Below is a photo of EMRL’s entryway:

Someone had made their own sticker of our inspiration guy!  Same guy with the pistol & birdie.  The exact quote was there too.

When I saw it, the first thing I thought was “Whoa weird.”

The second thing I thought was “WTF they used the wrong font.”

The third thing i thought was “Stop being an ass about fonts.”

The last thing i thought was “Wow someone noticed” and it made me kind of happy.

I was impressed he was able to express his idea so concisely.  He is normally so much more long-winded than this.

This particular issue is a 26 pages, 8 of which are a special advertising section for the Hallmark Channel, “Celebrating 10 Years of Family-Friendly TV.”  That’s almost 1/3 of the magazine.

I’m not sure whether to laugh, cry, or just use it to make a paper hat.

Today I take the dirty route with heavy traffic (both pedestrian and automobile.)

I’m wearing an orange tie I bought in Frankfurt today since I need to impress a potential new client.  My hair is in its usual disasterous state, and I figure by wearing a disruptively colored tie I may be able to distract from that.  Or at least make it seem intentional.  It isn’t really, the bad hair.  It’s just inattentiveness.

The walk is short, and generally takes me about the length of Aphex Twin’s track “Stone in Focus” from the album “Selected Ambient Works Volume II”, which I enjoy very much.  Today though I decide to listen to the dirt on the streets instead of isolating myself in faraway music.

I’m a little over halfway to work, passing a Federal Express,  which isn’t actually Federal at all.  I like their classic FedEx logo but I’m not really enthusiastic with how they are branding their copy shops like this one.  They used to be called Kinko’s but were sold and re-badged FedEx Office not too long ago.

There’s a bus shelter up ahead, across the intersection.  It is owned by the local public transporation agency and they are one of my agency’s clients.  I can see there’s a man sitting on the bench not waiting for the bus.  He’s filthy and so are his belongings and his beard and probably his intentions and I am staring at him because I know what he is going to ask me for money and/or a cigarette and I want him to know that I am not friendly and that I know what he has done.

This man has taken a shit in the doorway of our office at least once, probably three times.  The doorway of the building in which I work is about 20 feet from an alley.  A city-owned utility truck with “Fight the Funk” written on the front drives through this alley every night and sprays it down with water and disinfectant, making this a perfect alley to shit in.  Instead, he shits in my doorway. Fuck him.

Anyhow.  Passing the bus shelter (owned by the local public transportation agency) and a bus pulls up and the man who shits does not get on.  I am still staring at him and he knows I know he shits and he says nothing.

I keep walking.

The next day, someone called EMRL looking for me, wondering who on earth would leave their card in the door at a random Prada store/sculpture in the middle of nowhere.  The best part though, is that the guy who called was also on a road trip, driving from Florida to San Francisco. Basically my route in reverse.

How weird is that.

It’s always hard to work on our own website and/or other marketing stuff; we’ve been fortunate enough to have such good word of mouth recommendations that we have not been forced to. Every once in a while though it’s good to think through what you are, what you’re doing, and who you’re doing it for, and figure out what your story is.

What I’ve been learning while working on our site, is that we have a weird story, and that’s pretty cool. Hopefully we’ll figure out how to articulate it better in the future; I think that will make our work for our clients better as well. In the meantime, I’m going to try and stop bouncing off the walls and cook an awesome pizza, with everything.

…does parking downtown generate?

Almost every time someone parks on a curbside downtown they are forced to buy one of these tickets and stick it in their window.  Many parking spaces are 1 hour parking, so they often need to buy another, and another, and another.

I wonder how much waste is generated by these things.  I’m not really exactly a green anti-corporate hippie exactly, but I find them littering our sidewalk a little too often and it really pisses me off.  Classic parking meters weren’t futuristic enough I guess so our city adopted these trash generators wholesale.  Way to go Sacramento.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

On Friday, October 8th at 5pm, we are inviting all of our friends and clients to come join us in another fun cocktail party to celebrate the ending of summer.  We’ll be serving up the usual weird, antique, and exotic cocktails – with a few of our own on the menu as well.

Hope to see you there.

Get directions if you need them, or check out the event on Facebook.

I’m going to miss this place a lot, as well as all of our clients. It’s been a pleasure working with all of you. I’ve learned a lot through building (and breaking) all of your websites, and a lot of other things. Like, don’t make eye contact with the crazy-looking bums downtown. Don’t try to go to Starbucks at 3 in the afternoon, when all the state workers are trying to avoid actually doing any work. Also, don’t drive down here. Not ever. And stay out of Old Sac after dark.

I sincerely hope you’ve all enjoyed the ride as much as I have.

You’ll be in capable hands with our new web developer, Sam Gammon, who should be along to introduce himself shortly.

See y’all at the apocalypse.

Not that long ago someone threw a meat cleaver through our second floor window.  I’m not sure what the allure of throwing sharp objects at our shop is but it seems to be catching on.  God dammit.  :[