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Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Accessory to awesome

My brother forwards one of Jalopnik's Top Ten Worst Car Commercials of All Time, and it sparks a hunt to solve a mystery from my youth.

The commercial is for the 1980 Datsun 280ZX 10th Anniversary Edition, sibling to the 1980 Datsun 210 station wagon, the heck of a car that carried me from birth (see #15, Cooper creation story) to D.C. license (see the "bitch with the big hair" story, some day to be posted here).

The ad is fantastic, from the production to the song to the lady to the mustache to the lack of doors to the kiss back to the song. Black gold! But what grabs me the most is the momentary shot of the ignition, so instantly familiar with the metal and ACC label. But what does — what did in the old Datsun, "Little Blue" to us (sometimes) — ACC stand for?

Yahoo Answers tells me ACC stands for "Accessory." The more I know.

P.S. Our 1980 Datsun 210 wagon looked sort of like this, but not really. Ours was blue with wood panels, had hubcaps, had no crazy roof rack or Nissan badge or right mirror or rear wiper, and was so much cooler.

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Thursday, October 11th, 2007

Chocolate-covered Cheerios

They exist. They really do.

When I wrote in August about imagining "the taste of my Christmas and Easter mornings," my brother apparently already knew such a product existed. Such was SkyMall and an i-banker's flight schedule.

But while the chocolatiers at Jacque Torres had beaten me to the idea, I didn't lose out entirely. Rob sent me four bags this week.

Initial review: Delicious.

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Thursday, August 30th, 2007

There should be a Skynyrd song about cereal

Before I began writing On Deadline*, several of my bosses told me what they expected out of the blog. The posts were not to be about what I had for breakfast, they said. Cereal was mentioned a couple times. Being a co-creator of the blog's concept, I knew as much. But I understood where they were coming from. Aside from a half-dozen stories at CNN, my only writing of length in preceding years had come in this blog. And this blog was no stranger to cereal.

My brother understands this history, and that's why when he reads about a new cereal restaurant beginning to franchise across the country, he promptly sends me the story. Amid the revamping of Cereality's business model and the reported failure of the company's Evanston branch, I'm a bit disillusioned with the entire cereal restaurant industry. The nexus of my pain? The ground floor of the condo down the street has been empty for probably a year now. There's a "retail parking" garage, but inside is only a expensive spa. My dreams of a neighboring Cereality and Krispy Kreme have long died.

With this other cereal chain's expansion, the article tells of 16 stores — I like to think of them as restaurants, to think otherwise cheapens the cereal experience — under development. "Looks like Cereality is going to get a run for its money," my brother says. But the story doesn't name the locations, and I'm a little distrustful. Until I see my city's name on paper and next to cereal, I can't raise my spoon.

In other news, I have a new great idea. Chocolate-covered Cheerios. The taste of my Christmas and Easter mornings! A soft pitch at Sunday night's festivities has no doubt left the gathered Leongs and Strahotas dreaming of endless bowls. How this idea took 27 years to strike, I have no idea.

*On Deadline turned out fine. I think I only wrote about cereal twice: "Drink your Trix, Cocoa puffs" and "Be like Mike? Be liking milk." Ha.

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