For Serious

Honestly,

I would buy probably anything if Billy Mays was the spokesman. He is hyped up about everything he is selling, and I appreciate that in a salesman. But he's not annoying like the guy who used to try and tell me how to get my share of 129 trillion dollars from the government. You know, the guy that had a suit with dollar signs all over it and stood in front of the white house or something? anyways, Billy Mays is legit. Check out this list of his products:


1. OXICLEAN
I'm gonna go ahead and not do any research and claim that this was the product that started it all for him. If nothing else, it was the product that started my fascination with him as a hypeman. Plus, it's brilliant.


2. SWIFFER
Not that I ever do any real housework, but I think I used this one time. It was almost like magic.


3. MIGHTY PUTTY
This product has the strength to hold over 350 pounds. Seriously. This tiny piece of green mush is apparently way stronger than I am. I'd be mad if it didn't look so useful. Not that I do any sort of repairs, but I could imagine how pawesome it would be to have some lying around.


4. NEVER-SCRUB
The full name of this product is KABOOM! Never-scrub. I'm pretty sure that at any given point when Billy Mays is talking, he is on the verge of yelling that. It doesn't matter what the product is, this should be his catch phrase for life. A little part of me gets excited every time he's on tv, because I'm hoping he just starts yelling that at everyone else in the commercial.


5. EASY-OFF BAM!
This comes in at a close second for Billy Mays' catch phrase for life. Although I think BAM is probably trademarked by Emeril Lagasse. I could see him doing that.


6. ENERGIZE ENERGY PILLS
I'm going to assume that payment for this gig was given in the form of a lifetime supply of these pills.


7. MIRACLE WHIP
Betcha didn't know that. God bless Wikipedia.

There's like 40 more of these, along the same lines. Billy Mays could make me want to buy anything. I'm pretty sure he got snubbed by the Shamwow! company. He would have been much better than that pretentious guy who looks kind of like Chad from the Alltell commercials.

Also, I think he would be good for the Snuggie people. They are in need of some hype.

Wow. That was a long time

Dear local grocery shopper,

Is it really that difficult to count? I know you're busy doing whatever it is that you people do at the grocery store, but seriously? How hard is it to know exactly how many items are in your shopping cart? Twenty items or less is not a suggestion. Ok, ok,..we can let it slide if you're one over. But stop wasting my time when you very obviously have like 30 things in there. Oh, and don't think I don't notice when you've got twenty-three of the same thing and only count that as one item. You and I both know that that's cheating. You are probably also the same person that walks .03 miles an hour when in front of me on any given aisle. There should be police in every grocery store enforcing a minimum walking speed limit. pssh...grocery stores.

Sincerely,
Trey Hill

FREE CD

I'm gonna give my friend and former co-worker Josh Bayne a push from my site. For the past week, he's been giving away copies of his EP Grace changes Everything for free. No catch. For serious, it's great. I've been singing All My Love nonstop since I bought it a month or two ago. His promotion ends at midnight on Sunday (May 25) and all you have to do is visit his website and/or send him an e-mail with the subject line FREE CD to bayne.josh@gmail.com. At the risk of sounding like a late-night 80's compilation cd infomercial, if you're into solid Christian music, this is the must have cd of the week. So go forth, and receive free cds.

Really?

Dear Wendy's,

Stop. Please stop your advertising campaign right now. It is not original and for some reason, it infuriates me. I enjoy your dollar menu. I enjoy a lot of the food you choose to make. But please stop trying to tell me that what you offer is not fast food. If my food takes less time to prepare than it does to actually eat, than I consider that fast. If you have a drive-thru, odds are you are pretty quick at service. Try another angle and don't keep telling me "it's better than fast food, it's Wendy's." Why not, "Wendy's, sure it's garbage, but it's quicker than all the other garbage." That is a story I can get behind. Don't pretend to be something that you're not. The same goes for you too, Ruby Tuesday's. You used to be cool. Stop being pretentious and give me an actual ketchup bottle on the table. I should open my own restaurant.

Sincerely,
Trey

Utility and greed

I am not sociologist.

Nor am I a psychologist. I am not qualified to talk about anything. ever. I took a sociology 101 class at Emory my first year of college and the only thing I remember is one discussion where my professor claimed it was stealing to refill a drink at a fast food restaurant and walk out. His claim was that you paid to enjoy the drink inside the store and to refill it and leave would be stealing from the restaurant. You could refill as many times as you wanted inside the restaurant (assuming there were free refills) but he equated refilling and leaving with larceny. He was either A) playing devil's advocate or B) an idiot. Either way, I digress.

