Author: ssw15

So, I saw “In Good Company” the other day. Pretty funny, and interesting characters, good angst (yeah, I’m a sucker for angst); good soundtrack; and yet, I felt sad. Good acting, and yet the ending made me feel unsettled and “huh?” I felt sad for Topher Grace’s character, Carter. He’s about my age, and he’s already feeling like it’s all going downhill and it’s time to find a life. Uh. Ok. I liked the review of the movie on Slate.com – pretty much on point. Maybe I ought to stop seeing sad movies.

NY Jets – big suckers. Losers. Etc.

Michelle Kwan is still the American woman ice skating champion. We’ll see if she can win the World Championship. I mean, I’ll tip my hat off to her for being the most accomplished American woman ice skater, but winning the big prize – that’s the question. Whether for the Jets (i.e., a Super Bowl or even just a big win) or for Kwan (a gold medal), the question hovers.

Really cool item – NY1 profiles Jadin Wong, Asian-American entertainer/dancer/agent. She notes:

“I’m unusual for an Asian girl. They’re very subservient. I’m very nice to people, but I’m not your average Chinese girl,” she says. “I kick tush.” [….]

Wong was married twice. She says she was too busy traveling around the world to have children. In a sense, the people she’s helped were all her children.

“I want them to learn what no one taught me,” she says. “When I came to New York City as a young Chinese girl, no one wanted to help me because there were very few calls for Asian.”

But has Wong seen any improvement for the Asian-American performer in her 30 years as an agent?

“It’s getting better for the Asian, but this is still America,” she says. “It’s like a Caucasian actor in Hong Kong saying, ‘Why don’t they make more pictures for Caucasians?’ Because you’re in Hong Kong, that’s why.” [….]

“I say that life is like a tapestry. You meet people, you don’t see them again,” she says. “Somehow you cross paths. I firmly believe in that, because it’s happened to me so many times. [….]

Fascinating stuff.

Oh, and take a moment to think about Martin Luther King and the dream that continues to be a dream.

Some stuff…

These first pictures from Saturn’s moon Titan are so cool!

Plus, a CNN retrospect on the 1st African-American woman astronaut, Dr. Mae Jemison. She notes:

Growing up in Chicago, Jemison looked at the “Star Trek” character Lt. Uhura and saw her future.

“What was really great about ‘Star Trek’ when I was growing up as a little girl is not only did they have Lt. Uhura played by Nichelle Nichols as a technical officer — she was African,” said Jemison, who was born in Decatur, Alabama.

“At the same time, they had this crew that was composed of people from all around the world and they were working together to learn more about the universe,” she said. “So that helped to fuel my whole idea that I could be involved in space exploration as well as in the sciences.”

And, you got to admire a scientist who got to make a little appearance in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (like Stephen Hawking); I mean, Dr. Jemison does cool stuff since her NASA days, and:

She has considered a future in politics, has been awarded honors and decorations and holds multiple honorary doctorates. But she is still tickled about appearing in an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

“It was called ‘Second Chances,’” she said. “It was all about the fact that our fantasies lead our realities and our realities lead our fantasies and it comes full circle again.”

“‘Star Trek’ was one of our best fantasies,” she said, then added with a laugh, “And besides, I got to meet Worf (Michael Dorn, who plays the Klingon head of security.)”

Slate.com’s Chris Suellentrop says we ought to hope that George W. Bush is like Ronald Reagan – conservative in the first term; a lot looser in the second term. Wishful thinking, but that’s always a nice thing.

NY Times profiles Carol Bellamy, first (I think only) woman elected as President of NYC Council, and currently dealing with her role as director of UNICEF. I liked how her backstory gets told – that she balanced her Wall Street lawyer career, investment banking with public service. She’s been inspiring to watch and read about.

Happy Weekend…

Thank heavens Friday’s coming.

To the spammers named “Online Poker,” “Gambling,” “Poker,” and like folk – while your some of your comments appear complimentary (I mean, sure, thanks for calling this a “super duper site” and all that), you guys are damn annoying. Please go away. Well, I guess you guys don’t actually read the content or you’d know how you’re not appreciated. Still, please go away. End of rant.

This ad where Ex-Presidents Bush the Elder and Clinton are encouraging Americans to donate to reputable non-profits to help the South Asian tsunami victims … that is a strange ad. Feels awkward. Like watching the “X-Presidents” cartoon from “Saturday Night Live.” Like weird. Oh well.

