Have and Have Not ... Good vs Bad Debt

I hope this next series of blog entries culminates in a video project with one simple objective:

Why do we use money?

To start off I will focus on a personal yet very public issue. What is good debt versus bad debt?

I will speak from personal experience and say that I have accrued nearly $20,000 in student loans over the last ten years. Good debt right?

When it pays off as the expression goes.

Canadians have apparently amassed just over one trillion in mortgage debt. Good debt you say?

Yes if you have plenty of money left over at the end of every month to save for retirement once the bills have all been paid, or are you as the saying goes, house poor?

How about debts from gambling, hobbies, drinking, smoking, eating, and well, you get the picture. It's pretty obvious that if what I have just previously mentioned is making you poor, then that could very well constitute bad debt.

Hmmm, when all is said in done, you still owe money, good debt or bad debt. Perhaps it is merely perceptions about the virtues of education and home ownership versus the vices that monopolize peoples money that we can argue about.

More on money to come!

Got Fuel Efficiency Standards?

A report on the CBC indicated that fuel efficiency of new vehicles are off by anywhere from %20 to %30.

The US uses real time testing on roads and audits the reports and no such thing happens in Canada. The federal government response was well, it's winter so we can't start adopting the US system yet.

Hmmm, perhaps you could have adopted the US system five years ago!

In my opinion, the federal government is to cheap to spend the money on audits and real time testing which will require hiring and paying the appropriate people.

That being said, I'm not confident that I got the fuel efficiency I saw on the sticker for the Ford Focus myself and my wife purchased over a year ago.

The next time I or you might be in the market for a new vehicle use the US standards so you know the actual fuel efficiency in the real world and not in some make belief world of ideal driving conditions that the federal government thinks is satisfactory.

Sage Wisdom ...

I had a professor when I was in the education program at university who was keen on distinguishing between asking students what they want to do versus what they want to be.

His distinction focused on what he perceived is the deeper intrinsic value of asking a student what they want to be. I took that to mean that asking what someone wants to do is more superfluous and doesn't create a deeper connection to the path that one might want to take.

I do believe that what you want to be is a more intrinsic understanding of a persons passion and desire to become something.

Great instructors and individuals inspire passion and being in others, so let's all try to be and encourage others to be.

Austerity This!

With words like default and debt ceiling being on so many peoples minds, let us not forget the reason why the economies of so many countries are in shambles.

Laissez-faire economics.

The idea that a market can grow unfettered and unregulated and not ever hit any roadblocks or encounter plain old human greed and stupidity is lunacy. On the flip side, if we allow an economy to be over engineered that can cause problems as well.

The issue is is that Laissez-faire had it's chance and failed miserably, sorry Ayn Rand!

Because of the decisions of a few to gamble with risky derivatives, the US economy and indeed the world economy suffered damage that will be felt for years to even more then a decade to come.

The extreme capitalists I suspect are gleeful at what is now happening in Europe. First Greece, Ireland, and England axe massive cuts to social spending and now Spain and Italy are on the block.

I will concede that in the case of Greece the government and spending were definitely over bloated, but in the case of England, exposure to toxic assets is predominately responsible for the hemorrhaging being unleashed on social spending. Why should the people suffer at the whims of a few obscenely rich whose only goal was to become even more rich despite the known uncertainty and risks to individual life savings that their actions or lack of actions fostered?

I'm not saying that the head of Bear Sterns or entire workforce of ING are cold hearted bastards and meant to precipitate a global financial crisis, but I can't fathom how these individuals should ever be allowed to work for either the government or a financial institution ever again.

Should we continue to have blind faith in capitalism? I don't think so. I don't advocate communism, but clearly we need to examine several decades of capitalistic blunders and ensure that the same mistakes don't happen again.

Got Solar Flare?

Apparently the sun is destined to unleash some massive solar flares in the next few years which ties in nicely with a planetary alignment and the end of the world and such. Not that May 21st shouldn't have been the end of the world .... Oh yeah, you lost all credibility with that one!

Basically a solar flare is a huge burst of electromagnetic energy which will disrupt anything electrical and it might be so bad that systems could be down for years.

These events have been happening since time began for humans on Earth, but never in human history have whole societies been so reliant on electricity, which is the light of civilization, and been so at risk of what is a naturally occurring phenomena.

