Light at the end of the day. Again.

I feel like this is going to be one of those posts I wind up putting up every March. It's time to "spring forward" again, as we turn our clocks ahead one hour this Sunday.

But to hear some people gripe about it, you'd think they were being slowly waterboarded at Gitmo. I don't understand the problem, so much so that I even wrote about it. Truth be told if I wasn't going to lose an hour this weekend I'd probably be writing a brand new post instead of recycling this one. But I am so I'm not.

I think you'll enjoy this. But you're about to lose an hour, so read fast.

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 saving 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.

Quarantine Canteen

When life hands you easily transmittable viral diseases that could potentially be pandemic and destroy life on earth as we know it, make lemonade. Alright, so that's not actually the saying but you get the gist.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock—and if you have been you're probably wondering where all the Republicans went (hint: they're in the senate)—you know there's a new threat in town. And its name is Coronavirus (Rap name: COVID-19).

Don't get the wrong idea: I don't want to minimize the impact of this very real outbreak. All of us should be reading and following precautions the CDC is suggesting:

Washing your hands like you're Howard Hughes.

Not touching our faces or anyone else's.

Fist and elbow bumping instead of shaking hands.

Using it as an excuse to stay home and binge shows on Netflix.

Sure the Coronavirus is going to be serious and alter our daily routine in ways we can't even imagine yet. It's the first pandemic for most of us. And you know what they say, you never forget your first. Still, I don't think it's all bad news. The way I look at it, one man's pandemic armageddon is another man's money-making opportunity.

Because there just aren't enough Rainforest Cafe's, Planet Hollywood's and Hard Rock Cafe's, I'm thinking what the world needs more of than anything else right now is a Coronavirus themed restaurant.

Presenting my idea for a pop-up called the Quarantine Canteen.

Hear me out. Much like the Breaking Bad Experience pop-up in L.A. a few months ago, the waitstaff will serve you in hazmat suits. If you order a shot at the bar, it'll be poured from a syringe. The only available beers will be Corona Extra, Corona Light, Corona Familiar and Corona Premier. Every booth will have a thick, plastic curtain to separate your party from the other diners. And TV's throughout the restaurant will be playing ER, Grey's Anatomy and General Hospital.

I don't have all the details yet, but I'll keep working on it. Just as soon as I shake this cough.

Leap at the chance

It happens every four years. Not the election (although that can't get here soon enough), not the summer Olympics and not the World Cup. What am I talking about (a question I get all the time)? I'm talking about Leap Year.

Why is this year different than the three years before it? Because as you probably know, during leap year February has an additional day. So instead of 365 days, in leap years there are 366. Thank you Captain Obvious.

Since it's such an infrequent occurrence—like me exercising or Scarlett Johansson returning my calls, there are a few interesting facts about a leap year:

What do you call them? People born on February 29th call themselves Leaplings. Or Leapsters. Or Leapers.

Never tell me the odds. The odds of being born on February 29th are 1 in 1,461, or .068 per cent.

Happy birthday to you. Leap year babies actually get to have birthdays the other years. As a rule, they usually celebrate it March 1st.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's his birthday! Superman was born on February 29th.

I was curious why we even have leap years—who isn't, amirite? So here's a little explanation I grabbed off the interwebs:

Leap days keep our modern-day Gregorian calendar in alignment with Earth's revolutions around the Sun. It takes Earth approximately 365.242189 days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds, to circle once around the Sun. This is called a tropical year, and it starts on the March equinox. However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year. If we didn't add a leap day on February 29 almost every four years, each calendar year would begin about 6 hours before the Earth completes its revolution around the Sun. As a consequence, our time reckoning would slowly drift apart from the tropical year and get increasingly out of sync with the seasons. With a deviation of approximately 6 hours per year, the seasons would shift by about 24 calendar days within 100 years. Allow this to happen for a while, and Northern Hemisphere dwellers will be celebrating Christmas in the middle of summer in a matter of a few centuries. Leap days fix that error by giving Earth the additional time it needs to complete a full circle around the Sun.

So not only is this blog wildly entertaining to read, it's also educational. You're welcome.

Leap years are like daylight saving, except instead of springing forward an hour you get to do it for a whole day. Ok, so analogies may not be my strong suit, but you see where I'm going.

