Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Good grief, part 2...

Anybody else yet receive the OAM 2008 calendar? And does anybody else NOT want a pinup calendar of the class of 2009? These calendars have become progressively crappy over the past 5 years....BACK IN MY DAY, when we had dialup modems and we had zoobooks, not FAcebook, the calendars had pictures of buildings. And we liked it, dammit!

16 comments:

Stacey Pelika said...

I had the same reaction! I mean, OAM students look like OAM students - we don't need a calendar for that. I want pretty shots of the [OAM Quad] and other nostalgic crap.

David J said...

The unspoken rule at [educational institution that employs me] is that alumni don't want to look at photos of current students because (a) once you've seen the kid, that's great, but you don't want to see him looking at you for a month, and (b) looking at current students makes alumni feel old, whereas looking at buildings makes them feel a part of something permanent.

Which is all my way of saying that while some of the photos themselves were nice from a technical standpoint, the calendar itself sucks.

And I could write an entire dissertation on how much I hated the hot tub photo. WTF.

Anonymous said...

I agree. I want pictures of the libe on a snowy winter day, [Last Name] Lakes at dusk, [Last Name] Hall where I had all my English classes... PLACES! BUILDINGS! What do I care about the class of '09? (My least favorite is the swimmer in the shower; I'm so glad she informs us that she doesn't usually "stand that way" in the shower.)

J-Vo said...

I thought it couldn't get any worse after the year of pictures of doorknobs, but this takes the cake.

Imagine hanging it in your office and having to explain why you have a calendar of a demure young coed dressed in nothing but a towel, flirting with some strapping young man in the hallway. Or the prison shower-scene-esque synchro swimmer.

towwas said...

Oh, god, totally. I've only looked at the cover but...pictures of people I don't know? I always have mine as the office calendar, but maybe not this year. Dahvay, the people at MBAM have it right. (MBAM...get it? get it?)

David J said...

Yeah, I thought the girl-in-towel-in-[name of much loathed and despised dorm]-hallway photo was completely stupid. There were plenty of things I did at OAM that were "so [OAM]," but I would have cringed if someone had suggested documenting them and then making a calendar out of the images. Imagine explaining that one to your parents...or imagine being the parents and explaining that one to your friends.

"Hey, our daughter is in her college's calendar!"
"Oh, really, what does the photo look like?"
"She's, uh....well, she's wearing only a towel--oh, it's not like that, Mabel!--and she's standing in her dorm's hallway talking to a young man. I'm sure they're talking about a class assignment, yes."

J-Vo said...

But it's so tastefully done! It's in black and white! Therefore it's artsy!

T-Vo agrees re: the utter lameness and overall suckitude of the calendar, and he didn't even go there.

G-d free calendar. Guess we really got what we paid for this year!!

grrrbear said...

I haven't even seen it yet. Either that, or I did see it and my reflex reaction was to throw it out because of it's overwhelming suckiness.

In fact, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that is what actually happened. Which makes me sad too, because I really *loved* the calendars that came out the first year or two.

The moral of the story is we should all write letters telling the alumni relations to take the production of the catalog pictures out of the hands of current students. Dammit - it's not meant to be a yearbook.

Anonymous said...

So I read the front matter today, and flipped through it again. OAM commissioned these photos?? I had assumed it was student photogs. Also, I think I'm ready for a new president of OAM. Fishing and running... again! Enough already.

J-Vo said...

Jesus H, are you kidding me? Maybe it was like, "here's a dollar. go take crappy pictures for our calendar." Or, "here's a disposable camera. Go nuts."

David J said...

While we're at it, how about that truly stupid cover shot on the [name of Alumni magazine] a few issues back that showed that chick dressed as a tiger (?) backstage at some dance performance with the words "Meee-ow!" as the text? Sheesh, Mrs. David J is STILL making fun of me for that one.

J-Vo said...

Was there even an article that corresponded to the picture? I think that it was a "stand-alone" shot, as I recall...and it certainly stood alone. And not in a good way.

grrrbear said...

Maybe they did "Cats" for the [passed away student name] memorial musical?

J.Po said...

Mine calendar is still in its protective wrapping. I think it will stay there.

Anonymous said...

Maybe next year's calendar will feature extreme closeups of OAM students' eyes, as if they were characters in Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns. That'd be artistic!

J-Vo said...

If they were going to feature a body part, I bet it would be the hands. That way, they could highlight all the different ways our multi-skin-toned-students, alums, and faculty "lend a helping hand" to the community.

And then I would puke.