I only hope that humans in positions of power become a little less concerned about power and money and wake up to the realization that there are forces in our own solar system that we need to be aware of and prepared for.

A Week In The Windy City

Chicago is an amazing city!

I've been to only two other American cities excluding Chicago; San Antonio and Kansas City, and I only really got to experience San Antonio which is also an amazing tourist destination in case you are looking for somewhere to go.

Well, traveling by bus was a little uncomfortable at times unless you are a midget and can lay down comfortably across two seats and you are looking at about 18 hours or so to get to Chicago, but we did not do the trek all at once and stayed in Minnesota near the Mall of America which is gigantic and worth checking out just to say you have been there.

Coming from Winnipeg I can attest to the size of Chicago. What impressed me was all the skyscrapers both old and new which gives the city character. With city pass in hand, I visited The Field Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, and Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) and briefly the Shedd Aquarium.

With the exception of the Willis Tower and Shedd Aquarium, prepare to do a lot of walking in the art institute and museum and if you dare to see it all, leave to get there right when they open!

The Navy Pier is a great family friendly destination and Michigan Avenue, also known as the Magnificent Mile, boasts familiar and high end shops that I dared not enter.

We stayed in the heart of downtown and even though I walked, there are cabs, buses, and I believe they are called trams available to get around. Oh yeah, check out the giant fountain, the name of which I can't recall at this moment, situated in a nice green space near Lake Michigan.

If food is what you like then prepare to fall in love with a continental buffet of choices. I saw many  restaurants to go with the usual fast food suspects in the downtown, but the mouthwatering smell of steaks, curry, and deep dish pizza (tried it, amazing!) will leave you bedazzled as to what to try first.

Plenty of clubs serve up music and drinks and Timothy O'Tooles is great and you have to experience blues in Chicago so check out Buddy Guy's Blues Bar.

My classmates, instructors, and I got a tour of GolinHarris, an internationally renowned PR agency with clients like Toyota and McDonalds.

Overall I would have to say that Chicago offers a little bit of something for everyone. There are enough family friendly and adult destinations to keep anyone entertained.

I would move to Chicago just for the city itself and what if offers to you in terms of entertainment and recreation.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to write a blues song about my trip to Chicago .......

Harperville in Canada .....

We need to ride the Conservatives like there is no tomorrow!

I personally think Harper is smug and unwilling to admit that he and certain members of his party have either broken campaign promises (taxing income trusts anyone?), misled the house and public, cut taxes via cuts to social programs while spending up a storm on anachronistic G20 summits, fighter planes, prisons, and employing ideology in place of impartial cold hard facts to justify his 'you won't recognize Canada when I'm through with it' agenda.

And by the way, if it was the Liberals or the NDP causing the same piles of shit, I would be just as critical of them as well.

We need to take democracy away from the artificial people that are corporations and government to paraphrase Raj Patel. Corporations and the government do not, and I believe cannot logistically and fully represent the people in the neighborhood.

森の木琴 Touch Wood - Frakin' Amazing!

An end of an era .....

I have been in post secondary education three times. Three times!

I never realized how intense and yet rewarding the Creative Communications program is at Red River College until the end is neigh, but it has been quite a ride and I would have preferred to have done this program ten years ago to negate a three ring run in post secondary education.

Now comes the ever so awesome adjustment to life after school period. Typically you go through some of the stages of death and dying when something you have become attached to comes to an end.

DENIAL

Well, denial is probably not a stage anyone finishing Creative Communications goes through, unless you want to do the program again .... I didn't think so!

BARGAINING

You might find yourself negotiating with your instructors to get you a good job or give you a good reference, and bargaining with classmates to not apply for that awesome job posting you came across. Oh, negotiating with instructors about assignments and grade distribution might work ..... If you like punching Jello.

ANGER

Yes, stress levels hit record highs during Creative Communications and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, and though we may have wanted to choke fellow students metaphorically, it was NEVER literally. Kenton Larson can restore order with his Ninja skills if fights break out between students.

DEPRESSION

Sometimes during the program you wanted to off yourself. OK, maybe not off yourself but magically teleport yourself to a land of gum drops and fairies which would make your instructors think WTF is going on with this student!

