Someone has posted the first Minneapolis YellowArrow. In my neighborhood of Prospect Park there is a grass maze at the corner of Franklin and Bedford. When the snow melts I'll have to go over and slap up the city's second YellowArrow....
Today at lunch a former student (from a class taught 5 years ago) approached me to say hello. Later on this afternoon another former student will be talking about Hip Hop in one of my current classes. He's in a group called Purest Form; check 'em out!
Last week something unusual happened on The Hi (Minneapolis' light rail train): the police removed an abandoned mountain bike and bookbag. I must admit, when the officer rummaged around in the bag I got nervous: "what if the bag was intentionally left and will release some kind of toxin when touched!?" One of the episodes of the CBS show Numb3rs contained a storyline of a mad scientist releasing a virus on a public bus. Maybe I need to quit watching that show...
Happy Quirkyalone Day! Don't know what this is (and/or overwhelmed by media coverage of today's other holiday)? Click the link.
One of my students told me about a site that has most of the Super Bowl ads posted: Milk and Cookies. Back in the late 90s and early 00s I frequently visited Ad Critic to see ads from a wide variety of sources (including the Super Bowl), but now they demand a $100/year membership to view them. Frell that!
Although my team lost the Super Bowl game I enjoyed yesterday's unofficial national holiday, as the Super Bowl ads were good...well, at least they were definitely better than the ones in last year's Ad Bowl. Topping my list were the entries from Ameriquest Mortgage: their "Don't Judge Too Quickly" spots contained a nice social message to go along with laughs. A bonus to the second spot (cat spoils dinner by knocking over spaghetti sauce) was the appearance of the "Wanna Get Away?" woman from the Sun Country Airline ads, you know, the Sista who walks into an airport men's restroom by mistake. That Brotha was in for a loooong night alone on the sofa....
USA Today conducted its 17th annual Ad Meter survey to rate the public's reactions to the Super Bowl commercials. Normally my favorites are not in the Top 10 most popular ads, but this year they are. Hhhmmmm.
A couple of weeks ago I talked about my most recent "Sneak-In Double Feature," where one buys a ticket to see a movie and then slips into a second at the conclusion of the first. Here is my guide to successfully sneaking into movies:
I do not recommend a Sneak-In Triple Feature, however. I did that once in San Francisco, in the summer of 2002 (at the Van Ness 1000, seeing Star Wars Episode II, Halloween: Resurrection, and The Bourne Identity). After 6 hours in darkened rooms I stumbled around outside in the sun for 20 minutes or so. Not fun, believe me.