Remember in the old days, when you'd have to turn to Playboy instead of PETA when you wanted to see sexy, half-naked babes?
I have no idea if these sorts of ads and videos work to change minds about going vegan or improving treatment of animals, but I'm not complaining. Enjoy Alicia Silverstone and Dita Von Teese for PETA...
The Flight Of The Conchords sure know the way to a girl's heart. "You're so beautiful, like a tree, or a high-class prostitute. You could be a part-time model, but you'd probably still have to keep your normal job."
Thanks to Randy for sharing.
If you're an AT&T customer, you best not criticize them. If you get crappy service, don't post your complaints online, or you could find yourself without service.
AT&T's latest Legal Policy contains this little gem:
AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes... tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries. You agree that if your Service is terminated for any reason, AT&T has the right to immediately delete all data, files, and other information stored in or for your account, including email messages, without further notice to you.
My last post featured a current video with the bad guy from the Karate Kid, Billy Zabka. Keeping in the theme of 80s movie evildoers, here's an update from Back to the Future's Biff, AKA Tom Wilson. Turns out he's a singing comedian and has a song about the endless BTTF questions he gets.
I enjoyed No More Kings' eclectic and fun CD. It may be too quirky for everyone's tastes, but it has moments of pure pop joy, such as this song: Sweep the Leg. The song was fun enough being about the characters of the original Karate Kid movie, but the video takes it to another level, having been directed and starring the original, bad-guy Johnny himself, Billy Zabka.
Unlike the character he portrays in the video, Billy hasn't been sitting home and rewatching Karate Kid endlessly. His independent short titled "Most" (The Bridge - in America) earned an Oscar nomination.
The music doesn't kick in until three minutes into the video. Enjoy this video, and if you care to see additional behind-the-scenes videos, visit SweepTheLeg.com. (And I have no idea what the last 30 seconds of the video is supposed to be about.)
I killed over a half hour on this game. Click and drag to move the tiles so that the number on each tile equals the number of other tiles to which it is adjacent. There are 40 levels, but I quit at level 21.
I went to see the documentary "In the Shadow of the Moon" and would recommend it without qualifications. Maybe you've heard of it, and if so you may believe its subject matter is the U.S. space program, but you'd be wrong. This is not a documentary that delves into the inner workings of the race for the moon but is instead a very inspirational and contemplative view into the hearts and minds of regular human beings who were part of something extraordinary.
Twelve men walked on the moon. Just 12. In all of human existence, no more than a dozen people touched an alien celestial body. From the moon, they could look up and see the home for our entire race, every animal and plant we know, and every moment we've recorded, from the birth of children to the sad casualty statistics of war. As one astronaut tells, he stood on the moon, held up his hand, and could block the Earth with his thumb--and in saying this, he says more about the fragility of our planet and our humanity than he does about the U.S. Space Program.
"In the Shadow of the Moon" isn't about space travel but about who we are. It's about what we can achieve when we want to. It's about a moment when the whole world came together and considered themselves proud to share the planet with our country. It's about war and leadership and vision and bravery and guilt and luck and death. But mostly it's about the extraordinary memories and perceptions of the now-old men who stood on the moon and looked up at our planet.
Even though "In the Shadow of the Moon" features some amazing footage of the Apollo missions, the stars of the movie are men, approaching their 80s, who talk about their experiences 35 years past. Perhaps I expected military-like stoicism, heroic bravado, or the dry objectivity of scientists, but what I found was something very different. These men were profoundly changed by their experience. Their view of faith, humanity, nationalism, and the environment were altered by the few days they spent circling or living on the moon.
It may not be a unique sentiment, but when John Young--who risked his life to reach for the moon and, once he arrived, looked back at the earth and saw a fragile ecosystem--says this, you feel the authority, knowledge, and concern from which he speaks, "There's a lot of things like urban pollution, and you can see that when you hit orbit now. You can see that big cities all have their own set of unique atmospheres. We ought to be looking out for our kids and our grandkids. [Instead] what are we worried about? The price of a gallon of gasoline."
Someday a couple of decades hence, no person who called the moon home, however briefly, will remain. "In the Shadow of the Moon," will live on as a testament to the fact the common humanity of these men is what really made them heroes.
