Sunday, March 26, 2006

nice shot

beatles juggler

http://www.break.com/index/beatlejuggler.html (might take a while to load)

Some of us drank and played a lot of euchre while listening to Medley #2 on the Beatles Abbey Road; others apparently practiced juggling. A lot.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

dogs:kids vs. political inclinations

"What's the difference between Seattle and Salt Lake City?" writes Phillip Longman in USA Today. "There are many differences, of course, but here's one you might not know. In Seattle, there are 45 per cent more dogs than children. In Salt Lake City, there are nearly 19 per cent more kids than dogs. This curious fact . . . reflects a much broader and little-noticed demographic trend that has deep implications for the future of global culture and politics. It's not that people in a progressive city such as Seattle are so much fonder of dogs than are people in a conservative city such as Salt Lake City. It's that progressives are so much less likely to have children."
-- globeandmail.com

Saturday, February 25, 2006

five seven five

Phewf. It has taken several months, but I finally finished my advertising tribute website.

http://www.adhaiku.com

I'm so excited.

Up here are my favorite 100 ads from the 2004 Cannes Lions festival, the world's premier advertising festival. Like John Cleese's selection of Eric the fish, I chose these out of thousands -- 5151 ads, to be exact. And it was hard work.

Why? Because, much to my surprise, most of the world's best commercials suck. These 5151 ads are the cream of the 2004 crop, and 80 percent of them are just plain bad. It hurt to watch so many terrible TV spots.

The remaining 20 percent (~1000 ads) were thus the cream of the cream of the crop. Still, most of them were pretty bad. Even the cream of the cream of the crop wasn't all that creamy. Only about 200 of those 1000 ads were worth watching more than three times.

The 100 ads that I have paid (poor) tribute to are the cream of the cream of the cream of the crop. They're very very creamy, as the two old ladies said in the Kraft mayonnaise ad circa 1993.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

zombie cockroach

"fainting" goats

Friday, February 17, 2006

puppy recycling

The url pretty much says it all.

http://www.puppyrecycling.com

like a needle in a loinclothstack

"Loincloth-clad festival participants gather [today] at Konomiya Shrine during Hadaka Matsuri or Naked Festival in Inazawa, Japan," reports The South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "The centuries-old festival involves thousands of men in search of one fully naked man among them. Touching the man, who is chosen by townspeople to act as a scapegoat to divest them of all evil, is believed to bring good luck and happiness. The men's search, conducted in the brisk winter air, is made tougher by cold water being thrown over them."
-- globeandmail.com

Friday, January 27, 2006

Hamster, meet snake. Snake, hamster.

A dwarf hamster that was offered as a meal to a rat snake in Tokyo's Mutsugoro Okoku zoo has made friends with the snake, reports The Associated Press. The hamster, named Gohan ("meal") as a joke, even takes naps on the snake's back. The snake, Aochan, has developed a taste for frozen rodents, instead. The zoo, which keeps mostly livestock animals, promotes "cross-breed interaction," says keeper Kazuya Yamamoto, but the Gohan-Aochan case "was a complete accident."

And here are some pictures...

Monday, January 16, 2006

sponion

This site is what you'd get if you crossed the Onion with espn.com. Of course, I love it.