Chris Brown-Rihanna Situation

There's something in the air in the world of celebrities and athletes lately...first Phelps, then A-rod, then this past Sunday...Chris Brown. Chris Brown may not be as well-known as the other two, but in the music world, he's become a pretty big name, known for his pop songs and MJ-inspired dancing. He fulfilled the Paparazzi dream and formed a celebrity relationship with fellow hip-hop/R&B/pop artist Rihanna.

Chris Brown has seemed like a clean-cut, Momma's boy type of guy for the past 3 years, since he came into the music world at the age of 16. He advertised for Doublemint Gum for God's sake. Well the shit hit the fan for Brown this past Sunday on the way to the Grammy's with his girlfriend Rihanna. Like I said before, I sympathize with Phelps and think his situation was blown out of proportion. A-rod...you're a cheater just like the rest. Chris Brown though...man, you've lost everyone's respect.

Apparently when driving from a pre-Grammy party to the awards in a Lambo, Chris Brown and Rihanna got in an altercation. The story goes that he pulled over because they were fighting and Rihanna took the keys out of the ignition and threw them out of the window. When Chris Brown got out of the car and couldn't find them, he apparently made death threats to Rihanna, choking her to the point of unconsciousness and there were apparently some bruises on Rihanna's face.

WTF??? Chris Brown has apparently grown up in an abusive household, as he has talked about on talk shows, which of course he has followed up by mentioning his respect for women and his feeling that women should not have to go through what he saw his mother go through. I'm sorry that he had to grow up with that, and can't imagine having to live with it, but dude...you're 19. You're a man. You broke the ultimate rule...NEVER abuse women.

Doublemint dropped Brown's endorsement...and his Got Milk? endorsement...radio stations are pulling his songs off the air...a NY radio station is even having a "Shred Chris Brown CDs and Posters" Day appropriately on Friday the 13th. And oh yea...his SESAME STREET episode? That's out the window. Your career is f-ed man...and for good reason. You're the new Bobby Brown.

I stated a protest of Kellogg's on Monday...and I was serious...but a ban on everything that is Chris Brown...this is very serious.

The Michael Phelps Situation

You probably live under a rock if you haven't heard about the Michael Phelps situation by now. I don't think I'm alone when I say...Leave the poor guy alone! I admit that the situation has probably made things tough for a lot of parents of child-swimmers, but let's look around the sports world folks...it ain't exactly rated G. I think the lesson to learn for parents is don't let your children become so obsessed with any celebrity or athlete to the point that they'll mock every single little thing that they do.

Now Michael Phelps might be more of an all-American role model for younger athletes than other celebrity-athletes, but it's not like he shot himself in the leg...and it's not like he's going to trial for his recent 8 GOLD MEDALS because he was taking performance-enhancing drugs...and he's not pulling a Ricky Williams either and taking a year off swimming to smoke weed full-time. Personally, I think he's deserved to let loose after DOMINATING the Olympics.

Now comes the issue of his endorsements. Don't be fooled by Kellogg's stating that the reason they dropped him was because he does not fit their image...they probably wished this happened sooner in his contract. They just got some great publicity, "regaining the trust" of the parents who buy sugar-loaded cereal for their Speedo-wearing children. And it looked like Subway was going to as well, but they may have changed their mind...not sure how I feel about that.

Anyway, I'm backing Phelps on this one and holding a grudge. No Frosted Flakes for me...not that I'm an enormous contributor to Kellogg's in the first place, but call it a protest.

Enough of me ranting though...Seth Meyers on SNL pretty much summed it all up:

Beer Bottle Dominoes

While you were sitting in your cubicle, putting cover sheets on your TPS reports, these guys were "working" at the brewery:

Ad Jingles

We all know businesses advertise so that we'll remember, be reminded and be persuaded. One great way to do this is to create an original theme song or jingle of some type, in hopes that it will stick in our head all day long like a bad 80's song (wait a minute...bad 80's? that's an oxymoron...80's music rocks).

I find myself whistling the Old Spice jingle in the shower as I pick up the Old Spice shower gel. Or whistling along to the Taco Bell commercials. In fact, one day I was going crazy because I couldn't figure out how one of those FreeCreditReport.com songs went (eventually I saw the commercial again, figured it out, and heard it in my head for the following week)...F to the R to the E to the E to the C to the R to the E-D-I-T, RE to the PORT to the DOT to the COM, come on everybody grab your bike and sing along...(you're welcome!) And don't even tell me the $5 foot long song hasn't been stuck in your head for hours.

The FreeCreditReport.com commercials bring up an interesting point though...the whole commercial is a song, but they change that song from commercial to commercial as I'm sure you've seen. In older times, brands would create long jingles and use them again and again. That was when people didn't have the luxury of DVR or DVDs. Most "jingles" you hear nowadays are a few seconds long like the whistles I mentioned.

I bring this topic up because I heard a radio commercial earlier today for Mohegan Sun Casino. Rather than coming up with a short wordless jingle or an original jingle, Mohegan Sun takes somewhat of a disastrous hybrid route: using an existing song and changing the words. They've butchered "Walk Like an Egyptian" and I dread the day when I have to hear the other one, which apparently uses "Sweet Home Alabama." They have television commercials that do the same thing with other songs except you get the honor of seeing people dancing around like choreographed jackasses.

Feel free to witness the ruination of Rick James for yourself:



No thanks MoHo...I'll stick with the CT Lottery to blow my money.

Sorry For the Hiatus...Top Chef Update

So...when I blogged about a month ago about Top Chef and mentioned that I would make an update once 6 contestants are left, I did NOT mean I would NOT post about anything else UNTIL then. I apologize...blog topics have been running through my mind left and right and yet I still managed to pull a 3 week stint without a single post...the longest stretch since this blog started.

That said, I'll have to fulfill the promise I made in my last post, and hopefully this post will get me back on track. If it doesn't, I'll post a video of me singing "Beat It" on Guitar Hero: World Tour...seriously...if that doesn't give me motivation, I don't know what will.

So on to Top Chef...which is on again tonight with 6 contestants left. It turns out I was 5 for 6: the final 6 are Fabio, Stefan, Leah, Hosea, Jamie and...Carla? Noone in their right mind is cheering for Carla and that includes her husband. Her bug-eyes bruise us and her comments about putting "love" into her food should have her automatically eliminated. And yet I have a feeling that she'll last another night. So who will bite it tonight? I'm going with Leah.

She flirted with Hosea, something abnormal in the Top Chef series, and it took her and Hosea off their game. I think Hosea will recover...I don't think Leah did last week and I think it'll screw her up tonight.

I'm still liking Fabio, but it's really hard to predict at this point who will win. Once it gets down and gritty, the judges throw some serious toss-ups to the chefs and it seems like they try to top it every season. What happens from here on out will happen, and I'm very excited to see it.