Glorified G

I was bringing in groceries for my sister sometime last weekend, which included a six-pack of Propel lemon-flavored water, from the makers of Gatorade. I decided to make light of the purchase.

"You know how Gatorade changed their name on their bottle labels to G?"
"No, I didn't know that. I've seen the commercials, though."
"It's a good thing you bought some Propel before they did the same thing."

Zebra pattern

Homer Simpson: I’m not a bad guy. I work hard and I love my kids, So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I’m going to hell?

God: Hmm, you’ve got a point there. You know, sometimes even I’d rather be watching football. Does St. Louis still have a team?

Homer Simpson: No, they moved to Phoenix.

Congratulations to the Arizona Cardinals for outperforming the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII -- for all but about two plays. At first I wasn't picking sides, but they kind of won me over by making gutsy plays in the second half, despite getting screwed repeatedly (almost comically) by the referees.

Whatever your bias, you have to admit that the zebras took over that game, holding the Tampa crowd and the national audience in suspense several times tonight. I was convinced that one of the men in black and white would win the MVP, at least until Santonio Holmes distinguished himself at the very end.

Time will tell if the Cards can build off their surprise success next season, or if their NFC championship was an anomaly. The Falcons and Panthers, for example, got there in the past and haven't really come close since. In the NFL, it's difficult to forge a new dynasty.

I don't dislike the Steelers. It's hard to root against Mike Tomlin. He's no elder statesman, like his mentor Tony Dungy -- he's reached the peak of his profession at age 36. A win like this could have some positive sociological consequences: if there's any chance he'll make life a little easier for African-American coaches at the college level, so much the better. If Hollywood ever makes a biopic, Omar Epps is ready to play the lead.

Finally: the Super Bowl commercials. I liked the premise of the Cars.com ad. A few others were cute, but forgettable. The rest of them were a waste of time and money. Are the advertising agencies even trying anymore? Did they lay off all the creative people? Where have you gone, Don Draper?

For your consideration?

Given this time of year, with all the movie awards shows, I would expect to see a lot more TV, online, and print ads touting the various high-profile examples of Oscar bait. I've noticed less such marketing now than in previous years -- not a complaint -- and what I AM seeing is a lot different. For example...

1. Where is the war film? Short answer: there is none. Long answer: do you like war films told from a European perspective? Because then there's Valkyrie, The Reader, and Defiance. None are really breaking through right now. I find it interesting that the nearly 3-hour The Curious Case of Benjamin Button depicts maybe two war-oriented scenes, and both are used in the trailer. Ladies and gentlemen, here is your war film.

2. Where is the All-American film? Maybe Revolutionary Road will make some noise -- 1960s suburbia sounds pretty American -- but until then, what are our choices? Slumdog Millionaire is set abroad, with no stateside actors. Benjamin Button mostly takes place in New Orleans, but advertises more global themes. Frost/Nixon addresses the Presidency, but (as I understand it) from an antagonistic perspective. Over in Gotham, homegrown Harvey Dent is being overshadowed by a Brit as Batman and an Aussie as Joker. This leaves the red, white, and blue iconography of Milk, which seems to wave the Stars and Stripes alongside the rainbow flag. In the age of Obama, what could be more American than a tribute to another community organizer?

3. Where is The Dark Knight? Ever since its DVD release in December, the publicity has kind of halted. Part of the problem is that the face of the film (and most of its precursor awards) belongs to an actor who is no longer alive. But it's more than that. Aside from a brief glimpse of Gary Oldman in ads for the recently released The Unborn, you're not seeing much of the rest of the cast. Strange that Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart, and Maggie Gyllenhaal have nothing new to promote. Really, the only cast member getting any TV exposure these days is this guy from the Wendy's ads. (Pictured, left.)

I expect this all to change in a few weekends, after the Oscar nominations are announced, but for now it's an interesting lull.

Fedora, the explorer

So, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Image by artist Drew Struzan, taken from Coming Soon.) I suppose the first poster and a release date brings it all closer to reality, doesn't it?


