High 5 Etiquette
Having Our Ideas Stolen By Pop Culture. (Finally!)
This is a great fun read from Jon Acuff over on Stuff Christians Like.
Despite being an early adopter of both Gavin DeGraw and Salt & Vinegar Pringles, people rarely call me a “visionary.” (Both of those things should be more famous by the way.)
No one looks at me as a shaper of culture, as a predictor of fads, as a trendsetter if you will. Until today. A few weeks ago I hinted at something that came to be. I joked about something that actually came to pass. I hate to exaggerate, but I kind of predicted the future.
How?
In a post I wrote on August 23, I asked the shoe company TOMS, if they would be OK if I “started a handkerchief company called, SMOT?”
I found the idea of starting a company so obviously inspired by TOMS to be humorous, dare I say rife with mirth. And I laughed, oh I laughed, until I saw the new shoe by Skechers. At first I thought they were teasing or pulling my leg or even joshing a little bit. But they are not. They recently developed a new shoe called “BOBS.”
Here is a photo of the BOBS:
Here is a photo of TOMS:
Not only do they look alike, but they have the same program of giving a pair of shoes to someone in need every time you buy one, just like TOMS does.
Now clearly, this raises some questions:
1. Would it have been worse, or better if Skechers had named them the “TIMS,” and only changed one letter?
2. If changing TOMS to BOBS becomes a trend, would it be odd if I became a Christian musician named, “Chris Boblin,” instead of Chris Tomlin? My first song will be titled, “How Greater is our God.”
3. For some reason, “TOMS” sounds like a playful kid you went to elementary school with, and “BOBS” sounds like a gentleman who owns an Astrovan and has a thick mustache. The name Bob doesn’t sound that way to me, but making it plural is weird, am I wrong?
4. Is it wrong to want to make an Office Space joke right here?
5. Is this an “ends justify the means,” conversation? Is the bigger issue that kids are getting shoes they need and what’s originality anyway? Nothing is original.
6. Should someone who ripped off the Stuff White People Like site to create this one really be poking someone else for lack of originality?
7. Is it weird that I’m happy that for once, pop culture is copying Christianity? All our years of turning “Got Milk?,” into “Got God?” or “Got Destiny?” have been absolved.
8. Is it possible that TOMS gave Skechers permission? Soles4Souls is the one running the program and I’ve heard good things about those dudes. Is this possibly all on the up and up?
9. If I made a running shoe called, “NOKES,” would Nike get all upset?
What’s your take? Huge flattery or imitation gone too far?
You in Team TOMS or Team BOBS?
The History of Rap With Justin & Jimmy
Justin Timberlake guested on Fallon’s late-night talk show on Wednesday, and eventually the conversation turned to their mutual love of hip-hop.
And then, it was on.
Accompanied by Fallon’s house band The Roots, Fallon and Timberlake took to the stage and ran through a virtual history of hip-hop, starting with the Sugar Hill Gang classic Rapper’s Delight before touching on The Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg and Eminem, among other rap luminaries.
Check out Jimmy and Justin getting their rap on in the video below.
Normally I will throw videos on the featured video site but this is worth getting special attention. Very humorous and both these guys are so talented no wonder this video is exploding on the web.
Shaq Vs. Kobe Vs. Lebron Vs. Jordan
Today is Monday which means that the amount of people reading this blog drop almost in half. Apparently you need to ramp up and overdose on coffee to get through these posts and they just don’t work on Monday. So with that being said I chose today to run my brief rant on the NBA, the playoffs, the championships and legacy’s left behind.
One of my “sports pet-peeves” is the fact that so many people compare Kobe Bryant and Lebron James.
Listen I get Lebron is coming into his own as one of the best players who ever played the game, but he is not there yet. He is exciting, sells tickets and knows how to win in the regular season. There lies the problem, he has not won in the post season. Yes he was rookie of the year and yes he has two MVP’s to his name, however, Kobe Bryant has one MVP to his name and 4 NBA championships. ”You play to win the game!” -shout out to Herm Edwards for that quote. Your greatness in sports is measured in championships. Yes I know that 3 of those came with Shaq as a teammate, but Shaq would not have had his 3 without Kobe. Jordan, who is still the best to play the game ever would not have won 6 without Scottie Pippen. It takes a team to win a championship. Individuals don’t win championships. Just ask Iverson, wait where is he again? (Maybe there was something to that whole practice thing.)
