honest abe

abe lincoln listens to only the freshest jams.

big gulp of the day

big gulp of the day: stolen and adapted from mari-time

today's big gulp is red and white, with a hint of green. its green straw is a great accent piece, not to mention it delivers delicious soda to my mouth. the lid is clear which is great, because i can see how much big gulp i have left. on the inside is a special treat - mountain dew code red, which i drink when i'm stressed out. it's red and matches the outside of the big gulp cup. all in all, a great big gulp.

tune in for tomorrow's big gulp of the day.

i'm on a blogging spree today, but i had to share.

a lot of times, i have a hard time reconciling my faith and undying love for jesus christ with my love of the hedonistic satan-worshipping guitar hero. each time i touch one of the four colored buttons, i am diving further and further into a world of sin, torment, and anguish for my eternal soul.

just take a look at this devil-worshipper:



well, FINALLY someone invented something that i can finally fully support. it's GUITAR PRAISE! the CHRISTIAN ROCK version of guitar hero! soon i'll be "rockin' with the best while praising the Lord" according to their website.

SO AWESOME!

*sigh*

open letters to people

an open letter to the richmond ad club:

dear richmond ad club,

i had hoped that by attending your happy hour, i would meet a slew of interesting and new people, but then i remembered that i'm terrified of just walking up to new people and introducing myself. sorry i ate so many little ham roll-ups and drank so many of your free beers. also sorry i checked my work e-mail so much, i was kinda freaking out about leaving early to attend your event.


an open letter to the democratic nominee for president, barack obama:

dear barack obama,

you know i love you, man. you know i got your back in november. i am SO sorry i missed your speech last night. you know how i get when i get a few beers in me early in the night and then stop drinking. yep, dead asleep at 9:00pm. i'm sure you were looking out into the crowd knowing that your boy phil was watching from home. sorry i didn't have your back last night. but that's the thing about you, barack obama. i know you've already forgiven me. because you are a rad dude. high five.


an open letter to national public radio:

dear national public radio,

how did you know? how did you know i'd fall asleep? i swear, all these years we've been together.. you know me too well. yes, of course i did the happy hour thing.. and yes, of course i was fast asleep shortly after. well, i just wanted to write and say thanks for posting that podcast of obama's speech bright and early this morning so i could rock that shit on my way to work. driving to work while listening to barack obama talk about hope and change is way better than listening to Q94. now i'm at work, trying to instill hope and change here at my desk. so far, i've changed a lightbulb in my office lamp and i'm planning on changing some creative later today.

love,

phil

brawny!

no wonder i've been having trouble waking up in the morning.. i haven't been eating THIS for breakfast:

yaaaay!

well, i survived.

the website launched at midnight last night. we made our deadline. i stayed up till 1:00am working. and i spent another hour making a sweet dance party playlist for a possible debut at empire on saturday night.

the dance party playlist probably wasn't necessary, but i drank so much fucking red bull, i wasn't going to sleep anyway.

i have a bunch of stuff still going out the door today, but the worst has passed.

i might go home at noon today and finish the day from the comfort of my room, where i will multitask and get some laundry done. maybe even take a nap!

as much as i complain, last night was actually a lot of fun. the web guy and me were basically just laughing and joking the entire time while we were revising and changing and altering everything up until the last second.

it was nice to wake up this morning and know that a major part of this promotion was out of my hands and out the door.

now on to the next stuff! i will prevail!

pikachu techno army

i'm starting an electronic music project.

and i've decided it's going to be with this guy:

UGH

things at work are fucking KILLING me.

this promotion i've been working on for weeks goes live at midnight tomorrow night.

after last week's relative calm, the shit has hit the fan here in the final 48 hours. everything that could go wrong more or less has gone wrong. the responsibility for just about every piece of this promotion falls firmly on my shoulders. normally that's something i'm proud of, but when the chips are down and shit is going wrong, it's the worst.

things were already stressful enough when i got a voicemail late tonight telling me that due to it's similarity to another promotion from a different company (that we just discovered), we've gotta make changes to just about every piece. including pieces that have long since been done and sent off to print. yikes.

