Happy Easter!!!

It's Easter and that means I have an excellent excuse to spend a whole day in the kitchen.

Today's menu:

4 Berry Pie -- homemade, I can't disclose my secrets... pie is my backup career (seriously)

Roast loin of pork crusted in salt, pepper, garlic and rosemary ala Tedward

Gravy from the pork's onion bed

Garlic mashed potatoes courtesy of Zeny and Co

Salad courtesy of Zeny and Co

Homemade Lemonade from French Food at Home--Cooking Channel

AND these tasty lil apps: Dijon Prosciutto Asparagus Wraps (needs a shorter name!)

Here's how to make them:

Ingredients:

1. Dijon mustard
2. Pillsbury Crescent "Big and Flaky" Rolls
3. Prosciutto (10 slices)
4. Asparagus (20 pieces)

How to make pieces of heaven:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree.
2. Roll out crescent shapes one at a time.
3. Spread a thin to medium layer of dijon mustard on the crescent.

4. Now apply a piece of prosciutto (rip the meat so that it doesn't go "outside the lines" of the piece of dough.

5. Cut two asparagus in half and add to the thicker end of the crescent + prosciutto piece. Roll from the thinker end to the skinny end . Wrap extra dough around where necessary. (Some meat and asparagus will be visible.)

6. Assemble and line up on baking sheet. Cook at the temperature the crescent roll package suggests. (Mine cooked in 12 minutes at 350 degrees).

Take them out of the oven and enjoy!

And after much anticipation, the pie was a success too!

TV Getting Social

You’re in luck, TV networks; people are starting to tune in when you air your shows again.

Thanks to the “duel-screen” concept of watching a TV show and being online at the same time (via computer, tablet or phone), television shows are roping in viewers at air-time once again.

While DVRing and not living life according to the TV Guide is tempting, being able to interact and broadcast his/her TV commentary to the peanut gallery seems to be a little more tempting to US viewers. In fact, 86% of U.S. mobile internet users watch TV with their mobile devices, with 40% of them using the devices for social networking. And, 60% of those surveyed by Nielsen said they simultaneously surf the web while watching TV.

People love interaction —which is why when shows interact with us, we respond. Characters on shows like “Khloe and Lamar” on E! live tweet during programming and respond to fans’ comments, allowing viewers unmatched access to the idolized reality stars. When Comedy Central aired its roast of Donald Trump with the hashtag #TrumpRoast, the cable network saw its highest-rated Tuesday night ever. And it’s no coincidence that the most-viewed TV event in history, this year’s Super Bowl XLV, also broke a sports event record on Twitter with more than 4,000 tweets per second at the end of the game.

While people are watching shows when networks intend them to, they aren’t necessarily tuning into commercials still. This week, NBC launched NBC Live; thisfree online app is a hub of real-time content (polls, trivia, character quotes, etc.) for fans of the shows: “The Office,” “The Celebrity Apprentice,” “The Biggest Loser” and “The Voice.” The shows themselves are adding online content and becoming our commercial entertainment —catching their audience where they already are. Brands in commercials are beginning to compete with social media, not the fast-forward button.

Duel-screen TV watching is redefining fan bases for programming, making it prime time for marketers to tune in and tighten their social media/television brand strategies.

Originally posted here: http://fwd.mbooth.com/post/4757175578/tv-getting-social.

New Job - New Fun

I have a new job!!! While there are many things I love about it... the collaboration across departments and the work-hard-play-hard mantra are the best. Every Friday, one practice group hosts "Beer Friday." Each week is as themed as you can really get with only $75.00 and the need to supply 86 people with beers. This week's theme made me smile... and, well, hit home: " California Girls." On behalf of two new California girls, who are new hires, we received this viral invite today at 4:30:

More on the actual job later...

Ironic

Introducing the new way to say "break a leg":From http://www.thinkmule.com/.

Twitter Street Cred

Sometimes you've just got to toot your own horn...

I woke up today to this tweet today:

Naturally, I wondered how The # grassroots Daily was brought to twitterville "via" me, @Gabsrielle. This newsletter is crowdsourced from across the web to show stories of grassroots movements, trends, etc. Yesterday, I tweeted:

Somehow, one of my 506 twitter followers passed this info on so that I would be one of 37 sources featured in this newsletter. Pretty cool -- I feel like a mini celeb, and like I'm actually gaining some industry street cred :)

Check it out:

See my little face? When you hover over it, you can see my tweet!

April Fools

I didn't realize it was April Fools day today (...although I should have gotten the hint when I woke up in Spring to snow and sleet...) until I signed onto LinkedIn and saw these suggestions for people I might know:

When I was younger, having not noticed this national spoof holiday would have been a blessing... it would have meant that I hadn't been tested or put in a situation of pure embarrassment just yet. Instead, I was just flat out bummed that the most April Foolsy thing that had crossed my path was this lame suggestion to connect with Ernest Hemingway.

Luckily, my morning scaling of industry news, provided me with some entertainment to satisfy my April Fools' tooth. Here are some faves...

1. When you search Google for the font "Helvetica" today (why is anyone Googling Helvetica in the first place?), you'll get your results in Comic Sans (not funny in a HAHA way, more like in a "it hurts to watch" sort of way):

2. Ikea announced a new product to add to its vast Swedish meatball portfolio -- for pets! Why they haven't actually tapped this market is beyond me. I think this spoof product would actually sell if they stamped a yellow sticker on it and gave it a name like "hund stol":

3. More points for Google -- this blog hosts four videos of all of their brilliant AF pranks including Google Motion, Autocomplete, Chromercize, and YouTube's 100th birthday tribute (think about it -- this isn't possibly considering Al Gore invented the internet and he's hardly over 50 yrs). Seriously, what do the staffers at Google DO all day?!

One #fail for Google today is their logo -- no ideas to make this fun today Googlers?

4. The Metro is solving world hunger and feeding all commuters one day at a time... introducing false CSR from @Metro: Edible Newspapers:

5. Scratch and Sniff iPad App from Caffe Nero and iGIZMO -- I wish I was around to see all the people who tried to sniff the pixels! OR, I wish there was a pic of one commuter eating his freebie paper next to a woman sniffing her morning coffee!

6. AA found a way to brand the world by filling one pot hole at a time... we wish this were true:

7. The one that is so TRUE it could be real (more so than Ikea!) is Groupon for Hipsters: http://deals4hipsters.com/

*And this one isn't good at all, but I have to give the alumni shout out... nice try BU, next time ask the grownups for help:

I'm still holding out for one of my coworkers/roommates to WOW me... it's still early/a girl can dream.

...And we're all still hoping the GoDaddy CEO was at least attempting and AF joke when he shot an elephant and then publicized it in a produced video. I'd love to have a chat with his publicity team and hear about the logic there...

***UPDATE***

This is the BEST thing I saw yesterday from Pixar: