Talking Turkey

I always thought that turkeys were all created equal. Really, what's the difference between a Butterball turkey and a more expensive variety? All I ever knew was that the turkey was low in calorie and fat, generally served at holidays, and significantly larger than the chicken. As I am learning, the humble turkey is becoming almost a status symbol, as people are starting to obsess over the rediscovered heritage turkeys, which apparently have the old bloodlines that were present when America was first discovered. They are supposedly more sustainable, better tasting, and less pumped full of modern chemicals, hormones and antibiotics.

This is what a heritage turkey looks like:

That looks far more appealing and alive than the Butterball:

However, this healthy, environmentally friendly turkey comes at a price! While a Butterball may ring up at just over a dollar a pound, the Heritage varieties may cost upwards of $6 per pound, a pricey difference when you're considering that a turkey can easily weigh 15 pounds.

I'm going to ask my mom to give the heritage turkey a try at Thanksgiving, though. After all, we're already doing free-range chickens, wild-caught salmon, and grass-fed beef. We might as well give the upgraded turkey a whirl, right?

Wonka's Nerds

Everyone knows what nerds are! The best candy ever invented.
But if only they made them for pets. I was just eating a box of them over the weekend and looked at the little candy characters and they are soo cute! I really want one as a pet.
They would be wild little things.
Ideally I would want them to be the size of a small dog because otherwise I feel like they would bounce all over the place and you wouldn't find them except for every now and then by surprise. A strawberry-watermelon mixed one would be the perfect pet. I wonder how they would talk?

Abercrombie

Last night my friends and I went to this 'focus group' at the W hotel. Morgan's sister works for a marketing company in Dallas, so she invited us to participate in their little research project. A group of boys and girls went and were asked to describe "what is cool." On one side of the room, they had little sticky notecards all over the place that you had to re-arrange into categories (most of them were brands and trends). On the other side was a description of a clothing brand and you had to guess which one it was. They described themselves as the 'classic all-american brand, originated in the east-coast, and conservative yet sexy.' Well the first thing that comes to mind is something like Ralph Lauren right?

Wrong, the brand they were describing was Abercrombie. 

They had brought a group of SMU students in to basically tell them what was wrong with the brand and why it wasn't selling anymore...

1. Who wants to walk into a pitch black store with an over-powering smell of cologne and loud music... its suffocation-nation.

2. I'm embarressed to walk around with a bag picturing a half-naked teenager on the front. 

3. the clothes are made cheaply and I don't want the brands name in bold letters on every part of the shirt they can fit it. 

fix that. And I think they will start seeing results. 

photoshop

I want to learn how to work photoshop! How cool would it be to transform a normal/average picture into something that is surprising, different, and captivating!
You can pretty much have an idea in your head and create it using photoshop. There are so many times when I picture something in my head and there is no way to describe it with words. If I could only learn how to work this simple yet complicated software, showing people what goes on inside my head would be soo much easier. Because lets face it... I'm not the best artist with pencil and paper.

Ads tp better our world

There are so many ads that exist to promote products and services and it gets overwhelming. Why not try something different? It's so great to advertising that 'helps' the community. I wish there were more ads encouraging people to go out in the community and help better our world. I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but there are so many fun ways to get involved and advertising them is such a perfect way to highlight that (not to mention it would give the advertising business a good rep too).

I am working for a small advertising agency in Houston this summer called Love Advertising, and one of their clients is Susan G. Komen. 

Advertising "race for the cure" is what has made this foundation what it is today!! 

There should be more ads promoting awareness of causes such as breast cancer like the Susan G. Komen foundation... inspiring others to help! 

Feed the Media: Charlie Sheen

Its funny how someone famous can do one crazy thing or say something a little over the top and next thing you know its all over every media source in the country. Ironically I feel as if this promotes their behavior. We keep giving them more and more attention, egging them on and expecting more from them. For example, Charlie Sheen...
He was always a little off, inappropriate and yet extremely hilarious... but after a couple of slip ups the media started crawling all over him and since then he's gone way down hill. I mean honestly, it's a joke. I was listening to the radio yesterday and a "Charlie Sheen remix" of "Tonight I'm Lovin' You" by Enrique Inglesias started playing?!

 In a completely different perspective, I think Charlie has the right idea... besides the fact that he's mentally disturbed and going through a major meltdown... it seems as if he knows that the more he feeds to the media the more attention will come his way. He even said he was going to start charging people to interview him. Pretty clever on his part since he just got fired.
All in all, if celebrities didn't have the pressure of the public and media judging their every action and feeding their bad habits... would they face less emotional distress/instability than they do now? I think the answer is easily a yes.. and thus I doubt we would see as many "messed" up celebrities as we have seen today.

View from Above

The days when you desperately need to get somewhere and end up running into traffic are easily one of my biggest pet peeves. Its so unfortunate because I am usually pretty accurate about how long it takes me to get from point A to point B, but with traffic in the mix... it messes up everything. However, imagine life as bird. I think that would be pretty amazing. Taking flight whenever you felt like getting some fresh air, getting to places quicker, and not even having to worry about leaving the house during rush hour! You could just simply fly overhead and passover the poor guy slamming his fists against the steering wheel because he hit yet another red light.