i don't know what those changes are yet. i am supposed to find out late tonight / early tomorrow, but needless to say, i'll be working probably right up until midnight.

hopefully once this thing goes live, shit will calm down again. i know that calm exists at my job, i had some last week. it was amazing to have a normal workload. i just have to survive this maddening week.

i know i bitch a lot, but i promise i do actually love my job. it's just sometimes it's tough love. really tough love.

and once again, facebook fucking nails it with the ads. it's scary, really.

i love the 90s.

one word for saturday night's "240 minutes" alt-rock party: WOW.

kenny totally outdid himself. he took a wholly original idea, brought it to life, executed it perfectly, and as a result - it was a total success. a bunch of us were dancing, singing, and having an amazing time that totally exceeded my expectations. definitely one of the best nights in richmond i've had in a long time.

i definitely wanted to keep the night going after last call, so i drunkenly invited about 20 people from cous cous to walk over to our apartment for continued revelry. it was both a good idea and a bad idea, as i got to hang out with people and have fun late into the night.. but awakening after 5 hours of sleep to find all the beer cans, bottles, and other detritus, along with the stale smell of cigarette smoke throughout the house, i slightly hated drunken phil.

sunday i was exhausted. i made it to brunch, which was oh-so-comforting.. then it was back home for an impromptu lord of the rings marathon on TNT. kenny and i finally left for dinner and then i went to empire for a little bit to show ian some love. i made the BAD decision of drinking a red bull. i was fully exhausted and ready for bed, but the red bull woke me up just enough that i tossed and turned in bed for a solid hour before falling asleep.

i have a lot of things keeping my brain spinning while i'm trying to sleep. i'm not sure where i'm heading career-wise, i'm not sure where i want to live city-wise, i'm not sure what the hell i'm doing girl-wise, and all the while, everyday i get a new facebook friend request from a long lost friend who is married and has kids and a house and i'm like HOLY SHIT I AM FUCKED. and yet, i know this thought is totally wrong and unfounded - i made my choices and i'm proud of all i've done to this point and wouldn't have done it any differently, but it's just a really weird time in my life to be stuck between these two defined phases - the life of a young idealist pursuing a dream vs. a settled life with less up in the air.

it's not that i want the settled life. the idea of owning a home and being stuck somewhere gives me chills. i don't think i could handle pet ownership let alone my own children right now. but i do want to have more figured out.. a little more security. stop living paycheck to paycheck. stop going to the same bars with the same people and talking about the same shit. i want to start new hobbies, meet new people, join a club, join a church, eat at a new restaurant, go to king's dominion.

the last one is extra serious. i want to go to king's dominion.

but i think i have to go on a weekend, which means brutal lines. anyone down for going to king's dominion on a sunday and hanging out in the hot sun?

little-known blog technique: when your blog starts getting too serious, mention local amusement parks to lighten the mood.

see, it worked!

god, i hope so

this is why i drink alcohol

last night we were chilling on the roof of my apartment, everyone having already had plenty to drink, and we segued into one of the strangest conversations i've had in a while. it was that point where everything anyone says is absolutely hilarious and you can't control the volume of your voice.

it started with sarah requesting that i sing the infamous "shaw's jeweler's" radio ad theme song, a song she's never heard. she just likes to get me drunk enough that i agree to sing it. for anyone who has lived in the DC area, there's no way you don't already know this song. it's a DC radio ad legend.

it goes like this:

I loooooooove her soooo...
And sheeeee must kno-oo-oow!
The way that I show her--
--(Shaw's)--
Has got to go straight to her heart!
[bass kick]
Straight to the heart,
Shaw's Jewelers! (ohhh-ohh-ohhh)

fucking amazing. best jingle ever.

so from there, we veered slightly to discuss "mervis diamond importers", another legendary radio ad staple of DC. the owner, ronnie mervis, has this crazy accent and tells you all about his diamond mines in south africa. dude is crazy.



anyway, the conversation then extended to his fictional son "curtis mervis".

i don't really even remember what the hell curtis mervis did in our fictional scenarios, but if you say curtis mervis enough times, it's hard not to laugh at a name that amazing.

so thank you to the diamond retailers of northern va / dc and coor's light for providing me with a solid hour of good laughs.

apologies to kenny who probably hates me now for chilling on the roof and screaming the name of curtis mervis at 1:00am when he had work in the morning.

