Archive for the ‘Outside Interests’ Category

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Yahoo Is In My Head, Man

7 Sep 11

I play fantasy football. There, I said it. And I don’t even feel bad about it. Okay, sometimes, when I am supposed to be tending to my son’s scraped knee and instead I’m checking the injury status on my starting quarterback, I have a second where I question my priorities. But that quickly passes.

Having said that, I am instantly drawn to a really insightful banner campaign on Yahoo! Fantasy Football. Here are some of the banner ads followed by my answers:



I’ve apologized to them both already and I don’t really feel the need to apologize anymore.



I’d say no but I imagine most higher powers would be able to see through that.



It’s my phone and I can take it wherever I want.


I will fund my retirement with my fantasy football winnings so it’s a wash really.

Love, hate or really, REALLY love fantasy sports, this campaign clearly hits a fantasy sports nut right in his or her twisted little heart.

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There Are Muppets In This Movie?!

2 Jun 11

It’s no secret that we love the Muppets. So when they suddenly appeared in this movie trailer we went bonkers.

A great example of a creative twist on the movie trailer medium. With Amy Adams, Jason Segel, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, we think it’s safe to say it’s an excellent example of the power of casting.

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More Than March Madness: Mike’s Madness

28 Mar 11

Thanks to our very own ACD Mike Draper, around here March is pretty mad. In the weeks leading up to March Madness, our inboxes were flooded with emails from Mike about “Mike’s Madness,” his online NCAA Tournament Pool. No matter what the scenario, Mike had something “mad” to say. Check it out:

Mike on waiting for March Madness:
Through the heat of summer. The winds of fall. The snows (and snows and @&*%$ snows) of winter. You waited. Through Chilean miners. WikiLeaks. The Green Bay Packers. You waited. Through Lohan. Sheen. Gibson. Lohan again. And then Sheen one more time. You waited. At long last, your wait is almost over. It’s almost here. I can smell it. And I know that’s what I smell. Because I already checked my shoes.

Mike on the first Monday of March Madness:
The sun will rise, the chrysalis will shatter and out will emerge the 2011 Mike’s Madness Online NCAA Tournament Pool. It will then be time to rub your lucky rabbit’s foot, lucky penny, Lucky Luciano, whatever and get in it to win it.

Mike on last year’s winner, Mike Doran:
Perhaps you hate him because he is a Notre Dame alum. Maybe you resent his rugged good looks. But probably, you despise Mike Doran because he was the winner of the 2010 Mike’s Madness Online NCAA Tournament Pool. I say this: DOWN WITH DORAN! To heck with his fancy degree and his sex appeal! This is the year of the just-a-few-credits-shy guy with the slight overbite and ever so subtle limp. This is OUR YEAR!

Mike on opening day:
It’s on. It’s on like Donkey Kong. It’s on like chicken tarragon. It’s on like the Republic of Azerbaijan. It’s on like a can of Johnny Bench-endorsed Krylon. It’s on like Canadian-American actress Rae Dawn Chong. It. Is. On.

Mike on finding the money to play:
Beg. Borrow. Steal. Repossess. Just do what it takes to get in.

Mike on little-known facts about Mike’s Madness:
Official Snack Food: Anything with by-products
Official Footwear: Flip flops
Official Marsupial: The wombat

Mike on statistics:
100% of Mike’s Madness entrants are smarter and more awesome than 100% of the people who are NOT Mike’s Madness entrants. 2% of Mike’s Madness entrants are not the kind of people you want to tell that you didn’t do the pool. I’m just saying.

Mike on St. Patrick’s Day:
Stop feeding your leprechaun. Put down your shillelagh. Cease from stuffing your gullet with soda bread. Put down the travel mug filled with Jameson’s but cleverly disguised as coffee (you’re not fooling anybody). And fire up the TRS-80. Because I’ve got your pot o’ gold right here.

Mike on those who don’t participate in the Madness:
Boringville. Dull Town. Drearyburgh. The Boro of Ho-Hum. Population: you.

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Who Ya Gonna Call?

