Orange County Blog

Friday, I posted my thoughts on a damn fine read, Odd Man Out, which is about lefty washout pitcher Matt McCarthy's experiences as a farmhand in the Angels organization. The post led to a lively debate in the comments section about the accuracy of McCarthy's reporting. Among those who questioned many incidents related in the book was Stephen C. Smith, who runs the FutureAngels.com website. Among the many things Smith has done as a chronicler of Angel minor leaguers was attend, film and report on the on- and off-field exploits of the Provo Angels, the team that once included McCarthy in its pitching rotation and is the main source of Odd Man Out's action. 

(After the 2004 season, which Smith created a created a documentary on, the Provo Angels relocated six miles west to a new ballpark where they became the Orem Owlz. The move out of what McCarthy called "Mormonville" allowed the team to play on Sundays and serve beer. Meanwhile, small world: I did not discover until Monday, when I fished a personal email from him out of my junk folder, that he is the same Stephen C. Smith behind the Irvine Tattler, the on-hiatus website that is very critical of the Larry Agran-led power bloc on the Irvine City Council.)

Smith has posted a new comment on the Odd Man Out post that I want to make sure anyone interested sees. It is about "Errors Cast Doubt on Baseball Memoirs," a story by Benjamin Hill and Alan Schwarz in today's New York Times. According to the piece, "statistics from that season, transaction listings and interviews with his former teammates indicate that many portions of the book are incorrect, embellished or impossible." There is also a sidebar matching excerpts from the book with contradictions uncovered by the reporters.

Confronted with this, McCarthy stood by his book, saying the stories were drawn from detailed journals he kept during his year in the minors--journals he declined to produce.

Cal State Fullerton communications student Elizabeth Heath contacted the Weekly about a contest her Brand Campaigns class has entered to come up with the best advertising campaign for the Nissan cube.

The cube is a car. It looks like a boxier Toyota Scion. Like the Scion, it is meant to appeal to young drivers who have no use for your rounded corners, sports-car looks or capital letters, maaaan!

Heath has obviously taken a long beer-bong gulp from Nissan Springs.

"This versitile, hip and technologically advanced subcompact will be marketed primarily towards college-aged youth such as myself," she writes. "Consequently, it is crucial that our team generates as much pre-launch buzz as possible in order to most effectively reach our target audience."

Crucial . . . pre-launch buzz . . . effectively reach our target audience. WTF?!? It's bad enough the a big corporation like Nissan has college kids whoring out their products on the cheap. But to get them repeating their adver-babble is . . . well . . . whatever happened to toga parties, panty raids and sleeping through 8 o'clock classes?

But wait, there's more.

"With that said, I was asked to contact you in regards to pitching the idea of featuring a press release for the Nissan cube in your publication," Heath writes. "Your paper typically reaches the hip and young professional demographic so this would be a beneficial opportunity for our team to reach our target audience first hand."

Whoa, whoa, your paper typically reaches the hip and young professional demographic? You mean, the kids dig what we iz laying down? That changes everything.

Fer shizzle my nizzles! This is DJ Cokehead comin' atcha with the 420 on 5150s in the real, real O.C., aaaiiight? I want all my homies and Lisas to check out the cube from my peeps at Nissan, or as I like to lay it down, Nizzshizzle Zanizzle, see ut I'ze sayin'? With $2,500 of cake, my main G's and beeotches at Cal State-izzle Fullertonizzle are mershing hard yo to get 18 to 20 year old hot messes into the stylin', engineericatin' and lifestyle-itatin' of the all new Nissan cube. Word up! Nah, lookie here: don't try to capitalize cube, fool, lest you be gellin' for your great-grand daddy's Buick or sumptin,' see ut I'ze sayin'?

Peace out!

All you publicists out there have been lax in sending me meaningless free stuff to blog about, but this makes up for it. A package that's, what, five feet tall?

What could possibly be inside?

A "Ghost in the Shell" Motoko Kusanagi inflatable love doll?

A coat rack?

Samurai swords?

Iron Man?

After the jump, see what delight(s) lurked within the giant box...

I was just the other day lamenting the drought of free crap from the mail that used to provide so much blog fodder a year ago when I was brand new here. But it seems I can always count on Cartoon Network for the goods.

I don't really know what the deal is with Ben 10, but I know they previously sent me a handheld electronic game to promote him, and now a DVD and a T-shirt to herald an "all new Ben." I've no idea what makes him all new, but check out the logo on the shirt. It looks awfully familiar...

There's true heartbreak involved when you open a package in the mail that looks like it contains a DVD, only to find that inside, all you get is a CD single of the one original song from THE LAST MIMZY in a jewel case stamped "For Your Consideration." (Film critics don't vote for "Best Original Song," nor would they likely give it to anything from THE LAST MIMZY if they did.)

