Seriously?

This one is for all my editor friends out there. I'm sure you've all experienced frustration with vendors, but I think the following example takes this all-too-common occurrence to a rather ridiculous level. Here is an illustration from a 1st proof I received.
Here is my comment in response to the image: "This boy looks identical to the boy on p. 3. Please change so he looks more like he's doing a kung fu move (or karate chop) and less like he's dancing." Now, keep in mind that the page on which the above illustration appears is page 6; that's only 3 pages away from the first iteration of this boy in the book!

So, guess what I got back in 2nd proof?
I mean, really? When I saw this, my initial reaction was, "If this weren't happening to me, it'd be hilarious." Sigh. Why are good vendors so impossible to find? On the bright side, vendor mishaps and inadequacies can provide an endless supply of laughs (sardonic though they may be) at the office. One of us merely has to say, "hiya!" and ironic hilarity ensues. Gotta look at the silver lining, right? ;P

Probably One of the Strangest Things I've Ever Had to Do for Work

Yesterday morning, I walked into the office to the news that we needed an emergency recording of someone saying the word "toy" in Mandarin (玩具). The vocabulary word was added at the last minute (after the recording of the English-Mandarin pronunciation guide was already done), so we had to scramble and come up with a creative patch job to add the word. Anyway, I was the only Mandarin-speaking person on site that day, so I gamely undertook the task. Oh, and I was supposed to sound like a 6-year-old Chinese boy.

It may seem like a simple enough task, but our office building is not an ideal environment for audio recording. Drooper found out from Facilities that there was a so-called Privacy Room on the third floor, so we headed there with his microphone and digital recorder. The Privacy Room turned out to be a small, dark closet equipped with a chair, a desk, and a phone. I imagine its main purpose was for personal phone calls (since most of us are in cubes). So, we set up and did a couple of takes, but the ambient noise was actually quite loud. See, the Privacy Room was right next to the elevators and a stairwell. As a result, we frequently heard sounds of gears turning, echoing footsteps ("Damn high heels!" Drooper exclaimed), or voices and laughter. Unfortunately, these background sounds got picked up by the mic.

Drooper came up with a way to combat the ambient noise. He said that if I didn't mind, it would help if I threw a jacket over my head & did the recording under the jacket. This project was just getting odder and odder, but hey, it had to be done. So Drooper ran downstairs to get his jacket, and a short while later, I was huddled under a large leather jacket in the weird Privacy Room, saying "玩具" multiple times into a handheld mic. Truly, this had to be one of the most bizarre things I've ever had to do for a job! But, the task was accomplished, so all's well that ends well!

South Park Office

Some weeks ago, I thought it would be fun to send the South Park Studios link to some colleagues. Before I knew it, a viral campaign was underway to get everyone on the team to create South Park avatars! The results were pretty hilarious, so I decided to create a collage showing the avatars of the participants. (This image shows about half of our team.)
Some people took a metaphorical approach, with a few swerving deep into outlandish territory. (The avatar with the horns and blood, for example, was created by a very sweet, calm, quiet girl!) Others took a more literal approach. In fact, it's a little frightening how much some of these avatars resemble their human counterparts! Regardless, it was quite an amusing team-building project.

Baseball Blues and Other Random Thoughts

I had intended to write a rah-rah blog about the Dodgers coming back from down 2 games to even up the NLCS, but a pitching melt-down in the 8th inning precluded that from happening. What a bummer. Now they are down 3-1 in the series, and we're going to need a miracle for our men in blue to pull off an upset. Sigh. Less than 2 hours ago, I was marveling at how wonderful it was to see the NLCS back at Dodger Stadium after 20 years, and how the excitement and elation of the Dodger faithfuls, decked in blue and waving spirit towels, transcended the television set. We need some serious magic from the rally monkey... oh, wait, we don't have a rally monkey. Besides, he probably wouldn't be much help right now, considering how easily the Angels were dispatched by the Red Sox. (Being an underdog fan, I am of course rooting for Tampa Bay in the ALCS.) Anyway, even though he's not their official mascot, maybe the "rally koala" can help the Dodgers turn the series around. Sure, history is against them, but teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit before.

