Hello Birdie!

My next door neighbor is an architecture student. As I understand it, she is pretty far along in the process, often spending hours and hours at a time in the studio building her portfolio. The other night, she was up into the wee hours - sawing, hammering, drilling, etc. - working on a project for one of her classes. The project? A birdhouse. Evidently, from what I'm told, this is a relatively important project.

Are a lot of birds hiring architects nowadays?

I guess those lucky birds who have the means will do anything to avoid living in one of those cookie-cutter birdhouses. I mean, who wants to live in a neighborhood where every house looks alike, you know?

I'm thinking that maybe this is the basis for how architects design all buildings...
"Alright, Jim. We need to design a skyscraper. It's gonna be big."
"Really big?"
"That's right, Jim."
"Alright, be specific. Exactly how many birds will need to be able to fit in it?"

I'll have to check into that. In the mean time, I'm beginning my real estate career and this has me wondering. Is anyone else in my area listing bird houses for sale? That's a whole new untapped market that I can make mine. I mean, having a reliable agent help you find the perfect house is certainly more efficient than having an architect build a whole new one, right?

The End Of The End Was NOT The End!

This Ride is not over!

I have been busy nurturing my two careers, eating matzah, watching tv, etc., but believe you me, I have been collecting some fine, fine material to share with you over the coming weeks and months*.

The other day I found out the actual physical size of a new career. It is just under 11 3/4" x 8 3/4" x 4 3/4". Yeah, it's a lot smaller than I thought it would be, too! Allow me to explain how I have come to be in possession of this knowledge. To do pretty much anything in the realm of real estate, including but not limited to most of the duties I am to fulfill in my new job, you have to be licensed by the state. You have to take a pre-licensing course before you can sit for the state examination. Instead of waiting to enroll in classes that don't start for several weeks, I signed up for a correspondence course so I could be ready as quickly as possible. I went to pick up the materials, which included a textbook, workbook, Tennessee real estate handbook, a study guide for that, and practice tests. I paid and walked out to my car with all the tools to begin my path to mogul-dom in a box with the dimensions I gave. So, I guess it's true what they say... great things come in small, corrugated, cardboard packages.

It occurs to me that I never actually posted my list of favorite sports movies after all that dscussion a few weeks back, so...

I'd like to announce that I'll be doing it soon**.

Finally, I commented recently on Burger King's "Big Buckin' Chicken" ad. I hope you've had the chance to see it. I hate to appear fixated on advertising, let alone BK advertising, but have you seen the add for their French Toast sandwich? It's the one with that freaky King character sitting in bed with a construction worker, while 10 or 20 other people are gathered around the bed. The king and the worker look at each other for a minute and then the king offers the guy this new sandwich. What is the story supposed to be here? Why are these two in bed? Who are all those other people? Why would anyone accept a breakfast sandwich - no matter how tasty it may be - from a strange, smily, plastic King that mysteriously appears next to you in bed?

If you can suggest any possible, plausible answers to any of these questions, please do so using the comment feature below. I would be greatly*** indebted to you if you can help me understand.

* I didn't say this post would contain the fine, fine material. Coming weeks and months, folks!
** I'm considering offering a course in procrastination. You can take it correspondence if you want. Materials will fit in the box.
***By "greatly", I mean marginally, if at all.

The End Of The End

I have retired from retirement. It's the end of an era. After months of dedicated service to no one institutional entity, but instead to God, humanity, and myself (and, let's be honest, to the cause of television viewing), the end has come. I didn't get a gold watch or anything! I did, however, get a new job, and that's pretty exciting. I am now well on my way to becoming a real estate mogul. In truth, I am nowhere near mogul-dom, but if I'm going to do it at all, I suppose that has to be my goal. That gives me what I consider to be two jobs at once - the other, of course, being stand-up comedy. That brings my list of jobs (little stuff excluded) since college to:

1) assistant director of Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, MS
2) youth and family life director of Temple Israel in Memphis, TN
3) stand-up comic
4) real estate mogul-in-training at Malkin Management and Investment Co., inc. in Memphis

Now, see if you can follow this strange coming-together of these four vocational me's. I am writing this post from the Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, MS, where I just arrived with a group of youth from Temple Israel in Memphis. They are here for the weekend for a youth group convention. I am here because I have been hired to give a stand-up performance for the convention-goers and the members of a synagogue in nearby Jackson, MS, tomorrow night. I took my first day off of work from Malkin Management to ride down here with the kids today.

All four. Right there. One paragraph (though I admit that the first day off part is a weak part of the story, but still, you know!). And the world has not yet ended. Or if it has, word has not yet reached rural Mississippi.

Big, Buckin' Chicken

Have you seen this commercial? I mean, have you SEEN this?!?