Archive for October, 2008
worst movie ever? maybe? »
Monday, October 20th, 2008
a friend of mine sent a link and told me i should comment. i couldn’t resist.
… is the trailer for proud american. which, i gather, is an offering by Wal-Mart to justify its predatory, oppressive business practices through propaganda. the movie itself has to be terrible. for, if it weren’t, the entire world as we know it would crumble in an instant of fire and dust, leaving us floating in space before our blood crystallized or all the oxygen was pulled from our lungs in the fraction of a nanosecond to understate it.
that this managed to take the spot as worst opening and theatrical gross of all time gives me an odd moment of pause. here’s a user comment that’s pretty hilarious. maybe this country isn’t destined for rapid and painful failure after all. maybe we’ll adapt to the changed socio-political/economic/meteorological climate and prosper onward. then i watched the trailer and realized my optimism was unfounded.
holy hell. they outlined the full plots of half the “stories” in the film. the youngest daughter there could be more now; i don’t watch on seventh heaven and the principal from saved by the bell have starring appearances. the stories play on over-generalization, over-simplification and racism to make a far-reaching point about some imaginary America. the corporate sponsors play heavily on the close of the trailer.
twas fun being optimistic while it lasted.
marketing over productivity »
Monday, October 20th, 2008
or: get a microsoft.
… is the Apple advertisement that just started running. I saw it twice over the weekend. It’s like watching an infant bleed to death sorry, I’m trying to censor myself; the real vision is much worse and, for some reason, involves alagorious farm animals.
I get it, Microsoft spends a shitton of money on advertising while producing a shitty product. Or something. I’ve no problems with Vista and like my HP more than work’s macbook pro. I think Macs are new-user machines that do what they need to while looking cool and being over-priced and yes, I’m in a field that’s very mac-centric.
Why are Microsoft and Apple in competition anyway? Apple has cool looking machines with Genius support that are cool looking. how many college freshman do you know that begged their parents for a MacBook because they wanted drag-and-drop installs? Microsoft doesn’t make machines.
Conversely, Apple has to go after Microsoft because there are too many PC manufacturers. Or maybe because they have over 75% of the OS market share. Apple has a relatively pathetic product line six, wow… consider the market flooded; thankfully, they all look alike too and can only manage about 10% of the market with OSX but it’s growing; screams all you reading on your cool looking Mac.
Microsoft is wasting its energy competing with Apple like punching that bleeding infant mentioned earlier. They should be absorbing consumer criticism and creating smarter, more intuitive products. Apple’s “bean counter” ad is just a desperate attempt to sell the masses on the obvious.
We learn about drugs with worse side-effects than what they’re curing from commercials, see 5,000 promotions daily and have a pathetically unreliable media not to mention more credit debt, more stress and less overall enjoyment. It’s just another example of marketing and message prioritized over progress and cooperation. Which is why Japan is laughing at us. Though, not directly. They prefer doing it through text messages and emotocons from their superior devices, which is far more awkward.
haha »
Friday, October 17th, 2008
“where are we…?”
“is this your house?!”(pipe wrench fight)
this is the best thing to happen to me since i graduated college. it’s a literal interpretation of Ah-Ha’s video.
seriously, watch this video and maybe even spread the love. less than a million have seen it and it’s already been up two weeks. hell, palin-roll it for all i care.
happy friday. because mine just became one.
friday free for all »
Friday, October 17th, 2008
… show of hands, who watched the mccain interview on Letterman last night? what’d you think? i’m watching it now and i can’t say i’m that impressed most of his jokes fall flat and his faces frighten me a bit.
… it’s going to be almost impossible to focus on work today. one, i’m not doing anything interesting. two, i’ve moved my portfolio site over, installed wordpress, added a twitter widget and am itching for a redesign. three, have plans to visit Liquor Lyle’s tonight for the first time in a hip-hop minute, a cinematic trilogy tomorrow afternoon and a party with Girlfriend tomorrow night. four, i’m going to David Sedaris’ book reading on Sunday. that’s packed weekending and my mind’s already in the descending elevator.
… google launched a new design for its personalized homepages. i, for one because i’m the only one that matters; ego!, think it’s mint. my rss reader, inbox and other information can all chill separately and is easier to access.
… and finally:
wednesday i went through and updated my passwords. like, all of them. yesterday i tried posting through posterous and it wasn’t working. i forgot to update the passwords within my profile. anyway, i sent a tweet about it and got a reply from someone from posterous, giving me an email to contact them.
during the debate, one of my tweets mentioned cspan and they’re now following me. all my debate-oriented tweets are here. i asked @current about when they’d post the second hack the debate and they replied quickly that they were working on it. i think this social media thing may have legs.
related: check the video below at about 22:17.
what’s up with this discount 70 commercial? »
Thursday, October 16th, 2008
among the local ads, typically terrible, there comes this shining gem of “wha-?” from the kids at Discount 70 a discount retailer?. i’m having trouble sorting out what the point of the ad is or what’s even going on within it.
it appears to be a reverse-gender three’s company that run into some odd issues. they’re competitive joggers, they spy on each other, she has to do all the laundry, they joke on each other enough that none of them could possibly get anything done and they buy incredibly ridiculous things for no apparent reason. does this bring people through the doors? is it awkward enough to be considered guerrilla? is it worthy of viral? ignoring that i just uploaded it…
i’m mildly disturbed by the entire fiasco. and suddenly have the urge to fill my room with discounted, unpopular items.