In more cheerful news, it is apparently the 50th anniversary of the first Paddington Bear book! Google doodles are a wonderful thing. Not only do I appreciate the artistry and occasional humor, but they are also very informative! Happy 50th to our favorite bear from darkest Peru!
And one last unrelated comment: I hate fire season.

Speaking of Kawaii Things...

On Saturday, I went to visit my friend Rockhopper. In addition to having lots of fun playing Wii Fit and watching Seinfeld episodes on DVD, we looked through some of her souvenirs from a trip to Japan earlier this year. Among the items was a mini origami notepad from the Osaka Aquarium. You can write notes on one side and then fold the paper into a penguin or sea otter. It really was too adorable for words.
And now let's segue to something that presents a somewhat twisted but very hilarious take on "kawaii-ness." I first learned about Meghan Murphy's Kawaii Not comics months ago at a happy hour gathering after work. One of the senior producers whipped out a very cute, animé-looking book and passed it around. We were each told to tear out one page and share it with everyone. We flipped through the pages amid much laughter, and it was immediately obvious that we all appreciated the "cute gone bad" humor of the 4-panel comic strips. I thought it was so funny that I had to buy a copy for myself (and one for my sister, too). If you like cute stuff with an edge, check out Murphy's Kawaii Not website. A new webcomic is posted every few days.

Musings on Marketing Trends

When the 100-calorie snack packs first came out a few years ago, I had no idea just how far this trend would go. My sister was the one who informed me that the trend had a name: forced portion control. (Sounds a bit serious, doesn't it?) It makes perfect marketing sense, of course, given America's obesity epidemic. At the time, however, I simply thought the packaging convenient, and on occasion, the light snacks surprisingly rivaled their original, full-caloried counterparts in tastiness. More recent walks through the grocery store, or indeed any store that peddles packaged foods, reveal just how widespread this trend has gone. It seems you can find anything in the 100-calorie form. My favorite is the mini soft drink can. I find it appealing, not because it's only 100 calories, but because of what I call the "kawaii factor." Kawaii is the Japanese word for "cute," and these little cans just look so darn cute!
It's not just food that takes advantage of the kawaii factor. Take a look at these movie images. Is not Wall-E a kawaii version of the Short Circuit robot?
And take a look at the evolution of the iPod nano between the 2nd and 3rd generations. The 3G nano definitely has the kawaii factor going on.
Of course, the 4G nano is back to a tall and slim design, so I guess the pendulum is swinging back to the other side. Regardless, Apple certainly leads the market in product design, packaging, and marketing.

Words and Whimsy

I don't relish the frequency with which I leave work after 7 these days, but it has allowed me to catch the radio show Says You on the commute home Tuesday nights. Described as "a game of words and whimsy, bluff and bluster," Says You features wordplay and language trivia that are as hilarious as they are fascinating.

Consider, if you will, the words presented in this week's Balderdash segment: stoush and nick-fidge. What definitions would you come up with for these terms? Can you imagine saying to someone, "They got into a big stoush today," or "Don't be a nick-fidge"? It turns out that stoush is Australian slang for a fight or argument. And a nick-fidge is someone who frequently gets into trouble. The vagaries of the English language never cease to amaze me.

Another portion of this week's show featured seemingly unconnected word pairs that share an etymological origin. For example: January/janitor, bugle/buffalo, porpoise/pork, Canary Island/canine, and musketeer/mosquito. I'll give you the first one. January and janitor both derive from the name of the Roman god Janus. Janus is the god of beginnings, and January is the first month of the year. Janus is also the god of doors, and the word janitor originally meant doorman! Cool, huh? Okay, maybe this only interests word geeks like me, but if you are reading this blog, chances are that you're a word geek, too. ;P Anyway, give the rest a try!

P.S. Says You airs on KCRW Tuesday evenings from 7:30 to 8:00.