I'm a liberal. Actually, I'm more a middle-of-the-road liberal. I'm what they used to call a "Clinton Democrat" before Bill couldn't keep his fly zipped up and embarrassed us all. What does this mean in practice? I find the Republican candidates to be self-serving, fear-mongering, rich-pandering candidates, while I find the Democratic candidates to be interesting.
But there is one I don't find interesting: John Edwards. I find him too far to the left. I think he panders as much as the Republicans do, but to a different audience. This makes him prone to making sweeping, inappropriate, and incorrect statements.
Take, for example, this one:
“We cannot build enough prisons to solve this problem. And the idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating — pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They’re all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two.”While I don't think this ridiculous statement really requires facts to refute it, the Campaign Spot does a great job of pointing out there are more African American men in college than in prison.
This space available for advertising!
Not really, but it seems some marketers wish the world was plastered with their brands. As if ads on every wall, floor, ceiling, Web site, mobile phone, car, bus, truck, TV show, movie, field, and ass weren't enough, we now have parking lot strip advertising.
In this article, a short-sighted professor declares this advertising medium "brilliant" and claims it cuts through the clutter. To me, this is the clutter!
If marketers don't stop annoying consumers with their brands in every corner of the world, consumers will rebel. The idea is to convey the right message to the right consumer at the right time and in the right medium.
How does this medium make a pertinent point about the TV show? What does a parking lot stripe say about Desperate Housewives? Would anyone who wasn't going to watch the show really tune in simply because they saw a parking lot strip? And couldn't the marketing brains at ABC find a way of enticing people to the show by showcasing the Housewive's humor or drama, or is the show that empty of interesting content that the only thing left was to tell people to tune in and not give them a reason to do so?
Bill Shannon, who has a bilateral hip deformity that requires the use of crutches, might've just felt sorry for himself and made do. Instead, he became the "Crutch Master" and perfected his freestyling. (The camera work is almost as impressive as Bill's moves!)
In concept I love these billboards. Many people find outdoor advertising ugly and forgettable, so I respect marketers for trying to do something unique and eye-catching. The only problem is, the first billboard only makes sense at night, and the second only makes sense during a sunny day (when the awning casts the interesting shadow on the billboard.)
Several weeks ago, I posted information about a Bush plan to change FHA regulations in order to help people who are facing substantial increases in their mortgage payment because they were dumb enough to get an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM). The changes Bush are proposing include raising loan limits from $202,00 to $262,000 in most states and from $362,000 to $417,000 in pricier areas.
Why am I telling you old news? Because Bush has promised a veto for a plan the Senate approved today to expand the State Children's Health Insurance program. The program would double -- from 4 million to 8 million -- the number of children covered. The changes approved by the Senate would expand the program from its current annual budget of $5 billion to $12 billion for the next five years.
Sound like a lot of money? Well, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates just asked Congress for more cash to run the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan next year. The current 2008 total funding is $190 billion. That $7 billion of additional funding to provide health care to 4 million children is roughly equal to the cost of running those wars for just two weeks!
But, health care for those darn children is just too expensive for Bush and Company, so he plans to veto it.
Just to be clear: Wealthy homeowners who can afford $417,000 mortgages deserve our tax dollars. Wars with no end in sight are worth our tax dollars. But money to provide health to poor children can't be found by the White House.
And that pretty much sums up why I will not be voting Republican next year.
I know virtually nothing about Blackwater, the private security firm the US uses in Iraq. But based on this one article, I don't like them or trust them.
The firm "delayed and impeded" a congressional probe into the 2004 killings of four of its employees in Falluja, Iraq, the House Oversight Committee said Thursday in a report. Blackwater erroneously claimed documents related to the incident were classified.
And once Congress got the documents, it's easy to see why Blackwater tried to cover its ass. According to Blackwater's own reports on the killings, the men killed in Falluja had been sent into the area without proper crew, equipment or even maps. It sent its team on the mission without properly armored vehicles and machine guns. It also cut the standard mission team by two members, thus depriving them of rear gunners. And on top of all that, Blackwater took on the Falluja mission after being warned that it was too dangerous!
