Instinct

        Intuition, inherent tendency, inclination, urge, drive, compulsion, feeling, hunch, sixth sense, insight. Call it what you like. It consumes our decisions with a powerful force. Follow your gut or choose the rational choice? Or are those one in the same? Let our past failures dictate our choice for us? Or follow your gut just this one last time? Does taking a risk make you brave or careless? The line is so thin. What is the criteria for a brilliant idea and what is it for an insignificant one? Is simple intelligent? Will a simple presentation take away the complexity of the idea? Will it look as though no thought was given, even though an inexplicable amount was? Minutes upon hours upon days; molding, shaping, honing. Will taking this risk make the author seem overconfident or lazy even though that is the exact opposite of what they are and what they meant it to be? Is it right? 1,000 ideas and I can not escape this one. I cannot get it out of my mind. It is so simple yet so encompassing of everything I want to express. Choose. Make a decision. What will I do? What will you? 

Mumbai

Pray for India

On November 26, 2008

At least 7 locations in Mumbai, India were attacked by terrorists. The locations included two luxury hotels, restaurants, a hospital and a crowded bus station. The gunmen opened fire and launched grenades into the crowds. There are now believed to be 287 wounded and 195 killed. The most casualties resulting from the train station attack, where terrorists opened fire and threw grenades into the entire crowd. . The gunmen, at least in the restaurant, were known to be targeting Britons and Americans. They asked everyone who looked to be American or British what his or her heritage was, if they answered any other ethnicity, they were allowed to live. An organization known as the Deccan Mujahedeen has claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mails to several media outlets. Police killed four suspected attackers and arrested nine others. That is not enough. 

Attacks like this are not just going to go away. It is sick that something like this actually happens. We, not as America but as the human race, need to do something. Tragedies like this happen more often than we would like to admit. We need to acknowledge it every time, not only when Americans are involved. We are affected every time another human or group of humans are injured or killed, whether we want to accept it or not. We are responsible for each other, regardless of race, class, or stereotypes. It is our obligation, and should be considered our privilege, to take care of each other and the earth that we are given. For the time that we are blessed with these things is short. 

What are you going to do about it?

Gunmen Attacks Across Mumbai Kill at Least 101, Others Held Hostage

Mumbai Attacks Foreshadow New Challenges in War on Terror

Ketchup...if that's even your real name?

Prepare yourself...I am about to blog about another blog. When I was writing about the influence of color on marketing I discussed Heinz Ketchup changing their product to green (not environmentally, literally). It was then that I decided that Ketchup is the weirdest word in the english language. 

Dear...tomato sauce mixed with vinegar and other spices in a glass or plastic bottle,

     Why are you so difficult? You have 3 different and yet correct ways to spellings of your name. Ketchup, Catsup or Catchup. But they are all pronounced the same! WHY? Do you think that you are so nice you were named thrice? You may be great on fries but you are not nearly as versatile as ranch or peanut butter. Are your three names aliases? Is that it? Are the other names widely known because you used them as pen names when you wrote your first novels because you were afraid they wouldn't be good enough? Answer me. I guarantee I am going to lose sleep over this question. 

Inquisitvely, 

A red tomato sauce mixed with vinegar and other spices in a glass or plastic bottle activist

p.s. Sometimes you are really hard to get out of glass bottles. You should tell more people that they can merely tap the 75 with their knuckle and you will happily pour onto their french fries. Or is that another secret you want to keep all to yourself?

    Remember the brilliant VW Golf GTI commercial? Of course you do. How could you forget the brilliant post production work and remix of such a classic scene? The dancer in this ad is a guy named Dave Elsewhere (+ Gene Kelly's face). This is certainly not Dave's first appearance dancing in a commercial. Dave is also the dancer in all of the Apple iPod ads. He has also danced his way into ads for brands such as Heineken, 7-Eleven Slurpee, Pepsi and Doritos. Now Dave has some amazing moves but I think we've found someone who is catching up to him, George Sampson. George is the 15 year old winner of Britain's Got Talent. He preformed the remix Singing In The Rain dance in the Grand Finale of the show.  

VW Golf GTI commercial 

George Sampson

I also found a mix that juxtaposes Dave and George's moves together....

The other video I wanted to add has disabled the embedded feature but you can (and should) check it out on YouTube. The video is titled Mint Royale Ft. Gene Kelly- Singing in the rain and has some pretty interesting graphics too. 

