One Weird Little Secret That Will Make You Read This...

Ha, see how that worked. It’s called psychology and people use it all the time in advertising.

I’ve worked on my fair share of web banners, and most of the time they’re so simple, or so mediocre that they’re completely ignorable. But every once in a while, you come across something that for reasons unbeknownst to you but knownst to those who made it, catches your eye.

This banner ad for example is something that caught my attention, but for all the wrong reasons. I noticed it, but then realized how many little things this ad is doing to attract attention.

Now I did not click through to see what the secret was, but if I were a betting man, I bet the secret would be yours for $9.99 a month.

This banner, if you’re a dude, works on your hidden primal desire to fuck young girls. It uses, very advanced psychological shit to make young, horned up (and most importantly) stupid men think, wait, all I have to do is learn this trick and I no longer have to spend my night finger fucking a blanket fold? Here’s just some of the ways they do it.


Color
Red is the only color that is scientifically proven to turn you on. Seriously stare at the color red and see how long it takes for you to get a boner, or the female equivalent, damp panties. Add this sensual color to a picture of a girl and you have a winning combo.

Cropping
This picture is cropped in a way so that the girl, though most likely of age, looks very, very young. Plus, she’s naked holding her tit.

Slash lines
Straight lines are fucking unsexy. Now rotate it a few degrees north and we got something that’ll make you feel like the first day of spring. A slash can easily bring to mind vaginas or cuts in sexy black dresses.

“Secret Method”
These two words have done more for shoddily put together banner ads than .gifs of fat belly/skinny belly. No one knows what the secret is, but everyone wants an easy answer. As if all your dating woes could be solved by a simple answer.

Hypothetical situation assuming all dating problems could be answered using one super easy, weird secret.

Doug: Hey Patty.
Patty: Oh hey… Dwayne was it?
Doug: Doug actually listen I was wondering if…
Patty: Let me stop you there. I will not date you because you only have eight hairs. I mean what are you 15 and you’re already balding.

Doug is slightly rejected but remembered that he learned that one simple trick to make any girl fall madly in love with him.

Doug: Hey Patty.

Patty turns around and Doug immediately reaches around and sticks his index finger straight into her butthole. Patty swoons, and can no longer keep her eyes off of Doug.

Patty: Doug, it’s like, I can’t resist you. Will you have sex with me and my four super hot, super bi-sexual friends?

Doug: About time you came around you stupid bitch. Hope you’re hungry for mayonnaise Patty.

{and... scene}

This Is Me Getting Over You

I don’t normally whine about my shit here. This is typically a happy place where leprechauns frolic, pandas dance, and gumdrops dot the sky at night. But guess what peeps? The world can turn its ugly head and spit in your face. And sometimes you just need to get it out somewhere.

The Back story:
Pretty much, when I started this blog, I was alone in Milwaukee. I just moved there for an internship and was incredibly lonely and not sure where my life was going. I found a life, and someone wonderful to share it with and although I moved around a bit, we continued to date. Until recently. Long story short we aren’t together anymore, and this breakup has been much different than any others I have endured. I have gone through the full range of emotions and after about two months of pure agonizing hell, I have reached acceptance. I just mailed away the last remnants of our relationship. I’ve purged my room with anything that could bring back haunted memories. But I didn’t do it alone. I had my family and my friends. But I also had music. And before anyone starts calling me a bitch for writing a list of songs I used to help get over a breakup, fuck you! You’ve obviously never been in love and had your heart smooshed.

So, before I want to punch myself in the face even more than I already do, here is a list of songs that helped me get over you, using the Kübler-Ross model as a basis.

Stage 1: Denial


Arcade Fire "We Used To Wait"
I listened to this song when I first decided to move to LA. Regardless of what it really means, to me it meant that we, as a couple, were waiting for life to stabilize so we could just be together. I held onto it forever.


