Doug Dances

The theme for one of the napkin drawing series last night was "Doug Dances." I'll leave it up to you to connect the dots. The top one is mine and the bottom one is Meshell's.
Doug-Dances

Am I puking a rainbow?

Find the Stuff

See if you can find the stuff in this napkin drawing by Meshell.


The Stuff:
Hamburger
Wine Bottle
Mouse
Ear of Corn
Fish
Banana
Heart
Star
Waldo
Buttered Toast
Bat
The Finger
Boobs
Butterfly
Hotdog

Hillary's last ditch fund raising plan

Greg Scores

Greg is good at soccer. He's no prodigy, but gosh darn it he's got some natural talent.

“Senior General Than Shweie, you're doing a heck of a job!"

In the midst of disaster, it is good to see that the United States’ President is concerned about the welfare of the people in Myanmar. While preparing for his daughter’s wedding and fighting terrorism, George W Bush has taken time out of his busy schedule to comment on the handling of the disaster in ex-Burma:

President Bush stated, “Senior General Than Shweie, you're doing a heck of a job!"

The Yodeler

Today, I got an e-mail from my friend Meghan with the subject: "Bad Boy. "Thinking it was porn, I immediately opened it up. It read, "what the heck are you doing! i say, bad Doug, bad!"

This was the attached photo:


A photo of me, peeing on a sheet of cardboard? Once I got over the initial disappointment that it was not porn, I took a closer look and noticed that this was no ordinary sheet of cardboard! This was a cardboard mock up of "The Yodeler" exhibit. It was a interactive health exhibit, based on the Cliff Hangers game from The Price is Right. Instead of dollars, each tick was a gram of fat. Guests would cycle through a day of meals and choose foods that would usually eat.


After each meal, the yodeler would go up the cliff the number of fat grams your selected meal had. If you picked over 72 grams of fat... over the edge fatty!

Here's the final exhibit:


If there were an award for health exhibits based on The Price Is Right games, this would at least get second place.

I'm not sure if it was Meghan's intent, but I spent a while reminiscing about the design, fabrication and installation of this exhibit. Those were very, very good times.

Located within the Health Royale Gallery at the The Clay Center
Concept, Design and Graphics by Roto Studio
Engineering and Beautiful Mountain by LifeFormations

Save the Day - Star Wars



I knew I had seen that photo somewhere!

Save the Day photo via - http://badcontrol.com/?p=805.
Star Wars photo used without permission though Wikipedia references Star Wars and so I'm sure it's perfectly legal.

Apples downgraded to "other" status

I buy juice and in the past, I have been tricked. Our family enjoys the taste comforts of cranberry juice and usually we buy it mixed with grape or apple. On occasion, I have been tricked into purchasing "cranberry juice cocktail" which is a portion of cranberry juice and a lot of high fructose corn syrup.

Now I know to look for the 100% juice label:


This week, I purchased the Kroger Brand Cranberry Grape containing 100% juice. Because the Cranberry came first in the name on the label, I assumed that it was the most popular juice in the bottle. Grape would obviously be in second.


When I got home, I noticed the very lengthy description on the label. It seems that there is a BONUS "1 other fruit juice" blended in!


What could this BONUS fruit be? It would have to be something tropical like Guava or maybe something exotic like Mangosteen!! And it would have to be a small portion of juice since the name of unsaid juice isn't on the label. Let's look at the Ingredients!


Apple? Not only is apple the "other fruit" but it is also the second highest portion right after grape. The drink should be called Grape Apple Cranberry Juice.

I felt like complaining to Kroger for their trickery, but then I took another look at the label and realized that the poor apple, the food staple from our youth that came in both box and foil bag, has been down graded to "other" status.

Kroger's whip smart marketing team believes that if you put the word "apple" on the label, people will not buy the juice because they believe it is a second class juice! This is an outrage! The apple has stood by us year after year and its deeds should be recognized, not shunned to "other" status. Apple should be written in BOLD letters on the label! We should highlight it and add bright flashing lights around this word Apple that Kroger fears. Let us hold up apple to the status it deserves!

And this way, when I am trying to buy just Grape Cranberry juice, I will know to avoid the one with the large bold letters and flashing lights.

Erik Eats: Pucca Chocolate – Succulent aquatic holy crunch which pleasure chew magnify

After suffering from two weeks of gut wrenching food poisoning, Erik is back with a delightfully cute and fun snack called Pucca Chocolate. Will this fun loving snack trick us back to the hospital?

The snacks seem to be fish and squid shaped with a chocolate blood center. It looks like some of them were killed with a very small caliber bullet. If we find a small piece of metal in the center, we’ll know.


pucca front CU of hole fish

Here's the top of the package. Look! They are "NEW!"
top of bax

And the bottom with expiration date. Ouch... not so new. They expire in May of 2008. Luckily we are on the Godfearing side of the international date line and we have a few hours to polish them off.
expiration date

On the back of the package is... what the hell? Is this some kind of puzzle?
puff

It is! Here is the translation of the clue:
puff-clues-translation

Using a decoder ring and the fumes from a few cans of Sterno, we are able to figure out the clues and decode the SUPER SECRET MYSTERY PUZZLE OF WORDS!
quiz-answer

By now, Erik is high on Sterno fumes and giddy with hunger.
erik opens

A pull and a tug and a rip and a tear.
erik opens (1)

A foil pack inside!
erik opens (7)

A-ha! The package within a package reveals...
on table

...fish and squid crackers. With a whole lot of holes! Each cracker, be it squid or fish, shall have a hole and the number of holes shall be one. I assume that is how they fill the crackers with chocolaty blood goodness. But let's be sure...

