Sleep Like a Log.

Seriously, isn't this 'sound advice' remarkably obvious? Sound the alarm! So that's what's been running through my dreams all week.

If I happened to resort to using sleeping pills, the last thing I'd want is to end up having a crappy sleep.

Signs of the Times.

Well yes, now that you ask, my thirst for signs I find to be comical and witty does indeed continue unabated. Innuendo? Check. Juvenile humour? Check. Snickers shared in a subtle glance with a partner? Check.

I liked this one. Really. It's also quite appropriate, I suppose, for a store laden with sweets, chocolates and sundry other sugar-laden hip, thigh and rear end enhancers to be called "Nuttin' Butt". Walking by a number of its patrons, however, I saw just how fine a line it is between wit and irony. A lot finer than many of them were.

Signs like this were affixed every five feet or so to a fence surrounding a mansion the size of a small town (we're talking tens of millions of dollars here). Never mind the ominous teeth of razor wire that lined the top of the fence (or the likelihood that the fence was itself was electrified). No, it was the 'Bad Dog' (with an exclamation mark, no less!) you had to be worried about should you have the misguided notion you should climb it. I thought it was trendy for rich folk to have teacup poodles and chihuahuas? No? I didn't test the theory. Or maybe this was just their way of shaming the family pet, who had recently misbehaved - stealing a pie from the window ledge?

Not sure what dope thought of this one, but it's certainly a clever (sharp, rather than blunt?) and snicker-worthy name for a burrito shop. Care for one? Take a flour tortilla, some rice, cheese and, for a vegetable, some grass? Great if you've got the munchies, I suppose. If it catches your attention, though, it's obviously a successful form of marketing, regardless of the insinuation.

Snicker. He said "Church". Yeah, yeah, okay, fine, I'll give you that the seamen joke is the oldest one going. Still, I think it was the part about the "Confident Captain" that made gffl and me laugh. That or we're really just twelve-year-olds. Tough to tell. Then again, it's hard to picture Blackbeard sailing the gnarly seas, pillaging from the masses and having to head back to shore for Sunday service. Confidently, of course.

Just a great name for a toy store. Period.

An Affair to Remember.

Now, this establishment is hardly one that is regularly described as "classy" (it is a Roadhouse, after all), but I have to wonder if the sign advertising the party room was intentionally worded or not.

Known as a 'cougar' hang-out, it's quite possible.

It almost appears too obvious not to be, but at the same time, also seems a little too clever.

I was going to say, the tables there are sticky enough as it is...

Cracks Me Up.

Granted, there may be a lot of eggheads on campus at The University of Western Ontario, but this piece of guerrilla marketing doesn't leave you having to walk on egg shells about it.

When I first saw the added drawings on the bike path, I thought it was all just a big yolk. But then I thought I might just poach the idea for another campaign.

Let's hope the modern-day Humpty Dumpty doesn't take a great fall. Because, of course, then he'd just be a shell of his former self.

Planted.

Nice. Much like some of the clever little plays on words you often see on signs outside churches ("Sign broken. Message inside this Sunday"; "Fight truth decay - study the Bible daily"; "Under same management for over 2,000 years"; "Stop, drop and roll doesn't work in hell"; "How will you spend eternity - Smoking or non-smoking?"), this garden nursery had some fun welcoming our later-than-normal warm weather. Well done.

A Brush with Fate.

I'm sure most would bristle at the suggestion of using a random, lost toothbrush found on a street corner. It certainly doesn't tickle my ivories. Similarly, the thought of a "Tasty Reward" from someone seeking said lost toothbrush makes my stomach turn a full revolution - not something I'd want to sink my teeth into. I got a particular chuckle out of the claim beside the picture, which reads: "Actual Toothbrush."

I'm still not sure if there was a point of posting this flyer in the window of a local paper box (whatever happened to the "Missing" ads on milk cartons?), but it gave me a good laugh. And reminded me to go remove these sweaters from my teeth.

H2No.

I saw this ad in a magazine and thought, shouldn't it really read: "An overly caffeinated world doesn't need caffeinated water"? We've already got chocolate, tea, coffee, soda, etc.; why the need for 'invigorated' water? Is there such thing as "sensibly caffeinated" agua? Really, I've seen enough people get bent out of shape over having fluoride flow through our taps, but an addictive substance like caffeine is okay?

I can only imagine people in the developing world seeing a product like this (as, in many places, they scoop their refreshment out of muddy puddles and polluted streams) and shaking their heads at the consumerism and overall pretentiousness of such a product. Maybe it's just me.

Neither Jeep, Nor Jeans.

I can just picture the successful applicants now, running through fields of posies with tiny lassos, accompanied by a soundtrack of Puccini.