CURRRRRTIISSSS MERRRRVIIIISSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

chamberlain

today i was listening to this band chamberlain and it got me thinking.

i was into chamberlain from the moment i first heard them. they started out as this post-hardcore band that was really good. they put out a few records and then somewhere along the way, they just decided to change their sound to alt-country / rock'n'roll. i think this appealed to me because i've always been in rock bands and always wanted to be in alt-country / folky bands. anyway, chamberlain is awesome. they kinda have a bit of a bruce springsteen kinda vibe that i'm into.

anyway, i was listening to this one song "racing cincinnati" which is their quintessential epic slow jam.

in fact, you can listen to the song right here.

so i was talking to my friend peter about this song and why we both love it.

we agreed that this was the song that plays at the end of your movie, as you ride off into the sunset in your beat-up cadillac, gut shot and slowly bleeding to death, after just saving someone's life which is inconsistent with your character. cue the credits.

ridiculous, right? i think about shit like this all the time.

the whole thing got me thinking of how i daydream and make up elaborate cinematic scenarios A LOT when it comes to music. is this normal? i think one of the main reasons i love music so much is that i see it as the soundtrack to the running 27-year-long movie that is my life, but i also find myself imagining this random type stuff too. i dunno. it's not like this with every song, but i'm often thinking about how a song would be perfect for different "scenes".

which is why i maintain that the perfect dream job would be the guy who picks out soundtrack songs for movies and television.

i have a feeling that job is kinda hard to come by.

how do you listen to music? do you ever think of this shit or am i just batshit crazy?

i was going to iceland..

.. but now i'm buying a catbus.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/alb/621862265.html

totally amazing!

out and about

so last night i went to a new bar for the first time. as you may already know, i was previously a creature of habit in richmond and i am now trying to expand my richmond horizons. this includes new bars and new chill spots. last night it was adam's birthday, so i drove up to the new patrick henry pub (formerly a cappella's) and checked it out.

first off, historical references are key. i support this bar from the get go on name alone. the vibe inside is a little "let's see if we can fit a bar inside this living room", but it was quaint and nice. adam kicked things up a notch by wearing a birthday tuxedo. i, along with everyone in the bar, was impressed by adam's commitment to getting fancy.

i was flying more or less solo - the only people i regularly hang out with are adam and kc, and they were busy with being birthday host & hostess. but i saw a few people i had met previously and drummed up some pretty awesome conversation about funny shows on tv that i don't watch but should and the awesomeness of curved walls as opposed to straight regular walls.

i also had a conversation with a guy named will who right off the bat asked "so what do you do?"

what a question.

one i was not prepared to answer.

i'm used to, for years, saying "well i tour in this band and blah blah" but now it's something like "well, i work for this marketing agency and blah blah blah".

the next question was if i did graphic design or art, and so i tried explaining what i do in a more specific manner and the best thing i could come up with was "i'm the guy that the client calls when they want to make the logo bigger. and then i call the graphic design people and tell THEM to make the logo bigger. then THEY make the logo bigger and then i send that back to the client."

"i make logos bigger" is a way better way to say "i act as a liaison between the client and our creative department".

i quickly threw in "one time my work paid for me to go to a NASCAR race" which quickly changed the subject to the intensely more exciting topic of racing cars in circles.

so yeah, anyway. i gotta go. the logos wait for no man. back to work.

a little wisdom stolen from garrett

"The romantic hero is unconnected. He belongs to no community; he is wandering from place to place, doing good (as he sees it), but then moving on. This is the life of the adolescent, full of passion, intensity, magic, and infinite possibility; but lacking responsibility, rarely having to stay and bear the consequences of error. Everything is played at twice the speed and twice the volume in the adolescent- the romantic- life. Only when the loneliness becomes unbearable do adolescents root themselves, or try to root themselves. It may or may not be in the community of their childhood, and it may or may not be their childhood identity and connections that they resume upon entering adulthood. And, in fact, many fail at adulthood and constantly reach backward for the freedom and passion of adolescence. But those who achieve it are the ones who create civilization."