Crystal skull, huh?

"Alas, poor Yorick! I didn't mean to drop you."

There can be only two!

(Alternate title: TV's Heroes, and why you should still care.)

Like everyone else, I've been less than excited about the current season of this show, even before the Hollywood writers' strike drew it to a merciful close. While its early problems had to do with slow pacing and an anticlimactic finale, now the problems run deeper: too many satellite characters, too many storylines stretched thin, no real sense of cohesion.

But I'm not writing this to complain. I've been playing around with a theory about the show for a few months now, and the more I think about it, the more I feel that I'm right. For a TV series that has relied heavily on advertising taglines, I have this distinct notion that they will eventually borrow a page from Highlander and commit to the phrase "There can be only two!"

This is my theory: for whatever genetic and geographic reasons, the development of unique abilities will manifest in exactly two people in the world, giving each hero a doppelgänger. So far we know of the following pairs. (For a show that works in elements of time travel, power transfer, and resurrection, I'm not ready to accept that any of these people listed are necessarily dead.)

1. Adam Monroe (David Anders) and Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) are indestructible, and each have shown that their blood holds curative properties.

2. Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar, pictured above, right) and West Rosen (Nicholas D'Agosto) each make you believe a man can fly.

3. Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) and his father Maury (Alan Blumenfield) can read and manipulate the minds of others.

4. Even the much-maligned twins Alejandro and Maya Herrera (Shalim Ortiz and Dania Ramirez) -- she of the virus and he of the antidote -- have previous generation equivalents in Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy, pictured below, left) and his late sister Shanti. Does anyone else think that the planned biological fallout is due to an active Maya, rather than some decades-old Shanti virus samples from a company lab?

This theory of course suggests that the showrunners have yet to introduce the doubles for any of the other heroes (alive or dead, of the older generation or current) and will have to do so soon or in the upcoming seasons. That last night's Volume 2 finale episode ended with a few minutes of Volume 3 -- entitled "Villains" -- may bear this out.

I feel my theory is validated by the fact that not a single power was repeated until the beginning of this second season. I believe this was intentional, as the first season was designed to introduce the people that will have to fight their counterparts by the show's endgame, and future volumes will shape this central conflict.

Final note: despite the potential excitement about what the showrunners could do in future seasons -- a live-action Superfriends and Legion of Doom holds great appeal -- it's a little sad that any hope I have for the show right now seems to be more my own creation than theirs.

On the Verizon

This weekend, while out driving with my parents, I had stopped at an intersection. To the left was a Verizon store with a large group of individuals outside waiting for something. My mother asks out loud, "What are all those people doing there?"

I glanced at the parking lot crowd, returned to face the road, and replied simply, "Oh, that's the network."

Who else needs the Kwik-E-Mart?

Last week I mentioned that the 7-Eleven convenience store chain is celebrating the release of The Simpsons Movie by converting 11 of its stores into Kwik-E-Marts. I live near one, and because many of you aren't as fortunate, I thought I'd make a 7/11 post and share some pictures.

Bart: OK, we're young, rich, and full of sugar. What do we do?
Milhouse: Let's go crazy, Broadway style!

Mmm, free goo.

The attractions inside are equally impressive. What a bargain!

As in Springfield, this Kwik-E-Mart takes care of Henderson's finest.

As an Indian-American, should I be offended by Apu? I don't think so. Until recently, he's all we had to look at on TV. (Ahem!) Plus, any show that features a Hindi version of "Close to You" deserves our respect. Finally, let's face it: he's funny.

"Check it out, a freezer geezer!" (Do we even know this guy's name?)

Alas, no chutney Squishee. ("You can really taste the chutney!") They also carried Krusty-O's cereal and Buzz cola. No special beer, though; I guess Duffman was busy.

Plans this weekend?