24 Nov 10

Happy almost Thanksgiving!

If you find yourself stumped facing any aspect of your Thanksgiving meal prep, have no fear. Saveur is here with the top 5 hotlines every host should have handy.

Whether you’re looking for trade secrets or last minute cooking, baking or wine pairing tips, there’s sure to be a hotline to help.

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Time-Lapse Yoga

9 Nov 10

I came across this lovely video and just had to share. Against the rush of New York City and other urban landscapes throughout the world, this yoga-enthused dude, Phillip, performs his practice. His calm, steady practice is a nice contrast to the sped-up blur of passersby. And although I am not in the performing yoga camp, and my own yoga practice differs greatly, I respect the beauty and the intention behind both Philip’s practice and his video. My favorite parts are the reactions of the people who stop to watch the spectacle and the simple and lovely cut at the end…he slows down, reaches the end of his exhale and…cut.

This video is by no means a groundbreaking concept, but it’s a nice way to show the flow of a simple process over the course of many months and many places. It would be fun to see what other videos could come out of a similar pretext…”here I am washing dishes all over the Midwest”…“here I’m running along waterfronts across the Eastern Seaboard”…”oh, and this is me diving for pennies off the coast of Australia. Oops! There’s a shark.” I digress. And I need more time to brainstorm awesome time-lapse video ideas. Won’t you help me? What if Sawtooth made a little time-lapse video all our own. What would you like to see?

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Betting On Sawtooth

8 Nov 10

For horsemen and gamblers, last Friday and Saturday represent the largest betting days of the year. Bigger than March Madness, even bigger than the Super Bowl, yes it’s the Breeders Cup. A two-day horse racing extravaganza, this year held at the hollowed grounds of Churchill Downs in Lexington Kentucky, and home of the Kentucky Derby. Horses, trainers, owners, jockeys and fans come from all over the world to celebrate the richest sporting event of the year.

Being an avid horseman and frequent visitor to my local racetrack, Monmouth Park, I look forward to this event every year. Most years I meet my Dad at Monmouth and we handicap and bet the local races, the Breeder’s Cup races, have a few beers and talk about life.

This year as I prepped for the big weekend starting on Friday, I was leafing through my racing form and stumbled upon a horse running in the 8th race at
Aquaduct on Saturday. The horse’s name could not be overlooked. I don’t normally bet on “names” but many people do and even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. The horse’s name shared the namesake of our agency, “Sawtooth Mountain.” The morning odds were 30-1, a longshot to say the least. I thought crazier things have happened (for example I’m expecting a child in the near future:), and someone saw something in this horse because it was purchased for $1 million a few years ago.

So I started to tell a few people I knew would be interested (our NJ lottery pool) to take a gamble on him. And so we did. I wish this story ended with a much happier ending but it doesn’t. On Saturday, at 4:45pm, at Aquaduct race track, “Sawtooth Mountain” went off at 65-1 and ran his heart out only to finish 4th, missing the money by a head.

Two hours later in the Breeder’s Cup Classic, Zenyatta, a female horse running against the boys and all odds to keep her perfect record and make it 20-0 came from last place to also lose by a head in one of the most thrilling races of all time.

While Zenyatta will likely ride off into retirement and hope one of her offspring can eclipse her record, a much improved “Sawtooth Mountain” and The Sawtooth Group look forward to another day. Both have come a long way since their birth and have bright futures to look forward to.

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Rally To Restore Sanity

2 Nov 10

When the Rally to Restore Sanity was announced, the husband and I decided we’d really like to go. We weren’t really sure why, or what the point was, but we figured it would be a fun thing to do.

Our train left Newark, NJ at 3:20 AM. When we got to DC a little before 7, it was still a bit dark.

We took a leisurely stroll from Union Station to the rally site, stopping to take some pictures along the way.

We set up our picnic blanket to the left of the stage. This picture was taken around 9.

I figured we had some time to kill, so the husband got out his PSP. I went to check out people’s signs and grab some coffee, since the concession stand had already run out.

