Sunday, sunday, in the office -- Yee ha!

We've got a big cat themed day going on here at the house of fun so I had to be here to oversee some grad students who working on that but also I project I gave them to help marketing to older potential customers.

The newest attraction isn't officially out yet. I think he will make his media debut tomorrow, so you get a sneak peek. He is a big boy and the resident bear is practically throwing herself at him. Like a typical guy, it is taking him some time to get the hint. About an hour before these pictures were taken, I think he is getting the idea. I can only imagine what parents might have had to say to young inquiring minds had the place been opened.

Check out the post-coital bliss.



















The things you see on the way to getting a Friday off.

Sometimes it's hard not to bring your work home with you. This is one of newest residents of the Rainforest and is disturbingly cute.
Say hi to Mochiba. He's a baby Howler Monkey.



About three weeks old. This is a good gig. I saw the new polar bear yesterday. 1000 pounds of bear is a lot of bear. Picts to come.

For lent, this lapsed catholic is giving up mortal combat, being nice to stupid people and any pretense of saving the Mets bullpen. I don't take the lenten season like gospel (pun intended), but it does sort of feel like a nice karmic rewind, kind of like new year's resolutions with some actual gravitas.

My own contribution was to go to Wegman's early yesterday morning and load up on enough Paczkis for everybody in the office. For $10.00 I think I improved my office karma. There is a drop dead gorgeous woman who works in the accounting office, who never seems to be having the best of days, who appeared in my office doorway with as close to a delighted look on her face as I've ever seen her. (I know what you are thinking but remember the axiom of "Fishing off the company pier.")

Had a tough time keeping a straight face through a couple of meetings yesterday. I love the show Entourage on HBO and last season Martin Landau was on, playing an aging out of touch producer. His reoccuring phrase was always something along the lines of "If___________, would that be something you would be interested in?" One of our new ads reps is that guy. He spent the first 30 minutes of a meeting pontificating about wines and what scotches are best, eventually moving on to direct mail. As he is talking, I had already mentally cast in him Martin Landau's role. It was uncanny. The other person in the meeting is an Entourage fan and thinking the same thing. It was like watching a doppleganger in action. She handed me a note and I could feel my face forming a tell-tale stupid smirk. He was a very nice man, but then he said it: "if I can get that price, would that be something you would be interested in?" My colleague had to excuse herself. It was too on the money, and I took the deal. Moral of the story is that Mr. Landau does his homework. And that I kept it together as my silly grin went no further until he left. The guy brought me a bottle of wine, so I got to work with some respect.

After that moment of high comedy, I got dragged into a presentation from an ad agency who is trolling for business and offered to do something for free. Never mind that we have an agency for media stuff and for creative things we have well, me. Good soldier that I am, I went along with the uberboss and my boss to listen to the high shenanigans. The agency creative director was already in my dog house. It is our second meeting and both times he has crapped all over concepts whose biggest sins were that he didn't think of them. They worked so there. The uberboss brings her dog to the office which is cool because the dog is a border collie and say hello to everybody, but spends her time behind a gate in the boss's office. That's where we met with these guys. Woman's best friend wanders the table during the meeting. I'm doing my best to be polite as the bosses ask some questions of the presentation. The creative director says something unkind toward our campaign from last fall (which worked). I hear something sounding like growling. It was coming from the dog. Turned out she was playing with a toy and trying to free it from the table, but she was snarling right under the director type, which scared the pompous right out of him. I couldn't help it, I laughed. Seeing a guy taller than me jump rather,well girlishly, from a dog that was paying him no mind at all, was comedy.

Finally, one last little vignette for you. In the aftermath of cleaning up the convention center from last week's benefit, one of the restaurants was headed out with one of the signs we printed up for them. To keep costs down, we recycle. The benefit in theory is put on by this board. The board men complain about the board women (who work) and none would do anything without the actual staff leading the way. Anyway this board member comes running up to me saying this restaurant was taking their sign. Keep in mind, this same dithering soul was stuffing his face all night long. I simply told him, ask for it back. Their staff wasn't anything to be afraid of. That didn't stop him from sounding alarmingly like Barney Fife at the prospect of actually talking to people. Annoyed, I went over and recovered the sign. Flash to last night and the review of the event. I earned more laughs, but probably his anger when talking about vendors, I took out the two stainless steel balls that (e:Ladycroft) bought for me two christmases ago and told the nebbish "You might need these more than I do for talking to vendors."

