I'm Bad for Productivity: CAKE V PIE

I like to keep things fresh in our offices. With the current obsession with March Madness, I decided to bring some true madness to the offices in the form of an epic showdown: CAKE V PIE.

I had the various people on my rows fill out their brackets. Some had Funfetti to win. Others went the safe route with Apple Pie. I'm pulling for Red Velvet.

If you care to see how the first round fell out, Read More...

The sad truth of life is that not all desserts are created equal.  Our field has been whittled down to sixteen with a few upsets!

Birthday cake trounced Fruitcake in total wash.  Fruitcake’s few loyal (and misguided) fans cheered with all their might, and for that we salute them—if not their taste in cake.

Even though Grasshopper lost to #1 pie-seed Apple Pie, it still made a respectable showing taking about 1/5^th of the votes.  That’s about 1/5^th more than anyone thought it would get.  Well fought, Grasshopper.

Our first upset of the tournament came when Pound Cake narrowly beat Angel Food Cake.

Coffee Cake sent Bundt packing, proving that it deserved its #5 seed.

Pecan Pie won out over Banana Cream Pie (to no one’s surprise). 

But the creams will be well represented after Boston Cream Pie pulled out a major upset over Peanut Butter Pie (it was a close game, perhaps due in part to a rowdy crowd catcalling the legitimacy of Boston Cream's inclusion in the Pie Conference — to which the Selection Committee has issued an official response: Get over it).

Sentimental favorite Funfetti Cake lost to the complex German Chocolate Cake, which is possibly the most tragic loss in the history of the Cake v Pie match up.  We predict that Funfetti will return next year with its cult following ready to support it with zealous fervor.

Wedding Cake took home the prize at the expense of Pineapple Upside-Down.  I felt that was a lose-lose match up anyways. 

And no one was surprised to see Pumpkin Pie take down Lemon Meringue Pie, even if Lemon Meringue has, in this author’s opinion, a far superior taste and texture and is just generally far more delicious.

Rhubarb Pie faced defeat at the flakey, fruity hands of Blueberry.

Red Velvet easily sent Coconut packing towards warmer climates—and good riddance!

Key Lime triumphed over Sweet Potato; some tried to turn it into a regional thing, but the Selection Committee quickly put a stop that that.

Carrot Cake took the win over Black Forest.  The score made it look like a closer game than it was.

In what could be the most controversial upset of the tournament so far, 10-seed French Silk eeked by 7-seed Cherry by the slimmest of margins.  An epic win by French Silk, but can they pull through the next round?  We shall see.

And in our final two match ups, both Ice Cream and Cheesecake trounced their opponents, Spice and Brown Sugar respectively.  In deference to the losing deserts, we won’t dwell on how absolutely destroyed they were.  (Seriously, no chance.  Almost as embarrassing as the Birthday/Fruitcake match up of oh-ten.)

Next Week’s match-ups:

Birthday v Pound

Coffee v German Chocolate

Wedding v Red Velvet

Carrot v Ice Cream

---

Apple v Pecan

Boston Cream v Pumpkin

Blueberry v Key Lime

French Silk v Cheescake

Will it be CAKE OR DEATH?  Or will Pie assert itself as the All-American Ruler of Dessertdom?

HILARIOUS

I am laughing so hard right now.



I've gotta say..."I think it's pretty damn funny that they are TPing a perfectly inoffensive tree in order to 'connect with nature'" has to be my favorite comment so far.

Dear J----- C-----, Property Manager:

Fuck you and your condescension. I hope you sit on a tack and get tetanus.

Yours in Disgust,

Al

Fun with the Daily Commute

LA has been having some unusually heavy traffic these past few days, which draws out the daily commute. What is already an interminable bore becomes all the levels of hell wrapped into one Uber Level called LA TRAFFIC.

Today I got caught behind a bus for the final, painful two miles to my work. And on the back of this bus were the words "We Believe."

This is the most obnoxious, overused, entitled phrase in the English language. What, exactly, do you believe? That elephants are gray? The sky is blue? Fake saltines aren't as good as the name brand?

So I decided to have a little fun and call the number emblazoned on the back of the bus. The following is a transcript of our conversation:

Guy: Hello, [company].
Me: Hi! So, I'm on my daily commute and stuck behind one of your busses. I was wondering if you could answer a question for me.
Guy: Uh, sure.
Me: Great! So on the back of the bus it says, "We Believe." I'm just curious about what you beilieve in, because I find that an odd thing to put on the back of a bus.
Guy: Oh, it's the owners.
Me: You believe in the owners? Well, I guess that's a good thing...
Guy: (trying not to laugh) No, the Owners believe.
Me: Well, I got that, I'm just trying to figure out what--aside from the mass transit of large groups of people via bus.
Guy: A higher power.
Me: Oh. That's...an odd thing to put on the back of a bus with no context.
Guy: (giving up and laughing) I suppose so.
Me: Alright, well thanks for making my commute a little more interesting!
Guy: (trying to breathe) You're welcome!

Glad I could make this guy's day a little brighter, and it made at least five minutes of my drive to work worthwhile.

A Couple of Gems

I think this commercial is beautiful. And positive, which is a change for most of these.


Find more videos like this on AdGabber



For your Superbowl weekend, I give you...What the Superbowl Would Be Like if Famous Filmmakers Directed the Super Bowl. It's actually a nice little run down of several deirectors'styles.

