Lutfey.com

  • A chain store called “Tuesday Morning” opened up a year or so ago in Loveland, Colorado.  I keep wondering how they came up with the name.  To the best of my knowledge, they sell a variety of overstocked gift type items at rather low prices.

    Even though I know exectly what they sell, I keep imagining they specialize in selling the “Plan B” contraceptive/birth control device. (FYI:  “Plan B” is a pill women can take up to 72 hours after unprotected intercourse that prevents conception from occuring.)

    I can just visualize the advertisement:  Ladies, were you out late on Saturday night having unprotected sex with anonymous male partners?   If so, remember you have until Tuesday morning to get to Tuesday Morning if you don’t want to start baking a bun in your oven!

  • No, newfunny.com doesn’t have any sponsors.  Not that I would mind someone giving me money for something that I’m already doing for free.  “A Word From Our Sponsors” is my idea for another television reality show.  I’ve worked for UPS for seven years now, and in that time I’ve come up with several ideas for what I think would be great commercials.  Unfortunately, UPS doesn’t accept unsolicited marketing concepts– even from it’s own employees.  With some 400,000 employees, I guess I can understand their position.  This is where “A Word From Our Sponsors” comes into play.

    Instead of having commercials in between the show, the show is all about making commercials for specific products, and there aren’t any traditional commercial breaks.  The show starts off with 30 contestants:  10 writers, 10 directors, and 10 graphics specialists.  Each week, teams are randomly assigned with one person from each of the three groups.  At the beginning of the week the CEO of a company makes a presentation about a certain product they would like to promote.  Then each team of three has until the end of the week to come up with an idea for a 30 second commercial, film it, and add any needed computer graphics.  Next all the teams are brought back together with the sponsor to view the results.  Each team gets to score all the other team’s finished product.  The sponsor gets to decide if he wants to “buy” any of the commercials.  If the sponsor purchases a team’s submission the team automatically gets to go on to the next week.  The team with the lowest score gets eliminated.  The next week everything starts over.  The remaining people are randomly assigned new teams, and a new CEO and product line is introduced.

    The show should be geared to encourage “outside the box” concepts that are funny, non-traditional, and memorable.  Here are examples of the UPS commercials I’ve thought of:

    In the style of the television show “24”, show how a next day air package moves through the UPS system.
    Show what it would be like if all the UPS drivers and pilots met in one place with their vehicles.
    A “Lord of the Rings” themed commercial on an easier way to deliver the ring

    So, if you are reading this and happen to be the CEO of General Electric or Viacom give me a call and we can work something out.  If you are a nobody, don’t call me– I’ve got a truckload of packages that need to get delivered before I can go home for the night.

  • I have to start out by mentioning that back in the day I used to just skip out of work so I could be one of the very first people to see the latest Star Trek movie on Friday afternoon.  Being a UPS driver doesn’t make this very easy, and I didn’t really want to use one of my two option days I get each year.  So Katherine and I went to the theater on Sunday afternoon to see what all the fuss is about.

    My first impression of the movie was, “Wow– they must have saved a lot of money by using the set of ‘Ugly Betty’ as the bridge of the Enterprise.”  Every time they turned a corner on the ship I was expecting to see Vanessa Williams bravely holding up some comically large space weapon with her assistant Marc cowering behind while making sarcastic comments about how the crew dressed such as, “if this is the best outfits the future can come up with, well just phaser me now.”  I’m not quite sure where America Ferrera fits into this situation, but I’ll bet she would stick her nose in everyone’s business and find a quirky resolution to the problem.

    Here is a run down of the some of the main characters:

    James Kirk: fiesty kiddo who spends most of the movie dangling perilously on the edge of things.

    Young Spock: realizing that the television show “Heroes” isn’t going to last forever, Zachary Quinto stepped out of the role of the evil Sylar and hopped on board as Spock.  His biggest challenge for the role: shaving his facial hair between every take.

    Old Spock:  according to the movie, Leonard Nemoy was 147 years old when he got sent back in time.  I swear he didn’t look a day over 90.

    The Bad Guy:  Had some strange tatoo on his face and went around destroying Federation planets.  I’m not sure if these two facts are related.  Too bad Ricardo Montelbon wasn’t around when they filmed this– now there was a guy you just couldn’t help but hate.

