pennies in my pocket: February 2010

Facebook ads

Posted by angèle at 9:38 AM |

So, today is my birthday. While on Facebook, trying to respond to everyone that wishes me lovely birthday wishes, I saw an ad on the sidebar. Here it is:

Thought that was cool. And now I want to eat some vegetables. I think the ad worked!

I am not Ukrainian.

I know this doesn't surprise most of you ( I am Canadienne-Francais). But on Thursday, February 18th, 2010, I set out to do the Ukrainian way and make perogies from scratch.

My boyfriend, Taylor, is Ukrainian and his mom and her sister, Olga, make amazing perogies. I thought that I should learn how to make perogies since I need to carry on the tradition down the road.

So, I bought my ingredients and started to make the filling and dough. Twenty-four potatoes, an onion and 18 cups of flour later, I had my dough and filling.

I let it sit for a day and on Friday started to roll out the dough. Man, was that ever a work out! It is so elastic so it's really hard to get it as thin as you need. Plus, there was a heck of a lot of dough!

For two hours alone, I made about 100 perogies. I cut the dough into squares, stuffed up with my delicious filing and then pinched away. After a while, Taylor and his mom helped me so it went a lot faster. We ended up with almost 200 perogies!

So now, I think I got the perogy thing down. I would much rather just eat them them make them though!

Sorry I don't have any pictures to share, it's hard to touch a camera with doughy fingers!

Ineffective advertising

Posted by angèle at 11:33 PM |

Okay, so there is this ad that just drives me wild - and not in the good way.

It's for Benylin, the cold medicine.

So most of us take cold medicine to feel better, at least enough, to go about our day. The whole point of taking medicine is to get better so you can get on with your life.

Well in this ad, Benylin is saying 'take a Benylin day'. The girl takes a Benylin and then goes back to bed for the day. But, why would I still feel sick enough to stay in bed all day if you're fly medicine works so well? Shouldn't I be able to go to work if I take it? Competitors like Nyquil, Advil and Tylenol advertise how their medicine will make you feel well enough to go about your day.

To me, the 'Big Idea' of this ad is counterintuitive. It really bugs me. But hey, here I am writing a blog about it, so something is working. At least it's memorable.

Blast from the past

Posted by angèle at 2:06 PM |

My boyfriend and I were talking the other day of our favorite shows from when we were a kid. Here is a compiled list of shows we had come up with. What's your favourite?

1. Inspector Gadget

2. California Raisins

3. Care Bears

4. Pinky & The Brain

5. Ren and Stimpy