Life Without TV

I'm not a huge Phillies fan. Or even a Rays fan. But I really would have liked to have watched the World Series.

I would have liked to watch the Presidential debates.

I would have liked to watch the Bejing Olympics.

I would like to be watching The Office without having to pay $2.99 an episode downloaded to my iPod.

We're working on getting cable. Hopefully, we'll have it in time for the next big event. We'll at least have by January, for the main reason we have a TV.

My Midwest past and Alpine present have collided.

Ad created by Lowe in Zurich.  Click an image to enlarge. See credits here.

Thanks, Ro!

Special thanks to Roseanna Lee McKay, a talented graphic designer who just sent me an Alaska quarter for my collection.

Hawaii rolls into circulation on November 3rd. If anyone finds one, or has any suggestions for a new hobby once my collection is complete, I'd appreciate it.

Seattle, Switzerland

Phrenology

My creative director, Bob, has an interesting collection of artifacts in his office. One is a book on Phrenology, a defunct field of science that attempted to tie a person's character to the shape of his or her head. It is pseudo-science attempting to demonstrate superiority by showing that men have bigger heads than women, Caucasians have bigger heads than Africans or Native Americans, etc. The book, published in 1882, is racist, sexist, preposterous, and beautifully illustrated.

 

Beautiful, embossed cover. No Oprah Book Club logo, though.

SON: Dad, I've decided to become a doctor.

DAD: That's great, my boy! What field? Cardiology? Neuro-science?

SON: I'm really interested in phrenology...Where are you going?

Notice The Good Boy has a larger skull than The Bad Boy? Notice they both look like twits? 

Ever wondered where "cautiousness" or "hope" or "ideality" resided in your brain? Click to enlarge. (I didn't see a compartment marked "donuts.")

Comparisons of big skulls (good) and small skulls (bad). Yep. That's a big-skulled Joseph Smith in the lower right-hand corner.

Notice the guy in Fig. 12 - the Partial Idiot. That's either a backhanded compliment - "Oh, don't feel so bad. You're only a partial idiot." - or a real insult. "You're so dumb, you can't even get being an idiot right."

Moving Up

In my US-centric experience, when you have a family and a job, you only change homes to make them bigger and better. For example…

STARTING OUT: We began in a brownstone apartment in Chicago’s Bucktown.

MOVING UP: As our family grew, we moved to the suburbs.

• Rent became mortgage.
  
• Two bedrooms became three.
  
• One bathroom became 2.5.
  
• 800 square feet became 1900.
  
• The strip of dirt between the building and the curb became a yard.
  

BIGGER AND BETTER: Before we considered moving to Switzerland, we had our next house planned out.

• We wanted a basement.
  
• We wanted an extra bedroom.
  
• We wanted a laundry room, not just a laundry nook.
  
• We wanted a pantry, not just a cupboard.
  

INTERRUPTION: But when we moved to Geneva, we went back to living in an apartment and paying rent.

This is typical for expats. And I think the success and happiness of most expats is based largely on our ability to ignore the notion that this as a step backward.

palinaspresident.com

My friend, Steve Yee, works in the creative department of TBWA Chiat/Day in Los Angeles. Super talented, super nice guy.

He and a couple friends launched this website a week ago. It was a personal project, not funded or backed by anyone but themselves.

The first day it launched, it received 36,000 hits. That's without a press release. The next day, Steve woke to 500,000 hits and calls from CBS and CNN asking for an interview. Again, without a press release.

Some of you will love this and pass it along. Some of you will be infuriated and think my friend Steve’s an idiot. For me, that’s not the point.

What I’m in awe of is that they had fun creating something in their spare time for a cause they believe in. We’ve all got causes we feel strongly about. But how many of us try to create value for them?

Nice job, Steve.

Frozen

I learned today that my agency's holding company, WPP, has issued a world-wide hiring freeze. That affects over 2000 offices in 106 countries. Even jobs that have been offered but not accepted must be withdrawn.

At first I found this a little disconcerting. Not on a personal level, but more on a the-world-is-in-turmoil level. Also on a how's-my-401(k)-doing-? level.

But the more I think about it, the more I'm glad Sir Martin's taking proactive care of his own.