Anyways, the point is there is no comparison between Kobe and Lebron at this point of their careers. One day this discussion may take place but not now. Just as there should be no discussion between Kobe and Jordan, however, after this post season there may be room for that debate as well. So my rant is nearly over. Until James can win multiple championships he does not deserve to mentioned among greatness or to be called King James. Also please NBA, please quit giving out the MVP trophy until after the playoffs. How are you MVP watching at home?
What’s your thoughts? Note to Chuck, all hockey comments will be auto-deleted from this site immediately.
Drive Thru…Really?
I thought this would be a great post considering it is May 5, which is Cinco De Mayo…I’ll leave it at that. A couple weeks ago I traveled to Minerva, Ohio for a wedding and saw two things I have never seen before. 1. Was a town completely cut off from AT&T, which would be a huge reason why I could never live there because I really enjoy my iphone. 2. Was a drive thru beer and liquor store. Really? When I got back and shared that with people some thought it was normal but I had never seen one of those before.
I found it ironic that our national slogan with alcohol is “Don’t drink and drive” but when I saw the store my first thought was don’t drink and drive but drive to get your drink. I know there is nothing wrong with alcohol or liquor stores but a red flag popped into my head when you drive thru the liquor store. Here are a couple thoughts:
- Are we really that lazy that we can’t walk into a store to purchase what we need?
- I’m sure it’s no different than driving thru to get fast food or driving thru to get gas in Jersey or drive thru banking and car washes.
- What else can we make drive thru?
- How about drive thru haircuts or tanning?
- Drive thru child care drop off?
So for me I just found this very ironic and I wondered what other ironic venues are out there?
Caffeine Pills & Jaded Realities
Remember when life was easy? Remember when the choices you made didn’t effect as many people as they probably do today? Who remembers Saved By The Bell? Anybody who was alive from 1989-1993 would know about the show and their list of characters: Zack Morris, AC Slater, Screech Powers, Kelly Kapowski, Jesse Spano, Lisa Turtle and Mr. Belding. A show where every male wanted to be Zack and date Kelly and almost every teenager wished they had friendships like those and would have the opportunities they had. Every student wanted to attend Bayside High school and have a restaurant they could connect at called The Max. Every student wanted to have a summer job at the Malibu Sands Beach Club even if you had to deal with a boss like Leon Carosi.
One of the episodes is where Jesse has a problem with caffeine pills. I know what your thinking, can the audience handle a subject matter so intense? The truth is even though the episode blew way out of proportion the realities of caffeine pills it was addressing a bigger issue of drug use among teenagers. Granted Jesse took the equivalent of half a can of Mountain Dew and everyone over reacted. However I have this thought. To us looking back that seems like such a petty issue that seemed so small. We’ve all been in a situation where we took it over the top and really didn’t need to. I wonder though sometimes, do we minimize what others go through because it is really not that big of a deal for us. What if it is a huge deal for them and we come across that it is small and insignificant? What if others looked at our life and our problems and did nothing because it seemed so insignificant to them? Keeps it in perspective that every problem and issue is important to someone. Are they really important to you?
Saved by the bell – Im so scared
Hoarders, Cats & OCD
I was talking to a friend of mine Matt the other day and he knows about my love for cats and how I believe they are tools of Satan and come from the depths of hell. [For those of you who just stopped reading come back tomorrow because I will be back to a blog post that will benefit you more on a spiritual/leadership level.] For those of you still reading, have you ever seen the show Hoarders on A&E? There is a common theme that Matt brought to my attention on the show. Have you guessed what it is? You’ve got it all of the people on the show have cats. Now I am not making any assumptions. I am not trying to make any statements. I am simply stating an observation that was brought to my attention. I have a slight case of OCD where things have to be put back in place before I can start. My office has to be clean before I can start working. It’s something I deal with. I go into stores and fix the shelves just because it’s out of place. When you add in my OCD and my hate for cats then you can see the parallel that if you don’t want to be a pack rat then don’t have cats. I’m not saying that cats cause this problem. I’m not saying that cats drive their owners to the point of insanity that they can’t handle the basics of cleaning a house. Or that they drive their owners to such fear that they hold on to everything in fear that they will throw out the cat with the trash and garbage out of fear of not knowing the difference. So the next time you walk into a house that is packed and trash, ask them if you can see their cat.
