Total Badass.

I'm not gay, but if I were . . .

. . . I'd still be terrified of this man.

Rollins Band - Liar

Dude is brilliant.

George W sweeps his own Top Ten. Congrats!

Now, it's no secret that I don't like David Letterman. The man hasn't been funny in fifteen years, and Paul Schaffer looks like a naked mole rat with stupid glasses. His audiences merely laugh and applaud because they're prompted to do so by lit signs that his produces pay for and operate, not by any merit of his own comedy [sic].

But for once he's actually created a funny Top Ten. So, for your viewing pleasure (and horror), I present David Letterman's Top Ten George W. Bush Moments:

Top Ten Bush Moments
Hilarious, terrifying and awe-inspiring all in one video. Go cry/celebrate/weep/lose control of your bowels/gnash teeth as you see fit.

(And just for the record, I don't actually give Letterman any credit for this. Let's be honest, Georgy did pretty much all the work here. Plus, some poor intern had to go over hours worth of video to cut this together, not that megalomaniac of a host.)

F AI L

To make things even, here's a typography joke for all you design folks out there.


(via—who else?—FAIL Blog)

A Magnus Opressus

Here's one for the music nerds in the house. A few pieces by the dubiously named John Stump.

Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz (from "A Tribnute to Zdenko G. Fibich")

String Quartet No. 556(b) for Strings In A Minor (Motoring Accident)

And yes, I was in band in high school and middle school. And while some of my experience were beyond the standard definition of "absurd," I learned an amazing amount from my time. The understanding of music is one of the highest forms of learning as far as I'm concern. Every child should get a musical education in the same way we teach English, math, etc.

YES.

I just saw this video. I do not know anything about its origin or what it means, but it is awesome. Kids with exploding hammers. Amazing. I hope to join this culture one day. And I hope they accept me as one of their own so I can do this.

(Watch all the way to the end.)

Happy exploding hammer celebration fun time!
There's no way American is too violent. We don't have EXPLODING HAMMERS.

Yet.

A theory that's absolutely Ludacris

ATL rapper/actor(?) stopped by a New York elementary school recently to spread some holiday cheer. That's where this photo was snapped. If you study it closely you'll notice a surprising pattern.


Still don't see it? Here, let us show you.


I think if we take this out to its logical end, this could explain a lot of things—the economic crisis, global warming, Soviet Russia. Something must be done. We Luda clones. And fast.

(via VH1's Best Week Ever Blog)

Merry Christmas

Click for a special Christmas carol.

Jingle bells, Batman's a jerk.

2008: The Year of the 'Stache?

A number of sources have declared 2008 to be the Year of the 'Stache: Urlesque gave it the New Trend award and the Huffington Post surveyed celeb upper lips to come to their conclusion. And there were others.

The World Beard and Mustache Championship site got passed around the web about 9 trillion times.

I was sold "mustaches on a stick" in the streets of Portland. I got emails from coworkers about growing mustaches for Movember to raise money for charity. I met friends with fingerstaches from Sweden.

Marketers even got into the act with Australian Schick giving us a lesson in Manscaping. And a spot from La Comunidad for the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival taught us just what having a mustache is like.


Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival ad
(Side note: Did Crispin Porter predict/cause this cultural concentration with its 2007 campaign for the Western Whopper and its microsite petmustache.com? Maybe.)


BK Western Whopper ad

One of the best pieces of mustache news I found recently was existence of the American Mustache Institute, whose motto is "protecting the rights of, and fighting discrimination against mustached Americans by promoting the growth, care and culture of the mustache."


In these lean economic times, the organization gives hope to the mustachioed by sponsoring a discount card that gets them 5 percent off at select small business. (The businesses are so select that there are only a handful of them. But still. It's the thought.) I'm applying for membership right now.

And of course I'd had my own mustache experiences. First in the actually at the end of 2007 and then also these past three and a half months.


In that time I've had some puzzling interactions, been stopped in the streets, recognized on mountains, hugged in bars and—one time—had a girl actually trying to rip it off my face because she thought it was fake. And I'm pretty sure half the reason I got my job was because I had a ridiculous mustache. It's been a trip. I want to write a memoir about the whole thing called Life with a Mustache: One Man's Struggle with His Upper Lip.

So yeah. Maybe 2008 has been the Year of the Mustache. That begs the question then: What will next year be? The Year of the Neck Beard?

(Where you at, Araujo?)

