oh, bic! thanks for the laughs. what are you thinking?

 

I saw this in one of my daily marketing emails and I have to share. I got the biggest laugh out of it. "Bic for Her" pens, which are actually described as "beautifully smooth" in the technical specs as being "designed to fit comfortably in a woman's hand" with an "attractive barrel design available in pink and purple," are getting some hilarious reviews on Amazon.com and other consumer sites. Real reviews below:

 

—When I saw these I just had to have them, so I asked my Husband to buy them for me. He refused, as he said that owning a pen might make me Think, and then have Ideas Of My Own. Then I might start to Write, which would take time away from my wifely duties such as Cooking, Cleaning, and Bearing Children. Of course he was Absolutely Right, none of these tasks require a pen, and so I have to give these one star.

 

—Oh. My. God. I've been doing it all wrong. There was me thinking I didn't need to worry about whether my writing implement sufficiently reflected my gender. Thank you so much Bic for showing me the error of my ways. Perhaps Bic will also bring out a new range of pink (or purple) feminine spanners, screwdrivers, electric drills and angle grinders so that I can carry out my job as a bicycle mechanic without further embarrassing myself? Luckily my male colleagues have managed to keep their disapproval of my use of their masculine tools to themselves. I'm so ashamed. And re-educated as to my place in society. Thanks again Bic!

 

—I bought this pen (in error, evidently) to write my reports of each day's tree felling activities in my job as a lumberjack. It is no good. It slips from between my calloused, gnarly fingers like a gossamer thread gently descending to earth between two giant redwood trunks.

 

—This pen is great. I bought it for all my female friends and relatives. It enabled them, finally, to write things (although they may not yet know to do so on paper; but you can only expect so much, really). I thought they were just a bit slow. My mother, a hard-working woman who raised twelve kids single-handedly whilst doing all the ironing (as nature intended), was furtively abashed by her illiteracy. Long would she gaze upon her husband and sons' scrawlings and would dedicate five minutes a day (which she really should have spent making sandwiches) to pray that one day she would be granted the ability to create such scribbles of her own. She's still a little slow on the uptake, but this product has definitely helped start the ball rolling. We tried to give her men's pens but she used to rip the cartridges out and drink the ink. Typical woman. Anyway, it's good that BIC are finally doing something to aid the plight of women. Hopefully a range of 'for her' paperclips is on the horizon - my wife has an awful time keeping her recipes together.

 

—I tried these on a whim, and I have to say I wasn't very impressed. The applicator mechanism is far too fiddly, and the plastic tampon inside far too thin (not to mention uncomfortable and non-absorbant) - I'm sure there must be a knack to using them, but I couldn't find it. They also stained my knickers blue for some reason. I really wanted to like these, but it's back to pads for me.

a not so subtle reminder.

We were recently rearranging rugs when I noticed a big, black footprint stain. I was like, "what is that?" Danny started laughing and was quick to remind me it was from a fire fighter's big 'ole boot covered in soot. Oh yeah.

It was a year ago today I saw a recipe for homemade onion rings on Cupcakes and Cashmere and thought, “Why not – I can give those a whirl tonight.” So, I asked a coworker how to deep fry something without a deep fryer and headed home to make some onion ring for me and Ting - domestic, right?

I'll try to keep this short - but you really should read and learn from my scary, messy and expensive mistake.

I cut everything up and started heating oil in a large pot which I covered to avoid splashing. Then, I realized I needed baking powder so I asked Danny to ride his bike to the market to grab some. 

A few minutes after Danny left, the pot was steaming - kinda like when you boil water and it steams so you take off the lid to avoid to boiling over. Well, when I took off the lid it went up in flames. I panicked for a minute and tried to put the lid back on but I burned my arm so I dropped the lid and decided to wet a dish cloth and throw it on there (I remember thinking – it can’t be dry and do not fan the fire). Well, I missed the flaming pot so I did the next instinctual thing – grabbed a glass of water and threw. Right? Put fire out with water. WRONG.