As a result of Blackwater's careless attitude toward the lives of its contractors, Jerry Zovko, Scott Helvenston, Mike Teague and Wesley Batalona were ambushed, dragged from their vehicles and killed on March 31, 2004. The burned and mutilated remains of two of the men were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.
But as if acting in careless disregard for the lives of its contractors wasn't enough, and as if lying to Congress to cover its tracks wasn't quite sufficient to spark outrage, Blackwater managed to piss me off with this response to the House report: "What the report fails to acknowledge is that the terrorists determined what happened that fateful day in 2004." Stealing a page from the Bush administration play book, the company that ignored warnings, failed to equip their men, and sent them into very hostile territory to die played the "terrorist" card.
It shouldn't be surprising that this organization tried to spin an unspinnable event. What is suprising is how little we know about Blackwater. According to The Nation (see below), the Bush administration has supplemented the 150,000 troops on the ground with an additional 100,000 private security contractors. Blackwater is among the largest of these, and it is run by a "right wing, Christian, conservative bankroller of President Bush."
And get this--the Bush Administration doesn't include the deaths of private security contractors in the Iraq death count! Even though these are Americans serving in a war zone and conducting military-like services, they don't count. Sadly, over 1,000 of these war contractors have been killed in Iraq. Added to the 3,801 American soldiers killed in Iraq and the 300 troops from other coalition countries, that brings the total deaths for the US and its allies to over 5,000 young men and women.
The things that sadden and surprise me about the Iraq war seem endless. I won't stop being saddened, but perhaps I should stop being surprised.
Why Mellow Thursday? The week has a head of steam, and you're probably rushing to the weekend. Time to sit back and enjoy a bit of mellow music to clear your head.
Vangelis's "Themes" CD is one I've turned to for years when I want to concentrate, meditate, and unwind. Enjoy some of my favorite selections from this talented artist.
SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search
Have you ever been hanging out and all your friends start raving about some terrific no-hitter or major upset they watched last night, and you missed out? Me neither, but perhaps there are some sports fans out there that never want to miss a great and memorable game again. If so, AreYouWatchingThis.com (RUWT) is for you.
RUWT employs a game-watching robot (RUWTbot) that searches for games going into overtime, ranked teams getting upset, no-hitters through 7, or anything else a sports fan wouldn't want to miss. Then, when the game action heats up, it sends an SMS message to you so you can switch off Brothers and Sisters and turn on ESPN in time for the action.
Seems like a hot idea for you sports fans.
If you wish to read a remarkable article about true heroism and bravery by our forces in Afghanistan, spend five minutes with Military Medical Team Makes the 'Toughest Call' on ABCNews.com.
To tell you anything about it would be to ruin a tremendous story, made more tremendous because it's true. Suffice it to say, it's a story of many men risking their lives to save one, and a heartbreaking story of the sacrifices that come from serving in a war zone.
This article instantly made whatever difficulties I'm having seem as trivial as they really are.
So, I saw this great time exposure shot of a new environmentally friendly outdoor lantern, and it looked so interesting. The shot makes the lantern--which is powered by the wind, runs for five years, and is completely recyclable--look totally cool.
Then I went to Firewinder.com and thought, "Ugh." What looked cool with a 10-second shutter speed was completely unattractive otherwise.
Maybe you disagree, but regardless of eco-friendliness, I just couldn't see myself purchasing this cheap-looking, twisty piece of plastic. It reminded me of those awful day-glo, spinning yard decorations you see hawked at bad outdoor markets.
Others pose, but the Sex Pistols walk the walk. Or at least they did.
While visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, one may enjoy a movie showing the inductees performing in their day as well as on the night they were honored. The movie closes with the image of the letter the Hall of Fame received from the Sex Pistols declining the honor. Well, to be honest, they didn't so much decline it as they spat on it, pissed on it, set it on fire, and then jammed it up the back end of the Hall of Fame (see below).
