Josh Duhamel Vs. Post-It Notes

The Case For Josh Duhamel

The model-turned-actor career path, most of the time, is trod by women -- or, at least, those are the cases we hear about most often. But then, maybe that's just because there are more models who are female, who get famous, and who then parlay that fame from runway struts over to Apple ads, reality-show hosting, and perhaps even Oscars someday. It's hard for us to get all that excited about male models-turned-actors, for a lot of reasons: there are fewer of them than there are of the gals; they don't ever get all that famous; and so far, none of them has really amounted to much more than creating reality shows and marrying elderly dowagers, ASHTON. There's also the fact that the whole model "thing" -- having striking but unusual features, glowering a lot -- works better on women than on men. Fine, we'll just come out and say it: most male models are weird-looking. Also, short.

And then they're Josh Duhamel. Ever since we saw his first appearance on Ellen -- during which she aired runway footage from his modelling days, including a shot of him ripping all his clothes off -- we've enjoyed looking at him. Unlike his fellow male models, Duhamel is distinctly untroll-like in visage; he exactly splits the difference between the symmetrical, overly waxed features of Joey Lawrence, and the crusty scruff of Johnny Knoxville. Also, Duhamel is tall -- and not just TV tall.

We also appreciate that Duhamel is heating up his career at a controlled simmer, as opposed to a flash fry or flambé. He certainly could, as others have, parlay his many InStyle photo spreads into multiple terrible comedies and microbudgeted gross-out horror flicks; instead, he has done just one of each (Win A Date With Tad Hamilton! and the current Turistas), preferring the stability and low expectations of NBC's Las Vegas. (Yes, that's still on. And don't mock its Friday-night time slot: if it's good enough for a venerable TV warhorse like Law & Order, it's good enough for some soap set in a damn casino.)

Finally, you've got to love an actor who'll just go ahead and play Dorian Grey in The Picture Of Dorian Grey. That's confidence, baby.

The Case For Post-It Notes

We understand that not everyone is a giant school supplies dork. But when this commentator was growing up, her grandpa was a salesman at a stationery company, which meant that playing "office" using the desk in the spare bedroom gave one access to a treasure trove of pre-market office-supply innovations. Remember in the mid-'80s when they came out with those markers that somehow wrote in shiny silver ink? I was the first in my class to have one. Ditto scented erasers, disposable mechanical pencils, and brush markers, and clear glue in a sponge-tipped tube. I thought all of that would make me the coolest kid on the playground! And as long as you don't know anyone I went to school with, I totally was.

Normally, no one else really cared that much about the advance samples Grandpa brought home, until 3M presented the world with Post-It Notes. They stuck to whatever you put them on! But you could peel them off and there wouldn't be any residue! Seriously, how did we leave instructions on contracts or explain the relevance of articles we'd clipped out of the newspaper before the Post-It? Paper clips? FUCK YOU, PAPER CLIPS!

The Decision

Even at my remarkably young age -- and you guys, I am practically a baby -- I have seen many technological innovations so important that imagining life without them is unthinkable: cell phones, hand sanitizer...uh, the internet. Post-It Notes are just such an innovation. Sitting here at my desk, I can see three, without turning around, and were they not here to remind me of this or that, my whole business would surely crumble. Oh, and did I mention that the ones I can see are all different colours, too? Because they are. And if I were to open a drawer or walk down the hall, I would encounter Post-Its ruled, envelope-sized, and in flag form. If Staples ever runs out, we can hook them up. Josh Duhamel, by contrast, is not nearly as versatile. Also, his girlfriend is Fergie. There's no way he could even think about winning this battle until some concerned friend of his supplies him with a Pea collar.

The Winner

Post-It Notes