This is when the entire thing ignited and went up into huge flames and a black smoke cloud filled our kitchen.

At this point the smoke alarm was going off, so I grabbed Hunter and Sydney, my phone, called 911 and ran out of the house. I was convinced our newly renovated kitchen and/or house was about to burn down.

Danny rode up a minute later and saw me hysterical on the phone in the front yard holding the dogs, ran in and was able to get the stove off and opened a couple doors to help let the smoke out. The fire trucks arrived within minutes and handled everything from there. (The next few minutes were pure hysterics and the 911 lady trying to calm me down, "ma'am, help is on the way. ma'am, please calm down.") The best part was Sydney leaping into the fire fighters arms when he showed up to check on us. It was like she was screaming, "save me! save me!" So sweet.

Considering what I now know about grease fires – we’re really lucky. I was okay and so were the kids. We were left with about $11,000 worth of damage to our very newly remodeled house. We had to replace all of our top cabinets, our curtains that had burned up, all the lights in our kitchen that melted, pay for a chemical detox of the house and repaint the kitchen, the living room, the sitting room and dining room plus all the ceilings. Oh, and all of our cushions, couches, frames, decor and fabric stuff had a nice glaze of smoke and grease.

The smell was awful. We had little bowls of baking soda and vinegar sitting all over our house to help absorb the burnt smell. And, we got to spend an entire weekend using a little soot eraser taking the soot off of every square inch of wall and ceiling - not fun. 

So, consider this a cautionary tale. Whatever you do, DO NOT throw water (or flour) on a grease fire.

Take 34 seconds and watch this British public service announcement to visually learn what I wish I knew then. 

(There are other videos too – and baking powder is another great thing to have handy to throw on the fire. Ironically, what Danny was off to the store to get!)

This is a photo of our cabinets after the fire guys cleaned and wiped everything off. 

They were BLACK – but you can see the tops are totally charred.

Our typically white ceilings were black as night.

And I love how the one little pot is sitting in our front lawn as the guys work on our house. 

I'm lucky he loves me. Did you ever hear the story about when I flooded our last house? 

Did I mention brand new wood flooring?

happy cinco de mayo.

...which is not Mexican Independence Day. This has been D's fun fact all week long. We were at a cocktail party for Desert Living Today earlier this week and he informed guests near the tequila tasting station about the Battle of Puebla which ended the French invasion of Mexico on the 5th of May. Nice work, Ting.

We will not be celebrating in true Cinco de Mayo style tonight, but rather at Postino with four fabulous friends who are flying in from Dallas and Iowa for the weekend. They've all requested Postino and what the guests want - the guests get. Both couples are staying at our house so I'm planning on busting out the board games for some friendly competition post dinner tonight. It may be our very own Battle of Puebla knowing this competitive group.

Wishing you a very Happy Cinco de Mayo (not Cryo).

If you don't know, don't ask. We don't have the best Cinco track record.

Check out this funny article spotlighting the Top 5 things white people do to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

obsessed with facebook.

I love trivia snapshots and little factoids like this. Especially when I can relate to so much of it. Can you?

Source: “Signs of a Growing Facebook Obsession,” Jezebel, 1.13.11

http://jezebel.com/5732846/signs-of-a-growing-facebook-obsession



super bowl fun facts & behind the ads.

In past years, Super Bowl concepts and ads were top secret. Now, companies pre-promote their spots and the concepts behind them via social media channels to get the biggest bang for the buck. They love the hype.


One commercial getting a lot of buzz is for Fox's upcoming 3-D animated film. During the fourth quarter, advertising will go to a new level with the first-ever embedded code spot. The 30-second spot will hype Fox's 3-D animated film Rio through a tie-in with the uber-popular Angry Birds mobile game. The ad invites viewers to pause the action and seek out the code frame by frame to access a special level of the game and a chance to win a trip to Rio de Janeiro for the world premiere of the film on March 22. The Angry Birds Rio app debuts the same day. -  David Gianatasio, AdFreak.com  


In case you're impatient or miss today's advertisements, here's a link to preview 21 of the commercials that will air today. I haven't watched them yet, but I do like to read about the rationale behind each spot.