But then there's the double-heartbreak: "Great, a DVD! Oh, wait...didn't they already send this? Oh no, it's gotta be a CD single again...but no...what is this? Oh my goodness, a big piece of folded cardboard with pictures from the movie on it! That seals the deal for me...I can't NOT give "Best Film" to a movie that impresses me in this fashion."

Okay, yeah, I know I sound like a spoiled brat (it's a deliberate writing choice), and yes, longtime readers, I do know I'm not Commie Girl, because every time I look in the mirror I see a male face. So what's the point? Just wanted to show off these cardboard foldy things, and wonder why anyone would spend the money to send them to me.

Check the images after the jump...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here, what with all the DVDs I get in the mail every day for awards voting. But this isn't a post about them. It's about another very big box that arrived without warning, bearing a large "World of Warcraft" logo.

Now, I am the imagined target audience for this stuff, being into toys and comics and all that, but I've never gotten into online role-playing or collectible card games. Nonetheless, if I were, I'd be so psyched. And I'm kinda psyched anyway. Seems that the San Diego convention center is hosting a big Warcraft card-game tournament next week, and they really, REALLY want me to know about it. Bribery usually works.

After the cut, check out all the free junk that was inside the box...

So what's up with the dude on this coffee package? The label says "high octane," but he looks like he's just kinda chill. Maybe the motorcycle drank the coffee instead.

I don't even like coffee much, but Starbucks keeps sending me stuff in the mail, like a $5 gift card recently -- II guess the makers of high octane didn't want to be outdone, so they passed along a whole big packet of their product, which I left in the break room for our sales staff to enjoy. If you start noticing a lot more ads in the paper soon, thank the coffee.

I prefer caffeine in nuclear-green-colored sodas. I was denied such things in childhood.

Could use one of those beverages right about now to help me figure out something the kids likely already know. It's my theory that maybe a Mello Yello high is necessary to try and figure out this other free item that arrived recently...

As a receptionist I get to see tons of cool shit come through the mail. Never mine - but meh - it's all good. Today was no exception as I instant messaged Patty Marsters: "You've got some mail!"

She appeared at my window and squealed, "OOoooo!"

I handed her my pair of scissors and we both stared at this box with HUGE smiles on our faces.

There were oodles and oodles of free things in it - stylish things. There was a nail clipper set, some cool nail polish that I would go as far as to rename "Erin Dewitt Red". Also a cute little DVD holder with all the latest episodes from the Style network.

However, one item caught my eye - a pink bathrobe!

"Oh my goodness Patty can I wear it?" - Me
"Of course! Oh it looks wonderful!" - Patty

As you can see, it matches perfectly with the pink beach cruiser here in our sales department.

PS. Yup, that's a fake crow there on the ceiling - a friend of Ryan Cox.

For the purposes of this post, let's just pretend that instead of the word "crap" in that li'l logo, you see the word "awesomeness." Because although I use the word crap generically here to mean "stuff," I really don't wanna offend the folks who sent me the recent haul.

Some background: This year, I finally made it into the Los Angeles Film Critics' Association (LAFCA), and the biggest perk of that is getting to vote for our own awards at the end of the year, then having a mini-ceremony in January that's kind of like the Oscars except that the winners are usually actually good films.

And since it's damn near impossible to see every award-worthy movie, especially since the studios never ever hold press screenings in OC for some reason, I get free DVDs in the mail.

So what would you guess the first DVDs to arrive were, dear reader? Perhaps that foreign movie about people who have trouble expressing their feelings? Or maybe that one where some famous actor talks with a foreign accent? All 25 Iraq war documentaries?

Not quite...

Hey, you know how hard it is to tell what the weather's like outside? Wait...you don't? Oh right, we don't really have "weather," per se. But imagine if you did, and let's say, hypothetically, you lived someplace where it could be cold outside even if the sun's still shining, like maybe Canada (do we have any Canadian readers? Howdy, eh?).

That is when you could use the services of My Little Weather Buddy. A static cling sticker to slap on the outside of your nearest window, this li'l kid has clothes that appear and disappear depending on what the temperature's like outside (but don't get excited, Catholic priests -- he never wears less than a t-shirt and shorts. Besides, he's a cartoon. Though if they could rework the whole concept with a photo-realistic chick in a bikini, the money-making prospects seem endless).

We slapped the sticker on the cubicle window of managing editor Rich Kane, and even though it's all cold and dark inside Rich's realm, the clothes on the kid haven't changed, as you'll see from the photo after the cut. It's more fun to play around with the virtual version on the Weather Buddy website.