Fake Stats.

Life has gotten crazy. With the interwebs and all the fake news and whatnot, it’s hard to know WHAT to believe anymore. So I assembled these little-known Fun Facts for your enjoyment They are, without a doubt, 100% made-up and fake, straight outta my twisted little noggin’. But feel free to share them as if they were bona-fide, completely accurate, vetted pieces of knowledge.  You’re welcome.

 

Popeye the Sailor Man was loosely based on Norman Keith Collins, aka “Sailor Jerry.” Hence the anchor tattoo on his forearm and the ever-present pipe.

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“Ughugugugug…can ye cover up that portrait of me ex? Olive cants stands that whore, and it’s erfectin me loves life!”

 

 

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is dangerously close to bankruptcy and is undergoing a serious financial restructuring of his business enterprises and holdings, including the Cowboys. The alleged reason for these financial troubles is rather recent: Jones was convinced that the “fidget spinner” craze was here to stay, and spent billions acquiring not only eight fidget-spinner manufacturing sites in Southeast Asia, but several inline skate/skateboard bearing manufacturers stateside, hoping to not only corner the spinner market but to be prepared “when rollerblading comes back big-time.”

 

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Like, any second now.

 

 

The flavor we humans taste when eating coconut is completely imaginary. The human tongue lacks the receptors required to correctly process the tropical fruit-nut-seed’s taste. Scientists believe this is because coconuts are actually terribly toxic, unless they are mixed with rum or lime/other citrus flavors. (BONUS fun fact: this lime/coconut elixir is the basis for the popular song. Europeans first traveling to Papua/New Guinea became violently ill from eating raw coconut, until the local shaman or “witch doctor” mixed lime juice with coconut milk to create a cure. Then everyone got drunk.)

 

 

There are actually only seven planets in our solar system. The rest are simply light reflecting off of asteroids and cosmic dust.

 

 

One out of every ten Spree candies is actually a button that fell off someone’s shirt on the assembly line.

 

 

If you were to place the cast of Big Bang Theory underwater, without any supply of oxygen, and left them indefinitely, nobody would really have a problem with it.

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Well, hi there, Sheldon!

 

 

Men over 40 years of age spend up to fifteen minutes out of each day running a finger over the outside of their ear and muttering “…the hell is that? A hair?”

 

 

Ancient Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes would often blurt out “I love cheese!” for seemingly no reason (although many modern scholars believe he suffered from a form of Tourette’s Syndrome). This phrase was incorrectly translated over the years, so that it eventually became widely accepted that his exclamation was actually “Eureka!”

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“Goddammit, can’t calculate right now…thinkin’ ’bout dat stanky CHEESE!”

What I Did Last Summer

Everything. I did everything last summer. Want to know why I haven’t touched this blog in forever? Because I was doing everything.

Let’s rewind a bit. I began the summer chugging along professionally in a pretty sweet gig as copywriter/digital content specialist for Asher Agency. To sum that position up: I would come up with ideas for commercial campaigns. TV, radio, digital, print, whatever mediums we were going to use, and then the message or thought behind said concept. From there, I’d work with the other creative team members to shape it up into something that made sense and looked great, and we’d produce it. I’d cast actors, guide the graphic artists, write the actual “copy” or words (spoken by actors or printed on billboards, etc.), get it all produced, and then we’d throw it all out there into the world. The process is truly a satisfying experience, watching your ideas come to life, even if only for thirty seconds at a time or on a clickable strip of banner on someone’s website.

I must’ve been fairly decent at this, because I started getting nibbles. People inquiring as to my future plans. Recruiters asking “Hey, how happy are you at Asher?” Finally, an old compatriot called me up and basically offered me his job as creative director. He described the position to me thusly: “you’ll come up with ideas for commercial campaigns. TV, radio, digital, print, whatever mediums we were going to use, and then the message or thought behind it. From there, you’ll work with the other creative team members to shape it up into something that made sense and looked great, and we’ll produce it. Cast actors, guide the graphic artists, write the actual “copy” and then throw ‘it all out there into the world.”

Huh. So, of course I took it. A corner office with windows? A bunch of new business cards? Hells yes. So I took a new position doing pretty much what I did at Asher, only with more perks and a nifty title. So that was cool.

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Plus, I mean…a place to hang an old Robert August promo flyer (autographed!) and prop my Scottish claymore against a vintage photo of Fred Toenges?! SIGN MY ASS UP!!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

 

My wife and I also decided to sell our house. We had lived, with our two boys (Simon is 12, Rhys is almost 9) in a nice, old (built in 1920) home in the Oakdale Neighborhood in Ft. Wayne. Tree-lined streets, gorgeous old houses…and very narrow, busy streets. No back yard to speak of. Or front yard, for that matter. In other words, charming as all hell but not conducive to bike riding or football tossing or anything else that growing young men want to engage in. So, when the market heated up, Heidi and I jumped at the chance, trading the urban pulse of the ’07 for the serene spaciousness of the ’15. It was a long, hectic process, selling the old house. Folks can be very particular and selective, even in a sellers’ market. It was stressful, especially since we purchased our new (current) home before we’d sold the old one. But in the end we persevered, chalking up another adventure on the Watson Family history. (An adventure that yielded a three-car garage and the chance to hang hockey equipment up without carting it all to the basement after every practice or game.)

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Basically from this…

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…to this.

BUT YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!

 

Actually, that’s not accurate. The “next” part. That’s not how this timeline played out. Sorry. I strive for realism, and that’s…that’s misleading. Clickbait nonsense. No, this is actually something that’s been simmering along for a while now, but in addition to my role(s) at a couple of different ad agencies this year, I had the opportunity to write for a fun, exciting new enterprise. The minds at Bound Publishing have come up with a mobile-specific reader, and are releasing serialized stories on it. One of the cool features of the Bound app (learn more here or find them in the iTunes store) is the ability to expand on the story via sourcebook entries, diary passages, bits of propaganda, etc. from the story universe. If you’ve ever seen the Star Wars sourcebook or any of the supplemental Lord of the Rings or Song of Ice and Fire materials, imagine being able to have those open to cross-reference whilst reading the novels or watching the movies. “Oh! The model that Luke is playing with is an actual Incom T-16…and later, during the Death Star briefing, he talks about bulls-eyeing womp rats in it! I always wondered what the T-16 looked like!” Well, the Bound platform is like that, with all sorts of artwork and specific expanded entries, and I was asked to write the sourcebook materials for a science fiction space epic called Purgatorio. Go get the app and download it and let me know what you think. It’s been a great experience, and the Bound guys have given me all sorts of latitude. It’s been pleasant and rewarding, in a very different way than the advertising life.

http://www.getbound.io

A mobile-based work of expanded fiction, based on a mobile-based FPS game. Welcome to the future, kids.

So a very full summer now gives way to a hectic fall, because, as many of you know, we’re at the cusp of hockey season. And I live with a hockey family. Both kids play, Heidi is a team manager for one kid’s team, treasurer for the other, and I coach the boys and play in my own ASHL beer league every Sunday. From now until April. And it’s awesome. And we wouldn’t change this life for anything. Which leads me to my other big news…

 

WHICH WILL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL NEXT TIME!!

 

Seriously, I can’t talk about it, but it’s pretty rad. Talk to you later.