Sorry if any of you are offended by this post. It is meant to be funny for all of us who are not cat lovers.
KFC, Seriously?
Dear KFC,
I wanted to tell you thank you for being such a progressive company. You saw that people were gaining weight due to your fried chicken so you went healthy with grilled chicken. What a great idea. Way to put the health of other people as a priority. You even led us to believe that you were changing the name of your company to Kentucky Grilled Chicken. Great marketing. But then, what is this that I see on the menu? The new Double Down Sandwich. 540 calories and 32 grams of fat. It’s not even a sandwich, it’s two pieces of chicken with bacon and cheese. About three weeks ago I probably would have had two of these but now I can’t bring myself to even stomach that. It reminds me a of a funny video clip from Dumb & Dumber where Loyd and Harry argue about a stupid decision. KFC even though I won’t eat this sandwich you totally redeemed yourself from the grilled chicken.
Money Back Guarantee
I see commercials that say this all the time but does that really make you buy something? By hearing that tag-line does that change everything for you and put you over the edge to make that purchase? I hear that and think, yeah, but I will still have to ship it back and pay for that if I don’t want it, which I never will so your guarantee really does not mean a lot. At the end of the sale all I have purchased is what you have marketed to me and it really may not be that good. There is a scene in the movie Tommy Boy where they talk about guarantees.
Tommy: Let’s think about this for a sec, Ted. Why would somebody put a guarantee on a box? Hmmm, very interesting.
Ted Nelson, Customer: Go on, I’m listening.
Tommy: Here’s the way I see it, Ted. Guy puts a fancy guarantee on a box ’cause he wants you to feel all warm and toasty inside.
Ted Nelson, Customer: Yeah, makes a man feel good.
Tommy: ‘Course it does. Why shouldn’t it? Ya figure you put that little box under your pillow at night, the Guarantee Fairy might come by and leave a quarter, am I right, Ted?
[chuckles until he sees that Ted is not laughing]
Ted Nelson, Customer: [impatiently] What’s your point?
Tommy: The point is, how do you know the fairy isn’t a crazy glue sniffer? “Building model airplanes” says the little fairy; well, we’re not buying it. He sneaks into your house once, that’s all it takes. The next thing you know, there’s money missing off the dresser, and your daughter’s knocked up. I seen it a hundred times.
Ted Nelson, Customer: But why do they put a guarantee on the box?
Tommy: Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of crap. That’s all it is, isn’t it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your customer’s sake, for your daughter’s sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality product from me.
Ted Nelson, Customer: [pause] Okay, I’ll buy from you.
Tommy: Well, that’s…
Tommy, Richard Hayden: …What?
Here is what I know. If something is what they say it is and it does what it says it’s going to do, it does not need a money back guarantee. A relationship with Christ never says money back guarantee, because it is authentic and real and changes people from the inside out. It does not market something that will not come to be or that is not true.
What about you and your life? Does it accurately model and represent who Christ is or should your life’s example offer a money back guarantee? Be authentic, be real, be transparent and show people the love of Christ by serving them unconditionally.
Dear Tech Support
I received this from a friend and I thought it was really funny. Maybe you will enjoy it as well.
INSTALLING A HUSBAND
Dear Tech Support ,
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0 . In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NBA 5.0 , NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1 . Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.
What can I do?
Signed,
Desperate
DEAR DESPERATE ,
First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an entertainment package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.
Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html, try to download Tears 6.2, and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If those applications work as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.
However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5 , Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1 . Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.
Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources .) In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 -program. This is an unsupported application and will crash Husband 1.0 .
In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly.. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend you try Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.
Good Luck!