Random pieces of fun/yum/chum

The best way to tie:

Tyler Bryan vs Shaun Parker


I don't know how I didn't know about Lil O'Reilly before, but now my life is complete. This kid is intense. He's like a young Dan Kelly. Segment from Talkshow with Frank Feresten:

Lil O'Reilly weights in


Lil O'Reilly vs. Barney Frank


Lil O'Reilly unleashes on election results


Trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Wolverine trailer


And lastly, a tasty piece of viral Christmas cheer from my pals over at AKQA. This video's been holding at the number three spot on the Viral Video Chart for a few days now. Really nicely done, gents:

Happy Christmas from AKQA

<3

Weezer - The Greatest Man that Ever Lived (live at the Video Game Awards)

He's like a retarded Brandon Flowers.

Would you like your website with a side of bacon?

I just found this. It is amazing. Now you can add bacon to any webpage. Like . . .

Take that, vegans!

or

Whoops. (That one's for you, Liza.)

This is awesome.

Want some more bacon on that?

All you have to do is add http://bacolicio.us/ to the front of any URL. Go ahead. Try it. It's awesome.

Also, just searching for images of bacon turned up some pretty funny results. Try it sometime. Personal favorites include.

The bacon bra

The bacon suitcase


And, a piece of bacon in the shape of Mexico from the Wikipedia page.

They didn't mention that it looks like Mexico, but we both know the truth. OK. Off to brunch now. Obviously.

CMY-OK with me!

Co-founder and CCO of The Brandy Agency and personal friend and art director/illustrator extraordinaire and silent lover and tall guy Brandon Rapert informed me of some pretty exciting news yesterday. One of the campaigns we did at the Creative Circus will be featured in the March issue of CMYK magazine. Pretty rad. Check 'em:


These puppies are intense. If you dig them, check out the rest of Brandon's stuff over on his site. The dude is sick. And he's available for hire. Love him. Hard

CONGRATS TO THE PATRIOT

Love abounds today. It's been a very long, wonderful two years at the Creative Circus, fraught with creativity, frustration, drinking and bad puns. It's the end of one road, but it's the beginning of another.

Congrats and all my love to The Patriot. I'm sorry I couldn't be there for graduation today.

Let's party tonight.

Pretty much how I feel right now.

Dog Malfunction


Knocking out some Guitar Hero and CPB holiday site stuff. Slept about six hours in the last three nights. And tonight's the big holiday party. Then I fly back to Atlanta for graduation/Christmas, which means still no sleep for a few days. All this craziness can leave one a bit out of sorts.

Looks like Andy just found his new favorite band

Welcome Hurra Torpedo.

Hurra Torpedp - Total Eclipse of the Heart

The Norwegian trio has been around since the early '90s as part of an art collective. (The previous clip was from 2005.) They primarily play on kitchen appliance (obviously).

Check out this video I found for their cover of "All the Things She Said."


Hurra Torpedo - All the Things (S)he Said

Any band that covers that song has my vote. Go Norway.

Was "Apendage Removing Chap" taken?

In a search for ideas for the agency's upcoming superhero-themed holiday party, I came across what is undoubtedly the worst superhero of all time. Meet Arm Fall Off Boy. His super power? Well, he just kind of gave it away, didn't he? AFOB had the ridiculously useful ability to detach his arm and beat people with it like a club. Now—in all seriousness—I've actually thought about this as a power. (I used it in something I wrote at some point I think.) But seriously. The fact that DC actually made him a real character is dumbfounding.

Feel the raw power:


He's got a Wiki page too if you don't believe me. (Wikipedia is 100 percent accurate. All the time.) Sadly, it seems our hero had a rather short-lived career in the Legion of Super-Heroes.

If you look at the article you'll notice a reference to a nearly equally retarded character. Welcome Matter Eater Lad. (Again, these names don't really go for the suspense factor.) His ability was, of course, being able to eat through anything. You say you need to get into the control room. Why, just let Matter Eater Lad munch his way through the steel door. Yep.


His Wiki page.

Honorably dumb mention goes to Bouncing Boy.


He's sort of a lamer, white version of Fat Albert. Or perhaps Veruca Salt.


You'll also notice the appearance of Blockade Boy in that Matter Eater Lad comic. If you read closely you'll catch what he's able to do. I'm not even going to dignify his dumbness with a comment.

If there was any argument that DC Comics are better than Marvel, this pretty much ends it.

Forget dropping out of college, Kanye

. . . Make it music too, dog.

Recently Kanye West has made (internet) headlines stating his intentions to take a lowly internship with fashion designers Louis Vuitton or Raf Simons. He says he wants to learn the business before he launches his own clothing line next year. Hey, I love publicity stunts as much as the next guy—I'm at Crispin, it's pretty much our thing—but this is a pretty lame one.