The Three Worst Scripts I've Ever Read (In No Particular Order)

These are in chronological order starting with the first one I read to the last. 1 and 2 I read as an intern. The second I read as a gainfully employed person, though that didn't make the experience any less painful.  Not even my "I'm Getting Paid to Read This" mantra helped.

1. The one with the Cow Abortion.
   
   I kid you not. After reading a script fille dwith gratuitous violence, uncertain motivations, and bad writing, I realized it was about these two guys who make moonshine during prohibition and sell it to gangsters. Somewhere between old-timey car chases, pointless standoffs, and caricatures of mobsters, they take the time off to--for no reason that I can tell, and no build up to this moment--abort a cow's fetus by sawing off its legs in utero one by one. All six of them.
   
   Here's the best part about this script. Are you ready?
   
   It's actually being made into a movie. (Though at last check, the director said the movie had 'fallen apart.' 3 guesses why, only one of them counts.)
   
   
2. The one with the guy who works at a fertility clinic and replaces the donor sperm with his own. He's then shocked when women start showing up with red-headed babies because...he didn't expect that to be a consequence of his actions? In addition to his surprise at the facts of life, the mothers want to return their babies. Because they didn't 'order' red heads. I'm not joking, this idiot stoner guy ends up with around 18 red-headed babies that the 'executive business women mothers' didn't approve of--the implication being these women are so career-oriented they couldn't find a man to answer their biological clock so they bought 'designer babies' and then decided to return them like badly-matched drapes once they'd given birth and the children didn't meet their expectations.
   
   BUT WAIT!  THERE IS A TWIST! 
   
   Turns out the guy who ran this fertility clinic was actually inseminating his clients whit HIS sperm so when he catches his erstwhile employee replacing the samples (this stoner kid was apparently trusted with 'vetting' all of the samples), he doesn't really have a leg to stand on.  Oh, and the hot doctor totally falls in love with the stoner and his 18 babies.
   
   The End.
   
3. The one with the father/daughter incest. Chinatown this was not.
   
   This script refused. to. end. None of the scenes were longer than a page. That's like having a book comprised of 100+ 'chapters' that are each about a page long. There's no flow to the story, no cohesion, and NO SENSE. None of the characters had any discernible motivations. The father--who rapes his daughter twice and then attacks her with a broom handle once he finds out she's pregnant--vacillates between creepy systematic predator and sulky depressive woobie who has these uuuuuurges he can't control. HIS DAUGHTER TAUNTS HIM, OKAY?
   
   On top of this, all of the female characters are indiscernible from one another, falling into one of three groups: the daughter (who has no personality to speak of and spends her time doing an impersonation of a mopey Kristen Stewart), aggressively pro-life Catholics, and mildly sympathetic people who hide the daughter from her father. The thing is, I still have no idea who knows about the abuse, who suspects, and who is oblivious. Writer, your word of the day is: Consistency. Please to be having it.
   
   Ugh. I need brain bleach.
   
   Thought the true tragedy of this is that my summation up there makes this sound better written than it actually is.

Truthfully, the most mind boggling part is that these scripts were submitted by people. Someone read each of these and went "This should totally be made into a movie! Let me call up all the people who I've met in the Industry and send it out because they HAVE to see how great it was and want to make it!"

Also, please note that I cannot properly convey how truly badly written all of these scripts were.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

o.O

Hollywood and Media Outlets, A Word

Regarding reports that Amanda Seyfried is holding out for 7.5 million to due Mamma Mia! 2, I have something to say. (Other than the first movie was so bad I can't imagine the train wreck the sequel will be.)

She is not worth $7.5 million dollars.

She will NEVER be worth $7.5 million--she's not that good an actor, and she doesn't have the charisma to be a movie star.

She could have a pretty good career and make more than enough money to keep herself and whatever family/ies she has in the future comfortable.

Today, I read this:

“Amanda’s developing a reputation as an actress who is very ambitious when it comes to money and credit. She really hides behind her good-girl image.” -National Enquirer**

There is nothing wrong with ambition. There is nothing wrong with trying to eek out as many credits as you can. In Hollywood, everyone is trying to get more money because it means you can ask for more on your next project. Credits that one can look up on IMdB make investors and studios feel better for hiring you. Even if you don't deserve them and don't do anything to deserve them--we like to call such people "bullshit producers"--for some reason, the People Upstairs think you're awesome. Everyone in Hollywood wants a screen credit and more money. Men, women, midgets, trained ponies, chimpanzees, turtles, ghosts--they all want it.

Wanting and actively working for these these things does not make a woman a "bad-girl." I makes her business-savvy and ambitious.

NOT wanting/asking for these things doesn't make a woman a "good-girl." I DOES make her passive and unambitious and buying into a system that constantly belittles and criticizes women who are trying to be cutthroat in a cutthroat industry.

It's one thing to say holding out for an exorbitant--and undeserved--fee is career suicide. It's another to trot out that kind of bullshit.  Bad form, National Enquirer.  And bad for to the various media outlets that are reposting this line and mode of thought.

**I know, I know. It's the NATIONAL ENQUIRER. Still, this is pretty text book when it comes to women being aggressive in their business dealings.  The same wording pops up in legitimate news sources all the time.  Unfortunately.