The New Pornographers "We End Up Together"
This is probably the definitive song to my breakup. I still listen to it and while I put it in this stage, it really belongs in all of them although the meaning has changed. It used to mean, we’re going to get back together, we’re in a rough spot, but we’re meant to be. We end up together. Now it’s evolved and it’s more about we had a good time, but now that I’m out of the picture, I can be with who I am meant to be. And vice versa. Though sometimes I still hold onto the original meaning.


Ben Folds "Still Fighting It"
I bought this CD during a vacation to S.F. we went on. This song is all about picking yourself up, but for me, in this stage it was all about fighting for us. Trying to make it work. Glad that worked out.


Stage 2: Anger


Frightened Rabbit "Keep Yourself Warm"
She visited me and introduced me to this song. It had some deep hidden meanings. While I don’t think she ever cheated on me, I listen to this song often hoping she realizes that, while she may have another dick in her life, she will never have one that treated her like I did.


Wolf Parade "What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had To Go This Way)"
It always had to go this way. That line just sums up the loss of hope, all the effort I put into it all for naught. No matter what, it had to be this way. And that pisses me off.


Mumford and Suns "Little Lion Man"
What gets me about this song is the chorus. “Well it was not your fault but mine, and it was your heart on the line. I really fucked things up this time, didn’t I my dear?” I moved away, I did this to myself, I fucked it up.


Stage 3: Bargaining*
*To me this stage was less about bargaining. It was a false sense that everything was OK. Although I said I was over everything, I was still holding on to my ex as a crutch. These songs represent a bit of acceptance, but with a touch of hope still attached.


Alanis Morrissette "You Learn"
This song is all about how living life is the best way to learn. So for me, it was it was better I loved so much and learned.


Band of Horses "The General Specific"
One of our mutually favorite songs. Just listened to it a lot as a way to remind myself of the good times.


Cold War Kids "We Used To Vacation"
One of my favorite things I did with her was go on mini vacations. Whether it was to Minneapolis, Milwaukee, or S.F. we always enjoyed ourselves away from reality. This is really just taking the song far to literally, but it’s what happens when I listen to it.

Stage 4: Depression


Taking Back Sunday "Bike Scene"
“I want to hate you so much, but I can’t” That lyric was stuck in my head for days.


Gary Jules "Mad World"
Sometimes when you’re the saddest you’ve ever been, you just need to listen to the saddest song ever made. This song also made it into my guitar practice lineup.


OK GO "This Too Shall Pass"
Just a song about hope. Saying things suck, but it’ll pass. It was a good one to try to inspire some form of hope in me.


Bowling For Soup "Belgium"
I love Bowling for Soup, and this song has always been one of my favorites. I love the line “How was I to know, that this single bed was always made for two”


Bob Dylan "Most Of The Time"
I watched High Fidelity a lot in my younger days, but I rewatched it after the breakup. It made me realized just how much this song means to me. I could listen to it all the time. It really is a wonderful bridge between depression and acceptance.


Stage 5: Acceptance


Weezer "The Good Life"
This is all about getting back into life. Start dating, start having fun and start living. Plus it's fucking Weezer. They've been such a big part of my life, they must have something relevant to my current situation.


Fun. "At Least I’m Not As Sad (As I Used To Be)"
You know what, I’m not.


Gnarles Barkley "Blind Mary"
Inspired me to get my license and start smoking my new lady.


Reel Big Fish "All I Want Is More"
The chorus to this is so damn good. You can start to see generally happier songs, with maybe a splash of anger in them.


Alkaline Trio "This Is Getting Over You"
Technically this song is about getting over alcoholism, but girls… booze… it’s the same thing.


Black Keys "Next Girl"
I always loved this song, even though I got this CD when I was still with her. Now I have a reason to really, truly appreciate it.


Lonely Island "Jack Sparrow"
Just something funny to help me forget of a past existence.


Say Anything "Most Beautiful Plague"
This is the pinnacle of acceptance. You go through hell to be with someone, and even if it doesn’t work out, you just got to thank them for having sex with you.

