Check out his latest marketing offer (sign in window), now there’s a smart businessman.

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I was watching Wizard of Oz, with my adorable, almost 3-year-old, and she was excitedly telling me everything she knew about the movie as it was happening. And this little tidbit jumped out at me: “Did you know that the Munchkins are all from Michigan?” she said. “Oh, they’re from Michigan, huh?” I replied already laughing out loud. “Yes, they’re from Michigan because they are called Michigankins!” she stated very seriously, before moving on to how the “Good Witch Linda Was Coming!”

Is that great or what?

Oh, also at the very end of the movie when the witch is chasing Dorothy and gang around the castle, Ella all of a sudden got up and turned off the TV. At first I thought she was scared because she was acting jumpy during the chase. I asked her, “Don’t you want to see the ending?”, she cooly said “Nah, they melt the witch, i’ve seen it already.” and was off to bed.

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I saw a recent Sam Adams commercial where the key message was: Sam Adams is still a small beer brewery. They even touted that they are only 0.5% of the beer market – it felt a little odd, sort of like a television show announcing that they were last in the ratings.

But as a marketing professional I totally understood what they were doing – they want to make clear that they are not generic and mass produced, and that they give a damn about the beer they make.

Remember when conventional advertising wisdom was to boast about yourself, tell the world that you are the biggest and the best? It wasn’t that long ago, but nowadays being considers a “big” company and certainly the “biggest” is a definite negative in most industries.

I guess we love underdogs, and we have come to envision that the “biggest” companies out there are just uncaring, unfeeling corporate factories mass producing junk products and raking in profits.

No point here, except I think it is a good notion for consumers to be skeptical of the “big” guys, hopefully it keeps them paying attention and at least trying to care about their product and customers. But much more importantly it keeps open the opportunity for all the true artisan operations out there to sell their craft. Oh, and I guess it also leaves some room for the “small” guys like $500-million -a-year Sam Adams.

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Is Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning the only sane person left in Washington? The Hall of Fame pitcher turned Senator held up a $10 billion spending bill all by himself for 5 days and drew the ire of both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention most of the Media.

But why? Sure it was a popular bill because it included extensions for unemployment benefits that a lot of Americans need. But he wasn’t saying he didn’t want the bill to pass, he just wanted the Senate to find a way to pay for the new spending with cuts somewhere else in the $3.5 trillion budget.

What a concept: Figure out how to pay for something, BEFORE you spend it. Sound familiar? Its because last month, President Obama made much fanfare when he signed an executive order requiring “pay-as-you-go” budgeting. “Now, Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else,” Obama said, only three weeks ago. But instead of backing Bunning’s demand that new spending must be paid for, the White House is attacking him just like everyone else.

I guess the “grouchy” Bunning still has a knack for throwing brush-off pitches, because his one-man stand to hold up this bill was a deliberate high-and-inside pitch to expose Pay-Go as a fraud.

Apparently, when Democrats want to spend money badly enough on something, they will just waive the new Pay-Go rule by declaring it an “emergency”. Foolishness.

Now that Bunning relented in exchange for a vote on actual proposals to pay for the $10 billion, which he lost, I guess the Senate will go back to business as usual and keep adding to the $1.6 trillion deficit.

I applaud Bunning for standing up for taxpayers, it’s just too bad almost everyone else is booing him? You just got to like a guy that is not afraid to voice his opinion, no matter how unpopular, like last fall when Bunning called the financial bailout bill a “crap sandwich.”

I am also basically a big fan of anyone taking a stand, and saying “I object!”, to just about anything. Because if no one objects, how will we anyone question if it is the right thing to do? It’s like an old friend, used to say: “Only dead fish go with the flow.”

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According to scientists at NASA the 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile on Feb. 27 was so powerful it may have tipped Earth’s axis and shortened the length of a day.

The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, appears to have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

A large quake shifts enough rock to redistribute the mass of the planet, which can speed its rotation.

The change won’t be noticed in day-to-day life, but is permanent.

Gross also calculated that the quake moved Earth’s figure axis (the axis about which Earth’s mass is balanced) by about three inches.

