Light at the end of the day

I hope you're sitting down. I don't know how to break this to you, but my Jedi instincts tell me the best way is to just come right out and say it: there are a lot of babies and whiners on the internet.

I know, I'm as shocked as you are. Shocked.

If you've been on Facebook or Twitter in the last couple days, like me you've probably noticed an ungodly amount of posts talking about how much people hate daylight savings time. How they just. don't. understand. why we have to change the clocks at all. How they're soooooo tired because they lose one hour in 24 out of one day in 365.

I'd like to promise all of you complaining about it that this is not the worst thing that will ever happen in your life. Trust me.

As you might've guessed, I happen to be a big supporter of DST. And I can't even begin to understand why everyone else isn't. There are so many more reasons to like it than not.

Let's start at the wallet. The fact it's light until almost 9 means electric bills go down. Way down for at least six months. Who's against that? Whiners? Anyone?

Next, the hideous commute I'm up against every night seems to get a little easier, because for some odd reason drivers are able to navigate better when they can actually see the road and what's around them. Body shops don't do as well during DST, but they make it up when we Fall Back.

Finally, and this may just be me, but I seem to have more energy. The longer it's light out, the longer I think it's not time to settle in for the night. I'm out and about longer getting more done. Not just more of what I have to do, but more of what I want to do.

So for all the whiners out there bitching and moaning about switching All The Clocks In The House! ahead and losing your precious hour, I say this with love: just shut up.

You'll get your hour back in November.

Look at it this way. Now that the day's longer, you'll have more time to think of something else to complain about.

Punctuation doesn't suck

Grammar's a hard thing to muster a lot of excitement about. And since I pass myself off as a writer, I have this secret shame I don't know as much as I should about it. The dreaded semi-colon? No idea if I'm using it the right way or not. At least in the three times in my life I've used it (two of which are in this post).

My friend Julie Prendiville gave me the best book on grammar I've ever read: The Deluxe Transitive Vampire. It makes grammar interesting, fun, and more importantly, important. (any number of writers could've done a better job with that last sentence. Don't think I didn't notice).

Anyway, it's been a long time since she gave me the book, and equally as long since I've read it. But as a result of the rapidly fading use of proper grammar, I'll be picking it up again soon. I can't stand the thought I might be part of what I consider the dumbing down of writing, even if I am part of a business that makes up words like stroft (Charmin - strong & soft), powercision (Hyundai - power & precision, or circumcision; was never sure which), funified (Chuck E. Cheese; false advertising at its best), freshalicious (Subway) and a million more.

In case you're wondering, the quick way to a dumb, new ad word is to combine two ordinary words into a colossally stupid one. Or just add -licious, -centric, -tastic, -esque or -opolooza to one.

Look, I know I'm not the only writer who's frustrated by the disappearance of proper punctuation. Most noticeably periods. I'm not sure when it happened, although it was probably around the time the first web designer/art director said, "Do we really need that period in the headline? I don't know, it doesn't look right." And naturally since art directors are well known for their legendary grasp of grammar and spelling, the (junior) writer he worked with went along with it.

The thing about punctuation is that it isn't only a design element. It's an essential tool in making written words read and feel as much like spoken conversation as possible.

So when I drive down the 405 - and by drive I mean crawl - looking at outdoor headlines with no periods, it's frustrating. Same with almost every headline anywhere on the interwebs. It's almost as if the laziness of abbreviated txtng has crept into everything.

Without periods, headlines are incomplete. They float. They're wishy-washy. They're not definitive, confident statements about the product.

I'm not letting myself off the hook either. I rarely use punctuation on my post titles. I'm not proud of it. I promise to do better from now on.

Not just for my readers, but for grandpa.

Heavy panting

There are some lessons in life you just have to learn for yourself. For example, don’t play basketball while wearing tuxedo pants. That’s one my son learned a couple weeks ago.

Not that playing in tuxedo pants doesn’t make you look quite handsome on the court. It’s just that when you fall and tear the knee, and you need the pants for a concert, it starts to get complicated.

Apparently in the small print on the dad contract, I’m the one who has to repair the damage. So I took the pants back to the tux shop where we bought them to see if they could patch ‘em up. They went in last Saturday for a concert yesterday. Alonso, the swarthy yet rushed counterperson said it would be no problem to fix the hole. Yes they could do it in time for the concert. And of course he’d call me the next day to let me know when they’d be ready.

Which of those things do you think happened? If you said none, then you’ve obviously dealt with Alonso before.

It's frustrating to say the least. Hard to believe, but there actually was a time when businesses couldn't afford not to do what they said they were going to.

Alonso is not of that time.

The pants were ready today. But, and I don't know why I'm surprised at this, they weren't repaired in the way I was expecting. Which was that the hole would be entirely sewn up, with only a hair-thin line left that you could never see unless you were looking for it. I don't know if Alonso did the sewing himself, but if so we clearly had a failure to communicate.

The pants were patched like a pair of jeans. You could see the tear, and behind it an ironed on black patch. The good news is my son wound up not using or needing that pair of pants.

Next time, if I want my tuxedo pants patched up like a pair of twenty-year old Levi's, I'll send them here.

Bedside manner

Every once in a while - a great while - my faith in humanity is momentarily restored. This is one of those times.