The letter gets a good-natured laugh from those who visit the Hall of Fame, because it sums up the rebellion that Rock and Roll was supposed to stand for but never does. The Hall of Fame almost seems to mock themselves and their carefully designed, brilliantly white, and impeccably maintained museum by presenting the letter, which demonstrates that rock and roll isn't something to be framed on the wall of an exhibit hall but is to be lived. That one letter stuck with me more than the thousands and thousands of gold records, star outfits, and posters on display at the Hall of Fame.
But, the line between authentic and sellout is never quite as thick as it may seem. The Sex Pistols--the ones still alive--regrouped and rerecorded their seminal track "Anarchy in the U.K." for a video game.
A video game! What's next--"God Save the Queen" used as a soundtrack to sell mattresses? ("God save the queen/And the twin and the King/The future's rosy/If England's dreaming.")
I know "Guitar Hero" is hot and everything, but it's still a damn game. I think it's time for the Sex Pistols to accept their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I am going to be a big, fat jerk. I am going to criticize someone who is going through a terrifically difficult experience--learning about and dealing with her child's autism.
Jenny McCarthy clearly is a caring and dedicated mother, so why would I criticize her? Because I guess I expect that folks who rise to the top in their profession--no matter what that profession is--will have some extra smarts that allowed them to earn their success. Yes, I know Jenny is a model who made much of her money taking her clothes off for Playboy, but I still want to think she is a person of above average intelligence. Plus, now that she's added "author" to her list of careers, I think assessing her writing capabilities is fair game.
I wasn't intending to grade her composition skills as I began the self-authored article about how she learned of her son's autism, but I was struck by how much Jenny's piece sounded like a MySpace post by a middle schooler.
I was beyond nervous ... My heart was beating so loudly that I bet Evan thought it was a drum in the next room... I immediately felt good... He looked at me with sorrowful eyes... I felt each membrane and vein in my heart shattering into a million pieces. Nothing prepared me for this. I couldn't breathe.I'm not sure adults should write like that, even when conveying a life-shattering experience such as this. In fact, those sentences could be a 14-year-old's diary entry about how she met the cute football team quarterback.
Evan was locked inside this label, and I didn't know if I would ever get to know who Evan really was. All the behaviors I had thought were personality traits were autism characteristics, and that's all I had. Where was my son, and how the hell do I get him back?That is a sad and perceptive observation. I thought this one paragraph spoke more eloquently about her situation than all the purple prose Jenny used in the rest of the article.
I'm not sure how I feel about this video from all-girl ad agency 3iying. Actually, I know how I feel--conflicted.
On the one hand, I think it's ballsy and bold. It shows a small agency using the power of consumer-grade video to make a strong statement about advertising to girls. It's a current and relevant way for 3iying to demonstrate its currency and relevance.
I also happen to agree wholeheartedly that too much marketing is wasted. Way too many advertising decisions are made by men and women in marketing departments based on their likes and dislikes rather than on the likes and dislikes of their target audience--or more importantly, on what will motivate the people in their target audience to change an opinion or take an action that benefits the brand.
But here's the thing: 3iying also gets quite a bit wrong.
First of all, the rather abrasive and overconfident young woman who speaks for 3iying commits the same foul made by many marketers--she speaks as if she's the target audience. She may be in the target demographic, but 1) she cannot speak for an entire generational or gender cohort, and 2) advertisers often target small subgroups, and she may not be part of a particular subgroup for which a given ad is intended.
So when the 3iying spokesperson says, "We can help you make commercials that I would enjoy watching," I can't help but think, "That's terrific, if in fact my target audience consists of one person--you--and my purpose is your enjoyment."
This video also equates consumers flipping past magazine ads with failure, which is easy to do when you force consumers to comment on why they flipped. Exploring "flipping" in this manner exaggerates the level of consideration we give to print ads as we peruse a magazine.
Consider when you flip through a magazine. Do you evaluate each ad? Do you necessarily think negatively of a brand simply because you flipped past it? Or do you take brief notice, then move on to the next page of content? For many advertisers, the intent isn't to stop every reader in their tracks but instead to have consumers quickly notice a brand, associate it with their lifestyle and interests, and move on--a positive (and subconscious) brand association can be made in just a moment.
