“It’s a sunny July morning in Austin and four Wal-Mart suits have arrived at GSD&M Advertising for a “chemistry session,” the first meeting in a pitch process that will go on for 2 1/2- months. At stake is the right to run Wal-Mart’s high-profile brand campaign.” … more …

  

if you’ve never seen grey’s anatomy, which i can’t imagine why you wouldn’t have, you have to watch at least the first 5 minutes or so of last night’s episode (available night of Fri 9/29). everything about it is amazing. it took me forever to realize that the brain tumor patient (peter paige) was emmett from queer as folk. that was seriously just about the best episode of the series so far. of course i say that about every episode. i just don’t get how a television show can be so amazing. damn i love grey’s anatomy.

on another note … i’m laying in bed and i smell something incredibly sweet and pleasant. what ever could it be. it too me a while (i must be slow[er] today) before i realized that it was my hair. i picked up this honey shampoo & conditioner from the body shop today. didn’t like it that much in the store, mainly because i went in for the olive shampoo but the only bottle left was broken. but i digress … so this stuff smells amazing and it gives my hair that fresh look and feeling.

i should start charging for product placement.

again i find myself babbling on about stuff that means nothing to anyone but myself. how terribly unamusing.

g’night.

.r

  

stumbled upon this classic. quite funny.

part one:

part two:

  

i’ve got tons of stuff that you’re guaranteed not to care about …

i can’t tell if i’m getting sick or if it’s going away. i had to take off early from work today because i was feeling terribly light-headed. i rested a bit and now i’m feeling a bit better. of course i missed a million things and now i need to go in quite early to get things done.

i think i’m one step closer to deciding on a smart phone. i have one model chosen out from three phone makers. i like the motorolaQ but it has windows mobile and i’m weary of that, and more importantly it’s not supported on the cingular network.

i’m leaning towards the plam treo just because it has a built-in camera. but i love the look of the nokia. such a touch decision for me. i have to keep this next phone for a year a half so i need to make a good choice here.

the best part of commuting to work is the free time that can be devoted to reading. i’m rereading 1984, quite possibly the best book ever written. plus i’ve got my comped magazine subscriptions starting to roll in so i’ve got plenty of random information to stay on top of.

it looks like once again i’ve got nothing good to say.

until later.

.ryan

  

i don’t get the weather here in chicago. one minute it’s freezing and raining and the next it’s warm and bright. the most concerning part of the weather is that it’s already starting to get cold. i’m starting to wear what i normally wear in texas during the months of november through february. i guess i’m going to have to do some winter clothes shopping in the near future. this is most certainly going to be an interesting winter.

work is good. i managed to screw up and assigned the wrong radio spot to run in a few markets last week. i cringe everytime i have to think about. i’m still trying to get over it.

on friday i went to see annie the musical with some friends from work. quite interesting. i had never seen the movie so i had no idea what i was getting myself into. it ended up being a fun experience.

other than that nothing too exciting has been going on.

i’ve been adjusting to this non-college style of life. i’m finally starting to get on a normal sleep schedule. the only problem is that it just doesn’t seem right. i start falling asleep around 10 or 11 and i feel like i am forgetting to do something. the whole concept of doing work at work is just so foreign to me. i’m so used to working on things at all hours of the day. oddly enough that’s been the most difficult thing to adjust to. i worked 50 hours last week and it didn’t seem like that much at all. i need a side project to keep me busy.

i’m working on getting a smartphone so i can write on the go. i’m so sick of having great stories and then not remembering them when it comes time to write. plus e-mail rules my life so it’s not a bad investment at all to have e-mail 24/7. i think i’ve settled on a palm treo but the one i want isn’t compatible with cingular’s network at the moment. i really wish i wasn’t in the middle of a contract so i could just switch providers.

good times, good times.

clearly i’ve got nothing good to say.

  

for some reason writing on here requires motivation. i have none right now. check back tomorrow.

