I think my Great-Great-Great-Uncle John M. Browning was a lot like me in some ways.

Business Engrish

I have a client that speaks English none too well. He has me design catalogs and packaging for his toys, and also asks me to help him name his products. I enjoy his emails. Here's a sampling.


"Thank you for your explanation, I thought you are perfessional, and I have also memtioned that your design fit my other chemical glue or D.I.Y. Product."


"As to the toy package, please follow the markets, we plan to sell this bubble toys in U.S. Market and EU Markets. So please refer to the colorful design like the package I sent to you. I will be happy to have colorful and distinctive design."


"4. The kid on the left side, if you could let the kid's left eye winking reflex, that will be better. let him be seen as a little startle reflex."


"This pop bubble is for kid to blow a bubble, then kids use two hands to clap, then the bubble will sound "POP", like a rubber balloon sudden burst, but not so strongly."


"2. Could you please change the two kids to use some full of characteristic figures, it is too normal, and hope that to be loved by American kids?"


"The main topic and figure will be fine, I still looking forward to have better background, I need your some more initiative and creative idea."


"And also I can not feel the face or motion of the kid has fantastic feeling, I think this is catoon, so that we could let the figure much more exaggerate. How do you think about it?"


He sent some samples of what I was supposed to do the packaging like, and I said

"Are these going to be sold in the U.S.? Because, I have to tell you, as a designer, I look at the samples you sent me and cringe. If I was teaching a class on graphic design, I would use them as examples of how NOT to design a package. They are full of imagery and text, and it's hard to read anything. There are 3-4 different styles of illustration in each one, making it look like a mashup of frightening clip-art and misspelled words.


The examples have paw prints, musical notes, alarm clocks, and bugs. I have taught graphic design for many years, and I always teach that the package must be readable, with eye-catching and clear text, and to promote the product with imagery relating to the product. I understand that these are your competitors. Maybe you want to stand out from them, so that people take notice and view you as a quality brand. WIth this in mind, I've included an extra design that shows the direction I would recommend"

His response: "Great Job! It seems very good that I can not pick some points I can change.

Just replace the base color of NEW with red instead of blue.

Thank you very much for your effort.

It is great to cooperate with you."

There was no blue in the design.

Racing Decals and Physical Therapy

I found the website you designed, Joel. 

My RIngtone: Why It's The Best

Before I let you hear it (don't try to cheat and go there first without reading about it), you need to know why it's so awesome.

1) It's jazzy and sounds like old-man music, which just happens to be my favorite kind.

2) If I get it quick, like at the store, it just sounds like there's a dude singing "Ringringringringring" which would be awesome enough for a ringtone.

3) If I don't get it quick, and I have to look through things to answer it, like at church or a business meeting, it mentions the words "Banana phone". This immediately brings to mind the image of a person or monkey answering a banana. Silly monkey, you can't communicate with that.

4) It sticks into your head with the tenacity of a mighty mountain goat, and will not leave. You may think you've gotten it out of your head, but it's just hibernating, and then the phone rings and it's awake and raring to go. I like to listen to and make music that is like mental oatmeal that sticks to your brain's ribs.

OK, now you can go hear it. I was right, huh?

El Desnudez por causa del Meth

I had jury duty last week. I wasn't looking forward to it, since I'm a businessman that has business to care of, but the morning that I was supposed to show up, I was kind of excited. I was hoping for a sweet and juicy murder trial or, at the very least, a dude that gets naked when he's on meth. Fate smiled upon me that day.

This guy that looks like my neighbor was on trial for Failure to Register as a Sex Offender. To help you visualize, I made this picture out of twitter birds so you can see his body shape. And I used reddit dudes for his moustache.

I hope this helps.

He was a registered sex offender because he has a tendency to get naked when he's on meth, and he forgot a few basic things about life:
1) we've been asked to not ingest meth
2) You're not supposed to make love with ladies that aren't your wife.
3) You're not supposed to make love in the back yard of a house in a trailer park.
4) If you do that, you're supposed to make sure no kids are watching.