As I was saying, I'm not qualified to talk about anything. But when has that stopped anyone before? That's my God-given right as an American to comment on things that I have no clue about. I blame ESPN for this, as it can make anyone who knows nothing about sports (i.e. me) feel like they are qualified to talk about them.

I am house sitting on Dauphin Island this week. It is, by all accounts, the best thing I could have done this week. It's relaxing. No one else is around. John came and visited monday and we fished. Betsy came and visited yesterday and we had a wonderful day. Even though she had a run-in with the law, it was still perfect to be able to spend time with her. I've been able to write music. I've sat outside. It's great. But it also has given me an opportunity to watch more tv than even I normally do. And one thing that I have caught at least three times this week has been deal or no deal. It's brilliant

Now I've been familiar with the show. I've watched it a couple of times. What strikes me as most intriguing about the show (other than how ridiculous Howie Mandel's beard/ear rings combo looks) is the fact that it is a microcosm of how America operates. It's the American dream in an hour segment. You start with nothing, you feel like you're entitled to everything, you strive for more, more, more, you forget basic common sense, and when the tide turns, you're left cutting a deal for whatever you can. After the first six cases are open, you are called by "the banker" who seems like a Scrooge McDuck sort of miser (yea, I just referenced Ducktales). The banker makes you a very reasonable offer, and inevitably, the player is almost insulted by how little it is because, "the million is still in play." Case in point, I was watching the other day where the contestant was a red-headed guy who was a fourth grade teacher. The first offer he got was $71,000. I'll repeat that, because it bears repeating. $71,000. He casually mentioned that $71,000 was nearly three times (!) his normal salary as a teacher, and said no deal, howie. Are you kidding me? For real? If someone walked up to you while you were walking down the street, and offered you your salary for the next three years in exchange for a case you have in your hand, would you turn it down? You've just made $71,000 for about three minutes worth of work. And I use the term work loosely. So the guy goes for several more rounds and sure enough, knocks just about every high number out except for like two hundred grand. I believe his offers went up to around 197,000 dollars. Which is just as ridiculous. Anyways, the guy eventually gets another offer from the banker which, after three or four rounds, has found it's way down to around 70,000 dollars. Now with the understanding that he no longer has an opportunity to get a million dollars, he is left to barter his position and has come to the conclusion that indeed, $70,000 is worth his time now.

Then it gets interesting.

Howie Mandel does this thing where he wants to see if you made a good deal. Basically, if what you sold your case for was more than what was actually in the case. This guy ends up having $200,000 in his case, and you can tell he's hurt by this fact. But here's the thing:
IT'S ALWAYS A GOOD DEAL

Oh sure, looking back on it, it doesn't seem good. But you didn't have that insight five minutes ago. You sold an unknown case for $70,000 or whatever. It's easy to play the what if game, but it ultimately doesn't matter. You just got $70,000 and travel accommodations for free. That's why this show is ridiculous. It makes people honestly think they deserve something more than the penny that is on the board. You try and get more and more and maximize utility until the tide turns and your forced to find the ultimate lowest possible price that you will leave with. The best strategy for that game is to go in, play two rounds, and take whatever the offer is. After that, chances are almost never in your favor.

But like I said, I'm no expert. I also don't understand the popularity of The Hills.

Call me Ishmael

I caught two freakin' fish today. I am Ahab. I am Ishmael. I am Hemingway. Granted, the two fish were probably about five inches a piece and I had to throw them back, but that doesn't matter.

What matters is that I conquered nature today. I took life. I am a destroyer. I should listen to "One" by Metallica.

Well, at least they tried

Shoddy.

That is the one word I would use to describe this week.

Let's put aside the fact that I have finals. Because those, in and of themselves, are not the best/worst thing to happen to me this week. They were mundane at best and distracting at worst. No, finals were alright. This week, I was hired by a local high school to play guitar for their high school musical (not that high school musical). The musical is entitled, at least I believe it's entitled, "Back to the 80's: a specific case study on every piece of pop culture to come out of America in the span of time from 1980-1989." Ok, I made that sub-title up, but that's what it should be called. It's basically a play that involves a lot of music from the 80's and the plot itself is formulated around those songs. All of the actors names, set designs, context, and even some of the dialogue is wallowing in 80's imagery. It serves it's purpose.

I describe this week as shoddy because of how this play was run. I was hired to play guitar, that was it. I understand this. I wasn't expecting a huge welcome with a fruit basket (although that would have been nice), nor was I expecting to come in as a consultant, but I would at least expect to be acknowledged. I showed up (having been told practice would be over at 5:30) and stayed until around 9. It was awful. But to be fair, the rest of the times they quoted me on were accurate. I had to make suggestions about sound because it was clear to me that they had never been around an electric guitar. All in all, the first two nights of practice were sub par. I sat there and kept my opinions to myself about how things should be done, mostly because A) I'm nowhere near qualified to comment on that stuff and B) no one asked me. Nor did I expect them to. All the sound from the room was coming from the "orchestra pit" (a self-contained box with fabric dividers) and two bose speakers hung way to high above the stage. There were other things, but I'm going to assume that no one else cares about stuff like sound, transitions, and how cables are run. I will, however, commend the people I played with. All high school kids who were pretty decent players, and a pianist who had triplets (!) in the show. She was really nice and made small talk with me about people we commonly knew. And in retrospect, this paragraph sounds like I'm whining, but I don't mean to. I understand the director and choreographer and choral conductor and whoever else were not focused on me, nor should they be. Maybe I just have a problem with thinking that I can run things better than other people who are probably more qualified. My point is that I have been reading Seth Godin's blog lately, and I've been thinking a lot about how you brand/market yourself. If you are not doing it the best you can, why do it? and if you are doing it the best you can and it's still not excellent, maybe you should have an outside opinion.


As for the musical itself, i find it ironic that this play was being performed by high schooler's to a mainly high school audience. It is 2008 at the writing of this blog and I would say that at BEST, the seniors in that school were born in 1989. I'm going to assume most of what they know about the 80's comes from VH1. I was born in 1985 and that's where I get most of my information about the 80's. Why do this if the entire joke of the play is centered around people understanding the context of that era firsthand? As for the acting, I loved it. The kids are trying really hard to emote and it's fantastic. I figured out this week why I don't love watching musicals and plays, unless they are performed by high schools. It's because with serious actors in musicals and theater, they are trying really hard to fit into the part and get everything perfect and for the most part, they succeed. I don't like that. I like watching people struggle to figure out how to convey an emotion or a sentiment. And I also really enjoy watching people forget lines. And I'm not saying any of this to downplay what those kids have done, because I'm sure they've worked hard for months. I just enjoyed the play because it's not perfect, and I'm attracted to that. I don't like perfect, I like interesting. And that it was.

So maybe I should this week could be summed up as interesting.

P.S. The name of the high school in the play is William Ocean High School. I laughed out loud when I saw it. Also, how can you have a play, focused on the 80s, with a main character named Eileen, and NOT include Dexys Midnight Runners seminal hit "Come on, Eileen"? heresy.

Rap Charts

As part of my description of this blog, sometimes I like to think about rap. A few weeks ago, I stumbled onto this little nugget. It explains popular rap songs with charts and graphs. If you haven't seen it, go read it and see how many songs you can recognize. Brilliant.

Designs

I've been reading Seth Godin's blog as of late, and that man is nothing short of brilliant. I read Purple Cow several years ago at the behest of a guy I know and while it didn't have a lot of impact then, I'm certainly revisiting some of those ideas now that I work at Spanish Fort UMC. With all we're doing with changing the youth and trying to get involved with "church marketing" there's a lot of ideas that he has that make sense in the context of the Church. But that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is me in seventh grade.



I remember a day in seventh grade when I was taking a health class. I don't remember the teacher's name, but I remember it was in a modular building (or a trailer for those of you who like to cut through semantic garbage). At one point during the year, we had to draw a "magazine ad" telling people why they shouldn't smoke. Being a seventh grader that had not yet become the idealistic young man that I am today, I thought this was a great idea. Even though I had no prior advertising experience, I had a killer idea; playing off all of those ads everyone knows that say something to the effect of "such and such number of people can't be wrong!," I drew a simple scene of what looked like a million little grave stones (much like Metallica's Master of Puppets cover art) and on the top I wrote "40 million people CAN be wrong." I thought this was brilliant. I mean, whatever, I just picked a random number, insinuating that 40 million people had died from smoking cigarettes, but the kernel of truth was there. I brought it up to my teacher, beaming with pride, and he told me he didn't get it. He told me to go sit down and do something else, because that didn't "Make sense." And sense he had all the power, I went and sat back down and drew some mundane piece of crap.

The point is, there is no accounting for taste. And I should sue those Truth people, because they stole an idea I had nearly ten years ago. powned

Music History

I just got done taking a music history test, which proved difficult in two ways:

1. It is always difficult to get motivated to do something that in all actuality probably does not matter.

2. It is always difficult to get questions right when the teacher tells you one thing is going to be on the test, but then puts a completely different thing on there

Ballsy move, Mrs. Fox. To tell everyone to study four pieces and know everything about them and then not play two of them and play something else. AND THEN have the audacity to stand up there and say "Oh well, it's not my fault. We've listened to these pieces before. You should know them."

