Frescorts

BBC reports about rentafriend.com and discusses whether it's a good idea or ruining humanity. Clearly this has already been covered by Bryan Fuller.

Now all we need is a hug machine:

You Are What You Eat

I just found a cool little website devoted to direct marketing campaigns (as in, direct mail and other direct marketing and consumer-interactive advertising). It's got some cool, creative stuff.

But this one creeped me out a bit -- a Burger King in Brazil that wanted to show how every order is made fresh to order by printing each customer's picture on the sandwich wrapper. I'm not sure I like the idea of a hidden camera at Burger King, even if it is just for an advertising purpose. On the other hand, it would certainly get my attention, and I'd probably even save the wrapper as a souvenir. (I tend to save cool paper objects, especially advertising.)

Rube Goldberg

Many of you know I love Rube Goldberg devices. This one by OK Go is pretty excellent, though I'm not sure it's as easy to follow as it's supposed to be, and I'm a little suspicious about it being done in one shot rather than two (there's a zoom in that would be perfect for a new camera take, though I only watched the video once so I'm not sure).

Happy Presidents Day

Happy Presidents Day! (sorry, the Muppets won't let me embed this, but it's worth the link, I promise)

Books coming to life

I only wish I could embed this in the book I'm writing. Since I can't, I'll put it here.


via boingboing

Halloween with Wishbone

It's October, and I'm feeling nostalgic, so have some Legend of Sleepy Hollows, Wishbone style: Link.

Boy I wish there were more Wishbone on DVD.

Big numbers visualization

Check out this video's visualization of what President Obama's pledge to cut $100 million dollars meant in relation to the rest of the budget. (Yes, he's now pledging 17 billion. There's another video about that on this guy's Youtube page, but it's not as visually helpful to me.)

Unusually Smart David Mitchell

I absolutely love David Mitchell -- something about smart British funny guys I guess. Anyway, I found this to be particularly topical given the number of end-of-year black tie events I've had to go to recently. Geez, guys have it easy. The dress code is even named after how easy it is for them.

If only labs were really like this . . .

What do you get when you mix The Village People with a bio and chem research supplier?
A very weird music video:

(thanks, L. you made my evening.)

Harvie Krumpet online

Don't know how long this will be up (it's on the Youtube screening room), but it's worth checking out. Harvie Krumpet on Youtube:

PoMo Commercial

Generally I'm sooo post postmodernism. But every once in a while, I'm thankful for it, like when I found this beer commercial that makes fun of the major premise of beer commercials:

Molson Ad

Disturbing Ad

Continuing with my posts about commercials (wow, YouTube is awesome):

Some commercials are random to the point of being disturbing. Ikea has a whole lot of these ads, like the following one. I wonder, though, if this worked very well for them; all the current Ikea ads I see on TV are significantly, uh, happier.

Ikea Commercial

Random Ads

Some ads are hilarious just because they're totally strange. As a tribute to the late-night brainstorming of ad executives, here are some of my new favorites:

Starburst Commercial


Shout Commercial


Folger Commercial

Being a geek has its benefits: I'm easily amused

TMNT

For one reason or another, there was a lot of normal childhood that I missed out on. For example, I didn't grow up watching cartoons on Saturday, or watching Nickelodeon most afternoons. It took me until college to see a Brat Pack movie or a single episode of SNL. That said, I did get some pop culture of the late 80s/early 90s. And, I might argue sentimentally, I got the best part. And now I get to relive it. Totally awesome, dude.

Best Commerical Ever

And by best, I mean weirdest.

Rube Goldberg

Many of you know I love Rube Goldberg devices. And even though there isn't a Wallace and Gromit movie coming out soon, I feel compelled to share with you.