- Orson Scott Card

best friends. beards. history.

three of my favorite things.

this weekend was BEST FRIENDS DAY. and holy shit, what a weekend it was. friday found us crashing an epic house party and dancing the night away. the cops came, wrecked shop, and i found myself chilling on a stranger's roof before biking back home for much-needed sleep.

saturday was the highlight of the weekend. a whole day of "debauchery" at hadad's lake. i put that in quotation marks because everyone else was getting hammer drunk while i remained sober, enjoying grape spritzers and a diet coke big gulp. i decided to remain sober in my commitment to no "day drinking", however, in retrospect, it was a poor move. i expected the party to go on into the night, where i would catch up in drinks, but everyone lost steam and the nightlife suffered accordingly. however, drinks weren't even necessary to have a blast. plus, i felt like a hero getting my friends safely home from a far-away location.

so all in all, i got to do everything i wanted on saturday. a lovely paddleboat ride with sarah, two hours of intensely competitive water volleyball, lots of catching up with friends, and catching some insanely awesome bands playing.


sunday was a day to celebrate u.s. history. chris and lauren came into town and we went to the american civil war center at the tredegar iron works. it's a very cool museum and i thought it did a really good job of giving a "wide-angle view" of the civil war. pulling back from the battles and the strategies and sort of showing the overall social impact and causes. very fun. after that, we went to hollywood cemetary to show them all the confederate graves, which is always a fun thing to do for people who haven't seen it before. after that, we made multiple failed attempts to find an open restaurant on sunday and settled at mom's siam in carytown for some delicious thai food.


today i'm back at work and honestly, it's not too bad today. i had a great conversation with my co-worker about the awesomeness of beards and why women love beards. i explained to her that beards are the easiest fashion choice to make, because all you have to do to grow a beard is NOT shave. by doing nothing, you're winning by growing an awesome beard. anyway, she posted a recap of the conversation on her blog, so feel free to check it out.

anyway, that's the weekend.

my last item comes from caitlyn who exposed me to the brilliance of "drunken history". the general premise is that the makers of the video get a historian completely wasted, ask them to recap a historical event, and then have famous actors act out the resulting jibberish. she wants to see me do a drunken history episode about the civil war. i'm totally down.

enjoy:

another reason to add to my hate list

you know what, facebook? you can go fuck yourself if you're going to keep pulling THIS shit:

iceland-bound

so a few months ago i told everyone i was going to take a trip to iceland in early 2009.

you may have thought i wasn't being serious, but i was so serious i even ordered some "literature".. and it arrived yesterday.

so excited.

party.

party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party. party.

happy best friends day!

star wars characters off the job

after a long day at work, even star wars characters need a place to call home.

stormtroopers on a lunch break calling home:



imperial guard hanging out with his cat:



wookie making some breakfast:



rebel fighter leaving for work:

nicholas cage: best living actor

i've never seen wicker man, but this is clearly some of cage's finest work:

best friends day

best friends day approaches.

all over the city of richmond, people are laying low.. hibernating.. awaiting this day to end all days.

last night kenny and i went to cous cous for a drink and to hang out with brett behind the bar. we were literally the only people there the entire time. i feel like everyone is letting all the alcohol dissipate from their system before they binge like drunken warriors on saturday.

i've never been to best friends day, but after spending 4th of july at hadad's, i feel like i've got a pretty good idea of how awesome it's going to be.

i, sadly, will not be a drunken mess, swinging off the rope swings and whatnot. due to my recent dental procedure and my distaste for daytime drinking, i will be sipping on diet coke big gulps and maybe some other delicious non-alcoholic beverage concoctions. however, i will be a) raging on the trampoline b) swimming more or less non-stop and c) wearing my awesome summer hat.

this week has been absolutely brutal at work, so i can't wait for the opportunity to drop this shit for a few days and have fun at a giant man-made lake with all my friends.

best friends day!

fffound

teeth.

so i get a half-day today. great, right?

not so great.

today i go in for my 4-hour dentist appointment where they will proceed to give me 6 root canals and 7 crowns.