This news story that Prince Harry of Britain wore a Nazi swastika at a costume party — nutty story. What is with Harry? He apologized for his poor judgment – but this is more than poor judgment; this is just utterly slow-witted. I’m not suprised that Harry’s dad, Prince Charles, is livid and is insisting that Harry visit Auschwitz to understand the gravity of WWII (umm, plus doesn’t Harry understand even his family’s role in WWII – how his grandfather Prince Philip served in the war; that even his grandmother Queen Elizabeth had to put on a uniform; and they had to deal with his misguided German relatives; how his great-grandfather, King George, had to deal with a bombed London, maintain British morale, and stiff-upper lip alongside Winston Churchill against the Nazis? Oh, and yeah, at least 6 million people were exterminated). No wonder a former British government official is debating that maybe Harry shouldn’t be attending Sandhurst, the elite military higher education institution. The older brother William apparently can’t avoid blame either, since he supposedly helped Harry pick this idiotic costume. Neither are children anymore; get some brain cells already.

Interesting article about the guy who invented Cheez Doodles, Morrie Yohai; Newsday’s Sylvia Carter notes:

[Yohai] the snackmeister speaks humbly of having merely “developed” Cheez Doodles. Even he will confess, however, to having thought to call them Doodles.

Yohai includes his business partners, scrupulously using the pronoun “we,” when he tells the Cheez Doodle saga.

Becoming as modesty is, in this case it may be unwarranted. There are perhaps millions of people in the world who consider Cheez Doodles the ideal snack food. People in search of healthful food do not generally gorge themselves on Doodles (well, perhaps in secret they do), but this is one snack that since its debut in the 1950s has always been baked, not fried. An argument could even be made that because the snacks are “puffed,” as the bag says, they consist in large part of air. Therefore, how bad could they be? [….]

Yohai told me that they were discovered, invented, developed or whatever word you choose to use, at the Old London Melba Toast factory in the Bronx, which also made the Cheese Waffie (now called Waffle), popcorn, caramel popcorn and other snacks. “We were looking for another snack item,” he said. “We were fooling around and found out that there was a machine that extruded cornmeal [in a long string] and it almost popped like popcorn.”

Yohai and his partners thought of chopping the stuff into pieces the size of a child’s finger and coating it with cheese. “We wanted to make it as healthy as possible, so it was baked, not fried.”

One day, as they sat around a table tasting different kinds of cheese on the snacks, the name Doodle occurred to him. “They looked more like a doodle,” he said, back when they were thin.

[….]

Wise, which is part of Borden, now manufactures Doodles. Yohai went on to become group vice president in charge of snacks for Borden, which also made Cracker Jack and Drake’s Cakes. His duties included sitting around a conference table with other high-ranking executives and choosing the toys for boxes of Cracker Jack.

After leaving the company, Yohai taught marketing at the New York Institute of Technology and became associate dean of the school of management. “The one thing that would get the students’ attention was Cheez Doodles,” he said.

Cool. Anyway, have a good Friday.

Star Jones is apparently no longer a lawyer, by noting in her tax forms that she is now a tv personality, instead of attorney. Hmm. Has she told her state bar/court administration of that? Is she on a non-practicing basis? Is she allowed to not worry about continuing legal education requirements like the rest of us lawyers? Hmm.

According to Slate.com’s Daniel Gross in “Who needs Harvard?”, having an Ivy League degree does not guarantee that one will become a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and these Fortune 500 companies are recruiting less Ivy Leaguers. Apparently, the Ivy Leaguers of wealthy backgrounds are off to be volunteers, artists, hikers of Asia, and consultants of consulting companies. They would be less likely to be working yuppie stiffs. Uh hmm. Sure.

Last night’s “Amazing Race” – the models were lucky that was not an elimination round. Oh, and the nutty psychologically abusive husband’s wife got bitchy on him. Hmm.

Mid-week…

The other day, my brother and I watched “House of Flying Daggers.” The Zhang Yimou movie has stunning cinematography – just beautiful colors. The cast is beautiful. The story – a little topsy-turvy stuff, but I watch “Alias,” so it’s not like I couldn’t grasp the Flying Daggers plot. The movie’s ending though… well, I don’t think it was Zhang Yimou’s intention, but I kept giggling. As NY Times’ A.O. Scott noted:

[Ziyi] Zhang plays Mei, a blind courtesan who turns out to be a member of the Flying Daggers, a shadowy squad of assassins waging a guerrilla insurgency against the corrupt and decadent government. She is pursued by two government deputies, Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), whose loyalties come into question as the chase turns into a love triangle. Everyone is engaged in several layers of deceit, and some of the third-act revelations are more likely to provoke laughter than gasps of amazement.

