit, staking out rooftops with big ass guns. It was crazy! It was like we were in the wire.

The second dream took me back to my childhood home in Compton. My mom was in the kitchen, and my sister was sitting at the dining room table. We were working on plans to remodel the house. Jay-Z was there, he was sitting on the couch. I'm not really sure why he was there, because he didn't have any relevance other than his suggesting that we should paint the walls eggshell. My stepdad's mom stopped by to visit, who is a pill popper turned minister (that part is real, not just part of the dream). She had on a choir robe, and she walked up to our porch, ripped the robe off, and had on a white suit a la John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. With the black button down shirt and everything. Music starts playing, and the porch turns into a small stage and she starts dancing like James Brown. I kid you not. She even had a sidekick with her who would drape the robe around her when she had her breakdown moments. She was really gettin' it too, she was shuffling, spinning, dropping, doing Michael Jackson kicks, it was outrageous!

Has anyone else out there had crazy Nyquil dreams?

Blogging on the go

I'm at this internet marketing conference in a session that is boring as fuck trying to pick up on some nugget of information that I can take back to my company. So far from this session I got nothing.

Outside of this, the conference is going pretty well. I've picked up a lot of info and insight from some of the sessions. The conference is in Vegas, and even though it's cold and dry I'm still hamming it up. I love Vegas in all it's tacky goodness. Even though I'm here for work it's still fun. Maybe because I get to drink quite a bit, gamble, and expense it. This is the one instance where I appreciate the corporate plantation.

Random sidebar: there are lots of hot nerds here. Ladies if you're like me and like hot guys who don't know they're hot this is where you find them. Sexy nerd heaven.

My, how times flies when you're blogging from your phone, it's finally over. Gotta go network.

Peace.