Some of the signs were political,

some dealt with religion,

most were cheeky,

and some left me scratching my head. I’m not really sure what this guy’s point was.

There were Waldos,

seniors,

and a guy dressed as Joaquin Phoenix. To be honest at first when I saw this guy walking towards me, I thought, “What is Tim Parrott doing here?”

The walk back from getting coffee was so crowded it took forever to go about 2 blocks back to the husband. I was struck, though, by how polite people were. No pushing, just happy people moving along…very, very slowly.

By the time the rally started, it was SRO as far as you could see.

There are a ton of clips online, so I’m not going to review the various performances. But it does seem that they tried to have something entertaining for everyone, in what was a pretty diverse crowd.

I haven’t paid too much attention to the news reports surrounding the rally, because the ones I’ve read try to analyze the political or ideological intention behind it. To me, that’s assigning motives that simply weren’t there. We went because we wanted to have a good time, hang out with some good people, and on those counts, we succeeded.

So am I.

You can find the rest of my pics here.

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Riding Through This World

14 Sep 10

During the day, we live for creativity. But at night (Tuesdays, specifically) we live for motorcycles, fires, leather vests (properly known as “cuts,” thank you), fights, dim and dingy clubhouses, and most importantly, a small town named Charming. Because when you visit Charming you’re likely to come across one gnarly biker gang, known as…Sons of Anarchy!

We’ve been losing our minds over here because Season 3 of the hit FX show just kicked off last Tuesday. If you haven’t checked it out – you’re crazy! And if you have checked it out, then you too have been jumping out of your office chair all day. Why? Because the 2nd episode of Sons of Anarchy airs tonight.

Kristi here was awesome enough to get us some way cool SOA coffee mugs. So, cheers Jax, Clay, Gemma, Tara, Opie (my fav) & the rest of the gang!

Happy viewing.

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Wrestling Dance Into The Written Word

28 Jun 10

If it were easy to write about dance, we probably wouldn’t dance. Why not just talk? But there’s something ephemeral about dance (movements in space and time and then, swish, it’s over), making it a unique delivery system for information. It takes over your brain in a distinct way; it’s not a song (information in time) or a painting (space, unattached to time). It’s a three-dimensional unfolding in the present tense.

In his newly launched blog, choreographer Tere O’Connor attempts to tackle this ephemeral unfolding, cleverly presenting it as an ongoing “book” (words not fixed in time). Verbose, curious and quick with a joke or gesture, O’Connor has been engaged in making dance for over 25 years. In his first heady post, he reveals some of the processes through which his piece “Wrought Iron Fog” came to be. His writing reads like his dances (“What’s going on? Something’s going on! Ooh! An image, a glimmer!”). O’Connor, in true form, offers something to grasp before it slips away into surging forward motion. I particularly appreciate his insight on his role as a dance maker (be the nurse, not the surgeon of the dance) and his perspective on editing (observe vigorously and investigate your editing motives thoroughly). I tip my hat (with sweeping, irregular arm circles) to this freshly born blog. It promises to be an evocative, evolving portrait of the creative process—that maddening mix of elbow grease, relentless vigilance, passive coexistence and magical happenings (all in real time, of course).

Catch the return engagement of “Wrought Iron Fog” at Dance Theater Workshop June 23-26.

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Big Waves. Big Smiles.

15 Jun 10

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend some time creating special days for some special kids. On June 5th and 6th, I volunteered with the Best Day Foundation. The organization’s mission is to, “Enable children with special needs to build confidence and self-esteem through safe, fun adventure activities which stretch their limits, expand their true potential, reinforce their achievement and connect them with diverse populations in their community.” This weekend’s event included bringing children of all different needs surfing and bodyboarding in a safe, fun and encouraging environment. From the obstacle course with Spiderman to their first wave, everyone involved is sure to leave with a smile…volunteers included.



I’d like to encourage anyone interested in helping out to volunteer at one of the upcoming surf events in July and August. It only takes a few hours out of the weekend to create some lifelong memories. If snow is your thing, there are winter snow tubing events as well.

Check out the Best Day Foundation website for more information. Hope to see you there!

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