FEAR

Oh those dreaded auto fails. I had as many of those as the fingers on my hands. You fear instructors pen marks and criticism though it is only to make you better. It's OK, they aren't the boss of you anymore after you graduate and they aren't watching you at home .... with the exception of haunting your academic dreams like Freddy Krueger.

ACCEPTANCE

Accept the amazement of all the work you did. Even the assignments with auto fails where you put hours of effort in should not be diminished. Because at the end of it all if you make the effort, you will learn something and that is what ultimately matters and have a career waiting for you in the future.

The Matrix: Blu-Ray Disc Review

Keanu Reeves says "Whoa!"

Ok, the Matrix series was and still is without a doubt one of the redefining sci-fi movie trilogies of all time. Say what you will about the second and third movies in the trilogy, but I think the overall package is still pretty good because the original Matrix is a testament to fantastic film making and screenwriting.

I won't bore anyone rehashing the story line for the purposes of this review. I happened upon a previously viewed copy of The Matrix on Blu-Ray and couldn't say no.

I had the VHS and original DVD release versions and have weighted patiently for the Blu-Ray price to become reasonable.

This particular version of The Matrix is part of Warner Bros. Signature Series, so you get some extra features which include some of the standard behind the scenes that existed on the DVD, as well as some newer features, and the case has a book built into it with a synopsis, cast and crew bios, and facts. It is interesting though a little hard to read given the size and it is not a separate supplement you can take out of the case because it is a part of the case.

But the real meat and potatoes for me is how will it look and sound and I have previously posted that many Warner Bros. Blu-Rays don't disappoint and The Matrix on Blu-Ray is a shining light in the Blu-Ray firmament.

Picture:

An amazing transfer. The original DVD was decent enough though some scenes were a little grainy and washed out. What stands out the most is the difference between scenes in the Matrix and in the real world. The Matrix is a little greenish and the real world a little bluish and the contrast in the Blu-Ray version is spectacular as compared to the DVD.

Black levels are stellar and the details in the background to nuances on the individual characters faces are immaculate.

Sound:

You get Dolby TrueHD 5.1 playback. And unlike the DVD, the dialogue is at a level where between the jaw dropping visual action scenes and the more quiet philosophical moments, you wont be pulling out your hair adjusting the volume. Explosions and gunfire aren't to overbearing, and in scenes where the action is coming from left, right, and behind, the presence is pretty darn good.

Overall I would say if you love The Matrix and have a Blu-Ray player with surround sound, pick it up!

Picture: 5 out of 5

Sound: 5 out of 5

Story: 5 out of 5

Clean up after your dog!

So spring is here and on one stretch of street as my wife and I were taking our baby girl for a walk in the stroller we encountered a mine field of dog droppings.

I don't know if the dog owners thought no one would notice as this particular sidewalk had a large border fence on one side but seriously!

In Paris they have people on patrol fining people who don't pick up after their dogs.

Don't make Winnipeg have to adopt similar tactics, clean up after your dog!

End Communication .....

More Election Stuff ....

Ok, apparently in my last post I made it sound like less then half of all eligible voters voted in the last federal elections but the rate was just over %58, which is still the lowest on record and apparently has been declining since peaking in the 80's.

What could account for this? Fragmentation via too many federal candidates to vote for? Shifts in demographics such as age and ethnicity?

Well, I did hear one younger female on CBC Newsworld indicate she doesn't follow nor understand politics. I thought two things: One, you can't not not know something about politics. And two, it seems that many of our elected officials don't know politics that well either.

Apathy and 'I don't have time' seem to rule the non-voting roost. Maybe we need to make voting mandatory, but if we are going to police voting then we need to make it as easy as possible as we say in PR, set up a secure website were people can vote online 24-7. How about something in the form of a computer kiosk touch screen setup in malls that people can vote at?

The last municipal election, My wife and waited in line for a ridiculous amount of time. So, take a lesson politicians, advanced polls are fine, but enough information can be fed into a computer with the right precautions to allow people to vote from home if they so wish.

Dude, where's my coalition?

Ahh, spring is here. Flowers are going to be a blooming and a federal election is upon us.

Well, at least the weather should be stable ... or not.

I love the rhetoric that is being tossed around. Harper's Conservatives are all about a Liberal, NDP, and Bloc coalition, coalition, coalition! Forgetting that back in 2004 Harper spearheaded his on little coalition which helped propel him to where he is now.

The bigger issue for me personally is that voter turnout was less then %50 the last federal election.