A while ago I had seen this letter from an emergency room doctor to a man who's wife he'd treated. Sadly she later passed away, but she'd left such an impression that this doctor felt compelled to write his first letter ever to a family member. What strikes me is the time he took to write this letter, which is clearly carefully and deliberately worded, was probably longer than he gets to spend with most of his patients.

In an age of cost cutting, managed care, debates by monkeys in congress over healthcare and the traditional distance doctors keep from the personal lives of their patients, this letter is nothing short of remarkable.

I never want myself or any member of my family to have need of an ER doctor. But if it's unavoidable, I hope they get someone as compassionate as this.

You know, for kids

Here's a little bit of toy trivia for you.

Fifty years ago this very day, the hula hoop was patented by Wham-O. It's actually been around (no pun intended) since the mid-1800's, just not in the form and material we know today.

If you saw the Coen Bros. Hudsucker Proxy - an extremely underrated film - you know the hula hoop is central to the plot and lead character played by Tim Robbins.

I was thinking about the hula hoop - because really, what else do I have to think about - and I realized it's the same thing I, and all my creative brethren, strive for in advertising: An idea so uncomplicated and pure, it resonates on a visceral level.

But as anyone in the biz will tell you, the simple ideas are the hardest to find. And the hardest to sell.

In the movie, Tim Robbins character shows his idea to a colleague in the mail room: a circle on a piece of paper. The colleague thinks he's nuts. The simple ideas are a lot like shopping for homes - you have to look past what they are and see what they can become.

It's a skill not every agency and client has.

I'm not sure why toy makers can see it and people who are supposed to do it for a living can't. Wham-O followed up the hula hoop with another astonishingly simple idea: the Frisbee. And the rest is history.

As anyone who's worked ten minutes in an agency knows, until the dial gets reset to simple we're going to keep winding up with things like this:

Mail enhancement

I never understood all the jokes made at the expense of the post office. It always seemed to me it was more about people's impatience waiting for something to arrive more than the actual service itself.

I'm just going to come out and say it: I love the mail. I look forward to it getting here, I love using my Warner Bros. Wile E. Coyote letter opener to open it, I love going through it and I like when there's a whole bunch of it. I also like sending it out. When I seal those envelopes, even if they're bills, and I slap that stamp on it and drop it in the mailbox, it actually gives me a sense of accomplishment.

And I'll take a sense of accomplishment wherever I can find it.

Don't you think it's amazing that for 46 cents, you can mail a letter in L.A. and usually within a couple days it's being read by the person you sent it to in NY? Assuming you sent it to NY. I think it's incredible. I know it's not instantaneous like email, but I think the whole "snail mail" label is a misnomer considering what the service is.

Believe it or not, some things are worth waiting for.

Obviously my unbridled enthusiasm for the post office doesn't make me a fan of ending Saturday mail delivery. The thought of it is quite depressing. I like having the "one more day" option, which means if I'm expecting something on Friday - for example, a check - and it doesn't get here, there's always Saturday.

Only starting in August, there isn't always Saturday anymore. I can't say I'm surprised by it. In fact, I wrote an earlier post here about the decline of personal, handwritten communication. A decline that's going to eventually doom the postal service.

By the way, just so you know I'm not the only one who loves the idea of personal, handwritten letters, my friend Janice has made a nice business sending letters from Paris to people all over the world like myself, who love receiving them.

It's only $2 billion dollars standing between Saturday mail delivery and seeing it disappear. Can't the government fund that and build one less B2 bomber? Or two less drones? It just seems so correctable. More than that, it seems like something both parties should be able to agree on (pauses waiting for laughter to subside).

Besides, it would make me really happy. And since I'm an only child, I think we can all agree that's what really matters.

I have an idea I'm pretty sure would make the government take action to rescue the postal service. It's pretty simple really.

Just tell them Saturday delivery means tax forms arrive earlier.

Bobbleheads

I had a decision to make about what to call this post. It was either going to be Bobbleheads or Asshats. Either one would’ve been just as applicable, although I suppose the one I chose is more specific.

I was driving – and when I say driving I mean crawling – to work today on the 405 which, for those of you outside of L.A., is the world’s biggest parking lot. Kevin and Bean on KROQ were pretty funny this morning (especially on their phone call with “Justin Bieber”), so I was looking around at my fellow gridlock victims to see who else was laughing. What I saw was more than a few of them bouncing their heads up and down. And not because they were laughing.

It took me a second, but then it all made sense. They were texting or reading texts while they were trying to drive.

Alright. Asshats.

Suddenly the 405 was even more frightening than usual. While these human bobbleheads were busy with their smartphones (something something about phones smarter than the people using them), I saw more than a few of them narrowly avoid rear ending – and not in a good way – the car in front of them.

There needs to be some kind of “Idiot Behind The Wheel Texting” hotline where you can report these lamebrains. Of course, it would only be available to cars with Bluetooth and voice-dialing.

Or maybe a Megan’s Law kind of website where texting-while-driving offenders have their pictures posted, along with the messages they were texting when they ran into the car in front of them. Just to make sure they're really put to shame, their driver's license photos would also be posted.

Texting fines have to be jacked up. Like the carpool lane fines, their wallets need to hurt if they're caught. Or even better, a mandatory night in jail for being a threat to every car on the road ahead of them. That'll give 'em something to text about.

I don't like it any better, but at least the nose pickers keep their eyes on the road.