Sunday, August 31, 2008

Sarah Palin the First Lady of VPILF

I always wonder who comes up with the new "In Saying" or anachronim.

Who was it that first coined the term "MILF"
A MILF (Mother I'd Like to Fu#k) is a mother usually over 30 and under 50 that is very sexually attractive.
Well a VPILF is a "Vice President I'd Like to Fu#k"

So with the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate a new site was born, or was it planned months ago??? At this time I would like to thank the site owners for not including Joe Biden, the Democratic Candidate for Vice President, I guess he is technically eligible for this new anachronim lets focus on the Hot Mom.





http://www.vpilf.com The site has Sarah Palin's 1984 Miss Alaska beauty pageant photo (She won "Miss Congeniality"), a link to an 1988 video from when the then Sarah Heath was a sportscaster in Alaska.

Wikipedia has already forwarded the term VPILF to the Sarah Palin's regular page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPILF



A clip from the Craig Ferguson Late Night Talk Show, where he described her as having a Naughty Librarian vibe.




And what has to be my favorite example of "What is that guy thinking" where John McCain introduces his new VP Candidate and the camera catches him looking over at her, and then starts to give us a voice over of what is happening in his head. The VO also captures the cameraman following the "Bro Code" and zooming in on Palin as it becomes very apparent McCain is staring at Palin.




With such a new term, I wanted to dig a tinny bit to see who gets credit for the term V.P.I.L.F. There were 2 user generated videos that mention this term. Both came out between August 29th and 30th which makes sense because Palin was announced as the VP Candidate on the 29th. What I thought was odd was that the website URL VPILF.com was registered on August 4th, and in McCain's home state of Arizona. Of course there were rumors of 7 or 8 potentials for the VP job over the last few months but to have a new term coined 25 days before the actual introduction or event shows it was an inside job. There is a link saying the people at moviespoilers are responsible for the site. but one quick look at that site shows that VPILF, was done much better so is it the moviespoilers people behind it or was it someone in the McCain camp. I think the further icing on the cake showing it was a Republican job was the site was only registered for a year. Dont they know if McCain wins Palin would be a VPILF for at least 4 years? And besides that I am sure other VPILFs will appear in the future.

The term MILF is specific to Mothers usually but VPILF could become a term for male or female Vice Presidential Candidates.
Now there's Playboy cover for you, Yeah I want to see that right after their special issue "Disrobing The Women of Congress".


Like many words an anachronim can have multiple meanings
a CD to a teenage is something old people listen to music on. To a banker its a "Certificate of Deposit"
DNC is not just the "Democratic National Committee" its also a painful female medical procedure. If I ran the Democratic DNC I would spend a lot of money re-naming and re-branding that.
But this other anachronim for MILF is all sorts of wrong.
Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, an attraction at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom
Hopefully this comes up if you have NetNanny turned on and your teenager hasnt disabled it to do a search on MILF.

About me:
I usually dont discuss religion and politics in public or private. I have way too little free time. But I did want to state that I am an Independent Voter who has never actually voted for the Guy that one. But this was such an entertaining political move and one of the first times I think there was a Republican connection with connecting with the younger voters (Especially the 18-34 y/o males) I just had to comment.

Marc

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Wii Britney

After searching 7 months to get a Wii my family has had a lot of fun playing the games and especially the use of the motion controllers that are really the way we all used to play the old Nintendeo games. Turning the wired controller to the right, as we lean our bodies to that side. Sometimes hopping a bit in our seats as Mario needed to jump a Koopa.

My Daughter Britney is 18 years old, 4'10" and has had developmental delays because of seizures she has been suffering since she was 6 months old. Her cognitive skills, and physical reaction time are that of a 4 -6 year old. Not one of those 4-6 year olds that play Guitar Hero on Hard and blindfolded on YouTube better than I play it on Medium but an average kid.

Before the Wii we would involve Britney in video games by giving her an extra controller while the rest of us played with active controllers. She even had her own Pink Barbie Guitar that she would play while I played Guitar Hero.
Now with the Wii Britney is able to keep up in Mario Kart to a decent extent but better yet she now has "Disney Princess Enchanted Journey" she is playing the game all on her own. For some reason she switches the controllers from hand to hand a lot depending on the challenge at hand, but the gaming allows for multiple ways to move and wave the wand so it works out well for her. She is getting better spacial recognition within the game. She still needs about 20 feet of play area in front of the TV because she walks around the livingroom as much as her princess character walks around the screen.



Now if we can just get the cat to master the Nintendo DS we will be all set

Friday, August 1, 2008

The Seven Year Itch - Employee Changes

A 1955 film by Billy Wilder starring Marilyn Monroe (The film in which her dress is blown up past her waist as a subway passes underneath) has created a phrase used to describe failing interest in the monogamy of marriage or disinterest after the honeymoon period of a relationship.

Marriages are not the only relationships that can have a seven year itch. The average lifespan for an employee at a creative studio is 3 years. From running the studio I know there are a few people that dont workout within the first year and that offsets the people who last much longer. In March of 2008 after 7 years, the first employee hired at Hatchling, Jeremy Clough, decided it was his time to go on his own. Personally this was very tough for me since he had become one of my closests friends and my most trusted compatriot. As a creative person Jeremy needed to push new boundaries that were not in line with the rest of the companies skillsets. While his departure did become a great opportunity for 2 very creative people previously under him, it took a piece of my heart and love for working that took me a few months to get over, and finally be able to write about.

When Jeremy opened the door for leaving after 7 years another person who I used to call my brother from another mother took the opportunity to announce his departure as well. Dustin was our main client representative on the interactive side of the business and they all loved him. With these 2 very key people gone our new President who was hired in late January took the opportunity to instill some more process that was not working out with the few of us that still did things as if we were 4 cowboys doing all the work. This process changed really helped unify team members.








In Early July it was clear that the though the new president had some great ideas they were not in line with what drove me to start and continue to run the company so we parted ways. With him another long time staff member is taking a part time role in the company because as we focus more and more on rich media and less on backend web development and databases he is looking for other opportunities that will help him grow.

These 3 key players and friends helped shape the company as to what it is today and they did it with having very few years of experience before they came to Hatchling. That is a similar story of many of the people that come to Hatchling, a real New Englander mentality of we can do it.





With departure comes opportunity and because of their great work and the comradery among all the team players the word on the street is very positive about working for us and the last 6 or 7 people I have interviewed are extremely excited about the opportunity to work at Hatchling. And often they are leaving a place they have been working for 7 years or so and are just looking for a change.