MY office mates are being weird about the big lottery drawing tonight, we've been pitching in and buying tickets, but they're going on like we have a reasonable shot of winning.

There's a great TAL piece about that, about the cast and crew of Riverdance. Check it out!

Has a television commercial (or series of commercials) ever been turned into a TV show before?

Maybe the California Raisins?

Would depend on the writing and charm of the cast I suppose. It doesn't seem likely to be must see tv for me.

I think the show should have wacky downstairs neighbors. Like there's an apartment with Jesus, Elvis and Hitler as roommates.

Here's that TAL show: [link]

Oh! And I'm glad you liked the Porter. It's one of my favorites, along with the Rye IPA we've just started drinking.

I hate the caveman ads too.

Oopsie.

Michael Duplessis loves Chicago so much that he wanted its nickname tattooed on his chest.

But the idea went terribly awry in a North Side tattoo parlor: He left with the word "CHI-TONW" inked into his skin where "CHI-TOWN" should have been.

Now Duplessis is suing the business and the tattoo artist for monetary damages in the 2005 mess after suffering what he says in his lawsuit was "emotional distress from public ridicule."

"It was so embarrassing," Duplessis, 40, said Thursday from his home on the Northwest Side. "It was on my chest, and it was spelled wrong. I had to deal with all the people teasing me about it."

[link]

Haven't seen the ads, but a friend works for geico and sent this link to Caveman's Crib. It cracked me up...and she says the entire project was produced by geico employees on their off time. Impressive.

Is TWOP down? If so, is it American Idol related?

I don't know, but last week I tried to get in at about 10 pm-- big mistake! I don't think it's AI as much as it is the confluence of Survivor, AI, CSI, Supernatural, Ugly Betty, The Office....I wonder how much other AI fans are like me and simply don't tune in to the Thursday show because there's so much else on.

Speaking of which, seriously people: 30 Rock was grrreat last night. I AM Liz Lemon.

My commute was a joke this morning. Or a nightmare. I thought I might actually never get out of the subway.

It makes me laugh that rain completely shuts the damn train down. When I came in the station this morning the downtown express was on its way uptown and the extremely crowded local had no plans to move from the station. At Chambers there was a closed up local just sitting there on the tracks.

damn, I hate that caveman ad series.

Oh, I really dig it: first, how the actor they've got can actually express through that makeup-- it wasn't until I started seeing a lot of commercial actors perform around New York that I realized how talented a lot of these people are, to express a lot in a single look. Second, how the structure allows them to have a funny joke unrelated to the storyline that closes each commercial with a nice bang (like "I'll have the roast duck with the mango salsa" "looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the rock" and "it's my mom, I'll put her on speaker."). Third, how the commercials are memorable and communicate exactly the advertiser's message in about fifeen seconds. For the recent "party" one I was stunned at how many plot points they crammed into about ten lines.

Uh, Bob and I spend too much time talking about these commercials.

What are the chances of the actors in the ads getting cast in the series? Sometimes I look at commercial actors (and even moreso at stock photography models and the ones you see in scenes on the cover of Network Computing et al.) and think "There's someone else that'll never be famous."

Evangeline Lilly is noted for making the transition, but in the past five years or so I more expect TV stars to be moonlighting. Which reminds me--very irritating to see State Farm ads with Dennis Haysbert during The Unit. Messes with the show for me.

very irritating to see State Farm ads with Dennis Haysbert during The Unit. Messes with the show for me.

It causes a fair amount of whiplash. First he's crashing some military truck and shooting holes in it, then he's offering me insurance if I crash mine! Sheesh.