Ad(d) Exec(ute) I met my first NYC ad exec. Account manager for the client for whom we're producing CG footage, he looked vaguely like Elvis Costello. He had the requisite glasses but was sans the desired witty intelligence. Sitting in a small bar not far from the studio where we're working, I was surrounded by our client at the post-production house, my business partner, and the ad exec. I normally don't have problems in mixed company. I'm good with small talk, am up on current affairs, and smile readily to put someone else at ease. Regardless, it didn't matter what I said, whatever it was sat in the middle of the table looking for a home. Perhaps it was because I was shocked and amused to discover the pharmaceutical product for which we are producing imagery is made from hamster embryos. Perhaps because it was I described the images on my head: teddy bear hamster-esses clutching their shaved bellies after having sacrificed the contents of their wombs for a product that alleviates rheumatoid arthritis--some of them held small hot water bottles to their empty uteruses to ease the pain. Perhaps it was because I questioned the annual cost to consumers for the drug: $16,000.00. When I changed the subject and started talking about something else, his eyes held mine and wandered simultaneously to the street scene outside, seemingly seeking escape from the hypnotic hamster wheels he saw in my irises.