CAVWORLD

Most important scientific study ever: What about farting astronauts?

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:52:00 -0800

In space, no one can hear you toot.

How to Say No (Without Being an Asshole)

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:55:00 -0800

This has always been an issue with me. I take on more than I have the bandwidth for, because I want to please, and mostly just succeed in pissing people off, starting with myself. Something to work on.

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Maybe I should just skip the diet and just do this. Don't know if it will help my diabetes though.

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:38:00 -0800

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

via jesserosten.com

Had to edit this one. That Web clipper really screwed this post up.

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Join The (Typography) Justice League

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:15:44 -0800

via theleagueofmoveabletype.com

Tired of paying through the nose (Are you listening, Adobe?) for fonts that were designed 100 years ago? The League of Movable Type is here to fight the good fight. They have some great looking type and it's all open-source. I just downloaded League Gothic myself. They're at theleagueofmoveabletype.com.

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What every tire shop needs: a customer service kitty.

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:20:00 -0700

Sneakers the shop cat at Tire World in Seminole Heights, Tampa.

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Bovine Branding Misadventures

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 19:59:00 -0700

I assume that this product is a milk-based moisturizer destined for the female bosom. That may be a bit of a mouthful (Ahem) but certainly preferable to comparing your customers to cows.

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We all Squeem?

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 06:58:00 -0700

Spotted at a local Walgreens.

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American Legion Cemetery; Tampa, FL

Mon, 30 May 2011 19:32:00 -0700

Hope you had the opportunity to thank a soldier, sailor, marine, or airman today.

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This does not go to 11.

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:15:00 -0700

I hope no one dislocated their shoulder patting themselves on the back over this.

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Would you give this man any of your money?

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 13:19:00 -0700

As Bill Westbrook once told one of my classes at Miami Ad School, "Ninety-eight percent of everything is crap, and it's your job to aim to produce the other two percent." Well, that ninety-eight percent is, by it's very nature, all around us.

This particular example is from my current hometown of Tampa. It stands out simply because it's not an outdoor board for a personal injury attorney. My very unscientific survey of Hillsborough County reveals that 85 percent of the billboards in the area are for ambulance chasers. Another ten percent are for proctologists with all other market segments making up the remaining five. What this says about the Tampa Bay area is something that I will not speculate on here.

Which brings us to this board. Let's say I'm 50 years old and concerned about the security of my retirement savings. What makes Mr. Sl**** here (not giving this dude any free publicity) think that I will respond favorably to this? Am I supposed to think, "There's a man of integrity. He even put his signature up there so he must be on the level." (That blur off of his left shoulder is his autograph, of which he seems very proud.) Or, will I think "Who the hell is this paleo-douche wearing a rented tux and brandishing a finger gun?" Will it next occur to me to pull over, write his number down, and call him as soon as I get home?

Mr. Sl****: this outdoor board, that you have no doubt invested a good bit of coin on, is not effective. It has an effect opposite that of what you were going for. I am less likely to seek out your services after seeing this ad than before, when I had no freaking idea who you were. It seems you're trying to reach people in their 50s with a message more appropriate for the 1950s, when most of your target audience was in diapers. Replacing your smug mug with Alfred E. Neuman's would have improved it. Yes, sir, it is THAT bad.

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2011 will seem shorter than 2010. Sorry about that.

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:10:00 -0800

Remember summer vacation? When I was kid the annual break between grades seemed like a yawning chasm of time, unimaginably long. Those lazy days seemed to last forever.

If it all seems like a cliché, well, it is--but for good reason. We all seem to have memories like this, and we assign the discrepancy in the way that period of time feels today to simple nostalgia. Sure, the window of time between school-out and school-in these days seems like a mere time-out in a vast NBA season, but that's just our minds playing tricks on us, right?

Well, the answer to that is a qualified yes, as well as logically-assessed no.

It's all matter of the fixed versus the variable. The fixed is the year. Barring some cataclysmic event knocking the planet out of its orbit, a year will always be 365 days long. The variable is the actual length of your life. Here is how it works.