Then there's the fallacy of asking people what they think of advertising. People always feel they make their decisions about products and brands logically, but it's easy to see such decisions are much more emotional and subliminal. Take the gal in this video who complains she disliked an ad because "they're trying to make a connection between your makeup and your car, and there really isn't one." Logically no. But emotionally, a lot can be said about how one's makeup and choice of ride reflect something about the person.
I'm not arguing this specific ad is a winner, but as an advertiser I don't care what one girl thinks of the ad; I care whether many girls' awareness, recall, brand association, and propensity to buy have been positively impacted. You cannot determine any of that by asking a consumer his or her opinion of an ad, so the methodology shown in this video is terrifically flawed (and any marketer worth their salt will know it).
Finally, while I respect 3iying for being bold, it has been my experience that calling advertisers idiots, pointing out they're wasting their employers' money, and saying they're out of touch with their own consumers is--while perhaps correct--a really stupid way of generating business. Because it rarely succeeds in generating business.
Funny how some of the girls who comment on the ads they flipped past note how the ad insulted them while 3iying makes no bones about insulting the very people for whom they wish to work.
Here's something interesting that actually happened to a friend of mine. The video below shows the reaction of Jeremy (the guy furthest from the camera) as he sees his brother Josh's new tattoo.
A picture of the tattoo, which happens to be of Jeremy's face, is below.
Now that is some serious brotherly love. Luckily my brother doesn't read this blog, or else he might start expecting me to demonstrate my love with body art.
Pat Condell is a very interesting guy. Whether you find him interesting and offensive, or interesting and infuriating, or interesting and sensible depends a lot on your own personal view of Jesus, Allah, or faith in general, because Pat is an atheist and speaks his mind freely.
Pat has made a bit of a cottage industry of something quite simple. He looks directly into a camera and says what he's thinking. He is clearly a clever and bright guy, but his frankness and his views have caused some to label him racist (when he speaks of the "Myth of Islamophobia") or anti-Christian (such as when he declares Jesus was a storybook character.)
I don't always agree with Pat, but I think he's a thoughtful guy. And a brave one. How many of us would have the balls to stare into a camera, give our name, and speak directly to Osama ("if he's watching") (which he may be, considering Pat's videos have been viewed around 1.5 million times on YouTube):
"As for Iraq, well you know as well as I do that virtually everybody on the planet wants the troops out of Iraq now, except for the idiot in the White House. The same one that you helped get reelected, by the way, the last time you popped up on our screens. Remember, you interfering son of a bitch? Because the truth is you wanted the war to continue every bit as much as he did. You wanted Muslims slaughtered and at each other's throats, purely to embarrass the Americans, which is all you really care about, isn't it? You hypocrite."We may think it, but would we say it on the Internet for everyone to see?
Let's say you're a concerned parent, and you're unsure whether your child's toys are safe. Not to worry, you can always donate them! Not only will you pass the lead problem on to someone else's child--probably a person of lesser means--but you can also get a tax deduction for endangering other children.
If you think that sounds a bit cynical, guess again. Thrift stores are finding themselves awash in recalled toys, and some have had to stop carrying toys altogether, simply to avoid the problem. Some thrift stores are reporting that dangerous toys are reaching them with signs parents checked first to see if the item was unsafe for their own children.
That's pretty damn low, if you ask me.
How quickly yesterday's news becomes today's urban legend and pop entertainment. Kewlbox.com offers "Don't Taze Me Bro," a game where you get to "Take down the annoying college student by zapping him with your Gator Taser 2000." The goal is simple: "You have 15 seconds to subdue a student, testing the limits of free speech."
Is it "too soon" for this sort of mockery? Was the occasion of a student getting zapped for asking a politician a question too disturbing to be spoofed in this manner? Or in the world we live, is every event ripe for immediate parody?
I've frequently railed about the intrusive way marketers go about their business nowadays. Rather than concentrating on making the right impression in the right medium to the right consumers, marketers today seem to prefer the gunshot approach. They apparently believe that consumers will think better of a brand if it is pasted to or in every available wall, floor, ceiling, Web site, mobile phone, car, bus, truck, TV show, movie, and ass.
Taking this awful trend to its next horrible stage is Ad-Air. Their "innovation" is to begin the process of blanketing the globe in enormous billboards, visible only to those flying over in planes. The billboards will be placed near high-traffic airports and will cover an area of almost five acres each.