The Earth’s figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph. The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth’s mass is balanced. It is offset from the Earth’s north-south axis by about 33 feet.

Isn’t this third rock from the Sun an interesting place to live?

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I woke up yesterday to Ella wishing me happy birthday. Then she wasted no time in giving away what mom had gotten me a a gift, “we have a game for you daddy”. She brought me a gift bag with a new Playstation 3 game inside. (Thanks honey)

I lounged on the couch with the family while finishing up American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, it felt like I took forever reading that book, so it was nice to finish it!

We decided to go out to lunch and do a little shopping for Ella’s upcoming 3rd birthday party. We had a nice lunch at Olive Garden (thanks to a birthday gift card from my mother-in-law).

Here is what I ate, delicious!
Pork Milanese is a rustic dish prepared with the traditional scaloppini technique used in Italy. A pork loin is pounded until fork tender, then dredged in a blend of panko, herbed breadcrumbs, fresh parsley and parmesan cheese and pan seared until the crust becomes golden brown. Accompanied by asiago-filled tortelloni tossed with fresh spinach in a garlic cream sauce, the dish is finished tableside with a squeeze of lemon as is classically done in Italy.

After lunch, we went next door to Toys R’ Us and found some great boys customers for Ella’s dress-up birthday party ina couple weeks. We also managed to buy her a few birthday gifts without her noticing.

We came back home and I relaxed on the couch playing my new video game (Heavy Rain is a cool new game with amazing storytelling as you try to solve the serial murders of the Orgiami killer, or are you the killer? Ewww.) until my mother-in-law graciously came over to watch our rugrats while the wife and I went out – something we rarely get to do!

We had planned to do our usual dinner and a movie, but since we had a big lunch out, we instead decided to enjoy some more retail therapy, so we hit the mall. It was a surprisingly good time, Erin exchanged some shoes and perfume and I bought some “Ass Kickin’ Hot Sauces” from Le Gourmet Chef.

Then we grabbed a quick margarita and tortilla chips at Agaves Mexican Grill – great idea honey!

Finally, we caught “Crazy Heart” starring Jeff Bridges, one of my favorite actors. Since we were again using a birthday giftcard (thanks Rachel) we decided to let loose on the concessions and each got a pizza, coke and shared a popcorn too! Wow, I’m really off the diet now!

It was a great date night and a wonderful birthday. Maybe being my parents age (36), is not going to be so different after all.

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My Top 10 Movies of 2009 (in no particular order, because I could take days trying to rank them):

• Precious: Great movie. Terribly sad, but oddly hopeful. Acting by the two main roles is outstanding.
• District 9: Perhaps, my favorite of the bunch. After the first few minutes of heavy-handedness to get the racism, refugee message across it was a great film to watch. I think Sharlto Copley should have been nominated for Best Actor, I can’t believe it was his first feature film.
• Inglorious Basterds: Quentin Tarantino is simply a master of dialogue. The ensemble cast was great.
• The Hangover: Best comedy in years!
• Moon: most underrated movie of the year. This film sticks with you and makes you think.
• Star Trek: Best reboot effort of all time! Can;t wait for the next installment.
• Hurt Locker: Edgy and timely. Best Director is a possibility.
• Avatar: Way better then I expected. See review here.
• A Serious Man: Two words – Coen Brothers.
• Watchmen: Far more then a comic book flic. A lot of depth and visual artistry here.

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I just love Salvador Dali, so thought I would post a random sample of my fave artist’s work once in a while.

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Lets take a look at some big roles that almost had different faces playing them.