If citizens are a little fed up about having an election every three years and a minority government, then get out and vote.

The old saying there is power in numbers could never be more true and more needed for the future of democracy in Canada at this point. So if you don't like the terms prorogue, coalition, and minority government, do something about it.

Twister Blu-Ray Disc Review

Oh yeah the 90's. Vanilla Ice, spandex shorts, scrunches, and the movie Twister from 1994. Oh dear, I just dated myself nicely.

My darling wife bought me Twister on Blu-Ray and after watching it I was thoroughly impressed.

I remember having a copy on VHS and then the original DVD release and I will say that the VHS version was great, while the DVD version wasn't that much an improvement overall (see one of my previous posts) but the Blu-Ray is great.

Picture: Very clear with very little grain or issues associated with the analog source material. Colors are very good throughout for the most part. For example, because a majority of the film takes place outside, there is a lot of green which is quite vibrant. There were a few times though where I felt some colors were just a little bit on the flat side, but gorgeous black levels help make up for that.

Sound: A DolbyTrueHD 5.1 track will wow you. In the first act, where Joe's dad gets pulled out of the tornado shelter, the sound of wind howling and pounding fills the surround channels nicely and this holds true for all the scenes where the cast is chasing twisters. The soundtrack comes through nicely whether it is the orchestral score or songs from the 90's (pick it up, it's great!) and dialogue is crisp and clear with no need to do to much cranking between Bill Paxton yelling 'hold on' several times or quieter conversations between a few characters.

There are a lot of bonus features to choose form which round the disc out nicely if you are into that sort of thing.

Picture: 4 out of 5

Sound: 4.5 out of 5

Got Federal Budget?

Ok, Jim Flaherty says the budget is sensible and doesn't raise taxes. Hmm, it seems that in order to pay for new prisons, longer prison terms for inmates, and new fighter planes to replace the aging CF-18's, we need to raise taxes.

Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, says the Conservatives have not provided him accurate numbers on how much the aforementioned programs will cost.

Before anyone blows a gasket, I understand that when you are dealing with large capital expenditures, you will inevitably get some cost overruns. But when the cost overruns get into the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, we would be remiss to not question the math.

Surprise, surprise, the opposition parties don't support the budget. Were it not for the Conservatives contempt of parliament putting blood in the political waters, I don't think the opposition parties would be chomping at the bit to send Canadians to the polls come this May as is currently projected.

I would love to sit in on a meeting where hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in government spending/contracts is being worked out or negotiated. Just to be able to write out so many zeroes and say 'Oh yeah, this will only cost exactly a billion dollars!'

A Whole Lot of Blu-Ray Disc Reviews

Some time ago I bought a handful of Blu-Ray Discs on Boxing Day. Oh God, at five dollars a piece I had way to many in my hands and had to put some down.

I guess I didn't do a review at the time because most of the titles are just the movies with no special features, which explains the cheap price.

The five dollar titles are: Trainspotting, 21 Grams, Cold Mountain, The Negotiator, The English Patient, the aforementioned had no bonus features, The Negotiator, with some bonus features, and I also picked up Batman Begins at $10 and The Hurt Locker at $20.

Let me tell you, Batman Begins is hands down won of the best looking and best sounding Blu-Ray Discs I have ever purchased or rented. The Hurt Locker is pretty darn good as well and so it should be only being released a couple years ago, and Batman Begins was originally released in 2005 at the end of DVD's solo reign.

The Negotiator is a great Blu-Ray as well. The other Blu-Rays mentioned are all pre hi-definition by a few to several years or so with the exception of 21 Grams. I found that the sound varied on all of them from good to great, but not excellent. The picture looks great in some scenes, the color good in some scenes, but washed out in others. Grain and dust seem to be a problem in many of these Blu-Rays which leads me to the rant I will end with on this blog entry.

When DVD was first released in the late 90's, many people complained that the picture and sound were not any better then the VHS copy they already owned. This is the same issue we have with Blu-Rays, early adopters basically got a high-def version of the DVD they already owned, and in some cases without a hi-definition transfer that addressed any of the aforementioned issues with the original source materials, which are even more glaring in hi-def.

I don't know about you, but I refuse to pay upwards of $30 for a Blu-Ray that hasn't been remastered in hi-definition, for the amount of money you pay, you should be getting pristine picture and the best quality sound possible. Listen up Hollywood!

