This has been floating around a bit the last month or so, so you may have seen it.  But I think it’s the best, most concise explanation of the causes of the current financial crisis that I’ve seen.  And you can’t fix a problem, really, unless you know what caused it.  When will people ever learn that screwing with a free market is NOT wise.  The beauty of capitalism and a true free market is that it stabilizes itself.

The other day we had a nice department lunch for work at the Grand America hotel in Salt Lake City.  They have a real nice high-end buffet and a pasta bar.  As soon as I walked into the serving area I had to stifle a laugh.  The chef working the pasta bar looked JUST LIKE the evil chef from Ratatouille!  I had to snap a picture with my cell phone so I could compare side-to-side.  I think the resemblance is pretty remarkable.  Unfortunately it’s a cell-phone pic, so not the best quality, but I think you’ll agree with me.  I wonder Pixar Studios ventured up to SLC sometime for a lunch and modeled their chef off this guy?

I took the day off yesterday to play at Timp Lodge at Sundance with Julie’s family.  In the morning I went to Julie’s brother Justin’s practice with the BYU football team.  Justin is probably 6′ 2″, 230 lbs, and ripped.  He holds the Utah high school state record in the powerclean and is the reigning national high school powerclean champion. He benches about 350 lbs, squats over 500 lbs and can clean over 340 lbs.

He’s also a kicker.

He wanted to play linebacker but his high school coach saw his kicking potential and told him that one day he would thank his coach for only letting him kick.  Now, Justin is one of the top freshman kickers in the country.  He’s got a killer leg, holding the Utah state record with a 63-yard field goal (and some 70-yarders in practice) and with kickoffs that often go through the goal posts, approaching 90+ yards long.  The publicity he’s gotten over the last year-and-a-half or so since BYU offered him a scholarship is crazy.  He’s probably the most popular BYU player to never play a down of football, and is interviewed and/or mentioned all the time in the paper and on the news.  So he’s got a ton of pressure on him going into this season.  The practices are only open to media and family members, so I took advantage of being down in Provo and went to watch.  It was a pretty good practice and I met Lavell Edwards (told him I was Buss Williams’ grandson – my grandpa was Lavell’s coach when he played at Utah State), Ian Dulan, and Mo Foketi in addition to talking with Justin and Danny (Julie and Justin’s cousin), a safety, about how things were going.  Anyway, here are a couple videos from byucougars.com and YouTube about Justin.

I think I’m a closet marketer.  I probably should have studied marketing instead of international law.  I love to analyze product messaging.  I think that’s part of the reason I love marketing agency web development like I do at McCann. 

I am baffled by the Carl’s Jr. ads where you have to watch (and listen to) someone loudly and sloppily eating a hamburger with sauce and toppings falling off of it and stuff all over their face.  Seriously, it’s disgusting.  Certainly it meets one of marketing’s main goals – be memorable.  But does it really influence people to DO something?  The only thing it’s ever influenced me to do is change the channel, which I do EVERY time a Carl’s Jr. commercial comes on.  Am I in the minority here?  Seriously, what kind of ROI has Carl’s Jr. seen on those commercials? 

But then there’s the all time classic commercials like Toyota – Oh what a feeling! and the Mean Joe Greene Coke commercial that I remember 25+ years later because of the feelings they invoked.  As I showered this morning, I realized that I think about one of these classics probably every time I shower.  It’s the old Coast soap commercial.  In it, a bleary eyed, sleepy guy stumbles into the bathroom in the morning and gets in the shower.  He turns the water on and the music starts, at a slow speed.  He groggily picks up the soap, lifts it to his nose and smells it, and his eyes open wider –

Coast, the scent opens your eyes,

He starts to wash and the lather builds as does the volume and speed of the song –

Coast, lather and you realize,

The song is now cranking.  Lather is flying everywhere.  He’s shaking his hair under the shower water and smiling –

that Coast is the way to make you feel alive,

Suddenly, he’s done with the shower, dressed already, smiling, energetic, and attacking the day –

Coast, feel alive with Coast!

What a great commercial!  I think it speaks to that universal desire to feel unconquerable and have endless energy and always feel great.  And you could achieve all of this if you just had some Coast soap.  I think of it every time I grab the soap in the shower.  Does anyone else remember that commercial?  It’s probably mid-80′s so you have to be a Gen-X’er at least to remember it.  What about other commercials?  Are there any memorable ones that anyone wants to contribute?

I found this cool game today that tests your knowledge of European geography. Can you beat my score? Comment with your score.

Check out this story from the Tucson Citizen newspaper.

Can you believe that?  Actually, I can.  This story is completely infuriating to me.  Since when do Mexican government officials get off coming to America and calling for a change of laws that are “unjust” to their constituents???  I guess, since President Bush and many of congress, including my good old former representative (from when we lived in Salt Lake), Chris Cannon, have decided to stay soft and even give in on many key illegal immigration issues.