Well, sure, there's April Fool's Day and the Final Four of the men's and women's NCAA tournaments. But here's something you may want to squeeze in: free admission to the long-delayed release of the film Peaceful Warrior, all this weekend in any theater showing it. Print up to 10 tickets per e-mail address, courtesy of Best Buy.

Will audiences respond to this unusual offer? All things considered, it is an interesting experiment. Readers may recall that I reviewed this movie -- nine months ago. While I realize it's a tough sell, particularly given its director (read the review), I'm still a little surprised it hadn't been released since then.

55 Fiction Friday looks fetching in a faux-hawk.

Story forthcoming.

Snack that

(Author's Note: I'm using Super Bowl Sunday as an excuse to move my weekly post of college basketball seedings to Thursday nights, where they'll stay until the end of the regular season.)

So this is it. The Super Bowl. Apparently it involves a football game, but there's so much more to the story.

According to HowStuffWorks, the average American will double his or her consumption of snack foods today. Citing the Snack Food Association, they say that during the game America should consume about 30.4 million pounds of snack foods, 11 million pounds of potato chips, 13.2 million pounds of avocados, 8.2 million pounds of tortilla chips, 4.3 million pounds of pretzels, 3.8 million pounds of popcorn, and 2.5 million pounds of snack nuts. Plus untold amounts of dip and salsa, and one leftover fruitcake from the holidays.

Wow. I don't want to criticize the nation for such gluttony, but I do recommend buying antacid tonight, before it flies off the shelves. (Experts estimate a sales increase of 20 percent the day after.)

Here in Las Vegas, there's a lot more to bet on than just the spread (Colts by 7) and the over/under (48 points). Will Peyton Manning's first pass be complete or incomplete? Which team scores first? Who leads by halftime? Will there be a scoreless quarter?

And those are just the bets that make sense. Earlier this week I went to the South Point casino and checked out their Race and Sports Book. An entire column of their giant LCD betting board was devoted to various bets regarding Colts rookie running back Joseph Addai. There were hundreds of betting opportunities.

Other Super Bowl talking points:

1. "Super Bowl Shuffle" (as performed by the 1985 Chicago Bears) was nominated for a Grammy. The team lost to Prince, who performs the halftime show today. Is this the cheesiest nomination the Grammys have ever given? And if Mike Ditka ever put out an album, would it sweep the major categories?

2. Advertisers are paying up to $2.6 million for a 30-second ad. In the Internet age of viral video, where low-budget creations can be watched by millions, is the investment still worth it? Wouldn't the money be better spent renting a Yankees player for an hour?

3. Before this year, no African-American head coach had ever made it to the Super Bowl, and now we have two: Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy. Is their success an aberration, or a sign of things to come? The NFL hasn't made as many strides in its front-office diversity as, say, the NBA.

Feel free to use these points in a discussion, especially if you know nothing about football. Or you could stuff your face with snacks.

Making the cover (with rare photo!)

I have a few self-imposed rules when it comes to Brevity:

1. I don't write about work.
2. I don't write about my personal life.
3. When I link to a book title, I don't use the Amazon listing.
4. I don't quote song lyrics in their entirety.
5. I don't put YouTube or other video screens on the blog itself.
6. There are no pictures of me.

I'm bending that last rule to promote Making the Cover, a free tool provided by HP and the magazines of Time Inc. Upload one of your own photos into covers of Time, Entertainment Weekly, People, or Sports Illustrated. Crop the photo and add a headline.

As you can see, I opted for the last one. I'm about 2 years old there. Pink bats were very big in 1976.

I believe Making the Cover is being offered for free until the end of February, so take advantage while you can.

55 Fiction Friday is unrecognizable without all that guyliner.

He hid his business suits in his guitar case, and went to the office early to change. Every "jam session" was really a meeting, and a "gig" was usually some high profile merger. Strange that this was his bliss.

When he got home, he'd put on the stoned act again for his unsuspecting hippie wife.

