The King of Pain

By ryan in Food, Rants 0 Comment

As most of my friends and family know, I’m a big fan of mixed martial arts and of the UFC in particular. I saw this when I was watching an event recently.

Let's Advertise Here. Wait, a little to the right.

Let's Advertise Here. Wait, a little to the right.

As you can see from the picture, the Smoothie King logo tucks right in there next to the “Headrush – Death B4 Defeat,” emblazoned on the fighter’s ass. Which led me to imagine someone in the Smoothie King marketing department must have been sitting on the couch one day and thought to him or herself, “We’ve been doing great with moms – we really seem to be getting a lot of traction with them…But, we need to do more to reach cage fighters and cage fighting enthusiasts. We can say to them ‘If you enjoy directly participation or simply the bloody spectacle of violence, you’re going to love our blended fruit and yogurt concoctions…They’re a very sensible choice. ‘ ” And so the wheels began to turn, and Smoothie King enters the Octagon…of advertising.

Fighter: “I just beat the living [BEEP] out of someone.”
Smoothie King Employee: “Fantastic sir! You look bloody and thirsty. What can I get for you!”
Fighter: “I’d like something with mango…Wait, why don’t you just surprise me.”
Smooth King Employee: “Regular-sized ManGoing Bananas, coming right up.”
Announcer Voice Over: “One sip, and you’ll submit to the championship flavor of Smoothie King.”

Missed Connections

By ryan in Life, Rants 1 Comment

These are screenshots from my phone.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Starting maybe about a year-and-a-half or two years ago, a rambling, and from the sound of his voice, older, gentleman called me enough times that I decided that I had to add him to my address book. As he and I hadn’t been formally introduced, I came up with the first, and what seemed most appropriate, name for him in my address book. Most of the time, he would leave a message, completely ignoring my outgoing message or deciding that despite evidence to the contrary, he was really leaving messages for his friends or family. On more than one voicemail, he repeatedly said, “I love you” on the message. And when I say repeatedly, I don’t mean that it was interspersed throughout the message. What I mean, actually, is that the whole message consisted of him repeating that same phrase, and only that phrase in a slightly-louder-than whisper voice. Then for a while, I didn’t hear from him. One of the later, more memorable messages was him asking me (on voicemail) if I’d remembered the van, either to pick him up with or to have fixed. I was never entirely sure. Then, a month ago or so, he reached out and called again.

And Share a Little Something

Voicemail

It was sad when I thought I had a new message from him, but in the end he hung up without saying a thing. Call me, Crazy Fucker. Let’s do this dance again.