My point is you have an extra day to do something you like, be nice to someone, forget all about pandemic diseases that may wipe out the entirety of mankind with a sneeze, and not listen to news about the unstable genius and his incoherent orange ramblings.

As everyone says to the bride, this is your day.

So do with it what you will, and make it one to remember.

Because no matter how you decide to celebrate your extra 24 hours, you'll only have four years to think of a way to top it.

All alone in the moonlight

Here's what I love about my friend Nicole. When I confessed to her, somewhat quietly and definitely with a heapin' helpin' of personal shame, that I actually wanted to go see the movie CATS, without missing a beat she said, "I DO TOO!" So right then and there we made a date to get liquored up (the only way to enjoy it) and go.

Sadly, by the time we were ready to make a night of it, CATS was out of the theaters (tried for an "out of the bag" joke here, I just couldn't make it work).

Anyway, this post was going to be all about how awful the movie is, the horrible reviews, the millions it cost Universal, why I wanted to see it and how on her worst day Nicole is a far better writer than I am (although I wasn't going to dwell on that).

But on the way to looking for an image to go with this post, I ran into a bunch of CATS parody posters.

If you know anything about me—and I believe you may know more than you want to by now—you know I'm a dog person. I'm constantly overdoing it with posts on the interwebs about my Hide-A-Sock terrier Lucy, and my second German Shepherd Ace.

By the way, you can read all about my first German Shepherd Max in a tearjerking yet heartwarming story I wrote for a book called Gone Dogs, which every dog lover should have sitting on their coffee table, and every dog lover's friend should be buying them. What's that? Oh sure, you can buy it here.

I may have digressed a bit.

So anyway while I was looking for the CATS movie poster for this post, I ran across several parody cat posters. Apparently there's an entire cat underground that spends their days on Photoshop making these posters. Any one of which I'm guessing is better than the CATS movie.

So for your pleasure, here are a few I found that I'm pretty sure are more entertaining than the movie.

And Nicole, one word: Cable.

Bringing home the bacon

I've never made any secret about it: I'm a devout believer that bacon makes everything better. In fact, a little over eight years ago I wrote this post about it. Can you believe it?

Not that I wrote about bacon. That I've been cranking out this crap over eight years.

Anyway, I've never been a fan of Dunkin' Donuts. Not because I don't like them, but because the one near my house is in a weird intersection that's impossible to get to. I'm all about easy. But their newest item might just be the thing to get me to go around the block, down several one-way streets and edge my way out onto the demolition derby traffic on 7th Street to get to their store.

And it's not even a donut. It's their new Snackin' Bacon. Mmmmmmm. Bacon.

I'm surprised it's not some newfangled donut variety, or a new blend of their legendary coffee. Obviously the fine sugar-coated, donut gourmet chefs at the DD R&D labs (that's a lot of D's - just like my high school report card) have seriously outdone themselves by coming up with this proprietary recipe.

I'm pretty sure I've cracked the code. Stay with me here: it's a bag, filled with bacon. Genius.

I can see where some might say that, new product wise, they just gave up and took the easy way out. I say they took the brilliant way out.

Next time you run into me at Dunkin' Donuts and see me standing there staring up at the menu board with a glazed look in my eyes, you'll know it's not because of the donuts.

The not-so-great debate

Because I'm a glutton for punishment—and a fan of classic comedy—I watched the 10th Democratic Debate tonight. And just like the last one, it was a tough room.

It's sad and funny to watch everyone come undone as it gets closer to the South Carolina primary, and then the 14-state super Tuesday a week from today.

Here's where I come out on it. I'm not a Bernie bro, and frankly he reminds me of too many loud uncles to get my vote. At this point I can't tell if he's pointing, waving or signing. I actually think, while I agree with and support many of his positions, he gives moderates in both parties too much ammunition not to vote for him.

I've always liked Pete Buttigieg. He's level, scary smart, articulate. And he doesn't point. I like his platform of inclusiveness. And I like the idea of someone unflappable, who's had military experience and can understand what it's like to be discriminated against just for who you are. He seems like a healer to me.

I like Elizabeth Warren, but frankly there was an air of desperation to her performance tonight. I kept thinking of Springsteen's song "Glory Days" because it just felt like she was trying to get back the unbelievably great mojo she had going in the last debate. She's got a plan, and I admire that. I hope she can stay in it long enough to get her message out.

