Two images stick in my mind as of this morning; first being the Verizon FiOS commercial, where Kevin Garnett has all of his gigantic television screens wired up in his palacial estate (obscene, whether real or not), playing some of the goriest scenes from the Rocky movie. Each punch from the movie clip is punctuated by a beat in the background “whoomp-there-it-is” soundtrack. Not only is the commercial way too violent for a child under the age of 15 (yes, I have grandiose ideas of watching baseball with my kid, as soon as s/he is able to say “baseball”… or “Reyes”), but it also drives excessive consumerism straight down the viewer’s throat.

The second commercial, that I find comical in its absurdity, is the new McDonalds breakfast advertisement. The commercial shows several Americans fumbling with (one guy struggles to open a cereal box only to have it explode all over the dining room, where is toddler daughter watches in disapproval), burning (one woman flips what appears to be an omelet out of a pan and onto the gas burner where it promptly catches fire), and generally despising (the old “lumpy oatmeal on a spoon” camera shot) their breakfast. The kicker is when the camera pans to the NEW southern-fried chicken biscuit from McDonalds. “Leave breakfast to the professionals” the ad proclaims…the implication, of course, is that indeed YOU are too lame to even make breakfast for yourself, or your family, so go to McDonalds and eat some fried chicken on a biscuit!

McDonalds does acknowledge that “tastes are changing” and “change is good” (on several other new commercials advertising the chicken breakfast biscuit), and challenge the viewer to “think outside the box”… it’s funny they should say that, because now I’m thinking seriously of living without the box entirely…

For more information on the effect of media on children, I can highly recommend The Other Parent, by James P. Steyer (who is also a fan baseball, and had a similar revelation almost twenty years ago)

Here I am with my latest concoction:

1. 2 Big handfuls of bitter lettuce + one big leaf of swiss chard, and a smattering of bitter spinach
2. 20 blueberries
3. 1 cup water
4. 2 Tbs of strawberry yogurt

Put it all in the blender, blend, and drink.

Okay, so I might not be the best person to listen to given that I’ve already lost my sense of smell and for all I know this thing tastes disgusting… but as far as my taste buds are concerned, it’s pretty good!

Alright, enough goofing off… lunch is over, back to work!

Cheers

David

Good listening on this rainy day

David

I still need to re-create my woodcreeper.com header, as the old working document I had was lost in my move from PC to MAC. So far I really like the new look; it’s brighter and a bit more organized… but I need to work on some of the style formatting, especially with the text flowing around the radar images. Anyway, all the functionality of woodcreeper.com is the same; you might just catch me switching back and forth between themes until I get it all worked out.

Another addition I made is the GeoPress plugin for WordPress. Let’s see how well it works to display a map of my current location (also the site of the Hutcheson Memorial Forest in Somerset, NJ)…

…hmm…not bad!

Good Birding

David

Thanks to Sheila for originally turning me onto this story.