For example, last week I read about the reasoning behind Groupon's first-ever commercial (produced in 2009) that may be the spot they air tonight - their first ever Super Bowl ad. This Groupon commercial was made in response to the Super Bowl ads of that year. 


"While watching the 2009 Super Bowl after we'd just launched Groupon, a few of us noticed how dumb most of the ads were - seemingly all of them had some sort of slapstick violence... one after another, they began to appear increasingly absurd, especially because none of the people affected by the slapstick violence were hit with the actual painful consequences of real violence. ...In response, we commissioned a super low budget commercial with the same premise of senseless violence, but this time with its shockingly realist aftermath that violence tends to have. It is a lesson in anti-violence, and a fossil of Groupon in the earliest phase of its horrifying evolution." - Groupon

Kinda fun to know the "why" behind the ad, right?

Couple more Super Bowl 2011 factoids...

• Total consumer Super Bowl spending is expected to reach $10.1 billion, the highest in 8 years.
• Sentiment towards advertisers appears to be improving. In past years, consumers said advertisers should bypass pricey Super Bowl spots and pass the savings onto them. This year, 17% expressed that, down from 21% in 2009.
• Commercial time in the Super Bowl has been creeping up over the past decade, culminating in almost 48 minutes worth of ads and network promotions during last year's game.

Source: “Super Bowl Spending to Hit $10 Billion,” Advertising Age, 1.25.11 Scoop courtesy of Patty Roloff

one in eight.

This morning, Danny came along with me to a media event I handled for Phoenix Children's Hospital, one of my clients. In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, more than 100 construction workers for Phoenix Children's (they're in the midst of a major expansion) created a "human pink ribbon" to raise awareness of the cause. And, throughout the month of October the construction men and women on-site will wear pink hard hats to encourage breast cancer screening and early detection. Cool, huh?

Did you know 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer? 

{we love tv cameras}

words.

Jared and I both enjoy reading and sharing little things we find online... articles, tid-bits, videos, etc. I love it. He (usually) only sends good stuff plus I know he actually takes time to read the things I send his way. It's fun. 

He shared this clever video on Monday and I loved it. Made me smile. 

Enjoy.

Oh, and he told me it gets even better the more you watch it.

I actually agree with him on this (and that doesn't happen very often).

old fashioned etiquette.

I'm not the most formal or traditional person but there are some "old fashioned" things that I will never give up.... reading a book and using a bookmark (you won't find me with a Kindle or reading a novel on an iPad), going to movie theaters to laugh and cry with complete strangers, and most of all, sending snail mail cards, postcards and thank you notes. I love sending (and receiving) mail. It's so simple yet so personal.

While Danny was doing this last weekend, I wrapped gifts and wrote thank you cards which prompted me to share a useful tip I learned from our wedding calligrapher. This will be specifically helpful to all the brides out there, but is a good, simple etiquette tip for anyone... especially with the holidays right around the corner.

Ever wondered if it's Teri and Danny Bockting or Danny and Teri Bockting? Well, here's the answer. Never separate the man's first name from his last name (another way to think of it is ladies first). So it should always be: 

Teri and Danny Bockting 

Mr. and Mrs. Danny Bockting 

Happy Letter Writing! 

{perfect example: our parent's names on our wedding invitation}

{photo by studio castillero}

american made habits.

It's crazy how much the world has changed over the past 10 years. Ten years ago it was 2000... Danny was graduating from high school with a pager, I was still begging my parents for more AOL minutes to instant message with friends, we'd never sent a text or dreamed of sending photo messages, still bought CDs at Sam Goody, bought film and had it developed and the words iPod, Facebook and text messaging weren't in our vocabulary. Weird. Nuts to think about where we'll be in 2020....

Thought this chart was fun & interesting (click the image to enlarge).

Source: “Exactly How Much Are Times A-Changin’?” Newsweek, 7.20.10