I'm back, baby.

Actucally, I never technically "left": I've always been around, but I found out that my usual posting time (midnight or so) has been taken over by sleepie-time. Every kid on earth, in their cartoon-watching days, swears that they will never have a problem getting up early and cannot imagine why anyone would want to lay around in bed. Of course, I was one of those kids but have since become an anti-morning person, just like all the others. In attempt to alleviate the agonizing pain that accopanies getting up before dawn, I've been trying to get to bed earlier. One would think that I could shift posting to another time slot, but it just hasn't worked that way.

In other news:

* Since my last post about McDonald's commericals, I have noticed that this universe of pain is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. New "I'm lovin' it" songs are popping up everywhere, on radio as well as TV. Building a database may be in order. My conspiricy theorist side is now predicting that McDonald's is planning on taking out a single thirty-second commerical in the superbowl, in which they will threaten to continue their saturation of the media with this ad campaign unless every single man, woman, and child buys two value meals per day. Of course, compliance would be our only option.

*How 'bout them Bucks? The team picked to finish last in the East (a.k.a. the NB-AAA conference) would be hosting a playoff series if the season ended today. Joe Smith is my hero. Almost as compelling a story as the no-name Jazz in the west. Or the Lakers newfound suckiness.

* My sister has left for Rome to study there for a semester. Odd considering I was the one with the Ancient Studies major. Nevertheless, I wish her luck. Hopefully I will be visiting her in a few months, in what will be my first foreign trip (Canada doesn't count).

Long time, no post, I know, but it's been a crazy couple of weeks. I don't have any vacation time yet so I had to work- WARNING, DORKAGE AHEAD - !({Chrismas,New Years} *{Eve,Day}U {Weekends}) - every day except weekends and the four holiday days, for you people that have lives (or can't get past my reckless abuse of notation). Because the holidays fell on a wed/thurs, I was constantly moving back and forth between Madison and Milwaukee. I didn't have a single day where I wasn't working the day before or the day after. So, I'm quite bushed. It sounds crazy but I think I could use a couple 5-day workweeks just to get in a rhythm.

But that's not the reason I decided to post. I have been awoken from my lengthy slumber by the silliness of McDonald's recent advertising campaign, which I can only assume is titled "I'm Lovin' It" (NOT "Loving", of course, because that's so tragically uncool). Does anyone else thing McDonald's is trying WAY too hard here? You can't be everything to everyone - they're attempting at aiming different commercials at different target audiences, but they end up with something so stock it's stereotypical. The formula is simple, take a demographic, run it through the political correctness machine, and attach appropriate music. You know what I'm talking about:

The Feminist Empowerment One: Soft, flowing video of women smiling as lyrics like "I know who I am and McDonalds knows me" play in the background. Female soft-pop singer sings "I'm lovin' it".

The 'Hood One: Ethnically diverse, athletic-looking men play a combination of basketball and rollerblading in a ghetto streetball - type setting. Everyone is in unusually high spirits. Nonviolent-sounding rapper sings "I'm lovin' it".

The "Guys" One: Guys play poker with fries instead of chips. In the same vein as those Coors commercials, targeted at a football audience. Of course, these are far less trashy but nearly as stupid. Acoustic Guitar guy sings "I'm lovin' it".

The Young Punks One: Young Punks rove about an urban environment getting into young punkish situations, such participating in extreme sports and getting into mild trouble. Techo-rockish rapper/rocker sings "I'm lovin' it".

I'm sure there's more, but these are the ones that come to mind. My advice would be to just go back to singing something like "Food, Folks, and Fun" and showing closeups of impossibly-perfect looking burgers. At least you're not embarrassing yourself.