Well That Was Dissapointing

What You Think:

Oh man oh man! A game where you get to see Megan Fox looking all hot and playing with Transformers. Maybe one will turn into something sexy. I am 100% sure that clicking this banner will not be disappointing.

What Happens:


Fucking Cake Mania!

Pandas Will Eat Your Face

Panda’s are adorable. They have those big eyes hidden in a cute tuft of black fur. They harmlessly eat bamboo and nap in the sunlight. Some even do adorable kung-fu moves.


This is the average humans perception of Pandas.


Awww cute right.

Look they even sneeze cute.


But I want to clear one thing up right here, right now. Pandas are death machines. Shave a panda and you loose all the cuteness and have just a killing machine.

Here’s a fun fact. Did you know Panda’s used to eat meat until their habitat changed and they were forced to eat nothing but stringy tough bamboo? It’s true. Seriously, Wikipedia that shit.

Now imagine this. You’re living life, eating all sorts of steaks and burgers and just enjoying the shit out of the taste of flesh, and all of a sudden, BAM! No more meat. Enjoy your bamboo fucker. I would think you’d be pretty pissed off right. Enough so that if even the slightest smell of meat comes near you, you’d probably try to shred it to bits and eat the fuck out of it.

Maybe like this?



Where’s your cute doe-eyed panda now?

Just remember the next time you look at a panda and see this…

You should really see this.


This has been a public service announcement by the people who don't want you to get your head ripped off by Pandas.

Who Is Making These!?

Add this to the dancing girl, the woman with the shrinking belly, the terrorist looking mother fucker and that cute little flash game where you move a car into your age as official WTF ads.

I don't think I'm an advertising genius or anything, and I don't want to sound like my college professor or anything, but what's the strategy here? Here is what I can gather from it.

Beating women gets you a better house payment.

Being a slut that gets dirty makes the president rethink homeowner prices.

The bigger your hoop earrings and more bruises you have, the cheaper your house!

If you get in a car accident and then see your ex blowing a clown and the look on your face is equal to terror, surprise and eroticism, you qualify!

Messed Up YouTube

Small Men, Big Power Trips

Here’s a fun little anecdote for ya. I was recently talking with a colleague of mine who was having difficulties with her boss. She was talking about a recent power trip he was on where he, through an email mind you, using wonderful prose, diction, and short harsh sentences, talked down and sent her into a tsunami of rage. Not only was his feedback unclear, but he twisted it in such a way that she appeared the one to blame for the current snag. Using motivating phrases like, “figure it out.” And “Just fix it.” He clearly indicated that he didn’t care how the problem was solved, so long as it was solved and he didn't have to deal with it. Then after harshly dominating his power, he rushed off onto a vacation. While this may sound like a typical boss on yet another power trip, it dawned on me. Having worked with the man myself I understood what the issue was. He was ridiculously short. Like five foot nothing. Meanwhile I stand at a modest five ten, five eleven, and am, for the most part, a fairly relaxed individual. Thus I came to my hypothesis. Short men= big power trips.

So with my hypothesis in place, I sent out to prove my findings. Now how to prove this, I took a look at my last five supervisors and took into consideration their height, and their level of bullshit power trips.

The subjects:

Frankensteins' are friendly

Boss Number 1:
Extremely tall man. Like Frankenstein tall.
Power trip level. Extremely low.

Consensus:
Although he did fire me for an extremely small, arguably silly incident, he was a lovable great boss. So how did I get fired? Well he was clearly an anti-Semite.


I'm hot, and could care less about your performance

Boss Number 2:
Moderately average height, moderately attractive female.
Power trip level: Minimum.
Consensus:
Stayed here for years. Got away with next to murder. She was friendly, loved me, and was one of the better bosses I’ve ever had. Anyone that catches you maing grilled cheeses on a coffee burner and looks the other way, well your ok in my book.