Bunker mentality

When selling real estate, it helps to have a feature that makes your house stand out in the listings. It can be as common as a swimming pool or a city skyline view, or something rarer, like a waterfall or a courtyard. Up in Blaine, Washington, however, you can find a truly unique item: a 1900 square foot split level house with 3 bedrooms, 2+ baths, sunroom, new roof with skylights, cobblestone driveway, privacy fence, and 1400 square foot underground bunker.

According to Zillow, this massive fallout shelter lies 45 feet below the house and can hold up to 300 people. It even has a kitchenette! A house like this deserves its own website. Go ahead and click on "Subterranean fortress" to see photos. The house comes furnished with more than just furniture:

All bomb shelter supplies are stored on the lower 2 levels. Nitrogen-sealed food containers of wheat, corn, lentils and water. Other items include gas masks, vitamin C, tools, etc.

"Wow" falls short of my reaction. This is a place anyone (paranoid) would like to call home. The websites fail to emphasize another selling point: its proximity to the Canadian border. If we use the metric system -- might as well -- it's 200 meters. Here's a map.

How much do you want to bet that this bunker has a secret transnational tunnel? I'll wager fifty Canadian dollars.

Down there, Story 69 September knows no boundaries.

Charles felt uncomfortable in the community center
basement, listening to the stories of Fetishists Anonymous.
He marveled at these tales of sandal strokers, cellophane
wearers, and vicarious bug crushers. As the center of
attention shifted closer to him, Charles squirmed in his
plastic chair.

When it was his turn to speak he remained silent. He was
too ashamed to admit he got off on consensual intercourse
with his wife.

Naming rights

You'd think this entry was about large corporations paying big bucks to name baseball parks, football fields, or basketball and hockey arenas. It's not.

As far as I know, I have no children. A lifelong allergy to cat and dog dander has rendered me petless as well. My point is this: I've never had a chance to name a living creature. The closest I've come is naming Brevity, or suggesting names for other blogs. You can argue that a weblog is organic, but it really isn't the same.

Now I have my chance. Some idiot musician is holding an open contest for a new name, and awarding $25,000 for the winning entry. (He'll collect submissions until mid-August, when he'll select ten finalists, and the winner is determined by public vote.) Each person can submit up to ten entries.

So give it a try. Maybe your suggestion will win, but there's no way you'll come up with a name better than Lando Stubblefield.

55 Fiction Friday was named for that guy in Robinson Crusoe.

After years in apprenticeship, Nicolette was ready to take over the business. She had a flair for writing vaguely profound portents in 16th century French. She would make an excellent ghostwriter for the fraud everyone knew as Nostradamus.

The only problem, as far as she could figure, was keeping the DeLorean hidden behind the chateau.

Haterade? Hardly.

For everything you wanted to know about Gatorade but were afraid to ask, pick up First in Thirst. Its author, Darren Rovell, covers the business of sports for ESPN, which sounds like a terrific job until you realize that he has to live in Bristol, Connecticut, or what Keith Olbermann once called "the most godforsaken place on the Eastern Seaboard."

Rovell writes the story of Gatorade, from its humble origins in a University of Florida lab to the dominant player in the sports drink market. (Legal note: Gatorade owns an 80+ percent market share, but probably gets left alone by the Department of Justice because it created that market, and earned its market position without violating any antitrust laws.)

Using the lesser recruits of the freshman football team as guinea pigs, four scientists determined that a salty solution was better than water at replenishing the 5-10 pounds of sweat that a player may lose in game conditions under the Gainesville heat. Better yet, the players could avoid the kind of muscle cramping that excessive amounts of water caused, and could play with more endurance in the second half. Gatorade soon graduated to varsity, and the effects were immediate.

The spread of Gatorade's early popularity was inexpensive and clever. In a tactic that Malcolm Gladwell might appreciate, Gatorade was given to the trainers on college teams, who peddled their influence to the coaches and players. Orange coolers and green cups were provided, and the trainers knew just what to do with them to create the maximum amount of TV exposure. In essence, Gatorade invented product placement in the sports world.

