Coca-Cola Commercials

Coca-Cola, for some reason, has always opted for the "feel-good family time" strategy in their advertising campaigns. They're currently running a commercial where some people in an urban bring a table and chairs into the street (isn't this illegal?) for an impromptu family feast, replete with home cooking and, of course, 2-liter bottles of Coca-Cola. Others in the neighborhood, seeing the spontaneous jamboree in the making, then bring out their own picnic tables and chairs to join them. Soon, there

I'll ignore the fact that it's totally ridiculous to suggest that people in an urban setting would have picnic tables and chairs ready to go and instead deal with the absurdity of the theory behind this sort of advertising. What is the point? Are they saying that no illegal block party is complete without Coca-Cola? Are they saying that this tooth-decaying soft drink will bring my family together?

I am not moved by this commercial to purchase their product. Why? Because I don't care about picnicking in the middle of the street. This sort of feel-goodery doesn't make me think that I need this product. It doesn't appeal to any of my basic human instincts and, as a result, the commercial fails.

Here is my idea for a Coca-Cola commercial that would not only make me want to drink Coke, but would make me fear for my life if I drank anything else.

============Coca-Cola Suburban Strike Force=============


Jimmy is a normal 16 year old boy living in a typical suburban home. He walks downstairs to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator, from which he extracts a brown paper bag. We also see that the refrigerator is chock full of Coca-Cola. He looks around nervously and, content that he is not being watched, he removes a Pepsi bottle from the bag.

He opens the bottle and goes to take a sip when, suddenly, CRASH. Glass shatters and special forces units are diving into the room, guns blazing. Jimmy is shot up, Pepsi spills everywhere.

Jimmy's family runs into the kitchen, alarmed and confused. His father looks at the corpse of his beloved son and then looks up to the special forces members with a pained look on his face. The strike force team leader bends down, picks up the Pepsi bottle, and shows it to the father. The father nods grimly and salutes the special forces, who dash off into the night.

=============Fin===============

Now if that doesn't make you afraid to drink anything but Coke, nothing will.

Good Guys Win

Fuck you, Tom Brady.

Fuck you, New England.
Fuck you, Ferris Booth pasta makers for burning my hands with that shit.
Fuck you, pretentious red head kid who walks around campus holding an umbrella like he's goddamn Jay Gatsby.
Fuck you, 109 deli for not accepting credit cards.

Giants win. Boom.

Do Your Job.

Nobody has ever accused Cafe 212 of being a well-run establishment (In fact, in April of this year I wrote a post almost identical to this). The hippy manager is always outside smoking ciggies and they are oftentimes out of bacon. Or, rather, they're simply too lazy to go make more bacon so that my sandwich can be as complete as possible. The end result is an eatery that makes OK sandwiches sometimes and charges way more than they have any right to. A sandwich and a bottle of water can cost you 9 bucks. I can go to a legitimate deli for less, but I don't because legitimate delis accept neither Flex Points nor Dining Dollars and all of my cash money is tied up in my blossoming and soon-to-be lifelong struggle with alcoholism.


The most frustrating thing I've encountered at 212, though, is when there is a long line and only one person on the register. That's not the best part, though. The best part is that there will be 2 or 3 employees just standing there, staring into space.

Have you seen this? They literally just stand around doing nothing even though people are waiting. Do your goddamn job you lazy idiots. I have class in ten minutes and you're standing around scratching your asses because, what, you don't want to punch a couple buttons and swipe my Columbia ID? Look, I'm sorry that you don't find any satisfaction in your job. But what did you expect when you signed up? Excitement? Give me a break, you can't possibly have expected that when applying for the role of "sandwich maker slash sometimes cashier."

At least if you were talking to each other I wouldn't feel so bad. If you gossipped all day about who was sleeping with who, I'd at least feel that my time was being wasted because 212 is a hotbed of action. But when you just stand there and ignore me, my blood boils. Do your goddamn job and ring up my sandwich. It's not hard.

Columbia Let Everyone in for 2011 Except This Guy

Dear Paul,

We regret to inform you that your application to Columbia University has not been accepted. While we here at Columbia appreciate your enthusiasm and interest, there were numerous problems with your application that left us no choice but to reject you for admission to the Class of 2011. In order that this may be a worthwhile learning experience for you, I am going to discuss in this letter exactly where you went wrong in your pursuit of admission. Hopefully, by understanding the problems with your application (and they are numerous), you will be able to regroup and apply successfully to another university.

The first problem was that under the section marked "Name" you scribbled, nearly illegibly, "P-Train, word." While such a moniker might be acceptable with your friends in the Long Island suburbs, it is hardly appropriate for an application to an Ivy League institution. You will notice that I addressed you at the top of this letter as "Paul," which, frankly, I'm not even sure is your real name, but since you didn't include your real name anywhere I was forced to guess. Needless to say, we had great difficulty taking the remainder of your application seriously, but, perhaps out of curiosity more than anything, we soldiered on nonetheless.

Under address, you listed myspace.com/P-Train. Perhaps we weren't clear enough on this point, but we had intended for you to list an actual address where we could send this rejection letter. Luckily, one of our students was able to find your address on your aforementioned myspace profile, as you had listed it in case people wanted to send donations to your "Hedge Fund." I'm no expert on the financial services industry, but I'm not sure this is the typical way Hedge Fund managers raise money. I would likewise advise against attempting to raise said capital on the same myspace profile where you post pictures of you and your friends with a few dozen spent cans of whipped cream. It reeks of unprofessionalism.

