I'm loving this Energizer ad campaign they're running in (of all places!) Venezuela.
Draft
For those of you (i.e. none of you) who're looking to pick up some bargains at the NFL Draft, here's Matt Taibbi's outrageously smart analysis at Men's Journal. Who knew dope smokers would be such smart choices... or that superstar quarterbacks would be so hard to spot?
Hope
Personally, I don't think Apartheid stood a chance as long as impressionable white teens (like myself) were dancing along to this song...
We played it at every party, every school disco, and every chance we got. It was even bigger than Unbelievable by EMF... and that's sayin' somethin'.
We played it at every party, every school disco, and every chance we got. It was even bigger than Unbelievable by EMF... and that's sayin' somethin'.
27 April
27 April is a holiday in South Africa, celebrating the day (in 1994) of the country's first post-Apartheid elections. Incredibly, 33.7% of the population (16.6 million people) were born after that day, and – perhaps not so incredibly – most of them seem to have forgotten what the big deal is/was.
Ad agency TBWA put together a viral campaign for the Apartheid Museum, where they asked our young and free generation about some of the historical figures who helped create the democracy they now live in.
The results were not pretty.
Ad agency TBWA put together a viral campaign for the Apartheid Museum, where they asked our young and free generation about some of the historical figures who helped create the democracy they now live in.
The results were not pretty.
Earth Day
Happy Earth Day... (whenever that was!). Here's a collection of amazing Earth-themed photos from The Big Picture.
Looks like we're really mucking this planet up.
The Only One In The Village
Archie comics have just added a gay character to the gang. The full story is at Gawker (who, inevitably, picked it up from somewhere else).
Mistake
One of the best things about creative projects (writing, cooking, photography, fiddling around with code) is when - and it doesn't happen often - you make a mistake which inadvertently leads you to discover something even better than what you were looking for.
And that's the theme of JPG's gallery, My Favourite Mistake. Amazing what happens when the camera doesn't do what you want it to...
Urban-proof
I'm not a huge fan of the car itself (I prefer my X-Trail), but I do like these striking Nissan Qashqai ads.
K
You can keep the trousers, Nicholas K, but I'll take the shirts for sure. I love this new collection: it's the exact right mix of outdoors and indoors, and you don't get many clothes more effortlessly masculine than this.
(Good grief. Did I really just say "effortlessly masculine"?)
Do Vampires Suck?
Vampire Weekend trouble me tremendously. I love the tunes, but I think I'd like the band a whole lot more if they weren't so annoyingly... what's the word?... preppy.
Time
GearPatrol is running a review of a fascinating new book on... wait for it... the history of the timeline. That's right: in a move so meta it makes my head want to pop, the world can now admire a timeline of timelines – dating all the way back to the year 1450.
ShedPod
This styling prefab outhouse/shed/whatever from Ecostudios (they're calling it the WorkPod) could solve my what-to-do-with-my-garden-shed problem. It could also solve my nation's chronic housing problem... if only it didn't cost $10 000 per unit.
Game On
Sports nerd that I am, I just did a one-man Mexican Wave in honour of ad company Ogilvy Brazil, who came up with these two amazing creative ideas for one of their sporting clients.
Click on the pics and see how many of the incidents you remember. Ron Artest, Diego Maradona, Roger Milla, Rene Higuita, Ronaldinho, Dwight Howard, Dr J... they're all there.
Man, I wish they'd done ones for American football, ice hockey and rugby union as well.
Click on the pics and see how many of the incidents you remember. Ron Artest, Diego Maradona, Roger Milla, Rene Higuita, Ronaldinho, Dwight Howard, Dr J... they're all there.
Man, I wish they'd done ones for American football, ice hockey and rugby union as well.
Möre Explösions
Höly Möly! As everybody's favourite unpronounceable völcanö continues to rumble on into the night, The Big Picture returns with more... erm... big pictures.
I'm trying to stop myself from thinking it looks like something out of a movie – but only because, if this were a movie, I'd be doomed and only John Cusack and some people in the Drakensberg would survive.
Seriously, though, the gallery is scarily impressive. And the picture of the lone, stranded traveller roaming the hallways of Prague airport tell a story of their own.
Roads
With visions of Top Gear's trip to the Transfăgărăşan still fresh in my mind, I discovered this amazing blog post about the 19 most complex and dangerous roads in the world.
My favourite? It's a toss-up between El Camino de la Muerte (any road that actually calls itself "The Way of Death" has to be taken seriously) and the frankly insane Guoliang Tunnel Road, which makes my drive home around Chapman's Peak seem tame by comparison.