But even if I don't wholly approve, I think Vuitton or Simons should take him up on it. That way he will stop making music, and leave us alone. I don't tend to follow too much mainstream music, but every once in a while I'll catch a new Kanye song, and they only seem to be getting worse. Peep his performance on Saturday Night Live last night, and please explain to me how he thinks he "will go down as the voice of this generation of this decade."

Kanye West - Love Lockdown - SNL - 12/13/2008

Besides his pathetic singing, his stage show is seriously lacking. You can't hide behind giant screens of sweet animations when you're standing right in front of them and sucking. I fully support Stephen Colbert's efforts.

Dear Kanye, please leave the music to the musicians and go grab some coffee for Mr. Simons. It could be your best work yet.

Oh, good morning, Colorado

Three dudes, a fish and a boner

There's really no joke I need to make here. Just watch the ad.

The Wunder Boner ad
I counted. They managed to say "Wunder Boner" 17 times in this spot. Amazing.

No matter how badly your day is going, be thankful you're not Corey Hill

Buddy sustained one of the nastiest injuries I've seen captured on film. It happened within the first round of his fight against Dale Hartt. Here's a totally non-Photoshopped picture, courtesy of MMAweekly.com:


Don't believe it's real? Check out the video:

Corey Hill destroys leg

Dude. Ouch. And the worst part about it is that he was the one that threw the kick.

OK, that's not the worst part about it. The worst part is that his leg got snapped in half. Tough break. (Buh-dum-chish!)

Double fail at drag race

Double fail.

Even better than you think.

(via ettf)

Blast your friends

Super Soaker Oozinator ad

Um, what's that filled with?

Poaching animals

. . . from Neatorama. (And a vegetable too.)

Bear plays hockey



Mouse obstacle course



Cats and a slide



Don't feed the deer in Japan



A Christmas carol played on a broccoli


Yes. I'm just blantantly plagiarizing from Neatorama tonight. If you don't check that place daily, you should start. Like, now.

Get in there

In case you hadn't heard, there are two hyper-popular new fan pages on Facebook. I think you should join them:


By request, Andy's Mustache Fan Club.



And by punishment, Kasia's B00bs Fan Club.

Join, participate, get involved and get in there.

Ironically, I wasn't busy, and that's why I saw it

This morning I was reading an email from a friend, exchanging congratulations on our respective jobs, when I noticed a Google AdWords ad above my inbox.


I thought, What kind of schlock is this? Is that really a convincing argument? Then I thought, Is "schlock" even a word? [Editor's note: Yes. Of course it is.] Clicking on advertising-rated AdWords ad has yielded some real gems in the past, so I went for this one.

I was pleasantly surprised with the result. Think Tank 3 is a very small ad/branding agency out of New York. Although I don't care for the name or positioning as a "modern day think tank", they actually have a pretty cool style. Very reminiscent of Howard Gossage, sort of that voice of the intellectual small guy that can flip deftly flip between erudite and absurd. The shop's creative director is a woman, Sharoz Makarechi, who apparently has worked in post-Taliban Afghanistan to "train Afghans in modern communication skills for journalism and social campaign creation." It seems like a very small, tightly knit shop, but someone should check them out. I'd be interested to know more.

Oh yeah, and apparently there are more ads like the one I saw, trying to steal work away from the big guys. They won a One Show Merit. Pretty funny, especially the latter ones.




But on more thought, maybe this ads only work on people like me that see their agency's name, and think, Hey, what the?

Join the dorkestra

Join the YouTube orchestra

Besides the not all that ground-breaking idea of YouTube Live (live streaming video? wow.) here's a new little doodad of web 2.0 brought to you through the omnipotent video site. Cool enough idea, but I was hopefully for something more instant and collective, not just what is essentially a videotaped audition. (It sort of makes me want to submit a video of me just burping the music. Or perhaps this.)

It'd be cooler to have users record their parts, then submit them and build one collective, online orchestra. That way it's a globally collaborative piece. From there, the conductor could mix the audio to get it right. Maybe solos could be written for most instruments, and players could record their solo separately. Then, they can add it into the larger mix and be featured in their own version of the piece.

It's a decent idea, but it could be way cooler. That's all I'm saying. Thoughts?

The Brandy Agency

Welcome back from the break.

I'm pleased to announce the opening of my very own advertising agency today, The Brandy Agency.


The Brandy Agency is a dream that's been a long time coming. The agency is a result of extensive collaborations between fellow Creative Circus alum Brandon Rapert and I. And today we're proud to share our vision with the world.

We're always looking for new clients, and we still have a few positions left to fill so if you're interested in either, please contact us. Thank you.