[…]

The story inevitably gets lost in this sensory barrage, and it is hard to feel much for the three lovers as they sing their climactic arias of jealousy and betrayal. The final confrontation takes place in the midst of a sudden snowstorm, which envelopes the sun-dappled field that had, a few moments earlier, been a perfect spot for al fresco love-making. And “House of Flying Daggers” itself, for all its fire and beauty, may leave you a bit cold in the end.

Frankly, I totally agreed. I’m not even a big martial arts movie person by any means, but aren’t they supposed to leave you feeling a tad satisfied rather than “huh”? I’ll give Flying Daggers a grade of B.

Anyway, speaking of the NY Times, apparently they’re considering the idea of charging for reading its articles on-line. Aww. Say it ain’t so, NY Times!

I’m pretty caught up on watching the series “House” on FOX – the series wherein British actor Hugh Laurie plays a grouchy American medical doctor, Dr. House of NJ, who solves medical mysteries (the most recent episode – figuring out that the patient has African sleeping sickness, contracting it via sex. whoops; moral: adultery is bad). The medical stuff kind of makes you sick, and the stuff is over the top (like, can a doctor with as poor a bedside manner like House exist?) – but he’s the doctor you’d love to hate – because the way Laurie pulls it off, you can sense the actual sympathetic human being there, despite all that grouchiness and weird behavior. The supporting cast is pretty good too (liked how the background of the woman doctor unfolded slowly – her sad story of being a young widow). Of the new medical series of the season, this one is better than “Medical Investigation” on NBC.

This should be interesting this week – “Star Trek: Enterprise” has a new episode this week! (yep, can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m looking forward to a Star Trek episode again. Ah, the unrepetent Trekkie…)

Have a good week.

And other news, in trying to catch up with the week, there was the passing of Shirley Chisholm, a Brooklyn figure. While her obituary in the NY Times was interesting (noting that her campaign slogan was “unbought and unbossed” to combat the Brooklyn machine at that time; and touching on her Barbadian childhood following her Brooklyn birth) , this other article – where NY Times’ Randal C. Archibold writes of the memory and memorial of someone of significance in her times, in her own borough – and it’s poignant stuff:

Her face stares out from a wall on an elementary school in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, one of the few visible signs that Shirley Chisholm was here, even if she chose not to stay.

Ms. Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first black woman to seek the nomination of a major party for president, some two decades ago left the neighborhood she represented in Congress in a pique. She said she was seeking privacy and had grown tired of detractors who accused of her betraying her radical roots and cozying up with figures varying from George C. Wallace to Edward I. Koch.

“I think she was probably much more respected and controversial in her own time,” said Janet Braun-Reinitz, an artist with the nonprofit group Artmakers who, long before Ms. Chisholm’s death, began helping to organize a large mural in Bedford-Stuyvesant in honor of Ms. Chisholm and other female historical figures. “I think now she is coming back larger than life.”

The artists are working with the newly christened Shirley Chisholm Center for the Study of Women at Brooklyn College, Ms. Chisholm’s alma mater.

But in a sign that Ms. Chisholm’s fame had waned considerably, Barbara Winslow, the coordinator of women’s studies at the college, said that last spring, when she suggested putting Ms. Chisholm’s name on the center as a nod to her lesser-known role as a feminist, few fellow faculty members knew Ms. Chisholm had attended the college.

I liked the video on NY1 on the Chisholm story – the 1960-1980’s pictures of Chisholm really are pieces of those times.

And, while it’s nice that Alberto Gonzales is the first Hispanic nominee to the Attorney General and may become the first Hispanic Attorney General, the senators on the judiciary committee are making it interesting in the meantime. I like that Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was critical, and how, of course, Gonzales would deny approving of torture when asked the leading question of “do you approve of torture?” (as if he would say “Yeah, I think torture works.”). Oh, well.

It looks like the blog has spammers again (maybe – unless these guys are actually being commentators? I can’t tell. I don’t mind commentators, but if they’re just posting to lead us to salvation to debt consolidation or other stupid services, I’d rather they not show up – so note to spammers – go eat spam).

Enjoy Saturday.