Reactions in the room were the perfect cherry on the cake that was my day.

There was a short lived British pop/ska group in the early 80s called The Specials. They had a couple songs on MTV and went the way most of those bands did shortly thereafter. One of the songs was "Ghost Town," the chorus of which was suddenly playing in my head as I went to a morning meeting in Niagara Falls.

The actual town has its own issues, but the tourist side looks especially forlorn without the tourists. With all the stuff being built across the border just reinforces the growing inferiority complex. My meeting was at the Conference Center, a very nice facility surrounded by the saddest Starbucks I ever passed, and an alley of closed windows. You look to the right and can look through the broken windows of the old Wintergarden and see the gleaming towers from the Canadian side. The place looks like the setting for a Tom Waits album cover shoot. I'm going to this thing around 9 and it made downtown Buffalo look populace for morning rush hour. Right across the way, is the casino with nothing in progress around that.

Interesting, half expected to hear tumbleweeds walking from my car.

What can I say? I work in a decent place for cute pictures. I found this one still in my camera from last week and thought I'd share. My offering estrip a nice warm fuzzy.

This is a cool gig to have a little extra access. Check it out.




Considering it was 5 degrees out when I took it, you can safely say she was just chillin'.

There I said it, and I don't regret it. Well, maybe a little.

Baby photos of cute animals. Works like a charm.



A nineteen day old baby giraffe named Melia charmed the socks of all three tv news organizations and our daily periodical. At a young age, she was walking within an hour of birth and was quite taken with the attention from the tv cameras.

It's a good day when you can tell your boss that you are helping the Giraffes meet the media with a straight face and be taken seriously.

I'm thinkin' and my head hurts...

Had a day off from well, everything, on sunday and I think it was just odd enough that I'm just out of whack in general. The surreality culminated in running three different photo shoots at work. One was a photo shoot for the hostess of a kids tv show produced out of Fredonia. One was a tv segment for local cable that was in and out in 45 minutes. The biggie was a thing that might wind up on the Discovery Channel. Everybody on that crew was local, except the director. He was an out of towner who was gracious enough to buy lunch. The host and I went into the project with one set of expections and things grew and grew, with a four project stretching into hour nine by the time it was all over.

Playing traffic cop had its moments. The big cable crew had a lot of nice toys including $60,000 in hd equipment that I was scared to touch. By the time the snow started to fall around 4 by the river otters, the glamour was off. The otters however thought the boom mic was a treat instead of the worst pinata ever.

That stuff leaves everybody whipped and grumpy. An associate and I were marooned till close to 7. Not that big a deal, but after 11 hours together, the closing of the car door is not the worst sound in the world.

The 2 guinness' with dinner made life grand, but today started mighty soon. I'm working on an advil stupor as getting out of the car left me with a bruise on hip. The only real damage is to what's left of my dignity. With all the freezing rain and what not, things are little frozen. Nothing had come through the section of the park where I usually abandon my car. Got there, opened the door and promptly slipped, hipchecking my car door way on the way down. The "fun" of making tv yesterday reduced me to a Sabres watching mess on my couch last night, skipping yoga and with a bruised hip, I ain't feeling tonight, but I'll probably suck it up. Can't fall behind.

That is unless my insurance company induced headache doesn't clear. The kids are currenly under my ex insurance only as mine barely covers me very well. When I was still in the throes of cabledom, we had them covered by both employers. This is a fine plan, because it leaves nothing to chance except the complete and utter incompentency of billing department staffs in the respective medical practices. They solve the policy process by billing the parent's acct by when in the calendar year each parent's birthday falls. With my February date, my policy came up first. Inevitably, they fuck that up, but I digress. Apparently, the dental folks I had with the cable kingdom never sent any cessation letter, so the current carrier thought we were double dipping. So, you can imagine the series of emails, phone calls, and what not, compounded by my frustration at people reading some of what I am addressing so you get to say it twice. I am certain that this is why prices are insane.

