Copy Cat Cola

(This is part of the new Pepsi ad campaign up all over including the public transit here in San Francisco)

Dear Pepsi Corporation,
You officially suck. It has nothing to do with your soda. Although soda pop has a large contribution to obesity and dental caries, I am talking to your advertising devision. I'm mostly offended by the way you've taken what was essentially a very successful ad campaign for Barack Obama and made it your own. If you simply look at the "hope" campaign as advertisement (which is a bit of a simplification), then you have offended me with your sheer lack of originality and the way you've decided to ride the coattails of popularity in hopes that people will like you too. It reeks of desperation. You are the sad high school freshman emulating the seniors in hopes of people forgetting that you don't care enough about yourself to figure out who You are and what You are about. Pepsi, please you can do better than this. Have a little self esteem and don't think that people are going to like you because you've changed your can and have decided to be like Barack. I expect if John McCain had won you would have "Pepsi First" posters up instead.  

Really, it's too late to support Obama, just go back to selling us overly sugary soda and stop with this irritating campaign.  You are not a political figure, you are not going to attempt to haul our collective ass out of this recession, you do not represent a new era,  and you are not giving us "Hope" in any capacity.  Perhaps you should focus on "Fizz", "refreshment" and other such verbs that Pepsi actually can provide us with.
Sincerly,
Me

Heavenly Alchemy...

Oft did I wonder why the setting sun
Should look upon us with a blushing face:
Is't not for shame of what he hath seen done,
Whilst in our hemisphere he ran his race?
- Lyman Heath,
First Century--On the Setting Sun

The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
- William Shakespeare,
The Tragedy of King Richard the Second
(Gaunt at II, i)

What Monkey Tunic?

My work day began with a flurry of finishing normal Renaissance style robes, hems and closures and whatnot... knowing that later in the day I would be trying to figure out how to make a suit for a cow...
This afternoon the client came into the shop to take away the first set of costumes and answer questions we had about the next round.
Our most pressing questions revolve around the actual dimensions of the cow. Right now we have intricate measurements of the cow's head (measurements that do little good in determining suit size)  and the fact that the cow is 6' long and 87" around (at what point isn't quite clear). We hear that the legs are 37", but we don't know where that is being measured from. What the easiest and most logical solution would be is to actually drape the suit on the cow (by the way this is an armature of a cow, not a real bovine). In a faint hope we ask if it would be possible to have access to the cow.

"Well, no, the cow is actually in pieces. The head is in LA, the body is in New York and the legs are in Arizona"

We ask "When you do the Peter Pan shot, could you tell us where the legs are fitting so that we can adjust the sleeve placement?"

"Well, no the Peter Pan shot isn't until after I need to pick up the suits next week so we just won't get the chance"

With people there are usually standard proportions that clothing makers get accustomed to. Generally you can tell where legs and arms are supposed to be. Necks are usually within a given range and arms are also within a reasonable variety of possibilities. Cows however are not something we are accustomed to and therefore guess work is a lot more risky.

So with given frustrations we sit back and figure we just have to do with what we've got...

The woman looks through the costumes and says
"oh no, this monkey hat is totally the wrong color"

"You just said it should be tan"

"Well it needs to look just like the one we rented for the man holding the monkey"

"oh. I don't think you sent us that information"

The woman digs into her folder and pulls out a print out with two teeny tiny pictures on it. One is about 1" by 3/4" of a little brown and gold tunic, below that is a smaller picture of a hat.

"the hat and monkey tunic need to look just like these"

"What Monkey Tunic?"

"oh, Didn't I tell you we need a monkey tunic? Will that be a problem?"

The shop manager told her that we could build the tunic. 

"Do you have measurements for the monkey?"

"Sure we do, here they are."

I am handed the measurements as the client leaves the shop.

 After finding  fabrics that looks similar to the tiny thumbnail I sit at the cutting table to look at how big to make the tunic. On the paper is the following information;

Head to Butt; 18"
around head; 8"