— FC, where’s your long-awaited annual recap? Is it going to be posted on the website?

Anyway, some stuff:

An article on tofu in the NY Times by Julia Moskin – fascinating stuff, some of which I never knew or thought about:

But since the opening of En Japanese Brasserie in the West Village in October, New Yorkers have been able to savor tofu that is made throughout the dinner service, coming out of the kitchen every 90 minutes. The fresh tofu is undeniably plain yet addictively cloudlike, drizzled with a delicate, clear soy sauce; the large, soft curds fall apart lightly and melt on your tongue.

“New Yorkers have learned to appreciate so many Japanese specialties, but tofu is still misunderstood, I think,” said Reika Yo, an owner. “It is not a substitute for meat, but has its own stature.” [….]

Megu in TriBeCa imports tofu made by Kawashima, an artisan in Karatsu whose product is famous throughout Japan; it costs $15 a serving. But a dollar on Mott Street will buy you a container of still-warm, custardy tofu doused in sugar syrup, to eat on the street as a snack or dessert. And at the new location of Spicy and Tasty in Flushing, Queens, you can order a plate of “stinky tofu,” a long-fermented Taiwanese specialty that is to plain tofu as Roquefort is to Velveeta.

Tofu, in fact, is made in almost exactly the same way as cheese, but with puréed sweet soybeans instead of cow, sheep or goat milk as its raw material. Because of its ability to produce so many different forms of nourishment, the soybean has long been called “the cow of China,” and tofu was first developed there by Buddhist monks, about 2,000 years ago. The process begins with dried yellow soybeans, called daizu; the fresh, green, immature pods of the same bean are what we know as edamame. [….]

Grace Young, a Chinese-American food writer, says that tofu is one of the most highly honored foods in Chinese culture because of its very plainness.

“Ingredients with texture but not taste are revered in China, and except for tofu, they are the most expensive ones you can buy there — like birds’ nests, shark’s fin and silver tree fungus.” Chinese names for tofu that indicate its high status translate as “meat without bones” and “meat from the fields.”

In Korea and China tofu is often served not as a substitute for meat, but alongside it, with a small amount of meat flavoring enriching the silken tofu, which adds its incomparable body and mouth feel. One such dish, ma-po tofu, from Chengdu, has become one of the most popular Sichuanese dishes in China and in the various Chinatowns of New York, said Ms. Young, whose most recent book is “The Breath of a Wok” (Simon & Schuster).

“It’s often translated as home-style tofu, because it has this rather unusual name, meaning pox-scarred grandmother’s tofu,” she said. “Tofu is a yang” — cool — “food in the Chinese way of thinking, so having it with meat and garlic and chilies, which are all yin” — warm — “makes it a good dish to the Chinese cook.” [….]

Really educational stuff.

“Annie” comic strip has been interesting lately. Annie’s reunited with Daddy Warbucks and Amelia Santiago, and they get mired in this odd storyline where this guy is trying to evict a bunch of singing ranchers from their ranch because he’s convinced that he’s a Queen of the Lizards to bring the Martians to Earth. Umm. Ok, it’s so weird it has actually been the best “Annie” in a long while since these new writer and artist worked on the comic strip. Still waiting for the missing old favorite characters acting like their amusing selves…

Channel 4, WNBC, is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the pairing of the longtime newsanchors Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons. As Daily News notes, they’ve lasted longer than most marriages (even – unfortunately for Hollywood watchers – Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston). Crazy, kooky pair (well, half the time Sue’s the crazy one, but Chuck needs the levity and they ultimately balance each other out). Channel 4’s website has a link to some old pictures from back in the day for those two. Such a rarity with the current state of tv anchors splitting up or dropped or traded to different channels (so it goes with NYC’s competitive local news). Heck, kudos to NBC for bothering to celebrate (the network that get so sentimental; they milk every anniversary and farewell, sure, but that’s a nice thing, really – I like that warmth on NBC when it shows up). Happy Anniversary, Chuck and Sue!

Have a good weekend!

It’s Thursday, which is one day away from Friday…

Amidst all the stories of tragedy, gloom, doom, and accusations of stinginess (although the media’s hype of massive generosity seems to belie the accusation of Scrooge behavior) regarding the South Asian tsunami, a Jan. 4 article – NY Times’ David Rhode’s writing on the hopes of humanity’s better nature:

The Tidal Wave Task Force headquarters here is not much to look at, but what is happening inside is extraordinary.