Mystery Solved

I don't know about you, but during the Olympic Games, I kept seeing people dressed in white pants and blue-and-white polo shirts at the various venues. What made these people stand out to me was the word "BOB" emblazoned on their backs. Of course, I knew it had to be an acronym, but seeing all those BOBs, well, bobbing around tickled my funny bone. Especially since "Bob" is the codename I use at work when marketing, political, or other corporate reasons cause me to produce content that I don't believe in. Such a codename can come in quite handy. During frustrating times, I can tell a few select people, "I'm having a Bob moment." Having a codename and being able to make cryptic remarks are hallmarks of membership in an underground society. ;P Anyway, back to the uniformed BOBs. So, I finally did some sleuthing (i.e., ran a Google search), and it turns out that the acronym stands for Beijing Olympic Broadcasting. I should've known that it was something terribly mundane.

Fortnight in Review

Okay, so it's really closer to 3 weeks than a fortnight, but I don't know of any nifty sounding word that encapsulates a 3-week period. Besides, this is what my blogging habits have dwindled to...

Roadside Assistance. Almost 3 weeks ago, I left work one evening to find that one of my rear tires had gone completely flat. (I later learned that the culprit was a long, shiny silver nail embedded in the tire. I hadn't even noticed when the puncture occurred.) Thank goodness the flat tire was on the driver side; otherwise, I would've attempted the long commute home, blithely unaware of why my car was trundling along. Thank goodness, also, for the AAA. It makes one feel a little safer braving the streets and freeways of the LA jungle, knowing that inability to change a tire wouldn't leave one indefinitely stranded.

Well Fed. A couple days later, we had a 2-day writers conference at work. This meant lots of presentations and meetings, but also lots of free food: 2 catered lunches and a big dinner at PF Chang's. I'd been to PF Chang's many times before, but this was the first time I'd seen their mini-dessert sampler: a tray of 8 different desserts presented in shot glasses. Some were too sweet, but I still thought the concept was pretty cool. (Here's a photo I found on a review site.) We had about 26 people at dinner, sitting at 2 long tables. Three of these samplers were ordered for our table alone! Needless to say, I was in a bit of a sugar coma as I drove home.

OD-ing on Olympics. The Opening Ceremony was amazing, but the glamour of the event waned a bit when I found out that parts of it were pre-recorded and digitally enhanced. Oh, and the fact that the little girl was lip-syncing. Makes one wonder what else was not real. Phelps and the US swim team rock; every superlative has already been used to describe the amazing feat of 8 golds in one Olympics, so I will simply remain in silent awe. Nastia Liukin embodied breathtaking elegance and artistic gymnastics at its best, while Shawn Johnson was an adorable dynamo of power and precision. Too bad the competition was somewhat marred by underage controversies, questionable scoring, and wonky rules. But, then again, what else is new in the world of gymnastics? At least most of the medals went to people who deserved them. It certainly was an exciting 2 weeks of sports, and it was cool to see competitions that are never televised in non-Olympic years. Of course, my sleeping habits became even more messed up than usual during the 17-day span, but I think it was worth it. Oh, and I just love the Google Doodles that accompanied these Games!

Night at the Bowl. It's been 3 years since I last attended a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, so when free tickets were being offered as a bonus at work, I jumped at the opportunity, even though it meant missing part of the Women's Gymnastics competition. It was a wonderful concert, and I thoroughly enjoyed it despite not being familiar with the music (Philip Glass: Two Interludes from the CIVIL warS, Violin Concerto; Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations). And the seats were amazing too: garden boxes. So this is how the other half lives...

More Good Food. Two Thursdays ago, some co-workers and I went out for a vegetarian dinner at Fatty's Café. The word vegetarian turned a lot of people off from attending the dinner, but I'm glad I went because the food really was delicious. Our little group shared a "monster four" appetizer sampler, 4 entrées, and a chocolate fondue dessert. Yum. I definitely plan on going back again.

Parking Lot Technology. Last weekend, I met up with a friend at the Century City mall. (Not surprisingly, it has become yet another Westfield property.) I can't even remember when was the last time I set foot in that shopping center. Probably ten years ago. So, I was quite taken aback by how much it had evolved. The aspect that impressed me the most was actually its parking garage. The massive lot has a sensor above each parking space that remains green when empty and becomes red when a car parks in it. Along the major lanes, arrowed lights tell you how many vacant spaces are available in each direction. How awesome is that?

