The National Ad Council and me not dying a fiery death

I was watching an episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip instead of working on my Econ thesis, and I couldn't help but remember how I almost died (or received serious injury) on Interstate 91 this past summer.

I was coming back from watching The Dark Knight (for the third time! but that is another story lol) at the Enfield Mall Cinemas. Rolling with me was Steve, Jerry, Marlyn, and Justin. We were all riding in Justin's (his dads lol) ill fire red Mustang convertible. It was a pretty small car and I was packed into the back with Marlyn and Jerry. I can't exactly remember but I think we were all squeezed so tight that we didn't really bother with seatbelts. All I know is that on the way back home we were driving pretty fast and passing a lot of cars. Halfway home we ended up on the left (passing) lane, stuck behind a dark green van that must have been going 45 MPH. Well Justin started tailgating the van pretty badly and Jerry started vocally telling Justin to chill out. Next thing you know the green van switches lanes so Justin starts to speed up. Except, it turns out there was a car directly ahead of the green van which was blocked from our view. Justin had to veer into the shoulder lane to avoid hitting it. After that Jerry and Justin got into an argument over the lack of safe driving going on in the Mustang lol. I remember Marlyn whispering to me that she thought she thought we were all about to die.

Through all this time Steve and I had stayed relatively cool. We all just laughed off Justin's close call with car calamity. I remember thinking what is the big deal, there is a big difference between going to the edge of crashing a car to actually crossing that edge. Plus, Justin is a far better driver than I will ever be so who am I to attack his tactics. However, and now this goes back to the beginning of the story, while I was procrastinating and watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on Hulu, every commercial break turned out to be a 30 second ad from the National Ad Council. This particular set of ads featured reckless car drivers up front and one person in the back who is silently worried, but not saying anything. Then all of the sudden a slick TV spokesperson pops up and tells everyone (in the style of winning a prize on the price is right) how great a deal they are getting by winning the all new, all great "Slow Down" which will prevent them from dying. The ad ends with the message that there is no TV announcer to save you and that you have to say something to stave off death from reckless drivers.

Reflecting on these ads I started to think about that incident last summer and how I probably should have acted differently. I should have said something which did not incite anger but instead was a constructive criticism of Justin's driving at that one moment. Tailgating is never a good idea.

Now reflecting on me changing my mind, I've realized that the National Ad Council's public service advertisements have actually affected my own thoughts and ideas. This scares me, I don't really know why, but it does. I consider myself a savy consumer of advertisments, and most of the time I discard the messages (I percieve are) in advertisements. But not this one. Being polite is good, but it's a bad idea to die out of politness, lol. "Nandhish, well he was a good one, he was polite till the end. Politeness ended him." LOOOOL I am dumb. peace

2009 NBA Dunk Contest

when: Saturday Feb 14th. 2009, 8-11 pm

Who:

Dwight Howard (2008 Champion, 2007 3rd place) - Orlando Magic
Nate Robinson (2006 Champion, 2008 Runner Up) - New York Knicks
J.R. Smith (2005 3rd place) - Denver Nuggets
Rudy Fernandez (Fan Vote Winner) - Portland Trailblazers
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Okay, for lame-0s like me who are doing nothing on Valentines day, we can look forward to the NBA dunk contest, I probably am more than most normal people. This years dunk contest has the potential to be pretty great, but it most probably wont be.

I can lay the blame square on two things: the infusion of props and gimmicks in the dunk contest in the last few years, and Rudy Fernandez.

Rudy Fernandez still makes me angry. Judging from YouTube videos he is extremely nonathletic, he barely gets his head to the net when he goes up for a dunk. He is only in the dunk contest because he won the fan vote. Of the three NBA players who were contestants in the fan vote contest, he was the least deserving candidate. Joe Alexander was clearly the best dunker out of the 3, he even hit his head on the rim in a video to try and drum up support. However, because europeans and other global NBA fans blindly went with the foriegn guy, we are stuck with sucky Fernadez.

Howard, even though he has the potential to be a great dunker, even though he sometimes relies on the gimmick. His last two dunk contests have been half gimmick, half awesome. Overall, he is a very good contestant.

JR Smith is a straight up balling contestant. The two televised dunk contests he has previousley participate in showed him as a creative, ungimmicky, high jumping dunk powerhouse. He was the first ever to do a behind the back dunk in an NBA dunk contest (2005) and he even tried to do a 360 behind the back in the 2004 Mcdonalds dunk contest. However, this guy is like 6'6" and he isnt the super highest jumping guy ever so I really don't know if he has what it takes to d something truly insane in the dunk contest, we will see.

Nate Robinson is incredibly short, but he doesnt really rely on gimmicks either. In the two dunk contest he has been in, he has really brought it. He tried to do dunk I never thought a short person would ever do. He missed an amazing off the back board 2 foot take off east bay in the 2006 contest. In addition, there is a YouTube video floating around of him doing a 2 foot take off east bay 180 from out out of bounds (although there is disagreement on whether the rim is 10 feet).

CONCLUSION:

Fernandez is almost certainly a write-off contestant in this years contest.

We can only hope that Robinson and Smith don't feel pressured by Howard's past success to do very gimmicky, overly showey dunks.

Here is hoping that this contest is awesome.

Rick Ross sucks

He sucks.