An Open Letter to Candy, Inc. (Part III)

Flag Day (June 14th) is another holiday that I feel has great potential for growth. The themes could not be more simple. And because of this simplicity, I see strength. You've got the symbol of the flag and you've got red, white, and blue. Jelly beans could be sold in the red, white, and blue array as could M&M's. Little chocolate flags would be great (and just like the bullets for Memorial Day, the flags are scalable in size.) Dozens of candy bars could be repackaged with a flag-themed wrapper. It would be huge. And it's patriotic too.

In fact, I see Flag Day candy as part of a broader red, white, and blue campaign. This theme could extend from Flag Day to the Fourth of July. The displays and packages can all be reused for the 4th. And if there's still leftovers after both these holidays, ship all the candy to France the next week, because their colors are the same (but in the order bleu, blanc, rouge, of course) and their big nationalistic holiday is July 14th. And then if there's still candy left over... I don't know... I'm sure there's a big holiday in the UK, The Netherlands, or Australia where the candy could be sent.

---NOTE: Thanks to EW, who also thought candy on the 4th would be a great idea. Clearly this is going to be huge.---

An Open Letter to Candy, Inc. (Part II)

Though it seems unconventional, candy on Memorial Day could be the next big thing. The holiday (on May 28th this year) commemorates all those who served in American wars. And while I think little chocolate tombstones might be over the top, what about little candy bullets? It's easy to make jelly bean bullets and gummy bullets and chocolate bullets. You could very easily have multiple sizes (from little hand gun bullets to machine gun bullets, right on up to big chunks of chocolate the size of big mortars. )

Perhaps it's a little grotesque... but you could say the same for hunting for eggs on Easter. Plus our country already has a supposed military-industrial complex, I think the natural progression of this is the military-confectionary complex.

--On a sidenote, someone pointed out that while I alluded to candy-bare months stretching from May through October, May does have another holiday with some chocolate involved. However Mother's Day (on the 12th this year) includes only some of the population, notably not ME, which is probably why I forgot about it. Thank you for the input.

An Open Letter to Candy, Inc.

Dear Hershey's and M&M/Mars Product Managers,

I'm writing with genuine concern for your companies' long term economic well-being. Specifically, I'm worried about the cyclical nature of the candy business, most notably the seasonal downturn we've just entered now that Easter is over. I think we can all agree that the weeks from Halloween through Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter are pretty good to America's candy companies. You might say it's a treat for you and your shareholders. But as I'm sure you're aware there's a relative dearth of candy holidays coming up. Essentially, we're no longer in the sweet spot of the calendar. With this in mind, I have a few ideas that I'd like to share with you that I feel will contribute to your firms' competitive advantage. Please check back for some ideas that I feel will broaden your customer base and increase your sales. As any consultant would, I plan to charge you like 10 times what's reasonable. (This means you'll have to pay me like 50 candy bars.)

More to come...

Boo April

April means springtime. It means longer days and nicer weather. It means baseball. But it also means street sweeping season. This is bad. While this seems an insignificant change, it is definitely not. It is a big deal. Huge.

The even-numbered side of my street gets cleaned on certain days each month (like the first and third Tuesday), and the odd-numbered side on certain other days. Then the street on the side of my house has certain other days for the even side and the odd side. Basically there's constant street sweeping. The cleanliness of the streets is not what I have an issue with. It's the public works truck that does laps around my block at 7am letting everyone know with a recorded message being broadcast on a loudspeaker: "Street sweeping. No pahking on the even-numbahed side. You will be tagged and towed."

I'm sure the process has been thoroughly debated. And I'm sure if I had my car parked on the wrong side of the street I'd be grateful for the reminder to move it. But I'm not really a fan. Getting woken up throughout the week from April 1 until October 31 is a bummer. I see two possible actions to take:
1) go to a city council meeting and cry about it.
2) earplugs
3) move to the suburbs where people have driveways.

I'm not sure how this one turns out, but I'm pretty sure that in the end AOK still gets woken up.

I must be getting old.

I turned 24 and 1/4 the other day and the very first thing in my head when I woke up that morning was "When I'm Sixty-Four" by the Beatles. I should note that my pop is 63 and 1/4 today, so I think maybe he should be the one dreaming of the Beatles.