PLY = Y ÷ YA

PLY stands for perceived length of year,Y for 1 year and YA for years alive. So, for a 2 year old the equation looks like this:

.5 = 1 ÷ 2

Meaning that, for our hypothetical terrible toddler, one year is fully half of all the time he's been alive. This means that if we do the math for my 42 year old bones we get:

.024 = 1 ÷ 42

Which, of course, means that one year is only 24 thousandths of the time that I myself have been alive. Conversely, that one year will be perceived by myself and the rugrat far differently. In essence, while the year remains a fixed point of reference, one's lifetime ticks on. This means that as years present themselves they are compared to an ever growing and very personal point of reference. The perceived length of a year varies accordingly.

So while it is all in your head, this delusion is based on more-or-less solid math.

Image by ĐāżŦ {bad contact, no biscuit}

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Sound and fury. Signifying (almost) nothing.

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:42:00 -0800

Once I get beyond the cool tune, the slick, split-screen edits, and the pretty people (And let's not forget that adorable Border Collie!) I come way with this: I can use this computer to post pictures to Facebook.

To top it off, it features a glorious, rhyming tagline: "You can tell it's a Dell."

It's just sad, really.

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'Tis the Season of Not Giving a Flying Rat's Ass

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 16:12:00 -0800

My wife and I exited the local Super Target (Yes, we do seem to spend quite a bit of currency there.) and what do we find but this lovely shopping cart in full contact with the rear bumper of the family runabout. This simple annoyance crosses over into the egregious when one notices that the shopping cart return is but a mere fifteen feet away.

It's nice to know that the spirit of the season continues to bring out the best in all of us.

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Target Xmas Card Rack, Right at Kid's-Eye Level

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:36:39 -0800

Just a slight bit inappropriate, or is it just my delicate sensibilities?

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First "New Math" and Now This.

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 05:30:00 -0700

Oh, dear.

This is just priceless. The jokes are too easy, though. And, when you get right down to it, the underlying issue is so tragic that it nearly brings tears to my eyes.

Or maybe that's because I can't stop laughing.

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Run A Billboard Without Saying a Thing

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 11:31:00 -0700

Sometimes I read a headline that seems like it's deep and thoughtful, except that it isn't. So it is with this particular effort from Verizon. (Full disclosure: I am an AT&T Wireless customer but enjoy Verizon FiOS at home--FiOS is a great service by the way.)

"Raising your voice without saying a thing?" Isn't that also known as yelling, screaming or wailing? Preferably incoherently?

Come on, guys and gals, how did this get by you?

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Made Especially for Hispanic Animal-Snot-Loving Hair Gel Users

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 22:20:00 -0700

How long before you find this one on the clearance rack? A gross little find at a Miami Walgreens.

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Thoughts on Gratitude: How The Human Taco Taught Me A Lesson

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:04:00 -0700

I happened on upon this gentleman on the corner of Armenia and Kennedy here in our fair city of Tampa. The flip-side of the arrow he's holding says "Best Mexican in Tampa." (And, yes, that is a taco suit he's wearing.) Feeling a snide comment coming on, I quickly snapped a picture. Before I could do that, he flipped the sign over and I was robbed of what I thought was a funny image.

Then, something more profound happened. In the process of my taking the picture, he saw me. As I put the camera down on the passenger seat, he smiled and nodded at me.

Suddenly a whole torrent of thoughts went through my mind: thank the Lord that I'm not standing in the summer heat and humidity dressed as fast food; that I had better be grateful for the good fortune my wife and I have. That, despite the heat and the outfit, this man was happy to be were he was, earning himself a living. And, finally, that--for all I know--this man could be the owner of the restaurant, and he simply decided that, when it came to getting attention and encouraging people to try his Taqueria, no one was better qualified than he.

Shame on me, and thank you sir. You taught me a lesson with just a nod and a smile.

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Are those the traditional congratulatory safety cones?

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:19:00 -0700

Spotted, with some consternation, at a Hialeah, FL dollar store, 20 July 2010.

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Worst Headline Ever #2

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:49:36 -0700

Ugh. Tasteless. Punny. Memorable for all the wrong reasons.

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