Why is there so much WHITE SPACE

*Spoiler Alert*

If you’re not caught up with this show… stop reading now!

Remember the date? I do. September 22, 2004. A plane crashed on a deserted island. Or was it?

Remember back to the first season of LOST? Remember how deliciously creepy it was? Not knowing what was lurking deep in the forest on that Island. I remember being scared to death every Wednesday night when after watching an hour of creeptastic television, I would need to bring my dog outside. Let’s just say at the time, my house was surrounded by nothing but trees… scary, creaky, giant trees. I would be nervously looking around like a mental patient with my flashlight wondering when the polar bear or smoke monster would emerge from the shadows and snuff me out! Ahhh, the good ol’ days….

Over the years, LOST has never seemed to live up to that first season. Don’t get me wrong, I still love this show and have never missed an episode, but I really missed the creepiness.

Season 5 re-energized my love for this show. It was a glorious roller coaster ride of time travel and murder. And while my mind was left spinning with more questions, they have at least started giving us some answers. But I still wonder this? Two Lockes? An H-Bomb? Different decades?

And Jacob… we finally meet Jacob… wow!

As much as I’m terribly depressed and semi-suicidal at the reality that 2010 is the last season for our island dwellers, I am just as excited for all of my questions to finally be answered!  February 2, 2010… the beginning of the end.

~Stacy Johnson

With the overload of cookies and chocolate in our kitchen here at CD&M, I’m hoping Santa pays us a visits and eats them all.  If not, I think we’ll all be starting our New Year’s diets sooner than later!

For those of you with kids, there is an extremely cute, online message you can customize for your kids from Santa.  It’s called the portable North Pole.  And for those of you without kids, go on regardless…. you can personalize a message to a naughty or nice adult!

http://portablenorthpole.tv/create-a-video/

From all of us here at CD&M…

Have a cheerful holiday season!

Three times a day, I receive an email that contains a list of reporters seeking information and sources for stories. In order to discover opportunities that might be a good fit for our clients, I wade through a lot of interesting material. It’s award season, so I’ve compiled my own ranking of the year’s best queries. I swear these are all real, and they appear as they were written.

Top Ten Most Awesome Reporter Queries of 2009:

10) EMMY AWARD WINNING TV SHOW LOOKING FOR HAIRY LADIES!

9) Women who crime sleuth as a hobby in their free time

8 ) Looking for inspirational stories about pet rabbits

7) Your ideal funeral (sounds weird, huh?), for Funeral Today Magazine

6) I’m looking for people who use their noses at work

5) Looking to talk to Arizona men worried putting cell phone in pants pocket will
 hurt sperm & fertility. Will also talk to worried spouses.

4) Anyone study public bathrooms? History, sociology, crime?

3) Women and Bulletproof Clothing: looking for today’s Bulletproof Fashion trends

2) I need to interview a feces analyst. Preferable someone who is a woman and is 
Latina, Native American, Asian American, or Middle Eastern American.
 However, a non-white man would be fine, too.

1) Looking for new and cool tailgating items for bald men

–Krista Nordgren

AdWeek has just named the “Get a Mac” series the ad campaign of the decade – and rightfully so in my opinion!  I can honestly say no commercial in my recent memory has made me want to buy something more than this campaign.  Apple seems to do everything right.  From the creative ad series to the pretty packaging, I can’t get enough of “i” everything.  And they continue to make their products more and more attractive, which doesn’t help with my addiction.

In a matter of a month, I purchased my first iPhone (aka “the precious”) even though I swore I didn’t need one, and scooped up the new and improved iMac.  I fear I’m becoming a techy freak… ok, maybe I am.  When I set my new iMac up, I actually called my husband in just to see “how pretty” it was.  He thinks I’m weird… ok, maybe I am.

You know it’s a good commercial when you to stop fast forwarding through recorded shows just to watch a new “Get a Mac” ad.

~Stacy Johnson

Perhaps it’s because I am working from home today with a head cold… Or,  maybe its because I feel like virtually everyone in our office who normally doesn’t get sick has missed work this Fall… But I have come to the conclusion that there has been at least one very good thing about the swine flu, excuse me, the H1N1 pandemic. Truly I think the media and the hype have worked and Americans have been thoroughly schooled in illness manners over the past 8 months.

Normally, I would have gone to work today without a second thought. I would have dragged my headachey, sleep-deprived body into the office and pushed through a very exhausting, only half-productive day. Along the way, despite my best intentions, I would have likely spread my germs and accidentally shared my cranky demeanor. At the end of the day, I probably would have headed to the grocery store, bought some more Advil and chicken soup (spreading more germs) and suffered with the cold for 3 or 4 more days because of not being able to rest.

Instead, I am here at home interacting with clients and co-workers through the sterile world of technology. The lack of physical activity is helping me to fight this thing off and because I can take a rest break, when I do hit the computer again, I am much more productive (and coherent!) without office interruptions, etc.

So if this is clearly the best approach to dealing with being sick, why have so many of us felt guilty about staying home all these years? Clearly its the way we’ve all been brought up — especially here in Maine with our Yankee work ethic. “Ah-yup, just pull yourself togethah there kiddoh and head to school.” I can hear the replay of my childhood every time I even think about taking a sick day. It’s just not something I ever do… well, until now.

So that brings me back to the H1N1 media campaigns. I know they have raised my social consciousness and concern for others, and I have certainly noticed others being much more mannerly about their coughs and sneezes. Hand sanitizers abound in virtually any location, from coffee shops to the airports. I had to visit a relative in the hospital recently it seemed like there were newly installed dispensers of it posted every 2 feet of space. (How would you have liked to have been the sales rep that got to make that commission?)

It’s ironic that I help my clients with social marketing campaigns every day, but I don’t often acknowledge them when I am the target audience. I think I am usually immune (no pun intended!). But in this case, considering that I have personally shifted my own perceptions of social norms, even to the point of getting (internally) upset when I am in a meeting and someone really sick is coughing like crazy next to me, I have to say that, yes, something good has come of the current pandemic. Fortunately we all got to learn this lesson with a fairly mild culprit, because next time (do I hear bird flu anyone?) we may not be so lucky.

– Kim Stiver