Gatorade benefited from a lot of happy accidents. The practice of dumping Gatorade on winning coaches began earnestly with the New York Giants in their championship season. When Gatorade took a chance on a single athlete to endorse their product, they went with Michael Jordan. The "Be Like Mike" song was quickly written by a pitchman who'd seen The Jungle Book with his kid and wanted to do something similar to the song "I Wanna Be Like You."

Rovell doesn't have a lot of bad things to say about Gatorade. Their good ideas were extremely successful; their bad ideas (Gatorade Light?) were quickly dropped. I had expected corporate infighting, or nasty business practices when Coke's Powerade or Pepsi's All Sport tried to move in. But it was basically clean competition. I suppose there's nothing wrong with depicting a positive business model. Not every business success story has to have a body count.

Finally, in what I think is a much better idea than adding material to a paperback edition, Rovell ran a Gatorade-themed blog here. (In it, you'll see Gatorade's good luck streak continues: they signed Dwyane Wade months before Miami won the NBA title, and his asking price went up.) He stopped updating it recently, but it still makes an excellent afterword.

Demon days

Today is 06/06/06. Depending on who you ask, this is the day of Rapture, the birth of the Antichrist, or the release date for the remake of The Omen. As I'm neither a Christian nor a numerologist -- I've only read 10 pages of The Da Vinci Code -- I'll call it Tuesday.

Still, I was unnerved by this USA Today article. This week, the 30-year rate on fixed mortgages is 6.66%. Seriously? Has there ever been a more demonic time to be a homeowner? It's like a buyer's market for haunted houses. I'd hate to be a real estate agent with hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

Last week I heard about a pregnant woman whose child was due today, and she wanted the hospital to induce labor so she could have the baby earlier and not take the risk. They refused, seeing no medical reason to perform the procedure. I don't know what happened, but if she hasn't had the child already, I have to imagine she'll be holding it in until midnight.

What's it like having the Number of the Beast as a birthday? Well, Max August Zorn was born a century ago. He was a mathematician and numerical analyst (!) at Indiana University who lived nearly 87 years. However, there was a strange tidbit about how he was nearly hit by a car, and his name does sound like a Bond villain...

There are other neat facts about the Devil's Number, but certainly the most disturbing is one of today's book releases: Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism. At first I panicked, but then I remembered that Ann Coulter is a crazy, anorexic media whore.

No worries, then. As for me, I'm already concerned about the slot machine overload here in Las Vegas next year, when the calendar reads 07/07/07.

Catering to anorexics

We here at Brevity were once praised as being above the fray when it came to measuring visitor traffic, so I apologize for the following descent: this blog is now serviced by Sitemeter.

Web counting is a learning experience. On the one hand, I've confirmed my suspicion that many more people visit this blog than the select few who comment. That pleases me. Also, most of those who do leave comments remain fiercely loyal visitors, which pleases me even more.

On the other hand, I was surprised at how some Internet surfers find me. Some look for "brevity" or "andre agassi las vegas" or "taylor hicks purple coat." That's fine. But the #1 way, by far, is the Google image search for "anorexic." What comes up is an Entertainment Weekly cover photo of Sarah Michelle Gellar. Interestingly, though, I never posted that picture; I only linked to it from a fan site. But Google skips the middlefan and brings the user directly here, where I imagine they'll be disappointed.

For the record, I'm against anorexia and other eating disorders. That's why I criticized Joss Whedon's use of malnourished girls as strong heroines, and spoke negatively about the bulimia-afflicted voices of Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff. For the life of me I'll never understand why society glorifies the likes of Mischa Barton or Nicole Richie. That most actresses and other female celebs are too skinny is bad enough. But some are beyond what can be considered borderline healthy.

There's no meaningful protest to make here. "Eat something," I guess, but encouraging a nation of gluttons makes obesity an even bigger health problem. And waiting for these emaciated offenders' bones to snap will take too long. My suggestion is to find the next guy who thinks the girl in the Cingular ad is "sooooo hot" and slap him around until he realizes the error of his ways.