So one month he forgot to register, and got sentenced to 90 days of jail. He decided to fight it and we found that yep, he did forget. It sounds open and shut, but the hard part was the word "knowingly". It's kind of hard to track when you're supposed to do it, but he should have stayed on top of it. So eventually we found him guilty. I was the foreman. That means I had to keep everybody happy and on topic and try to make people talk that didn't want to talk. Only one guy was like that, and I eventually gave up on him. Screw people like that, seriously.

I liked the food. I liked how the whole room stood up for us when we came in the room. Once I came back late because I was urinating, and everybody stood up for me. I said, "please, be seated". I enjoyed that. I took a lot of notes, because all the details were important. I thought it was going to be a mistrial because we were split pretty evenly. That was hard to overcome, but we did it, because the juror instructional video of Christina Flores told us it was important to try our hardest.

The best part was chatting with the lawyers (or "lawys" as I call them) afterwards. We got to see that they were good buds and had their strategy and we asked them a lot of questions. It would be interesting to be a lawyer except it wouldn't be fun to be a lying crook all the time. The End.

Attack of the Flatulence

If I had a mole on my bum I would have them use a regular knife, and ask that they please keep the flammables in a minimal area around the mole.

Clients I Enjoy - Part II

Name of company:
ECFASH LIMITED / ec is stand for egg capa

Colors/Objects to Use:
according to the name egg capa, we want something like a egg wear the capa , maybe can have a funny face or what else you think is better.

Colors/Objects to Avoid:
we dont want the face of the egg which wears glasses.








Name of Company:
KAFANI INVESTMENTS

Tagline, if any:
The best a man can get....Have it your way....It's the real thing.

Industry:
Clothing,Drinks,Computers,Electronics,shoes, movies,bags








Company Name:
ziwanore production ,wer de party never stops

Colors/Objects to Use:
red en blue,vibrant

Customer Comments:
none,it should something that represents the vibrant youth of 2day










Name of Company:
DROP-TO.ME

Industry:
web service

Colors/Objects to Use:
It is NOT serios, nothing official. nothing that reminds about offices, serios buisines, suits
etc.

Customer Comments:
it must be light, easy, comic, funny, friendly...

Its Great Exercise Just Jiggling Around

Hey everybody, let's read this article about good stuff and then picture it in our minds as we go. "And although Pauline isn't yet confident enough to buy sexy lingerie, she drapes a nice sheet over her to achieve the same effect in the bedroom." Some words in this sentence of which I question the validity: 1) isn't yet confident enough (yes, that is indeed the problem. But you can have an article published about your sex life.) 2) nice 3) same

Magical Evening

I only have 8 Followers now. I think people lost interest when I started pimping my business and also not posting for months. Last night we did a party for Maddie's 16th birthday. A Sleeping Beauty-themed party. We had a projector and showed the movie on the side of the house. They danced and played and ate a large assortment of things. Maddie dressed like this.

It was a major pain in the buttocks to prepare, but it was fun, and I'm glad we got a chance to reward her for being a good daughter and sister. It seems like 16 years is too old for someone as young as I remember her being. It seems like my age is not enough for to have had a child sixteen years ago. It's weird.

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. I'll catch you up. I broke my elbow, and I bought a Bug. And we made a video for Business Logos that you will share with your friends and colleagues if you have even a shred of human decency.

Evolution of a Poster

I was really happy to do this, but sometimes I didn't listen to the instructions to well. I'm good at following email instructions, but not phone instructions, I've noticed. Anyway, that's why this poster went through so many changes. Hey, anybody want to go to the Stretch Reunion show with me?

Smell Containment Fail

Sometimes when I'm driving with my family to Salt Lake, I inquire of them as to who farted, and then realize I'm driving through Pleasant Grove. There's a nice waste management facility there that I used to work next to. Our air conditioning filter was pretty powerful, so I usually couldn't detect it until I went outside. It was simliar to the experience of having a dragon sit on your face and gently let one go straight up your nasal passages. There's an article about it. The best part of this whole kerfuffle is that those that are suing the facility are also partners in the company. So it's a case of the smeller truly being the feller.