Kind of like Daytona

There was a big race on Sunday. One with excitement, amazed spectators, blazing speeds, and an incredible finish that came down to the wire. I'm not talking about the 49th running of the Daytona 500, which happened Sunday, February 18th in Daytona Beach, FL. I'm talking about The Great Race that stretched from Los Altos, CA all the way to Mountain View, CA. Yes, I'm talking about the trek from my grandparents' place in LA across El Camino, some railroad tracks, Central Expressway, and a couple other four lane roads, all the way to the self storage place in MV. My ride? A lightening-quick, high-octane, tricked-out powered wheel chair.


This thing turned on a dime, it flew along with five speeds (five!) and covered the three mile distance in under forty minutes. This machine is a serious speed demon. I passed some people out for a Sunday walk and left them in the dust. And this ride is plush, too. Dual padded arm rests, a custom head rest, and four rubberized wheels; two in the front for major power and two in the back for serious steering. As they say, "Business in the front, party in the back." And did I mention it has five speeds?

And then we drank beer from the trophy.

Three big competitions recently. For competition number one I traveled to my company's New York office and participated in a trivia night hosted by Yahoo. Why a party hosted by Yahoo? Because the media team I work with gets wined-and-dined by a slew of websites that want our ads to run on their sites.

So the Yahoo party featured an elimination style bracket with the many agencies who were invited. The competition was Jeopardy-style with a host reading questions and the teams holding buzzers... and by the end of the night our team won it all. The other New York agencies were no match for our pop culture dominance. The prize was a huge four-foot-tall trophy from which we drank a celebratory beer. So a big win in the first big competition.

Competition number two was the "Has Beens Mile" featuring former athletes of the Tufts Track and Field team. Everyone used to be good, but now, pretty much all the alumni are Has Beens. It was a good race, but, sadly the race didn't go as well as the trivia. I came in second to classmate, former captain, All-American, and school record holder Nate Brigham.

So one win and one runner-up performance so far.

The third competition involved some margaritas, a roll of tin foil, and two ski tickets. We were at a Mexican restaurant ("Margaritas Cantina" or something contrived like that) with some friends, and there happened to be a bunch of contests going on. I got drafted for the Make An Ugly Hat Out of Tin Foil Game. And when the dust settled, I had a crazy tin foil hat on my head and I won two free lift tickets to Mount Snow in Vermont.

And that's how I almost one three competitions in a row. Thanks Nate.

Our sock hop

In our the latest attempt to entertain and amuse friends with a fun soiree, we planned an event that was, at first, full of uncertainty. The basic premise was that a housewarming party would be more fun if there was a theme. But making everyone get dressed up can be a lot to ask... let's face it, that's a huge commitment, considering the overbooked social calendars of these young professionals. So the idea of the sock puppet party was born as a compromise between finding something fun, and making sure that the theme of the party (and the preparation, and wardrobe coordination, and so on) didn't extend beyond our apartment. In other words, we were going to make all the preparations so that our friends wouldn't have any excuse not to participate.

So with the help of two hot glue guns, hundreds of googly-eyes, pipe cleaners, felt, pom poms, and four dozen white crew socks from Target, the sock puppet party was thrown. I must admit, as the one responsible for the concept and the invitation, I was very skeptical that it would work. Would people really make sock puppets, or would they just be an after-thought? Would it all be too silly? Would anyone even show up? In the end it all worked great, and it was a ton of fun. All our friends went nuts with the sock-making. Photos, such as this one of Dan and his sock both looking at his PDA, can be found on the invitation.

Crazy Monster Wrestling

Friday night, I had the priviledge to attend Shpadoinkel Mania XVIII, a spectacle of giant Japanese monsters known as Kaiju Big Battel. There's no good way to describe it. It's wrestling pageantry with characters who fight in a ring for world domination. They dress up as characters like a can of soup (Kung-Fu Chicken Noodle) or sibling plantains (Los Plantanos). There's a whole storyline behind the characters, there's a huge cult following, and it's fun for the whole family (there were 10-year-old kids and their parents, along with tons of college kids.) Bottom line is it makes for a really poor blog entry, but a really fun night.