    And the big surprise at the end:  There wasn’t any!  None of the main characters were killed because they all have to be kept alive so all the stuff that has already been made at least kind of makes sense.  I guess that’s the problem with making a movie that is both a prequel and a sequel in the Star Trek Universe.

    I suspect the next film will focus on how William Shatner became such a bad actor.

  • Facing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Chrysler announced a new “Employee Pricing Plus Plus,” incentive program Tuesday.  A top executive at the automaker explained how the new system works.  “Not only will employee pricing be offered for the purchase of all Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge vehicles, but for a limited time customers will also receive an actual Chrysler employee.  Have them clean up the yard, help the kids with their homework, or take the dog for a walk in the afternoons.  When we start up our factories again we will have the employee shipped back with no charge to the customer.”

  • I got the day off on Tuesday, so I decided to get a few errands taken off my to do list.  I took my car to the shop to get the driver’s side power window fixed, a saw my doctor for my annual check-up, oh, yeah, and I went and married Katherine.

    “You did what?” many people have asked.  We are having a wedding in June, and we are going on a honeymoon to New York City in May.  Since we weren’t really doing anything in the traditional order, we decided to get the paperwork out of the way.  It turns out that getting married in Larimer County, Colorado is fairly simple. Katherine filled out the forms online, and the next day we went to the office to get the paperwork.  Actually, it is the same place where car registration takes place.  The only strange part of the process was the fact that we weren’t allowed to sign the marriage certificate at that office.

    So we went home, and in a very beautiful ceremony that involved Katherine, myself, and the dog, we signed the marriage license.  We wanted Maury to sign as the witness, but when we put the pen in his paws he kept trying to tear it apart with his teeth.  But he watched us– hoping to get a treat when we were finished.  The next day Katherine took the paperwork back and now we are officially married.

    So now Katherine Herbig is now Katherine Lutfey who gets to change her name.  I don’t have do to any of that– I won the coin toss over whose last name we were going to use.  We thought of combining our last names, but then we decided that if we have kids and they wanted to get married to someone else with a hyphenated last name they would have four last names, and that just seems like a bit much.  So now Katherine has the exciting privilege of changing her social security card, driver’s license, passport, and Starbucks frequent drinker reward card.

  • Not everyone keeps as up to date on Finnish Star Trek parodies as they probably should. That’s exactly why I run this website. Ever wonder what happens when 5 Finns, 300 extras, and whole bunch of computing power get mixed together for seven years? The answer is “Star Wreck,” a parody of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Babylon 5”. These guys made an entire movie– and it looks just like a “real” movie. The movie is Finnish and subtitled into English (which in itself provides for some additional jokes in the translation).

    Being a follower of the original shows helps, but isn’t required to enjoy the movie. When I wasn’t laughing at the jokes, I kept thinking to myself, “hey, a small group of Finns put this together– there is hope for the Universe!”

    Here is the trailer from YouTube.  More information, including the full movie, bonus information, and future movie releases, can be found free at StarWreck.com

  • This is another idea I’ve come up with for a new UPS commercial.

    The entire commercial is similar to the style of the television show “24,” with views of different scenes at the same point in time.

    Voice Over: “The following takes place between 5:00 P.M. and 9:00 A.M.”

    A timer appears at the bottom of the screen with 5:00 P.M. on the left side and 9:00 A.M on the right.  A UPS driver walks into an office building and picks up a next day air package from the front desk and the timer starts moving.  He walks out of the office and the camera zooms up into the sky to show him overhead walking towards a UPS truck parked on the street.   A label points to the UPS truck and identifies the package car number.  The driver gets in and pulls away from the curb.  A different color marker shows the path of the package car.  The camera angle keeps zooming out.  The path of the package can still be seen as the package car drives back to the center.  Other paths and labels appear following different package cars as they head back towards the center.

    The camera zooms down and into the building to show the package being taken out of the truck and placed on the belt.  It then gets loaded on a feeder truck.  The camera zooms out again and a new label is shown that follows the feeder truck as it drives to the airport.  As it approaches the airport other feeder truck labels and paths can be seen.  The camera zooms down and inside the cargo hold and shows the bin being loaded onto the airplane.  It zooms back out and shows the path of the airplane.  It zooms out enough to see the entire country.  As night falls darkness gradually covers the country and lights of major cities can be seen.  As the airplane approaches Louisville, Kentucky, UPS airplanes with labels and paths from all around the country can be seen approaching the airport, forming orderly lines preparing for their landing.

    The camera zooms in again showing the package being unloaded and sorted in the facility.  It gets loaded on a different plane and the camera once again zooms out and the paths of all the outgoing planes can be seen diverging from the center of the country.  The process of zooming in and zooming out to show the progress of the package is continued throughout the process until the package is delivered.   The timer slows down when the package is being handled and speeds up when the package is in transit to get the entire journey into a 30 second commercial.  When the package is in a facility the map frame gets smaller and new frames pop up to show people moving the package.  When it starts moving the map frame gets bigger and takes up the entire screen.

    An interesting aspect of the commercial is that it could be made with actual  global positioning data from UPS with an actual package.  Just attach a small camera to the package and have a small camera crew follow it from point A to B.  The zooming in and out would have to be done with some CGI magic.  Ideally the package would go from the east coast to the west coast to maximize the distance traveled.

    This idea is way beyond anything I can create with my current video production resources,  so I figured I would put it up on my newfunny.com websites for the world to see and maybe someone can make it a reality.

  • Action star and martial artist Jackie Chan recently stirred up controversy with a comment that the general Chinese population “needs to be controlled.”  When asked how the government should subdue a nation of 1.3 billion people, Mr. Chan replied simply, “ladders.”

  • When I was just a young boy
    I didn’t know what to do
    Bouncing through jobs
    Drifting without a clue

    Then one day my purpose became clear
    I felt a few inches taller
    The very first time
    I wore the brown collar

    So now I go door to door
    Just a spreading my word
    My presence is known
    When I’m not seen or heard

    Brown shoes brown socks
    Brown shorts brown shirt
    You can’t help but to stand up and holler
    When you see that man in the brown collar

    Some days my body gets sore
    I’m only human after all
    Some times that old truck breaks down
    And I give a higher power a call

    Some days the sky opens up
    And the cold and darkness come
    Quitting is not an option
    My work is never done

    Brown shoes brown socks
    Brown shorts brown shirt
    You can’t help but to stand up and holler
    When you see that man in the brown collar

  • …but the UPS guy is already driving away by the time you put down the remote control, get your butt off the couch, dust the potato chips off your stomach, and walk over to the front door.

  • There aren’t too many famous people I would want to meet in person, but I thought I would keep track of who I would like to meet for lunch.

    Lisa Loeb: OK, she is rather pleasing to the eye (or at least both of mine), but what really won me over was her short lived TV show “Dweezil & Lisa”. I would call it a cooking show, but I don’t think many other people would be quite so generous. One episode revolved around them hosting a pancake party. While at a cooking store Dweezil wanted to buy an $80 batter dispenser. Lisa said it was too expensive and not worth the money. Now here is a woman who I’m guessing is pretty well off financially realizing that she doesn’t need another kitchen gadget. Also, she didn’t insist on having her name be first in the show’s title.

    So, Lisa, if you are still reading this, and plan on being in northern Colorado in the future, give me a call and we can go out to Chipotle for some chips and burritos.

  • Being a UPS driver, people often ask me how I keep my hands so clean given the grungy nature of my job. Actually, nobody has ever asked me that, but I have to start somewhere.

    Every night when I come home from work I start the shower running and prepare what some would call my “Ancient Chinese Secret” for cleaning the deep seeded grime from my hands. This procedure uses two solid pumps from my 1.25 gallon Gojo dispenser and a light sprinkle of Ajax worked into all the nooks and crannies of my hand with a small oval shaped pumice stone. I scrub vigorously until the shower warms up, at which point I enter the stall and continue to shower in more or less the traditional manner. When I’m done in the shower, I dry off and rub a healthy amount of lotion into my hands.

    Interesting points:

    I’m pretty sure this is NOT an approved official use for Ajax.
    For anyone considering robbing their neighbors in the near future, I believe this procedure is also effective at temporarily removing my fingerprints.
    You may be asking yourself how this is Ancient, Chinese, or a secret. The old Chinese man I have locked in my basement taught me how to do it. Now that the secret is out, however, I’ll have to kill him. He will understand.