Reason why you shouldn't take too long writing a journal: My dad sent me a note (so he could talk to me and my sisters at the same time) that his brother passed away last night. I didn't really know him that well. He was roughly 8 years older than my dad and lived in and around Jersey for as long as I remember. So, it feels a little weird. I'm sad for my dad a little bit, but I think he is a little relieved. My uncle had both a really bad run with Parkinsons and a number of strokes that have left him existing a lot more than living. So, it's one of those you're not sure what to feel. Lord knows I've been through enough services within the past 12 months, and you're relieved that you don't have to participate in this one, I feel like there is something I should be doing, writing, whatever, but I guess a nice letter to my aunt will suffice. Strange how that all can work.

I'm taking anither aspirin

I'm getting too old for this shit...

Been doing Bikram Yoga for two weeks and while I'm not all amped to go (not exactly oozing confidence in my abilities yet), I've been keeping myself on a schedule. It's sort of my own way of being the grumpy gym coach you hate.

We have one of the last events of the year this weekend at the Zoo. Trick or Treating on Zoo grounds, which is fine, but to set up it's the marketing and development folks (my merry band) who decorate, set up tables, generally acting like something between roadies and packmules. So, you work, which is fine, but in still getting used to the Hot Yoga fun, I was a little strung out when I got to work yesterday morning from my Tuesday night class. We started running all over, stopping for me and boss to have one of "those" talks with a subordinate. So, when I left work, didn't want to go, didn't want to go, didn't want to go. But, made my lard butt go. I'm still crawling out of there, but I'm noticing good things and it did feel pretty good to forgot about the sundry bullshit that fills a work day. Maybe there is something to that. Made me not look forward to more set up today, but what are you gonna do.

Trick or treat indeed.

Gonna go watch the keepers feed the anaconda!

Every once in awhile, I miss my compadres at Adelphia, but this weekend was not one of them. The slapfight between Lin Broadcasting (Ch. 4's owner) and Time Warner assured that the people who do the real work would be taking the brunt of the frustration from the people caught in the middle...us customers. This might sound like apologizing or ass kissin, but it isn't. Lord knows both can be greedy pigs, but Time Warner is in the right this time. From my former life, I can tell you that the local stations in a area have agreements with the cable, satellite, and Fios guys for carriage. There is actually a lawsuit waged by local tv stations to get on a given system. Now Lin TV wants paid, for something they really aren't entitled to. My experience with this is when Fox 29 was at the end of its deal with Dish Network and ran on screen crawls encouraging everybody to go get cable. Every station is a little fickle. You dance with who you have at a given moment.

Lin TV owns 12 stations in markets mostly around the great lakes. When Fox 29 came to the end of their agreement almost two years ago, they let TW keep showing them while the negotiations kept going. 29's parents had a lot at stake. The same firm owns NBC in LA.
Lin decided to cut off Buffalo, but the local station that shows the Packers to Green Bay (that had to be ugly) as well as their other markets. If I am an advertiser (like I am now), I'm pissed because they just took over 330,000 out of the loop because they felt like it. If I'm a paying cable customer (like I am now), I'm miffed because there are two channels doing nothing, yet I'm stuck paying for them.

While they talk, it would behoove Lin to put the channels back up. Both sides are going to take a beating for their stances, but Lin has a chance to actively be a "good guy" and place their signals back on.

I guess my point is that moving to Dish, Verizon, etc doesn't insulate you from such foolishness as they have to work with broadcasters under similar agreements. I'm not saying that because I used to be there or that my former Amherst office had a thousand people waiting for antenna on Saturday, but in the battle of overstuffed corporate entities, Lin is the one who could lose this time and throw the switch to put their signal on.

I can appreciate taking a stand, but perhaps there was a better way of digging in their heels.

I WILL NOT complain about my job,


EVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!