Didn't I Just See You?

It's always weird when you see the same commercial actors repeatedly. On the one hand, it must be nice for those guys to be able to get consistent work as an actor. On the other, they obviously want to be professional actors, so you assume they have some formal training at it and they'd much rather be doing serious theatre work (or at least popping up as a dead body on Law & Order) instead of a series of commercials for a bank. Also, I would guess there is a certain amount of scorn from other actors when you are strictly a commercial actor. Otherwise, people like Brad Pitt and George Clooney wouldn't film commercials in foreign countries with the tight restrictions that they never run within the USA. Then again, those guys are established stars and clearly don't need the money, so they look worse than some young up-and-coming actor because they were just simply bought by the highest bidder like a piece of furniture. You can forgive a person looking for their first big break when they do something strictly for the money; it's harder to overlook the stars of the Ocean movies suddenly appearing as if they need the money when you know it's going towards a second Italian villa.

It has to be a tricky situation for a young actor, because they can't afford to turn down work, but the first impression they make is usually the ones that stick with the population. For example, it didn't matter what kind of comedic work he did afterwards on My Name Is Earl, Eddie Steeples will forever be the rubberband guy from the OfficeMax commercials. With that in mind, I bet it would suck to have to go through life being known as the guy who can't get on a airplane because he has an overactive bladder. It's even stranger when you see the same actor in commercials for two different products. Because I watch a lot of golf, I see a lot of commercials for banks. There is one series of ads where a man is basically acting like a bank and puts several restrictions on a group of kids, with the premise of the ads being that 'even kids know when something is wrong, so why doesn't your bank'? Only two commercials later when you see that same actor in a commercial for Home Depot and you can't help but think, "I'm glad you were suckered into buying crappy paint, because you were just being mean to children a minute ago."

-I find it very funny when someone is perfectly content to let something that others would view as a problem linger just to help their situation, but then the second it becomes a detriment it must be fixed immediately. Last night the Tampa Bay Rays were in a tight game with the Minnesota Twins when the Twins batter hit a high fly ball over the infield, at which point it hit one of the catwalks that run over Tropicana Field. Those have long ago been ruled in play and you have to play the ball off them. The ball took a weird carom, dropped in and the Rays lost the game. After the game Rays' manager Joe Madden said that is a prime example of why they need a new stadium in Tampa. First off, I can think of at least three instances in games against the Red Sox in which a similar carom helped the Rays and no one said anything at the time. It costs them one game and suddenly it must be remedied immediately. Secondly, everyone said thirteen years ago when the stadium opened that these catwalks were going to be a problem and Rays management was too cheap to fix it. The builders said a baseball could never get that high, but there have now been over a hundred balls that have hit the catwalks. This is just one of those aspects that prevented people from looking at the Rays as a serious franchise for years. That being said, I agree with Madden they should get a new stadium in Tampa - the Trop was a terrible stadium on the day it opened.