You know you’ve spent too much time grading when…

I’m not normally a huge You Tube fan. Watching video takes up a big chunk of time I’m not usually willing to offer  when I have papers to grade, articles to write, students to tend, and endless committee meetings to attend.

But, here I was, early on a December Saturday morning, bleary eyed, sitting fascinatedly in front of my big ol’ laptop screen, watching the silliest You Tube videos I’ve ever seen. Reminded me of when I was a wee one, plopped in front of the old black & white Philco TV on Saturday mornings, bowl of Sugar Pops (remember those nasty things!) on my lap…spoon to mouth, spoon to mouth.

Check these out…you’ll get the idea. And yes, you get a sense of my sorry humor — particularly at the end of a hectic semester.

 Oh, and definitely this one!!!

And one of my favorite Eddie Izzard skits put to Lego…

 

 Back to grading. Endless, endless grading…

One of the coolest branding ideas connected to education — EVER!

During a break from grading papers today, I was rifling through this month’s Esquire (yeah, I read Esquire…there’s nothing wrong with women reading it!) and was stopped — floored, actually — by Droga5 in NYC’s new campaign for NYC schools.

Droga5’s campaign connects the million NYC schoolkids with cell phones that function like mini-computers during the day and phones after school hours. Kids who perform well get extra minutes added to their cell phones. 

While I’ll never “go capitalist” on anything and I’ll never EVER return to the advertising biz, I have to admit the following about Droga5’s idea: It’s simply freakin’ amazing!!!

There’s a restriction on uploading the video Droga5 created, but here’s how to check out what Droga5 is doing:

www.droga5.com

After you reach the Droga5 homepage, click on Case Studies….then scroll down the left to find MILLION. Click. Watch. Be totally, utterly amazed at how social justice can be compatible with rampant capitalism.

Thanks, Droga5. If your idea keeps kids in classes and learning their lessons, it is the coolest idea (branding or otherwise). 

An Email from Alyssa

Alyssa is an old friend from college who sent me a very funny female-humor cartoon recently. I’m posting it at the end of this because I find it hysterically funny for lots of reasons. Some are quite obvious — sorry, guy friends who read this blog, most women have received phone messages like this one! It’s real “chick” humor.

But it’s also funny because in college, Alyssa was Mark. We all knew Mark liked dressing in women’s clothes. No one could wear a Tricia Nixon pink 1960s suit and pillbox hat like Mark could when he was dressed as Marsha, his alter ego. As Marsha, Mark “passed” easily — to the point where, at a party at my apartment in the early 1980s, my VP of Sales tried to put the hit on Mark. Guess Mike had a thing for women in pink Talbot’s. (And no, I never told my married, chauvinist VP that he was trying to pick up a man…it was too great to watch!)

Mark certainly had the legs for heels, although it took me a few trips to the mall with him to understand why he needed me to try on stiletto heels. We wore the same size shoe and he couldn’t put those bad girls on in Jenss! Even the guys I knew then admitted that Mark looked great as Marsha.

Well, years pass — and I get an email from someone with Mark’s last name. Except the first name is Alyssa. I knew Mark married after I left Buffalo. I figure it’s Mark’s wife sending me a “bad news” email. I ready myself to make a long farewell trip.

 Nope…it’s Mark! Now Alyssa. Now being true to hirself.

As Alyssa, she left the media biz, divorced, went back to college and became an RN. She reuinted with hir best girlfriend who became an attorney. They’re now a couple, living in Ohio. Alyssa is incredibly happy.

And so am I. Whether as Mark or as Alyssa, she is my friend. Still has great legs, too, dammit!

Anyway, here is Alyssa’s cartoon. Have a very happy holiday, girl!

I Miss the Viking Kitties! (and the Ikea Song)

Some of you who were part of the original Blogdelirium remember our discussion about the Viking Kitties. I had to see whether they were still available online. And they are!

If you like Led Zepplin, you’ll love the Viking Kitties

Of course, I can’t resist really bad You Tube videos either. And Jonathan Coulton’s Ikea Song, uploaded here, qualifies. The lyrics are precious!

Rowan’s on the list — for one of the 20 Ugliest Colleges in the US!

  Yep, this is definitely one ugly campus building! It’s where my campus mailbox is, and where my office used to be. I’m not going to deny that Rowan has some godawful ugly buildings.

Sure, Rowan’s on the list. And Rutgers. And the entire SUNY system. And Northeastern in Boston. See a pattern…?

C Squeeze seems to have a serious “hate on” for Northeast state university campuses. That’s fine. It’s snowy, rural, and cold in most of those places. I’ve been to every campus on C’s list. They are ugly. Like one of those ugly little Bulldogs! So ugly, in fact, I love them!

Rowan is an ugly campus. Who cares?

You know, I’d rather be hangin’ between DC and Boston any day. If I’m in a real city, I don’t need to care about how pretty my campus looks. I have things to do, places to be, people to see. Jobs to get. Oh, and a life to have!

 And, C Squeeze…don’t dis Binghamton or Ithaca. Nice people. Good times. Smart folks. Don’t be a hater, C….

http://campussqueeze.com/static/20-ugliest-colleges-in-the-USA.html

Of course, C Squeeze’s most beautiful campuses encompass the Pac Coast and the Ivy League. Such a surface geek, C Squeeze. Look beyond the image!

“Yule Tide One On” stories…

One of my former undergrad professors, CKD, also known as “Fizzle” to many of us who went to Medaille, sent me an email yesterday. Seems he was listening to Buffalo’s “Christmas Music” radio station (ok, how much narrowcasting is THAT, kids?) when he heard Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas.”

Now, “Blue Christmas” was sort of a CKD theme song. It was also a serious drinking song at Medaille — one that highlighted the annual “Yule Tide One On” mixers that ended the semester. CKD was reminiscing about his days where he stood on a chair in the middle of the campus cafeteria and — in a rather hammered condition – belted out the lyrics to the students’ delight and to the horror of the administration.

He also then went on to recall a number of “classic” Diane moments in ad copywriting when I was his copywriter at Ellis Advertising on the 17th floor of the Hotel Statler. From the Jayne’s of Jamestown “Men’s Night at a Woman’s Store” jingle to the classic “How do you get JOY out of JYE?” (the real answer is…”turn it off!”), CKD had me laughing so hard at the memories I was crying at my computer.

I’m glad you didn’t remember the Carlo Rossi, the blue curaco, the Porkettes, Mac the Knife, or the dozens of other stories that happened, CKD!

And no, I’m not going to re-tell those stories. Too many guilty participants who’d have some serious ’splainin’ to do ! If those who are guilty see this blog, I’ll let them tell the tales in ways that make them seem less culpable.

Anyway, that was a great holiday gift, CKD! I laughed for hours…and I played “Blue Christmas” online twice.

Blogdelirium Returns!

The Cool Bunny is back…

 I’ve moved Blogdelirium from its old home at Blogger (blogdelirium.blogspot.com) to WordPress. The new site is called (rather unoriginally) Blogdelirium Redux.

Why move the old site? Well, like any move in life, the change is complicated. But, in a few words, WordPress is more robust and I can do more teaching and interactive things than I could at the previous location.

So, we’ll see how this goes. I’ll be spending more time on the blog in 2008 than I have the past couple of years.