Revenge of the alarm clock

My alarm clock clearly has a mind of it's own. This morning my alarm went off at what I thought was it's normal time, 6:30 am.

Usually, it goes off, I lay in bed and listen to the news, snooze a little until 7:15 and then get up. However, something was off this morning. The news came on: "Good morning, it's 7:30 on Monday and this is NPR." What?!? It was supposed to be 6:30. My clock said 6:30, but the news said something different. I raced out of bed and ran over to my computer. Definitely 7:30.

This meant I was running late – definitely a negative for a Monday morning.

For the next 30 minutes, while I showered, let Blue (my dog) outside and got dressed, I tried to figure it out. Clearly, daylight savings time had started and no one told me. But then wouldn't it have been 5:30 am, not 7:30 am. Maybe it was a conspiracy and someone had changed my clock? That seemed unlikely since no one had been in my house except Blue. It must have been Blue! Wow! She's brilliant. No, that was unlikely.

I called my dad. He confirmed that daylight savings time had definitely not started and asked if maybe I reset my clock in my sleep. Nope.

Well, after thinking about this all day (yes, I know this shouldn't have been my primary focus, but it was important!) I realized my clock had reset itself on Saturday night at 2 am since that's when daylight savings time used to occur. That means that all day Sunday I was living my day an hour behind, which means that when I went to bed at 1am, it was actually 2! Well, at least I have an excuse for my total exhaustion all day!

Update on my volunteer work for CVT

So, a lot of people have been asking me about my post about volunteer work and wanted a follow-up to how things stand. Here's my best attempt though it will be brief.

Last Monday I went to the Center of Victims of Torture to discuss which volunteer opportunities would be the best fit both in terms of my interests and their needs. It was a great meeting and I'm really excited. The first step is going to be a lunch meeting next Friday between myself and their new Director of Communications.

In addition, they offered me some opportunities working with CVT's International Capacity Building project which works with 16 treatment centers throughout the world to expand their capacity to provide high-quality services to torture survivors; their International Services projects, primarily the New Tactics in Human Rights Project which uses an interactive social network to help human rights practitioners discuss tactics that are working or not working in the field; and, the Cambodia-Trauma Healing Initiative project which works closely with the Transcultural Psychosocial Organization of Cambodia and is close to my heart since I have a friend working for the prosecutor at the Khmer Rouge Tribunals.

I'm extremely excited about all the options and for the chance to combine my various skills into something that could be beneficial.

Proposed Creative Workflow

I saw this graphic on Daniel Case's blog, a really great blog for finding creative inspiration. Anyway, I felt this graphic fits exactly how I feel great advertising, design, or even, any mode of creative communication should work.

Awesome Opening Sequence

I don't really know how I feel about the HBO show, True Blood, but I do know I love the opening sequence by Digital Kitchen. There is something about it that just feels so Southern and so right. I have a weird addiction with watching it. Each time I see something totally new. Needless to say, I wish I came up with it and now I want to see everything by Digital Kitchen.

The Worst Commercial Ever

I was asked the other day what I think the worst commercial I've ever seen is. Now, of course, there are numerous really bad ones. Everyone has their own personal worst. There's the really bad Kia one where a choir is singing about being part of the rainbow. Or, the weird one and revolting one where stomachs are talking to you. Yet, for me, the worst hands down are the Quiznos commercials with the furry, rat-like things (I know these creatures have a specific name, but frankly I don't care). These ads are fairly old in ad terms, but they left such a bad feeling with me that I still shudder at the thought of them.

In the hopes of full disclosure, anyone who knows me even semi-well knows of my weird hatred for sandwiches. It's a well known fact that I buy into the idea of separate but equal with my sandwiches and will eat each element separately if given a chance. And before anyone asks, of course there are exceptions, but they are few and far between. However, this dislike of sandwiches did not fuel my immense hatred for these commercials.

First of all, how could any food establishment especially a fast food one think it's a good idea to have singing rat-like creatures in their ads? I mean seriously now I think: "Oh, Quiznos that's the rat food place." In fact, I've been unable to eat food from there since the ads aired. Second, the rat things are the most obnoxious things I've seen in years. These characters come from a man named Joel Veitch, who makes television shows for Britain's Channel 4 (according to his Web site, www.rathergood.com). However, that doesn't explain why any ad agency or more importantly, food establishment would want to use them. Just so everyone understands, I've included the ads below.