Not to mention, if I were a bird for a day... imagine the the great view. What would it be like to see the world from above? I found this picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, which I thought was very different from what I've always been used to seeing. Its pretty scary if you think about being that high up and looking down at everything. I wonder if birds ever get afraid of flying to high? I may be the first one... 

Take a smile...

I came across this picture and I really liked it.
"take a smile" ...
It's so simple, but ripping off a smile from it would do exactly that for me. As cliche as this sounds, a smile can really make someone's day.
Did you know that forcing a smile can actually make you feel happy? Our body is programmed to react to certain body movements and a smile is one of them. You can actually manipulate your facial expressions to form an emotion! So if you think about it... if you force a smile it will eventually make you laugh... and since laughter is contagious wouldn't that make people around you happy as well? 
I really want to try this out and see what happens! Go to the library, sit down to start studying for a little with a group of people, and then just put a HUGE smile on face and wait to see what happens... i'm already laughing thinking about it :)

Boxes

I wish we could keep the imagination and innocence we had as children. I recently just walked into a FedEx store and saw all these boxes... nothing to them right? They are just cardboard boxes. However, then I remembered if I saw this as a kid, this would be awesome! I could build the coolest, largest fort ever!

We see the world differently as a child and sometimes even more creatively. Why is it that we lose our ability to create things out of nothing as we get older? I mean it obviously still happens, but we have a whole process to go about finding that "one idea". As a child this "process" would be as easy as breathing. What happens to our ability to be free thinkers as we get older? Is it the pressure of conforming to society and not being an outsider? In my view, brilliant ideas come from uncontrolled thoughts.

From the perspective of a tree:

    At the very start of my life I was happy-- level with my surroundings, taken care of by the rain, but also very delicate in the first few years of my life. I could observe the vast plains surrounding me. Empty, bare, and beautiful. The air was clean and my only fear was the occasionally temperamental weather.

As I grew and my branches extended, the space around me became smaller. However, it wasn't because I was growing, but because of the world transforming beneath me. I can now see houses being built nearby, a small factory to my left billowing dark colored smoke and the taste of pollution running through my veins. My lungs are working harder and harder to breathe with every rise of the sun and I'm starting to feel as if the ground in which my roots relied on for nutrients is now feeding me toxins. As I patiently wait for the slightest breeze of fresh air, I begin to feel the earth shake beneath my branches. Men with shovels start digging away my familiar and loved surroundings. The flowers, the grass, and the tiny ant hill that has been with me since the last rainfall have all been destroyed. I as I stand there in agony, I suddenly feel a stab to my heart when an ax cuts right through me to make way for a new road.

From the Stork

            As a little girl my parents used to joke around that I got my blue eyes from the “mailman” since both of them have hazel-brown colored eyes. I also remember that I used to believe a stork dropped me off on my parent’s doorstep when I was born. I look back and laugh about it now, but its funny because when we’re kids we tend to believe anything that comes out of someone’s mouth. The common belief is that if someone says its true, then it has to be true. The concept of lying is just to much for us to consider and so we take the route with less cognitive work. When we grow older our capacity for cognitive thinking increases and we finally learn that, unfortunately, babies don’t come from storks. It used to be so simple, but of course babies don’t appear out of thin air and get dropped of by storks… there’s a long process to it. 

Wake up!

Alarm clocks are super annoying. Especially the ones that sound like a siren is going off and you practically wake up with a jolt thinking your house is on fire. At least I've made use of the "harp" sound on my iPhone to make waking up more pleasant.

But just when I thought I have had enough I came across this... A pillow that VIBRATES to wake you up in the morning! How simple, yet pure genius is this? Why didn't I think of this?  All you have to do is pull the pink tag out to however many hours you are going to sleep that night and when it reaches the end it will start to slowly vibrate to wake you up from a nice sleep. And apparently if you don't wake up your head weight acts as the "snooze trigger." No more annoying sirens and harps waking me up in the morning anymore!

What makes Starbucks so Popular?

I just registered a Starbucks gift-card online that my dad gave me around a week ago and I was so excited to hear that I only needed 5 more stars to reach "Green Level" ... 30 for "Gold Level!!"
Everyone says that there is nothing special about Starbucks coffee, but then why does everyone always flock here to get their morning, afternoon, and late-night java fix? Some have even stopped saying the word coffee.. now it's.. "I'm gonna grab a Starbucks." If it was really just regular old coffee, then why do I make the effort to drive all the way over there in the morning even if I have my own coffee a couple steps away from my bed!

They really know how to sell this place.. it has a personality. I come here to study or have a quick "coffee break" with a friend. Not to mention, the new online system where you can collect 'stars' and reach different levels only makes me want to come back even more! (so clever...)