I'm a Top 10 finalist for ad industry's most creative Canadian

 Okay, so Marketing Magazine is having their 2nd Annual Great Canadian Creative Faceoff. And after reviewing all of their submissions, the judging committee has chosen yours truly as one of the Top 10 finalists. It's a contest to find the most creative person who works in the ad industry, based on their activities when not at work. A cursory perusal of this blog will show you that I engage in a number of creative activities when I'm not at work. Whether I'm any good at them is a whole other matter, to be discussed at another time, preferably over tequila. But right now, we're talking about this contest. Here's how it's officially described:

This is a search for the cream of Canada's creative crop, from across all sectors of our industry-agency, marketer, media, PR. Based on all the nominations received, the top 10 will be selected by Marketing's writers and editors, then posted and profiled on creativefaceoff.ca. From there we turn it over to the audience. We'll be asking you to vote for your favourite. Based on the voting results, the list will be narrowed to 5 semi-finalists. Then, we'll ask for a vote again. A second round of voting will take the Top 5 to Top 3, and the final voting will determine the winner of the 2010 Great Canadian Faceoff, revealed at the 2010 Media Innovation Awards on November 18.

Blah, blah, blah. The point is, go to www.creativefaceoff.ca and vote for me. Under my picture you can click on the link to vote via Twitter. But also, if you scroll down past the faces (which you have to do if you have a teeny laptop like moi), that's where you can select my name to give a non-Twitter vote as well. I hate asking people to go to websites to vote for me. But, well, I guess it's just the curse of being so fabulous that I get shortlisted for so many things. Also, since only half of Toronto actually went out and voted for Mayor, here's the other half's chance to redeem themselves and vote for something. Just don't vote for Rob Ford in this contest, for god's sake. It's going to start going to his head.

I drew a beaver in a bathtub for a soap company

As you know if you've seen me picking up litter or I've asked you to stop idling your car, I'm out to clean up this world. So when I was approached by Andy, the owner of The Soap Works, to draw a cartoon for his in-store displays, it was a match made in eco-heaven. After all, his soaps are natural, biodegradable and don't even have packaging - they're just bars of soap with the logo stamped on! The only thing more eco would be to not bathe at all. And from my experiences with roommates, I know that's not a good thing. Andy had a clear vision that he wanted a beaver with a bathing cap in a bathtub. I threw in a moose whose antlers are being used as a bathrobe hook. Because that's how I roll. Look for it soon at a health food store near you, and let the drawing's whimsical charms seduce you away from buying toxic soaps in plastic containers. To order a personalized cartoon of your very own, email me at: joshrachlis (AT) gmail.com

Unbelievably professional review of my film "Terry Cloth"

Just when I thought nothing on the Internet could surprise me anymore (and believe me, I've seen some surprising things), this arrives in my in-box today. It's a review of my short film Terry Cloth by Steven & Jonny of the YouTube show "At The Youvies." To see it, click here or watch below. It seems the review was posted at the end of March, but the makers just left a comment on YouTube today letting me know of their review. Even though I didn't have anything to do with this review, it blew my mind so much that I thought it deserved its own blog post. Watching the review, I felt like I was hallucinating or dreaming, because I couldn't believe all the care these people had put into reviewing a celebrity-free short film they must have randomly come across on YouTube. They clearly invested a huge amount of time and effort doing things like watching various videos on my site so they could comment on my development as a filmmaker, comparing the different characters I played in the film, evaluating the performance of my ex-girlfriend as if she was an established film actor, carefully writing 2 different viewpoints on my film, shooting the review, editing the review, inserting clips from my film... And it was all done with the same care and polish you'd see in an actual episode of television's At The Movies with Siskel & Ebert or whomever is on that show now. And for what? When I watched the review today, it had 58 views since it was posted 6 months ago. And their Twitter page has 2 followers. One of whom is Steven himself. Hopefully their work pays off and gives them whatever level of success and recognition they seek. If for nothing else than the fact that they pronounced my last name correctly.

 And for those of you who, unlike Steven & Jonny, have not seen Terry Cloth, you can see it by clicking here or watching below.