Things I Saw This Weekend

Terra Cotta Warriors: On Sunday, I trekked all the way down to Santa Ana to visit the Bowers Museum. Some weeks back, I had caught a PBS special about how the museum was exhibiting a collection of the famed terra cotta warriors from China. Since I have no idea when I will actually make it to China, I figured I should take this opportunity to experience at least a small sampling of the so-called "Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World." Though the tickets were a bit pricey (with the good ol' AAA discount, it was $24 per adult), I'm still glad I made the effort to catch the exhibition. The workmanship and uniqueness of the life-size figures are impressive, and the audio guide informative, if a little hokey at times. The sheer magnitude of Emperor Qin's tomb, not to mention the quantity and craftsmanship of all the figures buried within, is astounding. Walking through the exhibit, I found myself marveling at not just the skill and labor that went into 2000-year-old artifacts. I mean, think about the level of megalomania that one must possess in order to build such a mausoleum (complete with booby-traps, rivers and lakes of mercury, and thousands of soldiers, servants, musicians, acrobats, and animals).

Lots of Colorful, Pretty Gemstones: Another exhibit I caught at the Bowers featured a myriad of gems from around the world. Some were sculpted into artworks, others set as jewelry. All the bright, sparkling colors were a feast for the eyes. And it's quite an interesting experience to gaze upon a hunk of semi-precious stone weighing several thousand carats. In addition to seeing lots of pretty jewels, I learned that the name amethyst derives from Greek for "not intoxicated." According to mythology, a beautiful maiden named Amethysta was fleeing from Bacchus, the god of wine. The goddess Diana heard the poor maiden's prayers and turned her into a beautiful quartz statue. Bacchus wept tears of remorse over the stone. His tears turned into wine, transforming the quartz into a lovely purple. (Yes, it is Daphne and Apollo revisited. These gods never seem to learn.) Still, I like the story . . . and the gemstone to which it gave its name. Besides, the heroine of one of my favorite childhood stories, The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye, is named Amethyst (Amy for short). Anyway, the Greeks and Romans apparently believed that the amethyst stone would prevent drunkenness. They would wear amethyst or fashion drinking vessels with it to avoid becoming intoxicated.

Cool Children's Book Illustrations and Historic Photos of the LA Dodgers: On the way back from Santa Ana, I stopped at the Central Library downtown. I love that library. It is so full of history and architectural beauty, and there always seems to be cool exhibits on display. The collection of books, CDs, and DVDs is also quite impressive. Anyway, the Getty Gallery presented an exhibition titled Children Should Be Seen: The Image of the Child in American Picture-Book Art. By turns whimsical, moving, photo-realistic, bold, and stylized, the diverse illustrations were fun and wonderful to behold. Downstairs in the First Floor Galleries, a series of black-and-white photos comprised the Play Ball! Images of Dodger Blue, 1958-1988 exhibit. Being a long-time Dodger fan, I appreciated the historic glimpse of our men in blue. One of my favorite photos was one of a young Vin Scully, the golden voice of the Dodgers. I have never heard a better baseball announcer; we LA fans are so lucky to have him.

Cat Preying Bird: Okay, if this were the SAT, this last item would be the one that didn't belong. (Then again, I have no idea how much the standardized test has changed since I took it, so my reference would probably fly over the heads of young'uns out there.) But, since this happened in my backyard after I came home from my long day at the museum and library, I figured it sort of fit. Anyway, on Sunday evening, I saw a neighbor's cat lounging in the backyard. At first, I didn't take much notice since neighborhood cats occasionally pass through our yard. A little while later, I realized that the black feline was actually prowling a small injured bird. The cat seemed to be toying with the bird before finishing it off. The tableau was just like watching a nature film, except there was a domestic cat instead of a panther and a small bird instead of a gazelle. I felt the same sense of fascination, pity, and discomfort. We ended up scaring the cat away, and the bird managed to struggle into the bushes, but it was impossible to tell if the injuries were too severe for the bird to survive.

It certainly has been an interesting weekend...