Following on, you listed under extracurricular activities "Droppin' mad f-bombs," "Slingin' rock in the 'jects" and "Straight chillin'." We generally look for things like fencing, student government, poetry writing, or some sort of political activism. It is irregular for a candidate for admission to list such unique interests and we were quite frankly puzzled by your decision to include them. We strive to achieve a certain level of diversity in each of our incoming classes, but this is beyond us. Additionally, I'm not sure I believe that there are any projects in Garden City, NY where you could "sling rock." However, I don't know this for sure, so I will reserve judgment.

Your submission for the admissions essay was also spectacularly inappropriate. Our prompt, "Tell us about a time when you overcame adversity," is a relatively general question that is asked by numerous universities every year. Despite the ease with which anyone could answer such a question, you were relentless in your pursuit of absurdity and elected to write "My P.O. tellin me I need a nine to five / But I already got a job and that's stayin' alive / And I love it. -Young Jeezy, word." I assume "P.O." is short for "Parole Officer." Why didn't you take this opportunity to talk about overcoming your legal troubles? It's baffling.

You claim to have received a 9000 on your SAT, but we find this unlikely. Generally speaking, the maximum score one can achieve is 2400, which, according to my estimate, is an almost unattainable score for someone who enjoys dropping "mad f-bombs" while he's "straight chilling" in the "jects" looking to hustle some ice. We didn't even bother to check with the College Board because such an inquisition would have born no fruit and would have undoubtedly caused considerable embarrasment on our part. Honestly, I'd be shocked beyond belief if you'd even heard of the SAT, let alone taken it. Do you even go to school?

In the vast majority of entry fields, such as "AP Classes," "Favorite Books" and "Siblings," you wrote, in all capitals, "YOU CAN'T STOP THE REIGN." While I'm sure I can't, I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. Finally, your inclusion of a nude picture was simply unnecessary.

We wish you the best of luck with your college search. I wouldn't hold your breath, though.

Sincerely,

Arthur C Studebaker-Clark
Dean of Admissions
Columbia University

Pizza 33 is a hellhole

In a perfect world, I would eat nothing but Cheesy Gordita Crunches from Taco Bell. I would savor one cheesy, sour-creamy bite after another, delighting in the fact that I am eating pure joy. I would wash it down with Mountain Dew Baja Blast, a flavor so ridiculously good that it's available only in Taco Bell. To release it to the masses would be to invite anarchy to our beautiful American society.

Unfortunately, it is not a perfect world and, as such, I must from time to time consume things besides the prestigious Cheesy Gordita Crunch. Tonight was one such time when, at work, we ordered the Terra e Mare pizza. A more appropriate name for this catastrophe would be the Terror e Nightmare pizza.

The shrimp, which I imagined would be plump and delicious, were tiny. Do you know the feeling you get when you're embarrassed and want to curl into a ball? I expect that the shrimp were so ashamed to be a part of this disaster of a pizza pie that they shrunk into themselves. I can't say I blame them. I, too, would have been ashamed to be a part of that pizza. The mushrooms were also offensively bad. The other intern who ate the pizza said he liked the mushrooms, but he is from Maine, a den of iniquities so profound that I will not discuss them in the detail they require.

The analyst whose credit card we used to order was likewise disappointed. He told us that the pizza was depressingly bad and that it reflected poorly on us as interns. He said, rightly, that in a city known for pizza that it was a true feat to discover a place that got every aspect of it wrong. Well done, Pizza 33. Thanks to you I have discovered the ultimate depths of human depravity - infinite. The other person to have reviewed this place is either an out-of-towner so enamored with the idea of new york pizza that he/she convinced himself/herself it was good (despite it not being so, I assure you) or he/she is an employee of this awful excuse for a restaurant.

To the hobo using my money to buy crack

Dear homeless man to whom I give money outside the Famiglia,

Let's be honest with each other. Let's put all the cards on the table, ok? I've been giving you money for two years now. Whether it's because you need food, or you need to get on the subway, or whatever, I've given it to you. Know what else? I've given it to you knowing full well that you're just going to go to the alley behind the Rite Aid and buy some crack rock. You don't need a slice of Pizza. I know you sure as hell aren't going up to the homeless shelter on 168th (because there is none, you sly devil). But I'm not trying to get you to change your ways. Far from it. All I'm saying is, maybe smoke me out sometime.

In all the time I've known you, you have not once invited me to breathe deeply of the sweet, sweet crack vapors I've been providing you. What gives? Is it my white skin? My collared shirts and ironed slacks? My Ivy-League class ring? Because if you're judging me, brother, then take your judging elsewhere, because I gotta have that crack.

It's true. How do you think I know about Big Jeffrey who sells behind the Rite-Aid? I'm practically his biggest customer! I've been using his services since he started slingin' rock back in '03. This one time, I smoked so much crack rock that I went crazy for a couple weeks. My boss had me declared legally dead. Good times!

Anyway, bud, I'd really appreciate it if the next time I give you a couple bucks as I'm walking down the street, you say, "Hey, man, would you like to smoke some ice with me?" Because yes...yes I would.

Sincerely,
Mortimer G Thornock, III

Question 3 on Earth, Moon and Planets Final

3b) What are spring and neap tides? How do they occur?

My answer: Spring Tide is the floral/grassy-scented laundry detergent marketed in grocery and drug stores starting in March each year. Neap Tide hasn't been invented yet.

True story. That's what you get when you skip an entire semester of classes and have no idea what the hell he's talking about.