Chuck went out on the water and got circled by sharks, so the next day he goes out on the water with a camera... Come to find sharks come back, one of which is a 9 foot Great White. Add this to the list of things I wouldn't do.



Via @Dens who added, "I hate sharks so much!" Me too, dude. Me too.

In a story reminiscent of the 'MetaFilter thread prevents human trafficking case' story from May, a Reddit user discovers bullying at a NJ college and alerts the internet. The internet goes ahead and starts to make things right. Way to go, internet, way to go.

Via The Daily What.

Just expanding on a link I put on Kottke last week. If sugary drinks were more expensive, less people would drink them. If less people drink sugary drinks, less people will be obese.

A tax-induced 20-percent price increase on caloric sweetened beverages could cause an average reduction of 37 calories per day, or 3.8 pounds of body weight over a year, for adults and an average of 43 calories per day, or 4.5 pounds over a year, for children. Given these reductions in calorie consumption, results show an estimated decline in adult overweight prevalence (66.9 to 62.4 percent) and obesity prevalence (33.4 to 30.4 percent), as well as the child at-risk-for-overweight prevalence (32.3 to 27.0 percent) and the overweight prevalence (16.6 to 13.7 percent).

Every week, I write a recap of Mad Men, and Chris Piascik illustrates something from the episode. Here's week 3.

I guess we need to start expecting weekly lines of dialogue like, "Is that what you want? Or is that what people expect of you" show up in the episodes. That is the theme of Mad Men, struggling to live within the expectations people have for you. Right now, Don is living it up right on the edge. Should we start 1965, everyone?
-Oh, look, there's Joan's creepy doctor. She's wrestling with the expectation that she start a family. I don't get the sense that she really wants to, but she does seem to want to fulfill expectations. 2 procedures, hmm? "Whatever will be, will be" is not usually how it goes on Mad Men. We're talking about people who need control.
-Harry Crane looks a lot better this week. Not sure what his appearance was supposed to convey in week 1. I couldn't put my finger on something about him since the middle of last year, but the character plays with a subtle confidence. He's not arrogant, but he also doesn't let Draper and the others push him around. He takes the abuse, but he doesn't seem so neurotic anymore.
-Guess Don IS going to Acapulco, but first a quick stop in LA. He's going away, running away, but stopping at the one place he feels at home, Anne Draper's house. His familiarity with Anne's sister and niece lead us to believe he's spent a lot more time out in LA than we knew before. That wasn't the 2nd time he'd met them, or even the 3rd.
-After Lane wishes Don a Happy New Year, Don says "Enjoy your family". Kind of a weird thing to say, but in retrospect, it foreshadows trouble.
-"Consider me the incorruptible exception". The Lane/Joan plot-line was fun, starting with this quotation leading to an epic florist screw up. Too bad Lane couldn't FaceTime with his wife to smooth things over.
-More on Don in LA. "Are you sitting in?" Don's conservativeness seems to be less about a personal belief structure, and more about a fear of change. Going to have to think on that one some more.
-"You're in charge. Trust me, I work in advertising." Indeed.
-Jan and Dean is who brought you Stephanie's bathroom break.
-"Have you been there?" "No, but every time I hear this song, I want to go." Don's always wants to go. Somewhere. He likes the idea of the place, any place, but can't figure out where it is.
-Oh, so it's Breyer's time in the fake Mad Men commercial world. This makes me want to buy your product less. Just know that, Breyer's.
-Don making a move on Stephanie was something of a plot device to show us he's still a cad. It was telegraphed as soon as she walked into the house in a bikini top. It's meant to contrast his not caring about anything with his caring for Anne.
-"But no one knows what's wrong with themselves and everyone else can see it right away." It's all so obvious that everyone is unhappy, but if we all ignore it, it'll be fine. Anne doesn't know she has cancer, but everyone else can see there's something wrong. Don doesn't know he's in a downward spiral, but everyone else can see it.
-Anne's sister sets Don straight. "You're just a man, in a room, with a checkbook." This is what Don has been in his family's life for a long, long time, and I think hearing it was something of a shock. He sat Anne down to tell her she had cancer and then did the right thing by not. This is another interesting contrast because Don runs away from this problem, too. In this case, however, he did what was best for Anne and her family at the expense of the thing that would have made him feel better (commiserating with Anne).
-No idea what the discussions of UFOs means, though it did bring out the conversation about how thin reality is.
-Just noticed this Helvetica poster in the break room at SCDP.
-Is Joan a cutter? She certainly seemed to purposely cut herself to get attention of the doc. It worked for the time being.
-"Although things are precarious financially, it's been a magnificent year." SCDP really has done well in the last year to go from the hotel to 2 floors at the Time Life Building. It is part of the thin reality mentioned earlier. Don and Lane are having terrible years!
-When they go to the movies, they have a courtesy seat between them. Guess that's not new. In fact, almost everything about Don and Lane on the town was funny, including Lane's outburst in the restaurant. "Is that what you want? Or is that what people expect of you."
-Did the comedian introduce Paul Simon or Rudy Jensen?
-This episode didn't seem to move time along as fast as some of the other episodes, and I think that contributed to it seeming a bit slow. What'd you think?

