Now while we didn’t win the Doritos competition with our three commercials, I did get two pretty awesome surprises outta this whole thing.

First, these Doritos spots got me mentioned in two of my favorite blogs! No joke, I first found out about getting featured on AngryAsianMan.com last Tuesday. My friend left me a post on my Facebook saying, “You’re on angry asian man, props!” Lo and behold, I checked and there my “silly Doritos commercials” were.

No way! I’ve been reading this blog (just like every other Asian Am studies minor) for years, thinking to myself, “Man, wouldn’t that be sweet to be on there as an up and coming Asian filmmaker?” For my first ever blog mention, this was just perfect.

And then for the kicker, two days later I noticed traffic to my website was just skyrocketing. What was going on here? I started to investigate and found that all the hits were coming from this post at Adrants.com, one of the biggest advertising blogs out there and one of my personal favorites!

Don’t you love how they called me and Jesse “Creatives”? Makes me feel all official-like. But seriously, it was such a trip for us to see that. I remember when the two of us used to write a weekly newsletter for Chiat\Day, we would always start our research with the one and only Adrants.com. Seeing our names on that site was that beautiful cherry on top of a crazy experience.

Thank you big name bloggers, you helped make my week. And I promise I’m gonna do my best to make sure this isn’t the last time either!

And as for the 2nd surprise, Doritos sent me a nice little consolation prize as a thank you for entering our commercials.

A free t-shirt, hat, free coupons, and a letter. Pretty nice of them huh? Thanks guys, you really didn’t have to, but it was a nice touch on an already awesome contest. Hmm, maybe I’ll enter again next year…? You never know.

It’s a beautiful new year and while I don’t believe in New Years resolutions (I’m more about anytime-you-want resolutions, why wait?) it’s definitely a good time to make some changes to my blog.

I’ve had a lot of fun over the past 6 months setting up my site and getting my first blog going (that Xanga from high school doesn’t count!), but for the last month I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction I’m taking it in. As a beginning freelancer, I was worried about being taken seriously so I made sure my blog was as “professional” as can be. I decided that its only purpose was to help supplement my freelance career and maintain my “professionality”.

Well I’m done with that.

No that doesn’t mean I’m gonna start swearing every other word, it just means I’m gonna loosen up this pressure and start having some more fun with my blog. I remember the whole reason I decided to get a blog in the first place was because I wanted people to not only see my work, but get to also get to know me.

So from now on, less “news-ish” type stories, and more of me. I’ll start to post more on what I want to post, not what I should post. Have more fun with my blog after all, it is my blog. I also really want to open a “non-work” section of my site for little films and fun shorts that I’ve made over the years. And hopefully with all this you guys will get to know more about me, what my life is like as a freelancer, and what makes me tick as a filmmaker.

And about that professionality thing? Eh, I’ll just let my work speak for itself. Seems to be working so far!