I wrote the IKEA Midnight Madness radio ad

For IKEA Midnight Madness, I wrote a script involving Jonas (the IKEA voice) being Auto-Tuned. Since I had to write so many scripts before getting one approved by the Group Creative Director and then by IKEA, I'm pretty tapped out of witty writing. So I'll just paste in what the sound house director, Andrew Bradley, posted on his blog: "I had the opportunity to direct another IKEA radio spot recently. Josh Rachlis wrote a fun script involving Jonas (the IKEA voice) being Auto-Tuned. I think Jonas had a great time doing it and let’s be honest, the only time we’d want to hear him sing is if it was electronically assisted like this. Comedy he can do. Singing, not so much."

TITLE: Auto-Tuned

CLIENT: IKEA

AGENCY: Leo Burnett Toronto

CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Morgan Kurchak

COPYWRITER: Josh Rachlis

DIRECTOR: Andrew Bradley, RMW

ENGINEER: Kyle Gudmundson, RMW

Thanks to VoiceTrax West, L.A. for patching us in to Jonas.

On November 30th, 2012, we recorded at RMW Music. There's me in the studio, with the producer drinking coffee, and the IKEA announcer woman in the booth. I can't remember her name, but she's got a nice voice.

Kevin Braithwaite played the DJ. While we recording, I half-jokingly and fully-racistly asked him: "You're black. What's some street hip hop language?" He was like, "I dunno, man. I like rock." So basically, we're both about the same level of blackness. Which, as you can tell from my attempt at an urban pose here, is not very black.

Christmas gifts that stress me out

I'm cleaning my desk at work and it just occurred to me that some of the Christmas gifts I got are stressing me out. Am I a jerk, or am I right in thinking that gifts shouldn't confuse me and/or make me do work?

I explored Nuit Blanche 2012

On October 5th, my friend Anat Cohen was in town from Ottawa and wanted to do something fun. So I decided to take her out to Nuit Blanche, Toronto's annual all-night, city-wide, contemporary art event that was happening that night. Unfortunately, even though I like to draw and got 100% on a Grade 12 Art exam (still my greatest accomplishment), I don't really understand art. So Anat was taken along for the ride as I tried to figure things out.