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Today, I left work a few hours early to vote early at Veterans Memorial. I didn’t have any meetings late in the afternoon today, and it’s about impossible to predict what Tuesday’s schedule will hold at work. I parked and got in line to vote at 3:50. I was in a voting booth by 6:05. I’ll help you with the math. I waited 2 hours and 15 minutes to vote early today. I’ve got to think Tuesday’s lines will be incredible. But it’s great to see so many people voting.
At one point, I came up with a genius idea. I thought, hey, this could all go much quicker if I could find someone who was planning to vote for the opposite candidates and issues compared to me. We could come to a friendly agreement for neither of us to vote, shake hands, and walk out of Vets Memorial together. I loved this thought so much I ran it by the woman in line behind me. She laughed awkwardly for maybe 3 seconds before I eased her fears and told her I was just kidding and everyone might as well wait and vote.
While waiting in line, we all had to fill out short forms basically saying who we are and listing either a driver’s license number or social security number to prove it. This meant an amusing game of pass pens back to the person behind you when finished. Others chose not to pass, but instead walked up and down the line trying to pass off the pen they were handed and then were stuck with. And then came the election official who walked up and down the line begging us to “please pass the ink pens back to the next person.”
I took special notice of her use of the term “ink pen.” I guess she wanted to make sure nobody passed a graphite pen or maybe just a pen pen. I don’t know.
And with all the buzz every election year around hanging chads, wrongly-calibrated voting machines, and every other thing that could lead to innaccurate vote counts or voter apathy, you’d think the workers at voting sites would be very very careful to do nothing unusual. So of course I was surprised when about an hour and a half into my wait, the security guard yelled to the crowd, “sorry, the ride is broken!” He thought it was pretty hilarious. For a moment, a few people were puzzled and asked a neighbor what was wrong. The guy two spots behind me explained to a woman that security said the “line is broken.” So I guess the joke didn’t stick with him.
Luckily, this was all cleared up quickly when the ink pen pass-urging election official promised the crowd that no ride or voting or anything was broken. So we all stayed in line and did what we came there to do.
And I got this great sticker. “I made a difference. So can you. Vote.”
I’m not normal. We’re all unique, and that’s great, but I’ve come to realize that I’m pretty far from normal. And the worst point is that I notice it. See, if I could just be ignorant and not see all of the little things that make me different, I could spend much more of my attention on things that are productive. But instead, I’m generally puzzled by myself. I’d like to give you two examples. Trust me, there are many other examples, but these two come to mind because they just happened yesterday and today.
Yesterday. Before going to bed last night, I found about 45 minutes to play a game of Madden 09 on the XBox 360. Yes, I still love video games, but that’s a whole other issue. So when the XBox turns on, there’s a login page. I have a profile, but so does my girlfriend, Janette, and my roommate, Jon.
Imagine 3 options to choose from. My profile was the 3rd one down, the bottom one. The top profile was already highlighted. So all I had to do was click down twice to get to my profile. But I instantly thought, “hmmm, I wonder if I can click up once and have it highlight the bottom one.” But I wasn’t sure if it would jump from the top to the bottom by clicking up. And I knew if it didn’t, I’d then have to click down twice, thereby using 3 total clicks to highlight my profile. So I was completely torn between risking having to make 3 clicks just to take a chance at making 1 click. Or I could go the no risk, no reward route and just click down twice.
I tried to go up. It didn’t work. So then I had to click down twice and ended up suffering the worst case scenario. And to top it all off, I put myself through all that thinking. Now, keep in mind. This all happened within about a second or two. But it was still exhausting.
Today. Something happened just a half hour ago that happens with me maybe once a week. I noticed my dad was calling but by the time I picked up, he was leaving me a voicemail. I ended up having to hang up and call him again when he was done leaving the voicemail, because he didn’t click over.
But here’s the issue. Anytime someone leaves me a voicemail that either shows up while I’m on the phone with them, or if there’s a voicemail that I just haven’t listened to yet when I call the person, I can never ever go back and listen to that voicemail. Tonight, my dad just wanted to talk baseball, and so we talked about the World Series for a few minutes. But when we got off the phone, I noticed he had left a voicemail the first time he tried calling me. I clicked to listen, but as soon as I heard him starting to say the same thing we just discussed on the phone, I had to delete the message. I always have to do that! It somehow freaks me out hearing the same sort of conversation twice.