Would you like tomatoes with that?

I was in Wendy's and I had to ask if I wanted tomatoes on my sandwich, uhh greasy goodness burger. I later learned that there is a huge shortage of tomatoes worldwide and prices have skyrocketed.

You often hear about a crop failure in some other part of the world or even at home, and the inevitable price increases that accompany said crop failures, but rarely is it so viscerally in your face as it was when I was at Wendy's.

The price of tomatoes in the supermarket are way higher then I can ever remember along with Romaine Lettuce.

Imagine what this increase in the price of staples means to someone just getting by in a third world country. The enclosure and commodification of necessities (OK, the burger I had at Wendy's is less of a necessity given the nutritional value) is the reason why people are going hungry, exasperated by rising fuel prices and crop failures.

I think we need to release some land back to the community. A commons if you will, where vegetables and fruits can be grown by the people who will work out who gets what. I mention this because if tomatoes remain as expensive as they are, I should reconnect with the Earth and plant some of my own.

Random Thoughts ....

I often have random thoughts about things and I recently thought about time.

Specifically since I have become a parent and noticed a drastic reduction in alone time. This seems obvious, but in wake of both men and women entering in the workforce over the last 40 years or so, there seems to be a rise in complaints about the lack of time to either get things done and/or to have time to yourself or with someone else.

Time garners some of the truest cliches of all. If something is important we make the time for example. Well, be that as it may, in reality between, school, work, and parenting, it is hard to find time to eat in some cases.

My mother didn't work, and raised three boys while my dad worked feverishly. My older brother isn't working and is home with his son while his wife works because that makes the most sense for their individual situation. Perhaps the cluttered work schedules people have is at least partially correlated to the drop in income that the middle and lower classes have been seeing over the years, which necessitates more time for work, but that is another topic onto itself.

I guess my point is that if we want more time to be alone, with others, work, play, and raise children, something has to give. I say it doesn't take a village to raise a child. It takes the village time to raise a child while doing other things.

Green Zone Blu-Ray Disc Review

A few movies have come and gone about the Middle East since 9/11 like The Kingdom, Syriana, and Body of Lies.

Green Zone is based on the novel Imperial Life In The Emerald City. Green Zone refers to the safe area in Baghdad where American armed forces and ruthless corporations set up shop to bring about American democracy after the invasion. The peace, calm, and access to 'American style living' in the Green Zone is a juxtaposition to the utter chaos and bedlam just outside of the Green Zone which many Iraqis and soldiers were dealing with on a daily basis in the time the movie takes place and still do to varying extents today.

Matt Damon plays a soldier tasked with finding weapons of mass destruction after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but keeps coming up empty based on faulty intelligence. Hmmm, sound familiar?

Damon's character then goes on a quest to discover the truth about the faulty intelligence and exposing who is responsible for perpetrating a lie about one of the key motivations for the invasion of Iraq.

One critic called Green Zone thrilling and gripping and while it had great moments, I wasn't glued to my seat as you pretty much know what is coming and the movie becomes a chase movie in the second and third acts.

PICTURE:

Excellent transfer. Some scenes at night seemed to be deliberately grainy which didn't get on my nerves but might for others. Green Zone was directed by Paul Greengrass who directed Damon in The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum and Greengrass again opted for a handheld approach to many of his shot choices which makes for some shaky camera work at times.

SOUND:

A 5.1 DTS Master Audio track has great levels between dialogue, gunshots, and explosions. As opposed to the DTS Master Audio track for Public Enemies, where the dialogue was low and the gunfire quite high. There is a scene where Damon goes to a prison where people of interest are being held and it is eerie when you hear prisoners moaning or complaining in the surround channels.

Overall, it was great movie, but I didn't feel a shiver or gripped to the edge of my seat.

PICTURE: 4.5 out of 5

SOUND: 5 out of 5

STORY: 3.5 out of 5

Attention Bev Oda ...

It's not that its not not alright to have added that extra not into that funding document ....

Which is pretty much how the Conservative's are dancing around this issue.

And Stephen Harper, seriously, you dismiss Helena Guergis because of unproven criminal allegations and don't even welcome her back after she is cleared by the RCMP, while Bev Oda clearly forged a document and then lied about it and you don't even give her a slap on the wrist?