Year number six

It's hard to believe it, but this fall marks the beginning of my sixth (yes sixth) year in Massachusetts. (Consequently, this also means I just had my fifth anniversary with the city of Boston, which is apparently the wood anniversary. I actually just got a pair of wooden salad tongs from Kenya from my sister, so don't worry about sending any gifts, I'm all set.) While this place has definitely grown on me, I can't ever forget my roots.

So I'd like to take a moment to compare and contrast six facets (Six! Get it? It's like a theme) of life in California and Boston.
Politics:
Yeah, they're both pretty liberal. But let's look at the men in charge. Both governors are republicans, both are pretty boys, and both had no prior experience in government. Both also made millions of dollars in Hollywood starring in a bunch of blockbuster mega-hits. Oh wait, no they didn't. Point to Arnold (and CA).

Baseball:
We all know baseball is a religion in Boston. Blah blah blah, curse, blah blah, hope springs eternal, blah blah. Well the Giants and the Sox are both hideous at the moment. I think everyone would rather not talk about it. No points for anyone.

Diplomas:
I got two really sweet diplomas out of all those hard years of studying. Tufts had the prime minister of Greece speaking at graduation, LAHS had the principal (the fourth in four years no less) so it's kind of tough to pick a clear winner... But Tufts was willing to put my middle name on the diploma while LAHS wouldn't... so point to Tufts (and consequently Boston) on that one.

Mexican food:
--Boston's got Anna's Taqueria. They make really great burritos.
--California's got about a million taquerias that blow Anna's out of the water. Sorry. Point CA.

Coming of age:
Going away to college means learning academics, learning about life, and learning to drink. I've seen Boston's bars, and most of them were nice establishments. Being 21 here is fun. But even more fun than turning 21 is turning 13 as a little Jewish boy. I mean do you have any idea how many gift certificates I got for Tower Records? Plus I just found a $25 savings bond packed away in a drawer that's worth $32.58 right now! From a purely financial standpoint (hey, I work in accounts payable) the bar mitzvah was a pretty good coming of age. Mazel tov California. You get a point.

Running:
Tough one. I grew up running in great weather on some great trails out west. But Boston's a running city. From a "hardware" standpoint, I earned a boatload in California starting with six first place ribbons in the Junior Olympics (three-peat in the 1320 yard run and three-peat with the Almond Elementary 4x880 yard relay), and most recently a ribbon for a first place finish in the 2006 Donner Lake International Triathlon Relay. Lots of ribbons. Tufts, on the other hand is responsible for the All-American award. Point to Boston. (CA you can have a ribbon for the good effort.)


So I guess it's a pretty close competition... But Boston gets a bonus point because I'm still here, so the final score is 3-3. It's a tie! Everyone's a winner!

"Prepping" for one last party

The great year at 35 Brookline ended with one more cool party to follow our success in June.

It was preppy, it was over-the-top, it was tons of fun, and it earned a multitude of dirty looks from strangers in the bar who thought we were serious. Check it out here: Tea Party.

Good Things Happen in CA

Earlier this month I took a much-needed 10-day timeout from life in Massachusetts and headed back to the homeland. California was great. Despite the fact that the parents left town soon after I got home (I've never been a very good planner...) I got to see lots of other family, including the sis, along with more friends than I'd expected.

In addition to all the people I saw, there were also two big trips while I was at home. First there was Ashley's wedding. It was the first wedding of one of my peers, which made it a little amazing, but it was also at the Ritz in Half Moon Bay, and everything about it was awesome; the ceremony, the party, the food, the people. We even split a room for the night. (We stayed at the freakin' Ritz!) Tons of fun and way too cool to write it all down, so I'll give you this...


The second trip I made while I was out west was an overnight trip up to Jeff's cabin in Tahoe for a triathlon at Donner Lake. I competed as part of a relay, with my friend Jay (above in the pink) leading off for the swim, Jeff taking over for a tough bike ride up a big old hill, and me finishing off with a run around the lake. It was a great time and an awesome team effort from everyone helped our relay beat out about 40 other teams for the win. Also, there are some pics of the race here, but it doesn't really include the whole team...

Anyways, great race, great wedding, great trip.