A hammer blow should reveal the innards!

hammer

Whack!
crushed

Erik is too strong! The fish is smashed beyond recognition. Instead will try a sharp object. (Note: Photo was blurred to protect the viewer from seeing the blood squirting from Erik's fingers on his eighth attempt to cut a round, slippery fish cracker in half.)
cut1

Here is the insides of the fish:
cut 2

I'm starting to think that the hole is used to blow air inside the fish to ensure that as much chocolate as possible is forced out.

Before we could eat any of the fish, Stephanie had an idea.
choco 035

"Let's put the fish in it's natural habitat and see if it comes to life!"

So we got a container of water,
water

dropped the fish in,
water 2 put in

watched it float,
water 3 float

watched it get soggy,
water 5 really soggy

watched it sink after twenty minutes,
water 6 at bottom

then pulled it out and tossed the gross soggy bit to leave the chocolate center behind.
water 7 insides choco

We realized that was a complete waste of time and begged Erik to eat the fish.
chew
chew (1)
chew (2)

chew (3)

He likes it!!!

Next week, we'll travel to Egypt and see what American foods taste like overseas when they are made in America, shipped overseas, purchased at an airport and then flown home to be digested.

White Queen and the Black Knight

We recently ordered in about thirty carpet samples from our supplier. While I was away at meetings, my VP took six of them and lined them up in front of her office door.


When I came back, I thought the squares looked chess boardy laying there on the floor. While she was gone, I added and White Queen and the Black Knight to the board.


I arranged the queen at her office door to represent her and the black knight to represent me. I wanted to give her a sense of dread and looming certainty that I would soon be taking over her spot and knocking her out of the game!

When I came back later, she had made a move! (I wasn't expecting that. I had taped the pieces to the board. There was only supposed to be looming certainty...)


I made a futile move.


And then she crushed me all while landing right back in her original office space.


I should know better.

(Nice shoes! The queen knows her shoes!)

Feazel Roofing takes the high road

Monday, June 16, 2008

To the administrator and readers of holyjuan.com and consumerist.com, and whomever else it concerns:

From our headquarters in Westerville, Feazel Roofing Company has been a leader in the roofing business in Greater Columbus for over 20 years. Great service to our clients has built this company, and keeping our entire team focused on that, everyday, will be one of the keys to our future growth and success.

Of course we provide full roof replacement services when necessary, but our company is very much focused on the service and maintenance of existing roof systems. We believe that this is a unique approach to this industry, because many contractors might try to recommend a more expensive roof replacement before it is necessary. However, we have found that with consistent maintenance and preventative care, a well-designed roof system can last much longer then expected.

In regards to the recent Blog post concerning the March 3rd direct mail marketing piece that you received, let me start by saying that I strongly agree with many of your opinions. I must admit, you’re not the only person which it upset, as I received a few other calls with the same concerns. The original marketing piece in question was designed by a 3rd party direct mail company. Fortunately, the letter was only sent as a test to a small group of individuals. While the language in this marketing piece was quite strong, the main message was supposed to be this, and these are quite verifiable facts: CertainTeed Corporation is the defendant in multiple class action lawsuits currently in process in 16 states (including Ohio), and further litigation pending in 8 other states and Canada. The lawsuits cover several different brand names of shingles manufactured since 1987, all of which have demonstrated premature curling, cracking, or de-granulation.

Here is a simple explanation of the CertainTeed Legal activity: http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/features/certainteed-shingles.html

I paid an ad agency to write the letter because I didn’t know the best way to go about educating homeowners on this issue. Obviously, the real message got lost in “sales language” – the piece went way overboard, and I should not have allowed it. Therefore, it was my mistake, and I sincerely apologize.

We do offer free preliminary estimates for all services that our company performs, including repair and replacement. However, we also charge a $179 fee for a full roof inspection. This is a more detailed and time-consuming written report, which may include pictures of any damages found, detailed measurements and multiple courses of action to remedy any concerns. We also offer this service to business partners in the Home Inspection and Real Estate industries. Our inspection pricing is very much in line with what other companies of our size charge for this service, but we always rebate the fee if any work is found during our inspection, which we do find some about half of the time.

We were offering a discounted fee of $49 for a limited time, thinking that we could perform numerous inspections in one area, saving on gas and drive time. This aspect was my idea, not the marketing company who wrote the letter.

Everything else you stated on your original Blog Post is accurate for 99% of the cases we come across with defective shingles. 100% of the CertainTeed Horizon shingles installed were defective, and are installed on thousands of homes in Central Ohio. If your shingles are defective, your home will not collapse overnight, and more often than not, water isn’t currently entering the home. However, we have had more than a handful of cases in which water has entered walls just a few years after installation, causing mold growth and other severe interior damage.

For anyone who would happen to read this who knows that they have a CertainTeed shingle installed on their home, I suggest contacting an attorney. The law firm’s website I’ve been referring homeowners to is www.halunenlaw.com but there are numerous others working on this case which can be found if you search “CertainTeed class action” in your favorite internet browser.

I would like to close by saying again that I apologize for allowing this type of “scare tactic marketing” to be sent from my company. However, I also want to state that we will continue to educate the marketplace on this issue. The shingle manufactures don’t send out a recall letter (like you might get from an auto manufacturer). Left unaddressed, problems may arise, and in some cases the problems can become catastrophic if not found in time.



Sincerely,

Mike Feazel, President
Feazel Roofing Company, Inc.


{Author's note: I am satisfied with the response that I received from Feazel Roofing concerning an advertisement they recently sent out in the mail. I believe the letter to be sincere and consider the matter closed.

Because of the integrity they showed and the way in which our discussions concerning my issues were held, I am removing both posts because even though I might be satisfied with the reply from Feazel Roofing, the internet is not so forgiving.

I may be kicked out of the internet for these actions, but sometimes the right thing to do isn't the most popular.}


HJ