Of all the statements in the story, there is only ONE valid one:  “Amparano said the Mexican legislators are already asking the federal government of Mexico for help for Sonora.”  WHAT???  ALREADY???  That’s what you’re SUPPOSED TO DO, Mexicans.  @#$%$@!

Every single quote from a Mexican official in that story smacks of “You are responsible to take care of us”, like these:

“Mexico is not prepared for this, for the tremendous problems” (Well that’s MEXICO’S problem, right?)

“What do we do with the repatriated?” he asked. “As Mexicans, we are worried. They are Mexicans but they are also people – fathers and mothers and young people with jobs – who won’t have work in Sonora.”

But maybe the most twisted arguments are the ones that appeal to our sense of family:

“We are one family, socially and economically,” she said of the people of Sonora and Arizona.”

and even worse…

“He said the Arizona law will lead to “disintegration of the family, as one ‘legal’ Mexican parent remains in Arizona and the other returns to Mexico.”

Personally, I think it’s about time that we saw some common sense immigration laws being made in the U.S.  Heck, we sure don’t see any of those in Utah, nor from what I hear, in Texas.  What happened to the days back when I was in high school in Texas when a local McDonalds got raided by INS and EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE got shipped back to Mexico because they were here illegally?  We laughed about it back then, but I’d sure love to hear of a story like that now.  So a great law, removing the source of income for the Mexicans, is passed, but now we have to listen to (and read about) Mexico crying about it.  And undoubtedly, this will lead to liberals crying about the “injustices” and lack of compassion we have for others, and calling for change.  It’s unjust when we enforce the laws, and just when we look the other way?  How twisted is that?

OK, I have to vent.

I HATE it when I’m behind someone in a parking lot or parking garage and they decide they’re going to back in to a parking space. I understand why backing in is better. It makes for a SAFER departure, so you’re not backing out into traffic winding through the parking lot (although in the middle of the day, I personally think it’s safer to back out because your reverse lights are on so others can see you, whereas pulling out forwards your headlights won’t be on). It makes for a QUICKER departure as you flee the scene of the crime. I understand all that. Backing into your parking space CAN be good. But NOT if you’re holding up the rest of the cars behind you, who first have to stop when they realize you’re not actually pulling into a parking space on the left and soon to be out of the road, but in reality turning sideways to prepare for your rear entry. Then we have to wait while you slowly back your car into the space, often times requiring a couple of readjustments along the way because you didn’t align yourself right the first time. This is especially the case with I-Need-A-Giant-Truck-To-Compensate-For-Other-Inadequacies-Guy, who despite his best efforts and multiple realignments STILL ends up taking up 2 parking spots. Meanwhile, those of us behind you wait, fuming while 2 or 3 more cars pull up behind us, all waiting to get past. So back in WHEN you’re not being followed and you’re not going to hold up the rest of the parking lot. Otherwise, save it for your driveway.

At work, instead of a typical nameplate outside your office everyone has a metal plate about 2″ x 8″ with magnetic letters spelling their name. Invariably, this leads to all sorts of interesting names as people randomly have their letters rearranged on their nameplate. There’s a pretty cool site that will give you thousands of anagrams of your name. So here’s two of my favorites:

Wailed Milkers
Swami Killdeer

What’s your best anagram name, or in other words, your best Manna Ear Mag?

October was a pretty crazy month at work and left me zero time to blog about a few things I wanted to. So I’ll be playing catch-up this month hopefully. I work for McCann Erickson Worldwide, which is one of the largest marketing groups in the world. They’ve got offices all over and we do work for a bunch of big companies. Just a few are Microsoft, GM, Verizon, and Mastercard. The last couple months I’ve been working on this site, www.innovateon.com, for Microsoft. In addition to the English version, I also did Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, Italian, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese versions. Strange that we did no German. Christian, have the Germans not hopped on the Microsoft bandwagon yet, or what?

Anyway, our building is located right in the middle of downtown, kitty corner from the city-county building, and right across the street from StayWell Interactive, where I was working last year at this time. It’s an old building, built in 1891. It has a historical marker sign outside it. It was originally a club for wealthy businessmen and was located right across Exchange Place from the old Salt Lake Stock Exchange. It’s really a beautiful building, with blue and orange tints, tile mosaics, and gargoyles, things like that on the outside. Brides are often seen getting their pictures taken outside it. What’s crazy is that my Grandma Meg used to work in this building when she worked for Canada Life Insurance. She even worked on the 6th floor, which is where my office is. The interior has all been updated but some of the character of the old building has been left behind, like a frescoed, sculptured ceiling and big Corinthian columns on the main floor. Very cool.

I found this site today, thanks to Glenn Beck.

Kind of cool and a nice tool to aid you as you decide who you’re going to vote for in the ’08 presidential election. Here are my top 4:

Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) – 78.13%
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson (R) – 78.13%
California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) – 75.00%
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) – 75.00%

Which candidates are your best fit?