Explösion
The Big Picture is running some predictably explosive pictures of Iceland's comically unpronounceable Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
Oh, and it sounds like the worst isn't even over: According to its Wikipedia entry, "some geophysicists in Iceland support the notion that the recent volcanic eruption at Eyjafjallajökull may trigger a second eruption at Katla, one which would cause major flooding due to melting of glacial ice".
So that's something to look forward to.
Beards
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Beards (like flares) are coming back... and to celebrate this hairy happening, Slate are running a gallery of photos of dudes with beards, harvested from the Magnum archives.
11
It's probably fair to call Motherhood, the utterly rubbish new film starring Uma Thurman, a box office bomb. On its opening weekend in the UK, only 11 – that's eleven – bought tickets to watch the film.
Why did fewer than 12 people bother to go watch this turkey? Could be any number of reasons... but the horribly misjudged marketing campaign is probably a good place to start.
Flares
Flares are back! Flares are back! Oh, happy day! For too long we (by which I mean "not me, possibly you", by which I mean "people who wear skinny jeans") have suffered the indignity and discomfort of trying to pass our feet through the narrowest of pants legs.
No longer.
New York magazine has noticed that designers are calling an end to all the tight-ankled silliness, and Style.com have the full story and slideshow.
Ker-Pow!
So which famed superhero is - according to New York magazine's hee-larious slideshow of Superheroes With No Discernible Superpowers - "best described as a human version of Darkwing Duck, only with more family money and more family tragedy"? You'll have to read the list to find out...
And yes, the Terror That Flaps In The Night is on the list.
AVP II
OK, so I know I've mentioned this campaign just a few posts down... but the sight of Alien and Predator playing Swingball in my back garden has been making me giggle quietly to myself all day long.
Bundesliga
"As I type this, the top four teams in the league are Bayern, Schalke, Leverkusen and Dortmund. Last year, they were Wolfsburg, Bayern, Stuttgart and Hertha. In 2008, the first four places went to Bayern, Bremen, Schalke and Hamburg. That makes nine different clubs who are or have recently been there or thereabouts. Looks like all you have to do in order to compete is just wait until it's your turn."
That's an excerpt from the incomparable Uli Hesse's latest Soccernet column, wherein he examines the strange quirks that make German football's top league - my much-beloved Bundesliga - so competitive.
No Big Fours here... it's the Big One (Bayern Munich) and a Big Revolving Roster of Others. And I suppose that's what makes it so much fun to follow: you never know who's going to be challenging for the title - and, in some cases, you never know if your team's going to compete with the top clubs or languish in the nether regions of the table.
Post Haste
I know how Calvin feels. Can't believe I placed an order on a Thursday night... factor in the weekend, and now it'll only reach me on Tuesday.
Not A Drop To Drink
National Geographic recently ran some pictures for World Water Day (showcased via The Big Picture), highlighting how important water is to us.
Boy, we're going to miss that when it's gone.
Ellowen Deeowen
Bad things about London: 1. The sun never shines. 2. My entire South African high school class now lives there.
Good things about London: 1. Everything else. 2. This amazing showcase from the always-excellent Pictory.
AVP
OK, so it may be one of the worst movies you'll ever see, but at least Alien vs Predator gave us this: a very funny ad campaign for Sky TV. I can only imagine what they'd have done with Joe vs The Volcano.
Delivery
I'm loving this smart Brazilian ad campaign for FedEx.
Simple, yet effective.
(And I love maps, so they pretty much had me at "Hello"...)
Simple, yet effective.
(And I love maps, so they pretty much had me at "Hello"...)
Ij
How cool is this public swimming pool? It's a floating swimming platform, built by architects O+A for the river Ij in Amsterdam. They're calling it Urban Beach, and it's really just one huge, Escher-esque platform which slopes into the water with an elevated strip wrapped around it to form a viewing deck.
Webby
Looking for some new websites to go visit? Look no further than the Webby Award nominees. Sure, the awards are a bit passé... but there are some really great sites here.
The Great Party State
The crazy peeps at StrangeMaps have discovered a hilarious map, which charts the ratio of – wait for it – bars to grocery stores in cities across America. If you need to buy milk and bread, head to Georgia. If you need a drink, head to... Wisconsin?
Toyoda?
mental_floss have a fun little list up of the stories behind the names of famous car brands... and how lucky brushstrokes, fired employees and a Zoroastrian god inspired the names of some famous marques.
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