Scattergories!

Gakked from la_eme:

Erase my answers, enter yours, and blog it. Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Mike
4 LETTER WORD: milk
TV SHOW: My So-Called Life
BOY NAME: Matt
GIRL NAME: Maris
OCCUPATION: maid
SOMETHING YOU WEAR: muffler
FOOD: matcha green tea
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: mat
REASON FOR BEING LATE: massive traffic jam
SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: MILF!

Homeward bound

Well, the Grand Expotion is about to start!  I've got my bags packed and waiting in the front room; my music CD's are made and ready, now I'm just waiting on my lift to Midway Field.  I'm going to be in California for a week (yay!), and then start the drive back.  Once I've got the car; it will definitely be picture time. :-)

Man, it'll be good to be home... I haven't been back to California in over a year.  :)
 

Absolut-ely Ridiculous

Absolut Vodka (a Swedish concern) recently put out a billboard and press ad campaign for the Mexican market, showing what Mexicans could think of as an "ABSOLUT WORLD."




Um...  this shows the United States-Mexican border as it appeared at Mexican independence in 1821, with the provincial boundaries more or less as they looked then (Upper California, New Mexico and Texas).

The creative director of the ad agency (whom is an Argentine) said that it tapped into Mexican political pride.  He thought that Americans in the Midwest and the East wouldn't understand, but that Americans in the Southwest would, and that the campaign would fall flat.

The response to the ad in the United States, at least on the LA Times' blog where I read this, is well, vitriolic.

Absolut, facing angry boycott calls from American consumers, apologized, but I don't think this is going to go away quickly.  Despite what people may think on either side of the border, even IF by some miniscule chance there were a possibility that Washington would cede the Southwest back to Mexico, there would be open rebellion, and I'm pretty sure that all the states in the territory involved would quickly secede on their own and set themselves up independently.

And for the record, my dad's family became American citizens in 1848--when New Mexico became part of the United States.

Mexico reconquers California?  Absolut drinks to that!

and

Absolut apologizes for Mexican vodka ad