My friend, Chris Piascik, and I thought we'd do something different for this season of Mad Men. We meant to start last week, but forgot. In any case, every episode this season will have a recap from me and a daily drawing from Chris. If you're looking a this and there's no daily drawing, it'll be here shortly. Hope you enjoy!

Christmas, 1964. 2 new characters (Phoebe, the nurse neighbor, and Dr. Faye Miller, the product marketing scientist) and 2 old characters (Sketchy Glenn and Ready Freddie Rumsen). Tonight's episode seemed, more than other episodes, to contrast old fashionedness with the new way of doing things. I can't remember men typing before (except for maybe Roger at one point), and tonight we had Don (who is quite adept at the typing, he's no hunt and peckerer) and Freddie tapping away. Peggy also had a typewriter at home, which seemed to be in the middle of the scene. There's also Freddie's old fashioned thoughts on how to market to women contrasting with SCDP's hiring of a market research firm, Motivational Research Group.
-It's weird the Christmas episode airs in August. Subtle how Don gets Bobby a drum set for Christmas. That'll make Betty very happy. I imagine she'll never let him play it.
-"Suffice to say, we're in a fraternity together." Freddie is back and he's in AA. Did a pretty good job staying clean this episode.
-It was pretty clear that something is going to happen between Faye Miller and Don just based on the first scene, they were eying each other pretty heavily. However, it wouldn't surprise me if it's a couple episodes before she pops up again. "I'm disappointed, I thought you came in to flirt, but you came in to fight." During their last scene, Faye also expressed her advertising philosophy: "It all comes down to what I want versus what's expected of me." This calls to mind Don's explanation from season 1, "Advertising is based on 1 thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? It’s the smell of a new car, it’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard, on the side of the road, that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is OK. You are OK."
-Another contrast in this episode was Lee Garner's overt sense of entitlement compared to Don's less explicit. Lee acts like spoiled child, petulant and needy, forcing SCDP to re-plan their Christmas party. "I trust you'll make the necessary improvements." He genuinely seems pleased with his gift. "Reminds me of when I was a kid. Remember that? You ask for something and then you get it? Makes you happy." Don gets what he wants, but does it a little quieter. Having Allison bring his keys to him is one thing, making a move on her, and Phoebe to boot, show Don as a cad, taking what he wants. At least Lee Garner is paying a lot of money for SCDP to tolerate his boorish behavior. "Put it on, Roger. Put it on."
-Sally Draper really does seem happy that Sketchy Glenn trashed her house as a way of showing his love. I don't know what's going on here. "Don't turn on the lights, shithead."
-So, er, Don's going to Acapulco by himself?
-Last week, Don mentioned his floor wax commercial was supposed to make viewers feel like it was a part of the show they were watching. Dove did that on this week's episode of Mad Men, and I'm a little surprised Mad Men went for it. More gimmicky then I expect from them.
-At the Christmas party, Bert Cooper and the market research dude are railing against socialism and Obamacare. Good times! "If they pass Medicare, they won't stop until they ban personal property."
-Pete and Trudy in the front of the Conga line. They love to shake it.
-Peggy almost certainly doesn't think her boyfriend is marriage material, otherwise she wouldn't have slept with him.
-Which leaves us with Don and Allison. I suppose it was bound to happen at some point, Don sleeping with someone from work, but he'd always been so careful before. We know he likes being taken care of. After last episode's prostitution scene, I was concerned Don would give Allison her Christmas bonus after giving her a Christmas bonus (wink, wink), he did the next worst thing and gave it to her the next morning. "I just wanted to say thank you for bringing my keys."
-What else?