Inside a crumbling, bullet-riddled building in rebel territory in northern Sri Lanka, low-level representatives of the country’s government and Tamil Tigers rebels – mortal enemies in a brutal civil war – are sitting together and planning the distribution of relief aid to tsunami victims. [….]

In a reaction reminiscent of the sense of unity that spread across the United States following the September 2001 terrorist attacks, large numbers of Sri Lankans appear to be spontaneously reaching across the country’s festering ethnic divides and delivering donated food and aid to rival ethnic groups.

“We see people strongly affected by it,” said a senior Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They think about the possibility of working together and the necessity to do so.”

[….]

An array of political and religious leaders has called for national unity since the disaster. In impromptu scenes witnessed over the past five days, Sri Lankans of various backgrounds delivered aid to one another or proudly told stories of food being delivered by one group to another.

While it was impossible to gauge the actual breadth of the sentiment, a new passion for unity has been heard repeatedly in interviews. Asked why he had just delivered a truckload of food to a group of ethnic Tamil refugees on Sri Lanka’s east coast last week, Thavamani, a 48-year-old ethnic Sinhalese businessmen who uses only the one name, said it was his response to the disaster.

“Because of the incidents, we have to get together,” he said. “We have to get together.”

In the mountain town of Teldeniya in central Sri Lanka, Jayasingha, a 32-year-old businessman, was one of hundreds of people who attended a ceremony at a Buddhist temple where monks lit 15,000 oil lamps in remembrance of the dead. Sinhalese, who make up about 75 percent of the population, are generally Buddhists. Tamils, who make up roughly 18 percent of the population, are generally Hindus.

Gently cradling his 11-month-old daughter in his arms, Mr. Jayasingha, a Sinhalese, said the nation’s response to the crisis has shown that Sri Lankans can work cooperatively.

“Muslims, Sinhalese, Tamils, they are working together everywhere with this problem,” he said. “I’m hoping in the future it will be like that.”

Sounds beautiful, if it can happen.

Slate.com’s latest “Jurisprudence” column, by Stanford Law prof Richard Thompson Ford, argues that the liberals ought to embrace federalism. Arguably, he has a point – as much as the left of center folks recoil at the idea of states’ rights, there’s nothing inherently “conservative” about federalism. It always irritated me whenever the conservative types wave their so-called federalism flag, since I always thought that there was more to federalism than “conservative” or “liberal” labels. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but federalism was more than just “states’ rights” – it was the Founding Fathers’ idea of balancing the states and the central (federal) government and included checks and balances of the federal government itself (the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches annoying the heck out of each other with various maneuvers). I mean, those Founding Fathers weren’t idiots or just Dead White Guys – they were trying to make an unprecedented government that functioned somehow for more than 200 years…

(ok, it’s too obvious that I spent my undergraduate years studying the history of the Founding Fathers, isn’t it? Rah-rah for the history majors; or else maybe the poli-sci folks can challenge that.).

Ok, I’m going to have to make a second viewing of the season premiere of “Alias” (I taped it, of course, even though I was watching it). (plus, it’s crazy to put it on Wednesday night – not to say that I don’t prefer this time slot, but it’s up against a lately-more-interesting “West Wing” and I will feel really torn once “Jack and Bobby” is back on Wednesday nights at 9pm from its midseason hiatus – how will I choose between watching the presidential tv shows and the spy show? hmm)…

Anyway, it’s the usual crazy Secret Agent Sidney stuff (What in the world did her father do this time to earn her distrust and angst? — and once it’s revealed, one is left thinking, “Oh, Jack – there has to be more than this, as usual!”; Sloane is still evil, no matter what he does or says; and, with much echoes to the series’ season 1 premiere – like the scene where Jack Bristow saves his daughter Sidney, even though she doesn’t feel the love for him, just like in the series premiere – and some season 1 plot development again – since Sidney is essentially lying to her friend(s) about what she’s doing as far as the Profession is concerned)… Head spinning stuff.

Slate.com – cool slide essay on Isamu Noguchi.