"I'm going to wrangle myself a blue one!" Wranglers? Really? I can't imagine the silken-winged critters putting up much of a fight as they flutter by. Of course, curious to see how common the term "Butterfly Wrangler" is, I punched it into Google. 38 hits.

Needless to say, I chuckled when I saw the sign while walking through the Biology & Geology building this morning. As advertising goes, it worked. I felt this was a position that should be added to the list of cool jobs on campus that sound comical, which also includes a bug chef for one of the larger research facilities (one who makes food for insects, not out of them).

It also reminded me of the all-time classic cat-herding commercial:

A Severed Connection.

Appropriate enough, I guess, given that the "Mix Fruit Bowl" likely consists of sliced fruit, but I got a chuckle of it being described as "Severed" with Strawberry, Orange, and Apple." Certainly, a cut above.

Yes, small things entertain me. I was also even mildly amused by the menu's inconsistent re-ordering of its ham, bacon or sausage options. In each different dish, it is as though a different pork product demanded top billing.

The fruit cup wasn't the only time the term "severed" came to mind on the weekend, either. At one point, looking across the street, I told the person I was with: "There's a homeless guy with a saw over there." "Yeah right," came the reply.

Then the scruffy man with several dark hoodies, tinted glasses and hat pulled low climbed through the broken slats in the fence, wandering along other people's backyards - with a long hand saw poking out like a pirate's hook. The only thing more jagged than the teeth on the saw were the ones in his mouth. It was a moment straight out of a cheese ball horror movie script - craziest thing I ever saw (yuck, yuck).

No Ordinary Joe.

So long to a Second Cup of Tim Horton's Starbucks, even if it is Seattle's Best?

If you find yourself around King and Sherbourne in Toronto, you may indeed find yourself having a mug of creamy caffeination that would make the street corner-hogging, hyper barista-flogging chain locales become 'has-beans'. Bisogno, now that's a coffee.

With an antique dining room table around which to sit and a couple of plush couches, this hip little spot makes for a nice place to enjoy a mighty fine cup of coffee - even if it did take nearly a half-hour to have it made (but really, when was the last time your venti, one-and-a-half shot, half-sweet, no-foam macchiatto came with a heart on top?)

What the sign said was true: with coffee and ambiance like that, it's not going to need much advertising.

Not the Guy from 'Fantasy Island'.

Classic. Driving along the other day, I passed a tattoo shop with a sign outside that read:

"Get your tattoos while they're still cool!"

Quite a clever little jab given the recent mainstreaming of the marriage between skin and ink. I'm sure many still go in and miss the irony, carrying with them small scraps of paper with Chinese characters they think speak to their strength, empowerment and singularity. Inkredible.

Good Ol' College Try.

Take a pill - it's just an ad! After a couple of weeks of buzz, the lid is off College Ontario's "Obay" viral ad campaign (how many puns can we get into one paragraph? Hmm?), which prominently ran advertisements featuring a faux pharmaceutical and had people scratching their heads.

With the unveiling came a shiny new web site and fresh ads with overlays ("Don't push your kids into doing what you want.") designed to get parents and students thinking about options beyond university. Options are good.

I think it was also a clever, cooperative way for the province's colleges to leverage economies of scale and generate a positive, proactive campaign. I can't imagine that getting 24 colleges on the same page in order to run something so different was easy (now that's collegial). Now that the curiosity factor has peaked (as opposed to the past couple of weeks when it was piqued), however, I'll be curious to see how effective the rebranding strategy is going forward. Given how many students do not end up going to university, it still offers an important message.

As much as I liked the campaign, I still find it a little odd that most of the advertising was done in and around public transit, yet seemed to be targeted toward parents. That might work in Toronto, where the TTC enjoys a broad demographic, but in some of the province's other college towns and cities, I think you'd find the majority of riders would be the students themselves.

Tough Pill to Swallow.

When I first saw this bus ad the other day, I wondered if it was the work of an enterprising culture jammer making a statement of some sort related to society's propensity to medicate, rather than parent, its children. That or, maybe, an elaborate advertising campaign teaser, but I couldn't think of what it would relate to. The ad contained no identifying information and I was left scratching my head.

I didn't realize at the time that this ad, along with a series of others ("My son used to have his own aspirations, now he has mine. Thanks Obay!"), had begun popping up all over Toronto and in other Ontario cities. So it wasn't the work of a lone wolf, particularly given the expense of the campaign (there is also a 1-800 number, bus shelter ads, etc.).