Headset review

The Good: The OTH Phone headset is something I saw on someone and knew immediately that I must have it. It doesn't have an eye-popping design nor does it scream that you are an ironic hipster. It just works, for the same reasons that all phones worked when we were growing up. It was designed to fit your hand, ear and mouth so that words can get out of your mouth and into the cellphone, and, ultimately, into your friend's ear.

It features a volume dial and a button to answer the phone. It has a springy cord. My mom would call her mom every Saturday, and I would sit in the kitchen and play with the 125-ft cord and listen and find out what's going on with my family that week. Not her umbilical cord. She keeps that in her sock drawer and we weren't allowed to touch it.

The Bad: I had big problems with the brand name OTH, which stands for Off The Hook. I sent in a complaint letter to this company, and even gave them free advice for 2 names for their company should they decide to stop annoying people:

1) Head Gear

2) Ear-itators

You can use it in the car, and people look at you funny. You can use it walking down the street for extra awesomeness...the cord going up into your shirt pocket. You can pretend you're carrying on a conversation with your right nipple. I do. The best part is that you can work with the phone tucked in there. You can't do that with a cell, and putting your cell on speaker makes it sound like you're calling from the bathtub.

The Bottom Line: The $15 price is extremely fair. Despite the name, this is my favorite cellphone accessory yet. I use it everywhere, including the bathtub. The phone comes in blue, white, pink or black. My bathtub is green.

Getting down to business

My Valentine Present to All of You

Stuck with no card, and your wife is tapping her feet with her arms crossed? Well, Joel has temporarily taken down our Bad Greeting Cards site for maintenance, so literally ones of people have been left with no card-giving ability. Don't worry. I've made some cards for you to print out and give to that special someone in your life.

If you have a better valentine sentiment, then even try to beat me in the comments. Good luck, psycho.

I only made one cover to choose from.

Huge Halloween Treat Bowl Becomes Best Friend

A couple months ago I had what I thought was an extreme reaction to a bad polish dog at Costco. I couldn't move my head without throwing up. It went away after 2 nightmarish days, but now I'm thinking maybe it wasn't the dog.

A couple days ago I started having symptoms of a stomach flu, which didn't really surprise me, since Oliver has been sick, and so has Maddie. Dizziness and an extremely overhelpful digestive system.

Now I'm fine except for the one thing: my balance. I move my head, just a little, and I have to wait a minute for the world to stop spinning. It's a tiny bit irritating, especially since Ive always had the agility of a puma riding on the back of Batman. Now, every time I get up I feel like this guy.

My sister the nurse says it's a problem with crystals being misaligned in my ear balancing mechanism. The roller-coaster ride thing inside my ear that makes it so I can balance is called I think clefs. I call them dickheads. I have to coach them with tough love sometimes. "ok, I'm turning over...I'm going to be on my right side, laying down now, lets see if you dickheads can keep up."

Dorth came over Saturday with a laptop to take me through a re-balancing exercise she's seen doctors do. It's a procedure you can find on the internet, and I'll take you through the steps.

Step 1: Start in your bedroom, or use your living room couch if your bedroom is too messy to let your sister in.

Step 2: Start laying on the side that makes you most dizziest. Remain in that position for 20 seconds.

Step 3: Call for your Halloween Pumpkin bowl and puke into it. If kids are watching, lessen the trauma by including your vomiting retches into your conversation.

Step 4: Go back to the position and stay there for 5 minutes.

Step 5: Every 5 minutes switch into different positions with your head hanging over the side of your couch at different angles. This makes gravity push the weirdness in your loopys into the right place.

Step 6: At the end you're supposed to feel better. I did for about 2 minutes, then I vomited again.

I puked twice more yesterday, and I still feel dizzy today. So maybe the doctor has another idea on Monday.