The disappearing act

It was reported yesterday that engineering researchers at Duke University -- go Devils! -- have developed a workable blueprint for an invisibility cloak. They anticipate the technology can be applied to many industries, but mostly they just want to wear the cloak around the lab and look surprised.

And all this time I was waiting for Duke's administration to make the men's lacrosse scandal disappear.

55 Fiction Friday wishes David Blaine would just vanish already.

Felicia started her brilliant career boiling pasta at an Italian bistro. Gradually, she worked her way out of the kitchen and into management. She’s now a consultant for a restaurant chain, where she develops ideas for the advertising division.

In a way, not much has changed. Felicia’s still tossing things up, and seeing what sticks.

Marketing Taylor Hicks

Like any West Coast person with a passing interest in American Idol -- curious enough to know who won, not committed enough to watch two hours of filler -- I checked CNN.com a little after 7 pm.

Congratulations, Taylor Hicks. I say this with some amusement, because I'm thinking about those poor record producers who now have to make a marketable Taylor Hicks album. (I've got a mild case of McPheever, but part of me wished that Elliott Yamin joined Taylor in the finals to create a music honcho's ultimate nightmare.)

My guess is that Taylor's appeal is mostly visual, and by that I mean that America enjoys watching him convulse as he performs. (I'm not knocking the act; Joe Cocker had a lucrative career doing something similar.) But will that enjoyment translate to a CD track?

It wouldn't be so bad if his presumably pop album got an infusion of gospel and blues. But I'd probably restrict his use of the harmonica to one song. (I'm getting this nagging feeling that we'll be subjected to an unnecessary remake of "Life is a Highway.")

As a white Southern soul man, he has some crossover potential. Not like Elvis, though he'll certainly be hyped that way. And the purple jacket? Gotta see more of that. Say, let's call the album Jacket Required. Taylor, if you can get your handlers to agree to that, I'll write my very first song and let you sing it. I've already got a title: "What the hell is a Sussudio?"

Cinco, hold de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo: is it a great source of Mexican pride, or a pathetic Gringo excuse to behave like a party animal? I report, you decide.

55 Fiction Friday: still fiercely independent of any greeting card industry influences.

She said she wouldn't be attracted to Charlie if not for his seductive scent. It wasn't natural; it was body wash. Some Norwegian product, its label unreadable. A friend shipped him a case once.

Health officials later banned one of the ingredients, taking the body wash off the market, and putting Charlie back on it.

TBS: occasionally funny

Long-time readers already know how I feel about the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but that doesn't mean I'm above being amused by the TBS commercials promoting them.

In a major mainstream coup for the slash vidding underground subculture, one commercial depicts Frodo and Sam to the tune of "Secret Lovers" by Atlantic Starr. Another features Gandalf riding to "Don't Ride the White Horse" by Laid Back. I'm digging the 1980s vibe, and almost want to give these films another chance.

Almost.

Then I remember why I don't. Over in the TBS forums, there's a fan thread objecting to the "Secret Lovers" commercial. Dull surprise: humorless hobbit fans are incapable of seeing the whole picture.

Words, words, words

I now have a title to call my own.

After a runner-up finish and an honorable mention, I'm the sole winner of this week's Word Verifictionary Contest over at The Columnist Manifesto. The goal is to create meanings for those silly strings of letters used for word verification on comment pages.

I've always wanted to coin a word for public use, but this will have to do for now. The words I've created can't be worked into normal conversation; heck, I wish I'd thought up verifiction. But I'm patient. In time I'm sure I'll come up with my own truthiness. Stephen Colbert, you're on notice.

55 Fiction Friday struggles enough with words it already knows.

"Spare no expense"? This kind of espionage was new.

Amazing who she found in the mercenary market:
chemists, chefs, spies. She outfitted a laboratory and put
them to work.

"Solved it?"

"The formula's complex... we need time."

"You have the weekend. My competitor introduces its
sandwich Monday. I must know what's in the secret sauce."