There are tons of remakes of this VW Golf GTI ad. Works and Rewards? I think so. The first time I saw this ad I found myself running to my Mac to watch again, and again, and again, and again. 

Now that is a good ad. 

Peanut Butter is one of the greatest food products in the world. But what else can it do...

 

Great for dipping- oreo's, spoons, fingers, pretzels, bananas 

or mixing with honey, chocolate, fluff (marshmallow cream), Nutella

Removing Gum from hair

An adhesive

Painting

Squirrel and mouse bait

Bird Feeder

Taking funny pictures of your dog making funny faces

Making horses talk

Halloween Costume 

Hair styling gel

Themes for songs

Rhyming

Gaining weight

An amazing ice cream flavor

Slip-n-slide

Giving your dog medicine

Killing someone with a nut allergy

Wallpaper

Good blogging topic 

Keep some in your braces for a late night snack

mix with ammonia and egg whites to take out stains

Fake tanner

Acne treatment

Use to beat anorexia

Shoot out of a cannon

Peanut butter balloon fight

Cure for cancer

Hang posters with it

Put in bowl for Halloween and blind fold kids telling them its their insides

Fill an entire room with it (just for decoration)

See how much fits in the VCR

Measuring tool 

Use to secure dentures in place 

Fertilizer 

Shaving cream

Mud pie- reinvented 

Substitute in waterbed 

Body Paint

Fake tattoos

Nail Polish

Currency in an imaginary land

Bob for apples

Build an adobe pb house

Background for taking portraits

Use for seduction purposes

Transportation device in sticky situations

Apply to feet to walk on ceiling

Throw in air for work out

Shoot out of flair gun for help

Smear to spell out HELP to be seen from sky

Use in cultural (initiation) dance

Alternative for a shoe horn

Shoot out of the back of a car in a chase to obstruct the view of the following car

Use to plug up soda bottle to keep fresh 

Camouflage in the woods or a tan room

Quiet a squeaky wheel 

Use as a moisturizer 

Use to fill in holes in your dorm room walls so you don't get ridiculous fines

Deodorant

Cat toy

Finger painting

Sealing UPS boxes

Fly paper

Wrestling matches

Disciplinary method for a child saying "inappropriate" things

Repair leaks in bicycle tire 

Plug up a runny nose

Stucco

Coating household wires for safety purposes

Changing the sound of a musical instrument such as a tuba

Breast Cancer Cuisine?

    I got a Lean Cuisine the other day and was shocked to see what I found. The box for the instant dinner was pink, advertising Lean Cuisine's campaign against breast cancer. Lean Cuisine has been partnering with Susan G. Komen for several years now. They support the cause by selling adorable pink totes and donating the funds to breast cancer research. 

However I find it interesting that a product that has been suspected to be a common cause of breast cancer is supposedly supporting it by promoting their brand. I am shocked that Susan G. Komen for the cure is not aware of these dangers. The danger of Lean Cuisine and all TV dinners is that they require you to heat the meal in a plastic container. The combination of fat, high heat and plastics releases dioxins into the food. These dioxins ultimately reach the cells in our bodies. Dioxins are carcinogens that are highly toxic to the cells of the human body. When these dioxins reach the cells the person's risk of getting breast cancer raise drastically. 

Not only is it unhealthy to heat up anything in a plastic container, it is especially unhealthy to attempt to eat a Lean Cuisine regardless of what you heated it up in. Nestle Prepared Foods Co. recalled 900,000 lbs of Lean Cuisine meals after several people reported finding small chunks of blue plastic in their food. 

"Life is short. Have an Affair."

Speaking of inappropriate advertising in inappropriate places...

    I was just watching the UMass-Memphis game on ESPN and ended up shutting it off directly after I saw this commercial. The ad is for a company called Ashley Madison. They advertise adultery. "Hahaha right okay but what are they really advertising?" My thoughts exactly. Could they actually be advertising cheating on your spouse? Apparently so. Is life truly so short that we need to sleep with absolutely EVERYONE possible? If so, then why do we not have ads for gluttony and stealing? I mean our purpose in life is to get as many material things as possible before we croak right? 

An even bigger issue than their advertising of such crude subject matter is why are we allowing them to!!!?? Why is this okay to put on national television? Especially on ESPN, where apparently they will reach their target market. Do they not realize that along with their target market they will reach teenage boys who have yet to fully develop thoughts about a marital relationship and how it should be? This is absolutely the most sickening and inappropriate ad I have seen in my entire life. I refuse to post the actual commercial that Ashley Madison created, which aired on ESPN a few times before they pulled it. However the commercial below is the "edited and less risque version" that I just saw on ESPN; along with an explanation of the controversy and an interview with Advertising Age columnist Bob Garfield. Garfield states that Ashley Madison has a right to advertise what they like, just not where they like. What I do not understand is why everyone is applauding ESPN for pulling the more risque ad when the 2nd ad is saying the exact same message through a innuendo. 

Be a Man ESPN. Pull Both Ads. 

Clips of the ad and overview: 

EUREKA!!!!!!!!!!

I just had an absolute epiphany, surprisingly enough from something we learned in class. I am working on my machine and doing some research about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's psychology of FLOW. I find myself constantly yearning for a moment to be alone, to relax to have no pressing obligation, then once that rare day finally arrives I can find no satisfaction. Yet I am still craving something. I finally realized that I crave FLOW! I have experienced FLOW many times, especially when I act or write. And I cannot get enough. I just realized that whenever I get a day off, or go visit my family and lie around and watch TV the feeling of satisfaction and loss of self-consciousness, that zone that I would die to be in, is FLOW. It is crazy that it has taken me so long to realize this. 

I experience FLOW the most when I take photos. I am addicted to photography. I got my camera, a Nikon d50 about 2 years ago and have been teaching myself ever since. Now I am taking my first intro class and I feel like I am exploding with ideas that I just cannot keep in my mind! Every assignment I find unable to stop even after I turn in the project. I just keep on with the subject matter and let it expand. The worst part of all is having to turn in just 3 of each category to my professor. I can NEVER decide what to turn in, I want to use all of them. 

FLOW is absolutely the best feeling in the world. When I set up a shoot, even from the moment I receive an assignment and start brainstorming what I am going to do, I am in a zone. All of my senses join forces and focus only on the photos I am taking, the person or object I am using my thoughts are like fluid running through my mind and to my hands which in turn make everything happen. I even adore the editing process. I can sit in front of my computer hours past the time when it starts burning my legs just absorbed in editing them, seeing how far I can stretch them, what I can change them into. Then posting them on my photography website and sharing with other photographers and seeing where their FLOW process takes them. Hey speaking of my website...here is a link if you would like to take a look!!

Lauren Reilly Photography

Where is the line?

     I appreciate some shockvertising. However, there is a line that should not be crossed. This ad for example at a public pool goes too far. The Watch Around Water campaign is run in Western Australia in public pools in order to increase awareness of drownings. I think it is great that they are working toward the education of the public about such a serious issue, but I think their approach would have been put to better use elsewhere. I think having this image on the floor of a public pool will definitely deter people from even wanting to go. I have a friend whose 3 year old brother drowned in her pool when she and I were in middle school and I know that she would be extremely disturbed if she saw this. I think this ad would have a better effect if it was shown on a street corner, maybe from a different angle so that it would still make sense. Or even in a parenting magazine. It is one thing to have this in a place where adults can see it, and it is another thing to have it in plain view of children. I can not imagine swimming over this ad in a pool, especially as a child. An image like this can cause all kinds of issues with someone who is too young to understand and make it even harder to accept. Someone definitely needed to reevaluate before putting this out in public. 

A few more portraits...

 Lauren Reilly Photography 

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us the most. We ask ourselves who am I to Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented, Fabulous? Actually who are we not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Fourteen Years ago, Nelson Mandela stood before the people of South Africa and gave an amazing inauguration speech. His speech was rich with uplifting declarations. However inspiring it was, Nelson Mandela's speech did not include this statement. In fact Nelson Mandela has never uttered this statement. Yet he has been accredited with it since shortly after his 1994 inauguration speech. The actual author of this statement is a woman named, Marianne Williamson. This is an excerpt of her 1992 book A Return to Love. It is hard to believe that things like this actually happen. It is almost impossible to find the source that wrongly cited Nelson Mandela as the author or at least the speaker of this quote. However it is believed to have started or at least spread on the internet, especially the last sentence of the quote: "As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." This is just another reason why citing and backing up our information is so crucial. I think Marianne deserves the widespread credit for this quote that has been given to Nelson Mandela for so long.