In addition to the fact this form of branding contributes to clutter, looks horrible from the ground, and sounds extremely bad for the environment (who needs trees and grass when you can instead have 20,000 square meters of billboard?), there are other reasons advertisers may want to think twice.
Maybe I'm different than others (okay, I know I'm different than others), but my experience is that air passengers enjoy being unplugged. One of the few joys of air travel is that for a couple of hours, instead of being inundated with the "noise" of daily life, one has no choice but to sit back, listen to some music, read a book or magazine, and stay unplugged from the world. (Ironically, it takes the noisy environment of a plane to get us away from the noise of everyday life.) Until you look outside the plane and see a giant, garish sign advertising "Head On." (Maybe the brand could place three giant billboard in a row to keep with their annoying repetitious advertising!)
Personally, I hope consumers and environmentalists eviscerate this company and whomever becomes the first brand to create a five-acre billboard near an already-congested airport. It's not that I'm anti-marketing--in fact, I'm very pro-marketing--but at some point marketers have to get more creative about how they change consumer perception rather than settling for the biggest, most annoying impression.
This video is freaky and awesome. It's an animated sequence created by drawing an image on a wall, shooting a moment of film, then erasing it and repeating the process with a new drawing. I'd estimate you're seeing 1300 individual sketches created and destroyed in the course of this two-minute video.
Dr. Randy Pausch gave the final lecture of his life. He's dying from pancreatic cancer and expects to live only a few weeks or months.
You might expect his last lecture to sad, bittersweet, or morose. After all, he's only 46 years old and leaving behind a terrific career, a wife, and three small children. But at that lecture, Dr. Pausch gave his students and peers a gift--he showed them (and us) how to live life right.
Please enjoy this excerpt of Randy's final lecture, and if you're intrigued, you'll find his entire presentation posted to YouTube.
Here's a riddle: When is a viral campaign not viral?
Answer: When it's run by Pepsi.
Pepsi UK offered this very interesting and edgy viral campaign starring a British hottie. The concept is simple. You enter a few details about a friend, upload his picture, and voila--you are provided with a sharable video in which the young lass talks about her hot night with him, flashes his photo on her cell phone, and gets his name tattooed on her body.
I was going to post praise to this Pepsi campaign, but then I made the mistake of sending a dozen friends to the video I created. It got yanked for getting to many visits! I received a message that said, "You know that movie that I made with you? It's been so popular that I've had to disable it on my blog!"
So, let me get this right: Pepsi launched a viral, traffic-driving campaign that shuts itself down when it actually succeeds in driving traffic? A site that encourages people to share the link and then punishes people for doing so?
This has got to be one of the dumbest missteps in online marketing that I've seen in quite some time. But don't worry Pepsi, this still isn't as dumb a marketing move as New Coke.
If you care to give the site a try, visit http://www.pepsi.co.uk/tattoo. Just be sure not to actually share the video as instructed by the site, or else they'll take it away from you!
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University on Monday and said, "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country."
Many are mocking this statement, but I think this may point the way to an opportunity! In this country we have some people--they're called Republicans--who want to prevent gay marriage and stop gay people from getting equal protection under the law. And now we know there's a country without gay people to which the Republicans can move, thus living in peace and happiness, far from gays!
I'm thinking of starting a new charitable organization to raise travel funds to send all Republicans to gay-free Iran. It will be called CRAIG:
I just posted a great BMW ad, and it made me think of the days of BMW Films. Six years ago, BMW demonstrated its hipness by offering unique and amazing videos online, years before YouTube made it commonplace. But rather than go with all the CGM crap (consumer-generated media) to which brands nowadays seem addicted, BMW turned to the best of the best: Mini-films were crafted by the likes of John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, David Fincher, Guy Ritchie, John Woo, and Tony Scott.
Click here to see the entire lineup of BMW Films on YouTube. If you've never seen the mini-movies, you're in for an hour of so of movie pleasure.
Two of my favorites are below.
First up is Tony Scott's "Beat the Devil," starring the late, great James Brown (along with the ever-present Clive Owen.)