OUCH!!

fortunately for myself and all parties involved, i have been given a prescription for a sedative. i plan on being in dreamland for this whole damn thing.

since i don't know what things are going to be like, i am planning to work tomorrow, but obviously plans might change depending on how shitty i feel afterward.

despite all my negativity, i am really really stoked to get this next part of my recovery phase started. once my teeth are all fixed back up, there's only a few minor things left to deal with. i will have crossed the last major hurdle in my recovery.

i think that's definitely something to be stoked about.

fucking sundays, man.

i just can't enjoy sundays anymore.

the looming threat of monday just seems to suck the life out of what should be a perfectly good day off.

i spent the evening in, catching up on work, and sort of just letting the dread wash over me. i semi-watched reservoir dogs and laughed a little at how amazing i thought that movie was when i first saw it when i was 14-15. it still is amazing, but it's interesting watching it now through non-9th-grade-male eyes.

for those who have been following my bike helmet saga closely, i just bought helmet #2. this time, i went with a brand that had actual sizes instead of "one size fits all". because, as i found out, one size does definitely not fucking fit all. i have a gigantic head. tonight, kenny and i, using an improvised tape measure, measured our heads. i determined that i am a size XXL head. i told you i had a big head, y'all.

so anyway, i went with this snazzy BERN helmet:



this is either going to look incredibly stupid or reasonably cool.

we'll see, right?

so ... after helmet purchasing, i decided to go to bed. which of course, resulted in total failure. with work tomorrow, a weekend sleep schedule, my new sunday evening activity is to stare at my ceiling unable to sleep. my mind has been racing through the most ridiculous random topics. not good.

so i decided to get out of bed and blog.

i'll make sleep attempt #2 here in a few minutes and hope for more success.

but before i go..

if you're like me, and completely failed to watch any of the beijing 2008 opening ceremony, you were a complete idiot. luckily for idiots like us, my parents tivo'd the damn thing and i watched it. HOLY SHIT. i am not usually one who gets impressed by things like opening ceremonies of sporting events... but this was hands down the COOLEST THING i have seen on my television in a long time. i can't even imagine what the experience must have been live.

just imagine.. 2008 drummers playing traditional chinese drums. each drum is hooked up to a bright white light that flashes each time the drum is hit. now imagine all 2008 drummers coordinating together to make the coolest light show you've ever seen.

actually, instead of imagining, see it for yourself. just know that it's a little hard to capture the sheer epicness on the tiny little square youtube video:



amazing.

totally amazing.

saturday!

signs you are in an emotionally fragile state: you get a little teary-eyed watching the gold medal ceremony for fencing.

what the HELL?!?

anyway.

it's saturday. i'm at my parent's house. the last time i was here for any significant length of time was during my bicycle accident recovery. it's nice to be back here for better reasons.

i'm off to leesburg for an engagement party / wine tasting / dinner for my amazing friend samm. i rarely get the chance to hang out with samm and our little crew of friends and it's always a really good time.

then things shift gears dramatically as i turn around and drive into the city for RATTLER at the rock'n'roll hotel.

RATTLER is the most insane band to ever make music.

they also may or may not contain members of olympia in disguise.


Rattler "Getting Awesome" live at Black Cat from rory on Vimeo.

there's about a 150% chance of awesomeness tonight.

haha this is amazing

so, when the iphone first came out, some a-hole decided to make an iphone app called "i am rich". it sells for $999 (the max apple allows people to charge for an app) and all it does is have a glowing red gem that moves around. it literally does nothing.



8 people bought it within the first 24 hours of the app store being open.

ridiculous.

they need to make an app called "i am poor" so i can get a copy.