Ballsy move, indeed.

Phrases I wish would go away

There are certain phrases I hear on a day to do basis that I wish would cease to be used. I'm all for the evolution of the lexicon. I also think other people should to. Phrases come and go, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. BlingBling and Jiggy are perfect examples of that. Old white people have been now using these phrases for a couple of years now, thereby proving they are past their sell date. Although, I admit, the phrase Seacrest out is simultaneously out of date and cool to use. Only if you use it in an ironic, hipster way. But I'm sure it will be totally out in about a week and a half. Thus is the problem with hipsters. But there are certain phrases that I feel are now past their prime (if they ever had one).

1. Not so much
Example:
"Hey, did you finish that paper?"
"Uh....yea...not so much."


I guess it's supposed to be ironic or hip. Probably both. I know what you're trying to say. It's almost a "NOT" joke (like from Borat) but more subtle. It's tricky. There are certain times when it's ok to use this phrase. For example, if someone asks, "Hey, isn't your prediction for the '08 election that Ross Perot will run and win?", you may say "well...not so much a prediction as a well-educated guess." Perfectly acceptable.

2. Love me some
Example:
"Hey, was church good yesterday?"
"Yea, it was awesome! I just love me some worship."

This is often said by girls that have long hair. Not always, but that's the image I have in my mind when I hear this phrase. I've heard guys use it as well. It's not inherently a bad phrase, just played out. I thought it was the cool the first three years I heard it used, but now it's time to give it a rest. The worst is when people say "man, I just love me some Jesus." You should really love you some grammar, too.

3. I'm just a little more progressive
Example:
"Yea, I drive a Prius and I only buy Fair Trade Coffee. I'm just a little more progressive."


I know that South Park has already made fun of this phrase, but that is what made me want to go after it. This is usually said by the aforementioned Prius owners, Apple users, and people who think that having an ounce of social conscious is something new and exciting. Granted, not a lot of people do care about the environment, but just because you do does not give you the right to look down your nose at the plebians. The real reason I hate this phrase is that the people who say it inherently say it condescendingly. Get outta here. I have a mac and I pray that I never fall into the trap of being someone that says that.

4. I'm kind of a big deal
Example:
"Did you ever see that movie Anchorman?"
"um...obviously. Didn't you just hear me tell Steve humorously that I'm kind of a big deal?"


Look, Will Ferrel might be a comic genius. You, in all actuality, are probably not. The lowest form of creativity, I believe, is quoting movies. And everyone does it. I do it. I think it might be engrained in our psyche. The conundrum is this: If you quote a movie no one knows, no one will catch your reference. If you quote a movie that everyone knows, then you will appear unoriginal. I think we should all just commit to not quoting anything from now on. My roommate John and I were talking about that the other day, and we came to the conclusion that there are certain situations where a well-timed movie quote drop can enhance the conversation and provide everyone with about a solid ten seconds of laughter. Most people cannot pull this off. Let's just stop.


5. Party Like a Rockstar
Example:
"Yea, we're going out tonight. We're going to hit up Liquid and Seven. We are going to party like F'ing rockstars!!!"


This phrase is often said by 18-25 year old girls. sometimes by guys. it was also made uber-popular by the Shop Boyz with their song, the appropriately named "Party like a Rockstar." The problem with this phrase is that you are not a rock star. Recently, I was watching "Rock of Love 2: Electric Boogaloo" (not the surname of that show, but it should be). Aside from the fact that Bret Michaels is a genius (which I will discuss in a later post), this particular episode was a perfect example of this. The girls were going out at some point or something and Destiney said something along the lines of partying like rockstars. But the reality is that you are going to be partying with a rockstar. You are a groupie. A groupie is not a rockstar, with very few exceptions. So stop saying it, for real.

I think that's enough for now.

Wasted

I had big plans for today. Huge. Betsy is gone, john is gone, I need to practice for jazz night, work out, and do many other productive things that are not sitting on this corner of the couch and spending the last five and a half hours online. Granted, I learned a lot in these past few hours (what Christians like, where to get free vector graphics, how to decompress .rar file on a mac, what rss is, the caloric content of Diet Grapico) but that is not what I set out to do today. I am starting to loathe the fact that I learned (concretely) what a blog is, and the joys of wasting hours of my day reading them. It's like a newspaper for people who don't care about real life events.

Primo Facto

This is my first attempt at a blog. I've spent the last five hours creating a profile picture and the header to this site, and I neglected to think of ACTUALLY writing something. So here it is, the first ever. Enjoy