Second is the hilarious spoof on Madonna's celebrity created by her husband, Guy Ritchie.
I like this TV ad a lot. It isn't funny or witty--it just attracts attention to something unusual and beautiful, and the spot subtlety closes with a graceful statement that says volumes about BMW: "The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds."
Here's a news story that should be the lead on every broadcast in America (if they can wedge it between stories about OJ's arrest and Britney's latest embarrassment.) This is the kind of story that gives me hope.
Youssif is a 5-year-old Iraqi boy who was doused with gas by masked men and set on fire on January 15. His burns were so bad, he had trouble eating. His parents appealed for assistance, and CNN contacted the Children's Burn Foundation.
As Youssif's story began to be shared, a miracle happened. More than 13,000 strangers wrote letters and checks to help this boy they'd never met. One person sent a check for $45,000; another mailed in $10,000. Most were much smaller contributions, less than $100.
A US soldier serving in Iraq wrote, "I thought I was tough. But when I read the story about Youssif, I cried." A young girl sent a note that said, "I feel really bad for what happened" along with a one-dollar bill.
The foundation had estimated it would cost $300,000 to provide Youssif and his family all the costs associated with his surgeries, medical care, living expenses and whatever else they might need. Donations have surpassed that, and Youssif's family has requested the additional money go to aid other burned children.
Young Youssif continues to touch lives. On a trip to the beach in California he saw the ocean for the first time in his life. Nearby, a person with a church outing recognized Youssif and asked the parents if they might pray for Youssif. Spontaneously, dozens of people dropped to their knees on the beach to pray for strength and patience for the boy and his family. His mother was moved to tears, "I was overcome with emotion."
I'm not the praying kind (but I greatly respect those who pray for others), so I'll keep Youssif in my thoughts. He has a long road ahead, having just completed the first of eight surgeries he'll need. I hope he does well and can continue to show the world what happens when people set aside differences and work together.
Here is an idea destined to win over the hearts and minds of conservative Muslims in Iraq. Nothing says "America isn't a cesspool of sin" like a plastic set of boobs that sing when you walk past. You too can "Send a Rack to Iraq."
For just $32.99 you can support the troops--not by asking your representatives in Washington to end the war so that the troops can leave a civil war and return to safety--but by sending them a fake pair of breasts that "move in a rhythmic motion to the song 'Titties & Beer.'" What more could a soldier want--other than some armor plating for their humvees, better vet benefits, or a ticket home?
Thanks to Jean for sharing this.
The subject line in the email from laddie magazine, FHM, read "Free Sam Cooke Wallpapers!" "How delightfully old school," I thought (naively and ignorantly). So I clicked. I'm not saying I minded the photos, but they weren't what I expected. (So, who the hell is 2007's Sam Cooke anyway?)
I told a friend about this. He didn't believe me, so I told him I'd post it to my blog. Not sure why I'm doing this. Considering he checks his email only once every three or four weeks, it seems unlikely he'll actually see this on the blog, but let's give it a shot.
So, who knew those big ol' six-volt batteries were a treasure trove of AA batteries?
6 Volt Battery Hack! You'll Be Amazed! - video powered by Metacafe
This very NSFW site promotes a new fragrance called Vulva. And they aren't using the word as a metaphor; it literally smells like vulva.
I am assured by Adrants that this isn't a spoof, even though the site reads like one. "The precious, vaginal odour filled into a small glass phial... and the irresistible smell that exudes from a sensuous vagina immediately intensifies your erotic fantasies."
Don't miss the photo gallery with emaciated models holding the product in front of their, umm, vulvas.
Wow. Just wow. I'm speechless.
Those who visit Fark know that Florida is the land of strangeness. Here's more evidence.
A Realtor in Florida has launched her own Web site dedicated to buying and selling properties in clothing optional communities. While at face value that sounds kinda titillating and enticing, the following photos quickly made me come to my senses and realize how much I like clothing. Sometimes less is more (as in less flesh and more appealing!)
Call me close minded, but I prefer my grandmothers (and you can see photos of this gal with her grandkids on her site) to have necklines a few inches closer to their necks than their waists! (Otherwise, wouldn't it be a waistline?)
Hexiom
