The Everywhereist

The other day we were hanging out with some friends – some American, some not, and we realized that none of us were really sure what countries are included in the phrase “United Kingdom”. Nor did we know what’s a part of “Great Britain.” England, we pretty much figured out (they’re those wussy guys who tried to tax us, right?).

The point is, along with which colors indicates positive and negative charges on a pair of jumper cables, these are things that we all should probably know, but don’t (For the record, red is positive and black is negative). I figured it was best to set the record straight (for myself and others) before we actually head out Glasgow and London next week. So while our British reader (Hi, Will!) sits back and cringes, the rest of you should pay attention, because we might all learn something. (more…)

A few months ago, we went to London so Rand could get some work done, and I could roam around the city and do fuck-all.

My life is good.

Our lovely friend Ben was with us, as he works with Rand, and their London colleagues needed him to reach things on the top shelf. No, wait. That wasn’t it. No. They needed Ben to provide the sort of unique and brilliant insight only he can offer. Besides that, he is very tall. Behold:

The title of this photo is "Tiny Everywhereist, Tall Ben"

Okay, fine, so maybe, just maybe, I’m crouching in the above photo for dramatic effect. Ben isn’t quite that tall, but when you see the real photo of me standing next to him, it isn’t that dramatically different:

I like how he's looking down at me, somewhat bemused. "HOW'S THE WEATHER DOWN THERE? HA HA HA HA."

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This past Christmas, I was down in California, on the front lines of the ongoing war that takes place amongst my family members. It’s been happening for years, punctuated by little battles every time enough of us get together.

We’re all participants, though many of us don’t know it. We become casualties as a result of some slip up in our actions, often without realizing what we’ve done.

We might put parmesan on seafood pasta (as my brother did one year, which elicited a gasp from my aunt), or we might make our lasagna with ricotta instead of bechamel sauce. I was guilty of the latter several years ago. It was the night before my Uncle Walter’s funeral, and Rand and I had stayed up late making lasagna. I was too tired to make bechamel, and I didn’t really know how, so I used ricotta. When we arrived at my mother’s the next day, two huge pans of lasagna in tow, my aunt and mom nodded approvingly. (more…)

Dear Carl’s Junior,

We live in a melting pot. Did you know that? I swear, it’s true. I have friends from every part of the world. It’s awesome. They teach me things all the time (like that in England, “Friends” is considered funny!). And they have adorable children. Here we are at our wedding with some of our world-savvy friends:

That right, kids - I've made you poster children for multi-cultural awesomeness.

Their daughter is friggin amazing, and fluent in Japanese and English. She’s wonderful, and I’m not just saying that because her dad is one of the four readers of my blog (Hi, assface Philip!). They also blog about their adventures with their super-cute kid, which I suggest you check out). (more…)

Branding is everything.

Whenever anyone disputes this point, my husband brings up Altria. They saw a jump in investors when they stopped calling themselves Philip Morris. Altria sounds new and youthful. Philip Morris sounds like a hacking cough.

So while I was impressed with some of the copywriting I saw in the U.K., as well as the food, their cuisine needs a bit of rebrand. Let’s take a look a few examples from our lovely day in Brighton …

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Pickled Eggs

Ewwww .... and also, ewwwww.

This might be the one instance in the history of time where “devil” is a preferable word to “pickle”. Even “brined eggs” might have been preferred here. But “pickled eggs”? No no no. Combining two things you find in most people’s refrigerators, and then NOT REFRIGERATING THEM is a very bad idea. With a better name they might be … ah, hell. Who am I kidding? The name doesn’t matter at this point. Just don’t eat these unless you want Botulism. (more…)

Ladies and Gentleman, when I’m not doing a half-assed job of recounting my trips across the world with my husband, I am (removes glasses a la Clark Kent) … A COPYWRITER!!!

Okay, fine. So it’s not that exciting. I don’t pop into phonebooths and tear off my clothes at the first sign of trouble … There’s a joke there, folks. I’m not going to do the work for you.

But it does impact the way I see a lot of things. I feel a strong kinship to Peggy Olson, the secretary-turned-copywriter on Mad Men (and spoiler alert – don’t click on that link unless you are all caught up on Season 3). I hate the new Snickers ads (don’t tell me “they stay with you”, because you know what else stays with you? Genital lice.).  And I find So Sayeth the Anti-Chris (a blog written by friend and fellow-copywriter Chris Elzinga) to be all kinds of awesome. He even shares my disdain for Kenny Rogers’ plastic surgery, and my love for John Stamos. But I’ll ask you kindly not to visit his site, since he’s far more clever that I, and you probably won’t come back here. (more…)

Yes, I realize that isn’t a proper parody of the Star Trek tagline. But I can’t put a split infinitive in a title, can I? Not that that stops me from using them, but … well, whatever. Saturday was Halloween, and I’m of the firm belief that Halloween should always happen on a Saturday, because it makes things infinitely more wonderful. Either that, or November 1st should be a national holiday. I really think I’m on to something here.

But on to more important things … Like, what do two crazed travelers do for Halloween? Dressing up as tourists is just a bit too predictable … Instead, we decided to step it up a notch or two on the dork scale.

Rand was a nameless red-shirted ensign. I was girl-Spock. Guess which one of us is going to be vaporized first.

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For the most part, I get the English. I really do. I know that we’re “two countries separated by a common langauge” (or something equally obnoixous and clever), but for the most part, I understand and am pretty familiar with English culture. My mom spent her childhood split between the U.K and Italy, and my aunt is married to an Englishman, and I’ve got English cousins and the like. They make tea roughly 5 times a day, they consume a disproportional amount of potatoes, and they influenced my vocabulary as a young child to the point of me saying weird things, like callings bangs a “fringe”, sweaters “jumpers”, and referring to a car’s blinker as an “indicator”. That last one is something that, for whatever reason, I’ve been unable to kick.

Oh, and growing up my brother forced me to watch hours upon hours of old Doctor Who episodes with him every rainy weekend we had. I cannot even begin to articulate how boring that sort of thing is for anyone, much less a nine-year-old girl. Seriously, he owes me. Big time. 

Because of my bro, I not only know what this is, but was able to make a crack about how I could escape from it by running up a flight of stairs.

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