I don’t know why NY Daily News didn’t have this article posted on their website, but I liked it – in Wednesday’s Daily News, Dick Weiss wrote a profile on University of Southern California’s offensive coordinator Norm Chow (USC Trojans won the Orange Bowl Tuesday night) – Head Coach Pete Carroll gave much of the credit to Chow, who apparently had some great plays and inspires quarterbacks. A Chinese-Hawaiian Mormon, he played college football and Canadian Football League; he’s a Brigham Young University Phd., and had been their college football team’s offensive coordinator (mentoring former NFL quarterback Steve Young back in the day). While Chow’s quoted to be interested in being a head coach someday (cool, an APA head coach, if it can happen), Chow’s proud to support the Trojan dynasty (can we call it a dynasty? I don’t know college football enough to say anything). Here’s the profile from USC.

According to Wednesday’s Daily News, Channel 9 (WWOR) will be the free tv station for Yankees games. The NYC area is now living in an age where Channel 11 (WPIX), the station that used to air Yankees games and Phil Rizzuto’s Holy Cow, is showing Mets games – and starting this upcoming baseball season, Channel 9, the ex-Mets station (36 years of the Mets’ era; plus those Kiner’s Korners, where Ralph Kiner interviewed people), will have the Yanks. It’s like Channel 11 and Channel 9 traded places (well, some five years after the fact anyway). And, there is something so wrong about this. (well, that’s just me, I guess).

Did I mention that I had finished reading “Sense and Sensibility” (Jane Austen) last week? Dry humor – funny; ending was a little odd to me; but all right read. I think I preferred “Pride and Prejudice” as far as a novel, although I really liked the humor of “Sense and Sensibility.”

Thursday’s coming…

The passing of Representative Robert Matsui (D-Ca.).

What is the glory age of NYC, if there was any? Interesting set of proposals by various famous NY’ers in the NY Times.

Virginia Heffernan of the NY Times comments on Regis Philbin as the Dick Clark substitute, and the work of other MC’s of the New Year’s Eve night. Personally, I thought Regis did ok, but sub par for him (and the on-the-street “reporters” helping him were annoying). I missed Dick Clark like anyone else, but at one point, the taped tributes to Dick Clark were annoying too and the music on the show seemed a little… well, dated (Earth, Wind, and Fire? Rod Stewart?). I caught a bit of the Carson Daly NBC New Year’s bash (thanks to my brother’s videotaping stuff or was it NBC’s considerate post-midnight Carson Daly broadcast? I forget now) – thought that Carson Daly was slightly better than Regis, in so far as he had better, more up-to-date musical acts (Heffernan thought he seemed desperate to make Rockefeller Center the Times Square New Year’s rival). (and, ok, so I’m not a big Rod Stewart fan; at least, not a Rod Stewart who’s singing 1950’s standards music – he just doesn’t have the voice for me).

Interesting NY Times article by Kate Arthur about the Zoloft commercials – the ads with the fuzzy blob that suffers from depression but then bounces happily when the chemical imbalance is corrected:

PEOPLE who suffer from panic, feelings of isolation or social phobias would be the first to admit that those conditions bring out their least adorable selves. Certainly they do not bring out the sort of images well suited to a chirpy 30-second advertisement. Facing these long odds, the antidepressant Zoloft’s campaign of four commercials – each featuring an animated blob that goes from shaky and isolated to healed and happy over the course of the advertisement – achieves the implausible. It makes the struggle for stability downright cute.

Two commercials are in regular rotation. In one, the simply drawn blob is in a dark cave. It sighs and groans, and its body, which consists entirely of a face, wears a downcast expression. “You know when the world seems like a sad and lonely place?” a narrator asks. This blob does, because it is suffering from depression. Led by an orange butterfly – is that you, Zoloft? – it emerges from the cave and joins two other blobs. Its mouth turns into a smile, and it bounces playfully after the butterfly.

The other commercial, geared to those with social anxiety disorder, takes the opposite approach. The blob is at a party, pink with embarrassment as it watches a conga line of other blobs. As Latin music plays, it sweats, hyperventilates and backs away from the dancing, party-hat-wearing revelers. There’s no butterfly here, but the Zoloft kicks in anyway: the blob begins socializing, de-pinks and bounces.

Zoloft’s blob advertisements began running in May 2001. They are directed and illustrated by Pat Smith, an animator whose résumé includes directing the former MTV cartoon show “Daria.” The popularity of the commercials can be measured not only in their longevity, but also in the volume of online commentary the blob has inspired. On one message board, participants discuss how sweet-looking the blob is and express a desire for a stuffed animal version.

Sweet-looking, medication-dependent blob. Umm, yeah, I’ve been uncomfortable by the commercials for those reasons.

And, so on and so forth. Have a good return to work-week…