.r

  

love:

studio 60 on the sunset strip - it’s like a new version of the west wing. aaron sorkin and thomas schlamme … it just doesn’t get better than that. everything i could have hoped for and more.

eureka - a clever scifi show that’s not as nerdy as star trek. it’s surprisingly good quality for what i would imagine the budget they have being an original series on the scifi channel.

six degrees - great show. i love shows that twist and turn and you can’t predict.

good, there’s potential but could go either way:

the class - a nice mixture of stories. i like it, i just need to get acquainted with the characters a bit more. we’ll see how they develop. it could easily go south with the drop of a pin.

rachel ray - i love her but she drives me crazy on her new talk show. she needs to take it down a few notches on the hyperactivity meter.

eh, there’s a slight chance:

the megan mullally show - such a weird opening. i couldn’t figure out why she was wearing a headpiece for a microphone but when she broke out in her little number it all came together. kinda weird. i can see it working, but i also can’t. so undecided. update: i love her, but this show just isn’t going to last.

’til death - brad garrett and his random outbursts are what keeps the show semi-interesting. we’ll see.

horrible:

jericho - so boring. too much going on and it’s all boring. i skipped through pretty much everything after the explosion. it would make a good movie or mini-series but it sucks as a tv show. they’re going to have to stretch out the story line and make it painful to watch. pity.

  

i use this great site, last.fm, that syncs with special software and keeps track of your music listening habits. the great thing about it is that it creates all these charts and the reason i love it so much is i have this weird thing for keeping track of historical data (incidentally, this is also why i freaking love pulling competitive advertising spend reports at work). anyway, so the site also gives you a list of people that they think have similar music listening habits. you can also make friends with these people, if you so wish to. well, i never have and i find this box on my dashboard page quite amusing … isn’t this the story of my life [click to view full-size image]:

i clicked on ‘learn more’ and didn’t learn how to make friends in real-life situations. what a pity.

  

i’ve taken up the addicting sport of crossword puzzling again. i find it’s a very relaxing exercise. and speaking of exercise … i think i have nearly motivated myself to at least take up running again. i need to plot some courses out because it’s been a while and i’m going to have to work myself up to any sort of a decent workout. i imagine that i’ll make it around the block once before i’m huddled over fighting for air. seriously though, the inactivity is getting to me. if i work at it i think i can reverse a majority of it within a couple of months. there needs to be a web site where i can plug in my address and how much i want to run and have it create a path for me. i’m really going to do this.

work is frantically busy. i have a to-do list the size of canada that i need to get through. i brought home work to do but i have barely even touched it. what i need is a desk. i’m back to the whole not-buying-furniture-until-i-move-again things again.

i hate to pull my old man card but … have i told people how much i love my flexible spending account? the person that invented this concept was a genius. i go to the doctor and the copay that i paid is automatically redeposited back into my account from my pre-tax contributions! plus i love submitting receipts for contact solution for reimbursement. i have this thing for filling out paperwork. there’s something stange about me that causes me to have this desire to fill out forms.

okay, now i’ve got a story to tell … you know those e-mails you get that read “get a new *insert consumer electronic device here* free!”? and then it asks you for your information and all that fun stuff and you can right away tell it’s a spam trap? yeah, well against any sort of common sense that existed in my mind i filled the stupid piece of shit out. now my email box fills with about 200 pieces of spam every day. which gets me to the moral of my story … i’m phasing out my ryan [at] notedinpassing [dot] com e-mail address and phasing in ryan [at] ryaninchicago [dot] com. i just couldn’t stand the amount of junk mail that i was receiving, it was driving me fucking crazy.

schweet … it’s tuesday [12:47a.m.] now, i’m off to indulge myself in today’s the new york times crossword puzzle.

gnight.

update: in today’s NYT crossword puzzle they have 36 Across: “The Soup ____” (classic Seinfeld episode) and 26 Down: Wiesel who wrote “Night” intersecting each other, i find that a bit ironic and the slightest bit troubling, but even more so i find it hilarious.

  

i bring good news! i have expanded my internet presence by purchasing three new domain names:

ryanrutledge.com
ryanericrutledge.com
itunesanonymous.com

these domain names join the growing family of internet properties that i now own:

ryaninchicago.com
ryanostopher.com
notedinpassing.com
ryanisthegreatest.com

i own two others but i’m letting those expire because they were purchased for college projects and are worthless to me now.

ryanrutledge.com and ryanericrutledge.com will just have all traffic directed to this site. i’m attempting to work on a site for itunesanonymous.com. it’s a site for those of us who just find iTunes to be the most addicting thing ever.

more to follow.