Everything Old Is New Again
I used to do After-Lunch Breakdance every day. But, honestly, it wore me out. So I’m doing it on Fridays now – After-Lunch Friday (ALF)

Listen, blog friends...If you're self-conscious like me, cheer up! At least we're better looking than Alf.

The Difference is Creativity
Bud Light’s “The Difference is Drinkability” campaign is dismal. Their creativity department should be docked pay for poor performance! Yes, my buddy Alex was in one of the commercials, but I cannot recall a time when I was in a bar and heard someone say, “WOW! This beer is UNDRINKABLE!!! If only there was a beer that had drinkability!” But you’re trying to redeem yourself, Bud Light, with your new “Tailgate Approved” series. Andy likey.

Check out Jimmy Football as he pretends to run on the set with an air football.

Bow-WOW!!!! That’s my new word when I get excited.

Keeping with a dog theme, Bud Light has rolled out another fairly funny commercial (not a gut buster, but chuckle worthy)

Who needs SNL’s Toonces the Driving Cat when you’ve got this weird white dog?

This Week In Twitter (aka Sweet Tweets)
@prodigaljohn (aka Jon Acuff) from StuffChristiansLike: “Each time I hit him with the shovel, I asked Jesus to forgive me.” What grandma next door said after killing our rat.

Wayne Gretzky, a retired hockey player, once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
@andymerrick: “you miss 100% of the shots that don’t go in the net.”
@CoreyBoyd: “you miss 100% of the shots if you don’t go to the doctor.”

Near legendary photographer, @jeremycowart, confessing an insecurity during #truthursday – a day he started where we can all be real.
“Insecurity: I hate my awkward combo of a huge head, tiny shoulders, and horrible posture. The muffintop is icing on the cake”

John Mayer (@johncmayer) on adulthood: “I used to be the little engine that could. Now I’m the big engine that better.”

@andymerrick: “some people like a snack pack of cookies. i like the meal pack.”

LA photographer @jorycordy: “Catching up on emails. I’d rather eat soggy cereal.”

@tylertorti: “i’ve found that i like every person that i only know through email. they’re all so friendly and well spoken.”

The Baby Factory (aka The Duggars) announced this week that they’re expecting their 19th child.
@andymerrick: “i’m pulling for the duggars! only 81 more kids until they can fill every seat in the us senate.”

All My Singles, Ladies (And Dudes)
People who used to read my blog earlier this year (when I was actually writing) know that I love giving things away. Well, the past week, I’ve had a few songs that have I’ve been wearing out and I’m giving each of them away through iTunes. If you want to be entered in the drawing, just leave a comment here with a “.”. Like that’s all it needs to be. You don’t even need to write any words! Registration ends Sunday, September 6 at 11:59pm. The songs:

Needtobreathe – Let Me Love (inspired part of the Power of a Simple Word post)
Joe Purdy – Wash Away (reprise) (featured in a Dawn commercial that shows as the only commercial of the on-demand version of the TV show Jockeys) <– this is the worst sentence I’ve written all week and I’m leaving it here so I can laugh about just how bad it is years from now.
Patrick Watson – The Great Escape
The Avett Brothers – Go To Sleep

Have a great weekend, my friends! Bow-WOW!!!!!

For those of you new to After-Lunch Breakdance, WELCOME!! Check this out to know what’s going on. If you can’t see the YouTube videos, it means your work or RSS reader is blocking them. Forward to yourself at home to see it!

It’s April, peoples!!!! No April Fool’s Day joke for you today. You’re going to start seeing more writing from me pretty soon – about all different stuff! (Oh, HEY, take the poll on the right, would you, please? It’ll help me make ALB better!)

Some of you know this, some of you don’t. I’ve been working on a series called Why Guys Aren’t Asking You Out (you can read it by clicking on the banner at the top). For those of you wondering why it hasn’t continued for a while, there are reasons. And in time, I’ll explain why. But the series is going to continue. I’ve been writing the past week and as I’ve written, one of the biggest things I’ve realized in my own heart is how little I care about other people.

You can be around people all day and care little about them. People can serve to make you feel important. They can serve to advance your career. They can serve to give you pleasure in different ways. None of these things is wrong. In fact, they can all be good. But what happens when your only care for people is what they can do for you? You choose not to talk to someone because they’re not going to be interesting or won’t be able to help you advance in your line of work. I realize there is a super fine line between being a wise steward of your time (i.e. selectively choosing who to talk to) and being a heartless grinch (i.e. being selfish in your decisions).

My purpose in writing this today isn’t to give guidance on the topic. It’s merely to point out that I can have a really cold heart. And I saw this video that moved me. It’s super simple. A couple guys went out with a camera on the streets of New Orleans and talked to people. What strikes me so much is the raw humanity. There are some things said in the video which may offend people’s sensibilities. I’m posting it with the knowledge that may happen. These are real people. And there are people just like them that we might meet later today or later this week. This video reminds me of people’s beauty and fragility. I think you’ll see it. There is something inherently beautiful about just seeing people. But we (or, maybe more accurately, I) so rarely look at them in the way this short compels us to. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

For those of you new to After-Lunch Breakdance, WELCOME!! Check this out to know what’s going on. If you can’t see the YouTube videos, it means your work or RSS reader is blocking them. Forward to yourself at home to see it!

Drive!
Do you ever want to get in a really great car and tear it up!? Remember being a little kid and making fake gear shifting noises as you pretended to drive your Little Tykes car? It’s in us from the time we’re kids and still appealing today!

Focus
This is a clip from the old rock band Focus. My friend Brant passed it along and it’s every bit of whacky and fantastic you can imagine! You’ll find yourself smiling/laughing for almost no reason at all. And then you’ll feel compelled to watch it again. And then maybe again and again.

For those of you new to After-Lunch Breakdance, WELCOME!! Check this out to know what’s going on. If you can’t see the YouTube videos, it means your work or RSS reader is blocking them. Forward to yourself at home to see it!

Welcome back from the weekend, friends!

Suddenly
This little video is a hyper-creative use of two pretty sophisticated visual techniques. The still photography uses a technique called compositing. You take an image of a person and then replace the background (which is probably fairly normal) with an epic-looking background. You composite two images. The second technique used here is a video technique called 2.5D. You take a still photo (which is 2d) and edit it so that it appears to have a 3rd dimension. Top notch!

Office War
This video isn’t the best in terms of production quality, but there are so many people involved and they do such a good job of mimicking things that we’ve seen in war movies that this gets a nod on ALB.