• Tom Selleck was originally pursued by Spielberg & Lucas to play Indiana Jones, but it conflicted with his agreement to do Magnum P.I.
• Clint Eastwood in Apocalypse Now instead of Martin Sheen
• Shirley Temple asked for too much money to play Dorthy in The Wizard of Oz
• Johnny Depp and Will Smith were both asked to be Neo in Matrix before Keanu “Cool Breeze” Reeves
• Tim Burton wanted his childhood hero, Sammy Davis, Jr., to play the title character in Beetlejuice. Studio execs shot him down.
• John Denver turned down the lead role in An Officer and A Gentleman because he didn’t like the script.
• Eric Stoltz was actually hired to play Marty McFly in Back to the Future, and was replaced later with Michael J Fox.
• Rob Reiner attempted to buy the rights to Shawshank Redemption and envisioned casting Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise, instead of Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins.
• Brad Pitt was originally intended to play the role of Tommy Williams in Shawshank Redemption
• The role of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters (Played by Bill Murray) was originally written for John Belushi if it wasn’t for his untimely death.
• O.J. Simpson was offered the role of the Terminator, famously played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it was deemed O.J. was “too nice” to fit the bill of the cybernetic killing machine. Who knew?
• Eighteen days into filming Panic Room, Nicole Kidman had to leave the film due to a recurring knee injury, suffered during the filming of Moulin Rouge! (Her replacement, Jodie Foster, had only 9 days to prepare for filming)
• Winona Ryder was to be in The Godfather Part III as Mary Corleone but dropped out.
• The Pulp Fiction role of Vincent Vega (John Travolta) was actually written for Michael Madsen, who played “Vic Vega” in Reservoir Dogs but declined the Pulp Fiction role.
• Johnny Depp:
  • turned down the role of Lestat in Interview with the Vampire
  • was Coppola’s choice to play Jonathan Harker in Dracula
  • turned down the lead in Legends of the Fall (one of several roles he turned down that Brad Pitt got)
• Here are some roles that Nicolas Cage luckily did not take:
  • “The Ram” in The Wrestler (I have no idea how that would have worked at all?)
  • Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon (again, could anyone but Jim Carrey pull that off?)
  • Willy Wonka in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (starting to see a pattern here?)
  • Joel Barish (JIm Carrey) in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

  Star Wars Roles:

• Peter Cushing, who played Grand Moff Tarkin, was considered for the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi before Alec Guiness was brought onboard
• At one point, George Lucas had planned the character of Han Solo to be a huge green-skinned monster with no nose and gills. Then Lucas changed the idea of Han Solo to a black human. He auditioned several black actors and even musicians (including Billy Dee Williams) until finally settling on Glynn Turman. Before changing his mind again and making the character white.
• Kurt Russell, Nick Nolte, Christopher Walken, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Bill Murray and Perry King were all candidates for the role of Han Solo.
• James Caan, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro and Burt Reynolds turned down the role of Han Solo.
• Terri Nunn of the band Berlin was in the running for the role of Princess Leia and had readings with Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill.
• Farrah Fawcett, Glenn Close, Barbara Hershey, Bernadette Peters, Bonnie Bedelia, Dianne Wiest, Margot Kidder, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Cybill Shepherd, Christine Lahti Jane Seymour, Anjelica Huston, Catherine Hicks, Christine Baranski, Kay Lenz, Kim Basinger, Kathleen Turner, Debra Winger, and Geena Davis all auditioned for the role of Princess Leia.
• Melanie Griffith was offered the role of Princess Leia.

I had always wanted to do a blog post about this topic for some dumb reason, and now that I finished it, I just found out there is a whole website dedicated to basically the same thing (a few of the above came from the site): www.notstarring.com

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Sure, he had to apologize to try to save millions that are still at stake for his reputation. But to me, that was the best celebrity apology I have ever seen, because he owned his failures 100%. He did not make excuses or place any blame elsewhere, he admitted his own foolishness and irresponsibility. He admitted that his fame and money made him feel entitled to not follow the rules and is now paying the price, both at home and in public.

What more could he do, but to:

• Admit it was wrong.
• Admit its his fault alone.
• Admit he let down a lot of people.
• Admit he needs help.
• Admit that only his future actions, not words will make a difference

I find it funny people didn’t believe it because he sounded “robotic”. It’s fine to not believe him because his actions have proven him a liar, but his speaking performance should be irrelevant. The guy is clearly hurt and embarrassed. And since his problems are most certainly rooted in narcissism, he is also seething with anger and frustration too. Can you imagine having to go on television and admit to the world what a jack ass you are?

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