NOW WHO WERE THOSE 8 PEOPLE!?!

excel spreadsheets

work, specifically excel spreadsheets, continue to kick my ass on a daily basis at the job.

i am starting to get better and better at handling the workload, but there are days where i'm just amazed at how much i have to do and how little time i have to do it.

fortunately, i have understanding co-workers who are generally in the same boat i am in. my best interaction today was when i called a co-worker about a "bad news" e-mail we had both received and the conversation started like this:

co-worker: hello?
phil: *sigh*
co-worker: yeah, i know.

anyway, it's good to find the little things that keep you sane at work. sometimes, if you're really lucky, you find INSPIRATION.

for instance, artist danielle aubert clearly found inspiration in her inspiring work "58 days worth of drawing exercises in microsoft excel".



you know you want to click that shit and look at how awesome it is.

i plan on employing some of her techniques in my next spreadsheet. time to fancy things up!

fish vs. dogs

the beijing olympics.. are they a trap?

sorry for all the youtube videos. can't help it!

kermit vs. cookie monster

i was having the worst day until i saw this video.

i wish jim henson was still alive. this shit is classic.

peter = awesome

peter is amazing on two levels.

first off, he's an amazing artist. i love all the stuff he does, but i think this is my new favorite piece.

secondly, he's amazing because when i was at home recovering from surgery and totally fucked up, i could never sleep during the night. i was waking up every few hours from pain and totally uncomfortable and miserable. he brought over this amazing audiobook for me to listen to about the assassination of abraham lincoln and the subsequent manhunt for john wilkes booth. peter and i share an affinity for all things civil-war related (although he knows way more about it than i ever will).

i listened to this book late at night when i couldn't fall asleep and it seriously saved me from hours of boredom.

anyway, i got so stoked when i instantly recognized the subject of the painting was john wilkes booth and his famous last words.

peter, i know you don't read my blog entries because they're way too long, but hopefully the painting got your attention. how much are you selling this for and can i pick it up this weekend?!

weekend recap

friday night

friday we opened up the apartment to friends in celebration of kenny's new summer line of flux rad t-shirts. it was a fun party. i played some music, visited with friends, and we all ended up on the roof talking late into the night. after mistakenly thinking our beer supplies were tapped (we later found a multitude of beer), we went to empire for a few more. the evening was capped with some delicious aladdins food. ill-advised, but so delicious.

saturday

saturday was excellent. i got in the car, picked out some choice cds, and hit the road for lexington va for my family reunion. this is a summer tradition that i rarely miss. our family meets at the property of my dad's cousin, who owns a beautiful spot of land with a small creek that feeds into a swimming hole that everyone calls the "millhole". back in the early 1900s, there was a mill on the property and they dug out this area for the mill wheel. the mill has long-since been abandoned and what is left is an incredible spot for swimming and jumping off rocks. i've been going here since i was a child and it's a very special place. i hope someday to take my kids here.




sunday

today was nice. i finally got my shit together and went to church, which is something i've been meaning to do for a while. sometime during college, when my family switched churches to one that i couldn't stand, i sorta lost touch with church in general. with constant touring and life and craziness, i decided that my relationship with God for the time being would be something that existed outside of a church. earlier this year, i started feeling that itch to find a church home again. i had started attending a presbyterian church downtown and really liked the service, the pastor, and the church itself.. such a beautiful old chapel and truly a peaceful place. i was becoming a semi-regular visitor when the bike accident hit and derailed all that. this was my first visit since the accident and it felt nice to go back. i'm questioning becoming a member though. it's a really beautiful church and i feel at peace there, but the congregation skews really old and everyone gets dressed up in their nice suits. i wonder how at home i will feel in a place where i don't really seem to fit in. putting on a suit makes me want to die a little inside. i need to find that balance between the traditional service that i like, but somewhere i can feel like i'll meet people more my age. i have thought about looking for somewhere more geared towards younger people, but i get really uncomfortable with the touchy-feely hands-in-the-air christianity that i was exposed to back in college.

anyway, i know it's a big scenester no-no to talk about God or being a christian, especially on a BLOG (gasp!), but there you have it!

after church, we hit up a new brunch spot, the black sheep, which i was well-pleased with, despite their lack of a soda fountain for my AM diet soda caffeine fix.

after that, we decided to head down to the river where we met up with some super cool kids and chatted it up all afternoon. usually i get bored of the river after about 2 hours, but i had a great time. the company was really nice and it was a great way to relax before my hell begins again on monday morning.

speaking of which, i came home after the river to spend about two hours catching up on work so that tomorrow morning wouldn't hurt quite as bad as it always does. it's going to suck no matter what, but at least i have a slight head start.

okay, off to bed.

fffound

this is the choice i make every morning before work:



this also made me crack up: