I’m with the Vandelay Modeling Agency

On the surface, George Costanza and I would appear to have a few things in common – namely we’re both shortish, rotund balding men who like to jam as much crap as possible in their wallets and think that it’s not unreasonable for stores to provide their security guards with a comfortable place to sit. It’s also possible that we’re both slightly neurotic.

But now the fictional Mr. Costanza and I have something else in common – we’re both former professional hand models.

I’m tempted to just leave it at that, but I guess I’ll go ahead and explain in further detail. On Friday, Apple (yeah, that Apple) was up at work taking photos in our building to use in some of their upcoming education advertising materials. They spent most of their time getting shots of students staring wistfully into iMacs while listening to iPods and talking on iPhones. Stuff like that.

For their morning shoot they used an actual faculty member who happens to be quite photogenic. In the evening they brought in a fake faculty member (actually the project’s art director) who also happens to be quite photogenic. But as the evening wore on, they lowered their aesthetic standards enough to take some shots looking over my shoulder and focusing on my hands using their products. And I’m not bitter about not being used more prominently – I’ll readily admit that I look more like PC than I do like Mac.

They said they won’t know which shots they’ll end up using for at least a couple of weeks, but who knows? If you’re browsing through the Apple Education web site or leafing through one of their print ads one day and see a platinum wedding band and a Class of ’01 Aggie ring or even – dare to dream – an out-of-focus blob in the background that’s white on the top and khaki on the bottom, it’s conceivable that it might be me. You might as well beat the rush and start sending stuff for me to autograph right now.

A public apology

Last year, I wrote a post implying (but not implicitly saying) that The George Lopez Show was not decent television. After watching nearly every episode (it’s usually on while I blog in the evenings), I’m willing to admit that I was wrong and it’s actually pretty funny. But I still don’t understand why it’s on Nick-at-Nite.

I stand by my previous comments about hating Winnie the Pooh, however. Nothing has changed on that front.

Fries at the bottom of the bag

• I was just about to write about how I haven’t seen any june bugs so far this June (they’re usually pretty plentiful around these parts), but then about thirty seconds ago, I opened the back door to let The Dog out and a june bug flew in the house. So if you’re worried about the missing june bugs, just wait – they’re on the way.
• The Boy survived his first week of swimming lessons without any major problems. I can’t use all of my material in one post, so more on that tomorrow.
• It occurred to me when I posted that picture from our wedding the other day that the photographer’s restrictions on reproducing the photos expired two years ago, so I’ve set about scanning them in. So far I’ve gotten 54 of our approximately 4.7 billion wedding photos done. You can look at them here if you wish. I had forgotten how time consuming scanning photos is. And how every scanned photo looks like it was taken fifty years ago.
• I’m tired of trying to sync my entire music library across three different computers, so I’ve started using Anywhere.FM. So far it’s great and you can’t beat the price (free for now). Of course, this means that they’ll be shutting it down soon or start charging thousands of dollars.
• The Girl’s sleeping habits have improved a little bit over the past couple of nights. I’m not ready to declare any light at the end of the tunnel quite yet though.
• Speaking of The Girl, I wouldn’t cross her now that she’s got her hands on a sonic screwdriver.
• I neglected to mention that The Boy brought home something that moos from his trip to the Blue Bell factory. He also bought a change purse at the gift store, but didn’t put his change in it.
• Ever since he came back from visiting his grandparents, The Boy seems to be a more enthusiastic big brother. Maybe a little absence did make the heart grow fonder.