Inside, I hate myself

Boss number 3:
Average height man. About two inches shorter than me.
Power trip level: moderately severe.
Consensus:
While he was cranky, for the most part he dealt with his problems by keeping it inside, until it exploded and he was fired.


I hate how short I am!

Boss number 4:
Very short man.
Power trip level: Extreme
Consensus:
Every opportunity he had to make me fix something, whether it be a line of copy, a single word, or even just a tone he didn’t like, he would consistently make me wait around and through around his power.


The worst combo

Boss Number 5:
Average height woman. Ugly, bad speech impediment
Power trip level: Ultra Extreme
Consensus:
While not officially my boss, I added her to even the results and come to my ultimate consensus. From what I hear she was an uptight bitch, who only wanted things done her way.

Results:
After careful observation, crunching the numbers and totally over exaggerating, I have developed my consensus.

If your boss is a male, the shorter he is, the stronger the power trip. See fig. 1.

Figure 1

If your boss is a female, the uglier she is, the stronger the power trip. See fig 2.

Fig. 2

Since they can’t talk down to you physically, they have to make themselves seem bigger in other more creative ways. Like verbal abuse.

So kiddies, beware a short ugly female boss. They are the superlative example of pure evil.

Reality Isn't Bright and Shiny, It's Fucking Dusty and Smells Like A Rotting corpse

My friends at Cracked.com (well I consider them friends even though I have never met any of them) recently published an article about how disappointing life can be. This struck a chord with me (D minor methinks) because, well basically since I graduated college, a lot of things about adult life were just monstrously disappointing. There’s a quiet innocence of not only being a child, but also being a college student. So here’s my list of things you think and hope for in college, but are sorely disappointed by once you graduate.

Getting a job with a college degree is super easy

No, it’s not at all. It fucking sucks and is much harder than getting a job at your local fast food restaurant. Take for instance your typical job board, like careerbuilder.com or any number of wonderful job sites. At first glance you’ll say, holy fuck, I’ll have a job by lunch time! But the reality of it is half these jobs are done by bots, a third are outdated, and the rest are sales jobs. You’ll apply to dozens and dozens of these jobs and you’ll get dozens and dozens of spam emails, fake job offers and bullshit signs of hope straight to your inbox.

A college degree is the new high school diploma

When I graduated, I was so sure I’d be writing TV commercials for beers and loving life all the time. The reality, I went around with my fancy new degree and portfolio of bullshit work only to be laughed at and told I needed another type of school. A fancy schmancy art school or portfolio school. “But wait,” my internal brain worked, “I literally just finished school. No more tests, no more books, no more teachers dirty…” No, I needed more than a slip of paper that said I passed some classes. Seriously with your degree the best you can hope for is an entry-level sales job at an insurance company. I wish I didn’t know as many people that have graduated and are still working their college jobs, but I do.

Experience is nothing. It’s about who you know.

Seriously, a resume full of awesome experience looks really great on paper. But to a recruiter it’s nothing, they see hundreds of these a week and could care less that you worked for a tiny start-up company in your Podunk small town. In the corporate world, the only way to get in touch with someone who will actually talk back to you is to know someone yourself. Once they connect the dots, something might happen. So be friendly and talk to everyone you meet even if their dicks you hate.




That job you’ve been dreaming about that is going to be so much better than working at a restaurant or your retail cashier position, isn’t any better.

Your boss still sucks. The hours are still fucked up. The work is still dreadfully boring. And you don’t move. You become sluggish. You start to slow down and put on weight. You loose motivation. Essentially your dreams become crushed. There is no job that you look forward to. There is only something you can put up with for eight (but probably more) hours a day.

Happy living everyone!

Sometimes, Even I Think I’m Lame.

I love Facebook and Twitter but lately I feel like my obsession with creating the perfect status update has gotten to a point of utter ridiculousness. I mean when I actually think and break down the energy and thought put into this, in contrast to the amount of people who will actually stop and give a fuck about it, it makes me want to put my own head in a toilet.