This doesn’t make much sense, I know. But it’s me. I hope you enjoy getting to know me. I’m still working on it too.
I just finished watching another awesome episode of Chuck on NBC. This is a show that I started watching a few episodes into its first season in 2007. My first impressions were that (a) this show shouldn’t be good (b) most of the people I know probably would never get into this show and (c) I found it hilarious and addictive.
Chuck follows the life of Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi), a college student who had top secret files called the Intersect embedded into his brain. He’s then forced to live a double life as a sort of secret agent while still working days at Buy More (think Best Buy). The plot is far from believable, but fiction is great like that. And CIA agent Sarah Walker, played by Yvonne Strahovski, is easy on the eyes, so that’s a bonus.
Josh Schwartz is a writer and executive producer of Chuck. He’s famous (well semi-famous) for creating The O.C. which ran on Fox from 2003 to 2007. I will readily admit that I was probably one of only 3 or 4 men in America who regularly watched The O.C. I guess I walked into the room when my mom and sister were watching it in August of 2003 and was hooked.
Then I realized how uncool it was for a guy to be hooked on The O.C. Too late. Watching The O.C. became a part of Thursday night living for me in my later undergrad and grad school years. My sister lived in Columbus for most of this period, and every Thursday night, my sister, my girlfriend and I would get together, make dinner and watch The O.C.
It’s crazy how shows become part of your life. Sure, I have DVR now, but there are still shows I look forward to watching live. Josh Schwartz used to provide some entertainment on my Thursday nights, and now he’s got a show on my Monday night radar (along with Monday Night Football). I don’t feel as guilty about watching Chuck, so I need to thank Schwartz for that. Hopefully the next show will be some really manly show that I can confidently brag about watching. Probably not though.
Friday after work, I decided it was about that time. Time to get a haircut. Unlike some friends of mine, I really don’t like to spend much for a haircut, so I’m always looking for short lines at Great Clips, Fiesta, and Saturday’s. There’s actually a bit of a Bermuda Triangle with these three options all within a half mile of each other on Sawmill, near where I live.
So on Friday, I went to Great Clips. And when it was my turn, and the woman called my name, I thought everything was going to be fine. Everything seemed fairly normal with her. I’m actually always on the lookout for psycho haircutters, because I’ve had some less than stellar experiences with an employee at Saturday’s. But this woman seemed cool.
She asked me how I’d like my hair cut and then she started working the magic with the scissors and clippers. But it was awkwardly silent. So I decided to make an effort and talk. If you know me, you know I’m not exactly smooth in coversation. But I can’t take all the blame for this failed human to human communication.
Me: “So, do you have anything fun planned for the weekend?”
Miss Cutter: “This band I like is playing in Columbus, and they usually only play in my hometown.”
Me: “Oh ya? And where is your hometown?”
Miss Cutter: “It’s about an hour away, near Newark.”
Me: “So… do you live in Columbus now? You don’t drive an hour to work everyday do you?”
Miss Cutter: “No. I commute.”
Me: “Well that’s got to get expensive with the cost of gas now, right?”
A slightly offended Miss Cutter: “No.”
(Silence) (Silence) (Silence)
(6 minutes later)
Miss Cutter: “And, what are you doing this weekend?”
Call it a step towards managing my online brand. Call it an opportunity to get better at writing. Call it the result of frustrations mounting with another Tim Laubacher hogging the first page of Google.
Regardless of what you want to call it, I decided to start my own blog. Up to this point, I’ve done all of my online writing on our b&a blog. But sometimes I have thoughts that just might not relate to the focus of that blog.
I think I have plenty to say about advertising, or communication in general. I’m pretty opinionated about sports, so expect some sports talk. And probably more often than not, I’ll have something to say about something I find funny but most others don’t. So you’ve got that to look forward to.
Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. Wait. What’s that? There are no passengers on this ride yet? OK. That’s fine. I’m cool with that.
