Here is the one-hundred-and-thirty-fourth edition of Tom Nob’s Thursday Notes. TN2 serves as a brief summary of what good humor we have found during the past week plus some suggestions for the upcoming weekend.

New Film

The Fairy – U.S. release

New Web Series

Battleground

New TV Series

Life’s Too Short

New TV Season

Being Human (UK) – season four

New Audio

Dylan Brody:  Chronological Disorder

Garfunkel and Oates:  Slippery When Moist

New Books

Flatscreen:  A Novel by Adam Wilson

And Finally

Aside from the coronation of Adele as queen of the music recording industry, one of the most notable events of the recent Grammy Award ceremony was the 50th anniversary performance of the reunited Beach Boys.  While the eccentricities of Brian Wilson, the “lost” Smile album and the 1988 hit “Kokomo” have helped keep the band from fading away, the Beach Boys will always be best known for their hit songs recorded in the early to mid-1960s and compiled on 1974′s Endless Summer.  These beach-themed tunes forever immortalized carefree fun in the sun on California’s golden shores.   As such, there is no small irony that as the 70-year-old Boys re-form for one more round of fun, fun, fun the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is saying no, no, no.  The Supervisors, who create the rules that are enforced on the public beaches in the county, have decided in their infinite wisdom that the sands have become too hazardous and need new rules.  So, from this point forward no person shall dig a hole in the sand deeper than 18″ except for film and/or television production purposes.  Sorry, kiddos, no more digging moats or holes to China.  If that wasn’t bad enough, it is now unlawful for any person to cast, toss, throw, kick, or roll any ball, tube, or light object other than a beach ball or beach volleyball.  This means that playing catch with a football or a frisbee on the beach could result in a $1,000 fine.  The one activity that is exempted from these new ordinances is playing water polo “on or over” the Pacific Ocean.  Brilliant.  Allow the one thing that people don’t do at the beach and ban all the things they do.  Might as well go catch a wave because staying on the beach is going to be an endless bummer.

Here is the one-hundred-and-thirty-third edition of Tom Nob’s Thursday Notes. TN2 serves as a brief summary of what good humor we have found during the past week plus some suggestions for the upcoming weekend.

New TV Season

Cougar Town – season three

Eastbound & Down – season three

New Books

Delicacy:  A Novel by David Foenkinos

And Finally

Another Valentine’s Day has passed and, as we were diligently observing National Safe Sex Awareness Month, we had some extra idle time on our hands.   Because the devil’s work takes less time than it used to, we turned our attention to learning more about this St. Valentine who has inspired this day filled with angst and ecstasy.  Everybody is familiar with the image of St. Nicholas and has some understanding of his back story but when it comes to the pompitous of love:  nothing.   The short, boring reason is that there was no specific St. Valentine but rather 14 different martyred saints of ancient Rome who were referred to as Valentinus.  Even if the number of saints and the calendar date are more than coincidental, there is no other historical link between any of the St. Valentines and the pursuit of love.  In fact, the first reference linking St. Valentine and romance comes from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules written in 1382 in which he describes birds seeking their mate on St. Valentine’s Day.  Historians have questioned why the birds of England would have been looking to mate in mid February but there it is.  Amazing that such an oblique reference 630 years ago could have spawned an $18 billion/year heart-shaped industry.  Even if we are no closer to solving the meaning of life, at least we now know who wrote the book of love.

Here is the one-hundred-and-thirty-second edition of Tom Nob’s Thursday Notes. TN2 serves as a brief summary of what good humor we have found during the past week plus some suggestions for the upcoming weekend.

New Stand-Up

Patrice O’Neal: Mr. P

New Books

A Good American by Alex George

Life As I Blow It by Sarah Colonna

And Finally

Aside from a few subtle obscene gestures during the halftime show that were missed by 111,349,998 viewers until the puritan police felt compelled to point them out frame-by-frame, last weekend’s Super Bowl XLVI was considered by all (except for Mitt Romney’s former minions) to be a resounding success.  While Peyton Manning won an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World and his NY Giants teammates earned a ticker-tape parade through the canyons of Manhattan, the big winners appear to be the automobile manufacturers who paid an average of $3.5 million per 30-second spot to peddle their vehicles.  Either through the use of humor or by plucking on the patriotic heartstrings, the auto makers have taken over the mantle from the beer companies as being the main source of entertainment during a typically mediocre football match.

One auto brand that returned to the Super Bowl airwaves after a 10-year hiatus was BMW.  However, the tailwinds being enjoyed by the German manufacturer in the North American market from their $7 million Super Bowl spend were being partially counteracted by $394 they spent on their home continent.  Here’s the story:  the Berlin Institute for Meteorology at the Free University, which has been naming all high- and low-pressure systems affecting Central Europe since the 1950s, had its funding slashed in 2002 prompting the organization to launch an “Adopt-a-Vortex” program.  Normally used as a novel gift for individuals, BMW’s marketing agency thought it would be a clever idea to sponsor a high pressure system to promote the “brisk” quality of the Mini Cooper brand.  Clever, that is, until the “Cooper” front which swept in to central Europe out of Siberia proved a bit too brisk with sub-zero temps that killed over 250 people.  Mini was forced to quickly pulled a Rockford in order to disassociate from the catastrophic weather though they will ultimately suffer only minor embarrassment and an opportunity cost rather than any real damage to the brand.   Just goes to show that when it comes to halftime performers and weather fronts, even the best of intentions can result in a gesture gone bad.

Here is the one-hundred-and-thirty-first edition of Tom Nob’s Thursday Notes. TN2 serves as a brief summary of what good humor we have found during the past week plus some suggestions for the upcoming weekend.

New Stand-Up

John Mulaney:  New In Town

Chris Killian: The Not Black Album

Doug Loves Movies: Live in Sacramento

New TV Show

Key & Peele

New TV Season

Tosh.0 – season four

And Finally

Yesterday Facebook finally filed a preliminary prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in preparation for its long-awaited initial public offering.  Following in the footsteps of other so-called Web 2.0 companies like Linkedin, Groupon, and Zynga who have opened their respective kimonos in order to provide some liquidity for founders, early investors and employees alike, Facebook is not modest in the self-assessment of its value which it reportedly places somewhere between $75-$100 billion.   With over 800 million users and revenues of greater than $3.7 billion for 2011, there is no doubt that Facebook is worth a lot of money but Zuck & Co. have their work cut out for them to grow into this valuation.  What they and other social media companies need is to successfully transition from a free, user-oriented service to a platform conducive for the marketing and advertising of corporate brands and products.  The holy grail known as monetization.

However, when corporate customers shift their spend on branding activities to the social media sphere,  they leave behind the safety of carefully scripted one-way messages and become exposed to the ugly underbelly of the user base.  A recent example of this comes courtesy of McDonald’s (another company worth $100 billion) whose brand mission is “to be our customers’ favorite place and way to eat.”  Forgetting momentarily that this describes the typical 5-year-old, McDonald’s launched a promoted tweets campaign on Twitter encouraging its legion of customers to share their “McDStories”.  To paraphrase the McDonald’s social media director, the conversation did not go as planned with tweets from individuals whose meals were not so happy quickly swamping the campaign which was cancelled within hours of launch.   Thus, while putting the Egg McMuffin on Facebook would seem to be something that both companies would like, it is far too easy for an exercise in monetization to morph into digital defacement and simply end up with egg on the face.  And what’s the value of that?