It turns out that this brilliant piece of marketing is for Colleges Ontario, an advocacy group for the province's colleges. Appropriately enough, an announcement will be made at The Centre for Creative Communications at Centennial College tomorrow to give details about the campaign. I've only heard some rumours about what the ads' goals are, but in marketing terms, it's brilliant because people are talking and wondering. Kudos.

2008 Honda, with Tan Interior.

Obviously tongue-in-cheek, and a creative use of previously existing space, this Tan Factory cracks me up every time I pass it. I've heard of drive-thru restaurants, banks and heck, even liquor stores and gun shops (don't get me started on those), but I presume you'd need a convertible for this one.

Of course, the great irony is that you'd get a better tan with the top down if you weren't underneath a giant awning. That and your skin wouldn't turn a thermonuclear shade of orange.

Up in Smoke.

“Hey kids, look what happens to your teeth when you smoke…”

I must say I had to double take when I saw these packages of baby biscuits. Looking more like a double toke, the round-noggined youngsters appeared to be enjoying a nice tug on a cigar.

Of course - organic or not - that couldn't be possible. While it's not exactly easy to get babies to pose for photographs, you'd think the folks at My Organic Baby might have re-shot this picture rather than have a young Red Auerbach as spokesbaby.

Wanton Wonton.

A new year and yes, it appears that I am still all of twelve-years-old. Or, at least my sense of ha ha is.

Granted, finding humour at the expense of people's and product's names (which appears to be a main preoccupation of this blog) must be one of the baser forms of amusement, but I wonder if this noodle and wonton manufacturer is in any way related to our Malaysian friend, Soon Fatt Hung? Okay, no I don't.

Still an all-time great in the names department, does anybody remember former Maryland basketball player, Exree Hipp? You can also add other basketball classics like Scientific Mapp from Florida A&M (and his brother, Majestic) and God Shammgod (I wonder if the given name helped him avoid a smiting for the 'sham' reference in his surname?) who earned a cup of coffee in the NBA (more like an espresso shot, it was so brief).

More Signs from Africa.

Ah, the subtleties of the English language. Walking through Mwanza, Tanzania, I had to chuckle about this store's sign. If you're in the market for a better-than-average snack, you're in luck - but for a matching, quality, beverage, no dice. They only serve "standard" drinks. Sigh, my thirst continued, unabated, due to my highfalutin ways.

This next sign, at the Tanzania Breweries plant in Mwanza (which produces 13 different East African beers), seems less funny than perhaps redundant. Really, smoking kills your taste buds? Who knew? Then again, with how often many people twin cancer sticks with drinking, maybe the brewer should be testing the taste of tobacco with hops.

As an aside, a positive story from our tour of the brewery was the discovery that they treat water from Lake Victoria and run a tap into the local community from which citizens can take clean water for free. This was slightly encouraging, despite the greater problem in Tanzania of beer and soda generally being cheaper than potable water.

The Future is Beer (er, Near).

Seen on a street corner downtown: a comical juxtaposition of signs from both former and future tenants at one of the city's landmark buildings.

In large, bold letters, one banner blares: "Building Positive Futures for Youth". Under it, however, window paint exposes the building's history as a pub that hawks $2 beer on Mondays (inset) - likely a message the new establishment will be trying to avoid. Scraper, anyone?

Joey? Pheebs?

Hoping to rediscover some hops prior to my basketball game last night, I came to wonder if maybe, just maybe, kangaroo jerky might do the trick (after all, a "court" is one possible collective noun used for these Australian animals). Appropriately enough, the strips of 'fast food' come in a handy little pouch (though, given roos' propensity for boxing, cardboard might also have been equally suitable).

While my love for a fine jerky is long established, I cannot say I had ever set my teeth into a marsupial before. It was a little gamey, but - alas - did nothing to alter the effects of gravity on my body. Even KangaROOS, the shoes (and yes, they still make them), couldn't help there, it seems.

Odd kangaroo fact for the day: they are environmentally friendly because they don't burp or fart. Nearly a quarter of the planet's greenhouse gases come from agriculture, but, unlike cows and other herbivores, roos are missing the digestive methane releases that lead to that stench punching a hole in the ozone. Instead, their bodies undergo a series of conversion processes that eventually turn the gas into further energy. Sure beats having to blame the dingo.

Death of Santa?

I can say with earnest that I'm no green thumb and, as such, can say with equal conviction can that I have never associated the word 'stunning' with urns (and no, not because I'm against them, to say, urn-ist), much less an arrangement of them.

Then again, I had to double-take to realize that I wasn't looking at a sign outside of a funeral parlour (with a beaming, jolly St. Nick to boot) before I realized that this sign actually made sense. Still, it wasn't a sentence I'd expected to see roadside in bright, dancing neon letters.