Organic Cigarettes and Other Signs of the Coming Apocalypse

Hokay so,

I was just flipping through a magazine and saw an ad for American Spirit cigarettes boasting that they have ORGANIC cigarettes. Why why why why why?

Now we arrive at one of the most egregious suspensions of logic that I have seen in a long while. American Spirit advertises its Organic Cigarettes while simultaneously saying that they are not actually healthier in any way. This is actually mandated by a court ruling, which says that in their ads which boldly proclaim their Organic cigarettes they must also put these words:

No additives in our tobacco

does NOT mean a safer cigarette.

Here is an example of someone doing the exact same thing:

I really don't mind tobacco at all. I love me a nice cigar every now and then and when the weather is nice, nothing beats sitting on my porch with a nice pipe and a book. (I'm building up my old man street cred.) I guess what scares me is some magical power that advertisers seem to have over us. We are told over and over that we must purchase and consume organic goods so that we will in turn be healthier and we buy into it so much that someone can run a campaign selling us one of the most deadly products out there and because they slap a big certified organic sticker on it, someone is beating down the door to the nearest liquor store to pick it up. yikes.

Here's one kid who knows something about cig uh rets.

why is today creepier than every other day? Lincoln's fifth question.

for some reason, I am absolutely on edge today. Here are the contributing factors:

caffeine
three dimensional stop motion animation
the looming prospect of grad school
my first adventure in screenwriting.

So, I am sitting in the Caribou at five mile and sheldon right now. The hilarious part about this is that I do not drink coffee, but I applied for a job here a few weeks ago and I feel like if I keep coming in they will think that I am dedicated or something and just give me a job out of a sense of pity. Thus far, no luck. The truly unfortunate thing is that I feel compelled to drink a coffee beverage whenever I'm in here. I mean, could I really show up here and order a coke and sit by myself. That simply wouldn't make sense. My brother and I saw Coraline this afternoon. It was both the coolest 3-d movie I've seen as well as the coolest stop-motion flick. A lot of the time, I feel like when those mediums are used, it isn't a natural outgrowth of the story, but just becomes some kitschy little gimick that advertisers want to force onto a narrative because they believe that it will fill seats i.e. the Home Improvement 3D episode and the stop motion James and the Giant Peach. This however, was great. I was basically sold from the opening credits in which the screen was framed with a type of lace pattern that resembled old footlamps, but instead of just hanging out at the bottom of the screen, wrapped all the way around. It fascinated me. The movie though, IS REALLY CREEPY. If you didn't know that you shouldn't take young children to see Tim Burton flicks, take note. I may have a few nightmares tonight.
After the movie, I went to the library and started doing research for my grad school applications. The whole process just feels like a gigantic mountain to me. It takes up a lot of the space in my head after I think about it and makes it really difficult to focus elsewhere. So, there's a lot to get accomplished there.

And as some of you know, I am taking my first tenuous steps into screenwriting. It's a really fun project for me based on the life and struggles of Luke Haddad. At this point it is kind of following a Waiting for Guffman style arch. It is a lot of fun though because it is a medium that I have never worked in and at times I feel really not up to the challenge because there is so much that I need to start learning about how to make a screenplay that people would be interested in.

So I am doing all of that and right now I'm listening to the first time to U2's new album. they have it streaming on their myspace. How great would it be if this could be another Joshua Tree? Here's hoping. I'm also going down to the D tonight to see Medicine for Melancholy tonight. Given the frenetic, caffeine adjusted state of mind that I am in right now, I think this movie is going to be just what I need.