Some notes on the culture:

I think a while ago I criticized Quizno's for their "Raised By Wolves" advertisements. Well, they have redeemed themselves with the (relatively) new "Horrible Singing Mouse Creature" ads. These feature two crudely animated things, with the bodies of rodents and human ears and mouths (which are just rows of teeth), and crazy mismatched eyes, that look like horrible mutations of nature. They yell about the current deals at Quizno's in awful abrasive voices that are just about halfway between singing and screaming. I have to admire any reasonably large company willing to take the risk of using horrible mouse creatures with abrasive voices to sell sandwiches. Whether or not it increases my desire to eat there is another story. In fact it really doesn't, because I can't stop picturing the creatures running around in the kitchen of the Quizno's. The jingles they sing are catchy though.

On the downside: When Kyocera needs an idea, they just rip off Wes Anderson! Recently in a movie theater I saw an ad for their new phone that might be titled "The Uncool Kid," about a private school overachiever who gets picked on by the tough kids. He first appears sitting in a posh academic office in a blazer with his legs crossed, as he describes his predicament. Then there is a montage showing all the extracurricular activities he participates in. Then he gets this wonderful new phone and, blah blah. Some of the details are kinda hazy because I put off writing this for so long after I saw it. But it was a total Rushmore ripoff, up until the phone stuff.