Let’s break this down for a second shall we. I have roughly 300 friends on The Book. Of those 300, let’s immediately cut out half of them as people who joined Facebook, friended all their old flames, high school chums, and casual acquaintances and immediately stopped checking.

After that, let’s get rid of another dozen or so that are obligatory friends of a friend, and in all honesty, probably have my feed hidden.

What’s left? People that might actually give a shit. Who are these people? Well, just like me, they are people sitting around, bored as fuck and compulsively checking Facebook every ten minutes for what is new. These are people that click links like mad, are “thumbs up” fanatics, and get sexually aroused by notification alerts.

Of my 300 friends, I would say this is about ten people.

Anyone else who hasn’t been accounted for can be segmented into the friends who have lives outside the internet. These folks check Facebook and are mildly active, but are busy living lives where they are actually outside doing things and interacting with real people.

So my point behind all of this is, why do I give a fuck? If the only people I’m reaching is about ten people who compulsively like any link or article that comes their way, why do I spend a good five minutes trying to craft the perfect status update? I’m not writing a speech to deliver to the nation. I’m not competing in a regional stand up comedy competition. Hell, I’m not even trying to make an actual physical entity laugh. The best I can hope for is a LOL. If I’m lucky a LMAO and if I’m truly fortunate, the fabled and highest honor you can get on social media, the retweet.

Let’s take a look at an example status update from my feed.

“Facebook has done more for the “thumbs up” than Fonzie ever did kicking jukeboxes.”

Hahahahahahhahahahahaha
I mean aren't you just rolling in the aisle laughing!?
I guess it's OK. I mean it made me laugh and isn’t that the ultimate reason anyone puts anything on Facebook? And that’s all well and fine, but let’s take a look at the list of options I wrote before ultimately deciding on the “perfect” status.

Facebook. The modern day Fonzie. #ThumbsUp

What do Facebook and Fonzie have in common?

Who did more for the thumbs up, Facebook or Fonzie?

Who had a bigger influence on the thumbs up, Facebook or Fonzie?

Facebook or Fonzie? Who influenced the thumbs up more?

Facebook or Fonzie? Who better used the thumbs up

Like I said, sometimes I just want to punch me in the gut and give me a wedgie. But, I guess if you actually read this, please give me a thumbs up or something. My ego needs constant stroking and it’ll help me get through just one more day.

That's Interwebs

Hey everyone. It’s been a while but I’ve been busy settling in and getting adjusted to my new life in Southern California. So far, man it’s been gorgeous. The weather, the people, it’s been quite wonderful. And I gotta say, as was the case in Milwaukee when I was alone in a new city, the internet has reached out it’s loving wires and given me an embrace.

In a mere, three weeks since I’ve been out her, I’ve made at least four different connections with new friends that express similar interests. In a variety of places and types of people. I’ve met great people to drink good beer and catch a movie with. I’ve watched a fried chicken eating contest with people who like gaming. I’ve smoked hookah with my new roommates. It’s been a transition, but it’s been a fun one.

And amazingly, all of these people who didn’t exist in my life up until three weeks ago, were introduced to me by the ultimate networker, the internet.

I love how the internet has evolved from a place where antisocial freaks can bitch about the latest season of Battlestar Gallactica, to this magical world where you can meet new and interesting people just by typing a few sentances and hitting send. The hangups about the creepiness are gone (for the most part). As long as you use good judgment by meeting new people in a public place (to avoid potential stabbings) you can literally open up a world of opportunity.

So get out there fans of the internet, and meet some cool people. I know it’s possible. It’s all I’ve done the last four years of my life.

ADAB Is Moving

For all of you screaming at the tops of your lungs, "where is the latest post!" the answer is coming soon. I'm moving to LA and will be on haitus until I figure out this whole Left Coast lifestyle.

See you on the sunny side!

Justin