I think Joe is a decent guy, but he just feels tired to me. And I don't know if Medicare covers hearing aids, but he should look into it. It's like he's in a yelling contest with Bernie. SPOILER ALERT: That's another thing he'll lose.

Amy Klobuchar is as dead center as you can get. I believe she'll have a seat at the table, but I don't think she'll be the nominee. I was betting we were going to escape without hearing about her uncle working in the mines. I lost the bet.

I don't think Tom Steyer has a billionaire's chance in hell, but I am liking him more and more. Saw his CNN Town Hall last night and was impressed. I'd peg him for Secretary of the Interior.

Finally we come to Bloomberg. I can't stand him. I see his commercials in my nightmares. If he was really that concerned, he'd stop running for President and channel his money into down ballot Senate seats.And the way the audience cheered his talking points, I'll swear he had paid ringers in there. Especially after the way Warren eviscerated him last time. Also, his jokes are as bad as his policies.

So now that we're in the first final stretch, they're all yelling and screaming over each other, and it looks more like a pie fight than a debate. But someone will emerge eventually, and then it'll be that person vs. the unstable genius/liar-in-chief.

I don't know who'll it'll be. I hope it's Pete. But I do know this much—whoever it is, they have my total support.

ENCORE POST: Mr. Tee

Today is Presidents Day. And since it's a holiday, I decided to repost this piece as opposed to writing an entirely new one.

I'm doing it because I want to observe the holiday properly. Because I want to use the day to spend time with my family. And mainly because I couldn't think of anything new to write about.

I admit it's the easy way out. But if you know anything about me—and you should know almost everything by now—you know I'm all about easy.

Enough chit-chat. This post has everything: Friendship. Drama. Vegas. Rewritten parts. Spelling errors. Ready? Please to enjoy.

A few years ago, I was looking for something I could do to add on to the monumental fortune I've made in advertising. Preferably something not involving monster egos, all-night work sessions, talking to account planners and unimaginably bad pizza.

So my close friend and art director extraordinaire Kurt Brushwyler and I kicked around escape plans for a while, and came up with a business idea we could both get behind: t-shirts.

Alright, so it wasn't the most original idea. But we were going to do it in a way that managed to combine two things we loved: t-shirts and Vegas.

I forget the name of it, but for a while there was a little newsletter/brochure you could pick up at any restaurant, usually near the restrooms by the sponsored post card rack and outdated copies of the L.A. Weekly. It listed all kinds of bizarre classes that not only reinforced every stereotype about L.A., but also that no legitimate institution of learning would ever offer.

One of them was How To Get Into The T-Shirt Industry. Coincidence? I think not.

So one night after a long day freelancing at Chiat (is there any other kind?), Kurt and I hopped in his Prius and drove over to the world-famous, two-star Marina Del Rey Marriott for a three-hour class taught by guys who'd hit it big making t-shirts and selling them to Paris Hilton for $95 a piece at Kitson.

It was actually an interesting and educational evening. Needless to say the part about having to go to Vegas to hawk our wares at the Magic Fashion Convention was quite appealing.

Our master plan was to get those cart/kiosk things you see in the main promenade of The Forum Shops at Caesar's and sell the t-shirts off of them. It was going to be our test run. If they did well, we'd approach each of the casinos and holding companies about making exclusive t-shirts for their gift shops, with funny lines tailored specifically for each hotel.

I wrote about a couple hundred Vegas/hotel lines, and Kurt started working on designs for them. It was ours, and it was fun.

Right up until I called The Forum Shops to find out about the carts. Come to find out - and if I'd thought about it for a second I would've realized it - that Caesar's owned all the carts in their mall. They didn't rent them to outside vendors.

But since we both come from advertising, and are used to rejection, adversity, broken dreams and plans going awry on a daily basis, we knew exactly how to handle the situation.

We gave up.

Every once in awhile, when I talk to Kurt or we get together, we kick around rebooting the idea. But then we move on to more important things, like which sushi place to go to for lunch.

We still own the URL we came up with (no, I'm not saying it here just in case...) and still have the lines. Plus there are a whole slew of casinos that weren't there the first time around we could approach. So I'm not ruling anything out—we might come back to the idea at some point.

All I know for sure is if we do, there'll definitely be a lot of research involved.