Dude, you would be a horrible school principal.

Got Democracy?

Now that Egypt is in revolution hangover mode, we should take stalk of the disconnect between forcing democracy on one country, Iraq, and tolerating autocratic dictators like Mubarak.

The disconnect is obvious, government foreign policy and mass media tend to focus on what they deem to be important. So while the general public in the West might be praising the people's uprising in Egypt, did Western governments try to push democratic reforms in Egypt, or the media focus on stories about Mubarak's 31 year stranglehold on government before protests broke out?

Mubarak didn't use chemical weapons against his own people like Saddam Hussein did, which made Hussein an easy target after 9/11 (Got WMD's?), but Mubarak's tyranny was more subtle in having monopolies and corruption in the roost he occupied. Hussein became such an easy scapegoat for forcing democracy on Iraq, even though there was not an Iraqi involved in the 9/11 attacks. In fact, invading Saudi Arabia would have made more sense based on the countries of birth of those directly involved in the 9/11 attacks.

I digress though, my point is that we should be fed up with what governments and mainstream media want to show us about the Middle East as we don't often get the real or full story about what is happening behind the scenes is these 'quiet' dictatorships that are tolerated by Western powers that be.

I have an acquaintance who lived in Libya for a time and he remarked that Gadhafi is good to his people. Well, apparently not good enough when you consider that inflation of food prices in many Middle Eastern countries, is more then double of what it is in North America. Corruption and nepotism seem to be key bones of contention when it comes to the protests on going in the Middle East, but inflation was and is the silent revolutionary trigger that can set off a powder keg. China, you better watch out!

It will be interesting to see what will emerge out of the ashes of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, though it will be years before any significant changes come about. Meanwhile, Western governments who often rely on 'quiet' dictatorships because they have something of value economically that we want, or don't overtly threaten us, or are propagandized as a threat to us, are scrambling to rewrite foreign policy as we speak.

And Glenn Beck, protests a communist plot in Egypt? Seriously, Mubarak was a communist by virtue of the fact that he held power for so many decades. Perhaps we should let Mubarak rule the US for 31 years and see what happens.

Ode to a Wisdom Tooth

You would think that with all the excess wisdom teeth that have been hacked and pulled out of peoples gums over the last fifty plus years that we would have some economic benefit from all those extra molars!

Once upon a time our wisdom teeth were back up teeth so we had a replacement set pre modern dentistry. I'm not bitter at all because I had one of my bottom wisdom teeth hacked out and was in as much pain after the butchery as when the wisdom tooth decided to erupt.

So long as human beings still have teeth, dentists will make money and if I have to go back to school full time, dentistry is something I would seriously consider studying!

My Time at 92 Citi FM

I would like to start off by saying that I really enjoyed my time at 92 Citi FM in the Creative Department under the tutelage of Creative Director George McRobb.

My start was somewhat inauspicious because after my first day my bottom left wisdom tooth literally erupted like a volcano, causing me to miss a few days. Fortunately George was more then understanding about this (more to come on the wisdom tooth front when I get it pulled this Thursday).

George indicated he had a bad experience with a student from ABC Broadcasting and one of my Ad instructors, who knows George indicated that he would quote "eat me alive and then spit me out".

I wasn't intimidated though! I was confident in my abilities to write copy and George did his best to punt work my way from a variety of clients from dry cleaners and promoting radio advertising, to home renovations and funerals.

Overall, I got positive feedback on my ability to craft something that was good to great right off the hop. George was excellent about giving feedback in a no nonsense manner and made suggestions that were really helpful at taking what was a good to great idea, and honing it further. Often I found myself thinking, I should have thought of that! But I did get better at coming up with great copy as the placement proceeded thanks to the initial feedback I received.

A few of the tips about writing creative for radio I received included knowing your client and being a people person. I didn't deal with clients specifically, but I could over hear the discussions about different clients and their individual needs and the inevitable foibles that come with dealing with clients who are human beings like everyone else.

Another important tip I received is that rules are made to be broken once you know them. Such as the rule of threes that I initially thought applied to radio in a big way which George indicated can and should be broken as needed, and to combine ideas and mandatories together to save time and make a message as smooth a read as possible.

I also had some of my spots that I wrote and George edited produced and I have a selection of written copy that I can use for my portfolio.