Spread the Word. 

Here are two government websites that have Mandela's Inauguration speech verbatim 

Mandela: Inauguration Address Cape town, 09 May 1994-via South Africa Govenment Online Official Web site.

Statement of The President of the African National Congress Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela at His Inauguration as President of the Democratic Republic of South Africa Union Buildings- Pretoria, 10 May 1994-via ANC's (African National Congress) Official Web site.

Cemeteries

I went to go visit my family in Nashville, Tennessee and I found this beautiful old graveyard. It was on the side of the road accompanied by at least 100 acres, a broken down farm house and a decaying barn. I jumped at the chance, pulled over and trespassed. This cemetery consisted of about 15 to 20 graves. I only had a few minutes for fear of getting shot under the protection of trespassing laws in Tennessee, but I was able to get a few shots in! The graveyard was full of an entire family. The last person to die and be buried in this cemetery is pictured above on the right. They died in 1850. I wish I knew more about this family. I wonder if the people who own currently own the land are related in any way. I have already made up my own romantic story about their history, so I might not want to ask, in fear of finding something ordinary. 

               So many people are frightened of cemeteries. I love them. No, no sadism here. I think of cemeteries as most people do parks. I find such peace there. I think I find such an odd atmosphere tranquil because, as a Christian, I have such a strong belief in afterlife. To me cemeteries are literally resting places for our bodies and nothing else. Our souls are gone. They are no longer parts of this world. At the same time I do not find comfort in going to wakes. Walking up to a person's body who is no longer on earth does not make any since to me. I think that is just our shallow way of holding onto how we perceived that person. But at the same time I have never seen a dead body look like the person did when they were alive and united with their soul, which leads me to view it as a moot point. So why the fear of cemeteries? 

Who?

Who am I to be blue?

Look at my family and fortune

Look at my friends and my house

Who?

Who am I to feel deadened?

Who am I to feel spent?

Look at my health and my money

And where?

Where do I got to feel good?

Why do I still look outside me?

When clearly I've seen it won't work

Is it my calling to keep on when I'm unable?

And is it my job to be selfless extraordinar?

And my generosity has me disabled

By this my sense of duty to offer

And why?

Why do I feel so ungrateful?

Me who is far beyond survival

Me who sees life as an oyster

Is it my calling to keep on when I'm unable?

And is it my job to be selfless extraordinar? 

And my generosity has me disabled

By this my sense of duty to offer

And how?

How dare I rest on my laurels?

How dare I ignore an outstretched hand?

How dare I ignore a third world country?

Is it my calling to keep on when I'm unable? 

And is it my job to be selfless extraordinar?

And my generosity has me disabled 

By this my sense of duty to offer

Who?

Who am I to be blue?

 

-Alanis Morissette-

Sigur Ros

Sigur Ros is a unique Icelandic band that is famous for playing the guitar with a cello bow. The lead singer Jonsi Por Birgisson is widely known for his falsetto voice. The band's music can be catagorized into genres such as post-rock, dream pop and/or ambient. Their ethereal sound is mesmerizing. Sigur Ros is my muse. Whenever I want to change my mood from stressed to relaxed and inspired, I turn on Sigur Ros. They allow me to reach a state of mind where I can feel free to create. See for yourself:

Ny Batteri (Live)

Svefn-G-Englar

Glosoli

Hoppipolla 

Baby Bach

Child Prodigy, Genius, Mastermind, Virtuoso, Wonder Child...call him what you like. Ethan Bortnick taught himself to play piano by ear. The largest concert that Ethan has played was the Bank Atlantic in front of 6,000 people. Oh yea...Ethan is only 6 years old. Pure talent like this amazes me. It's insane that some of us spend our lives searching for something we are good at, something we love doing, and others are born knowing. I wonder which would be better? 

What do you think? 

Children Uncensored

      When I was at home over fall break, my family and I were at Church one Sunday morning. A large family was sitting next to us with 4 kids that all looked to be under 7 yrs old. The boy sitting closest to me had to be no older than 3 yrs old. As we bowed our heads for silence after sining the entrance song, the 3 year old decided to belt out "I HAVE A REALLY BIG PENIS!!!!" His father freaked out scooped him up and ran out of mass. The entire congregation rippled with suppressed laughter. I love that we get such a kick out of the boldness or naivety of little kids. 

It reminded me of this commercial: