Best beer in America map

That's right. Number two.

Oh, I can only imagine all the lovely, delicious beers out there that I'm not drinking. Just like all the insightful, articulate blog posts I'm not writing.

Some day I won't work 35 hours a day, 8 days a week, and I'll actually do something fun/worthwhile. But for now, I work.

Snowden

In case you were wondering how much it snowed here in Boulder yesterday, here's your answer.


I think the official accumulation was over 16 inches. It was honestly very random. I'd been up for about three days straight getting a client presentation ready, passed out around 7 pm in a normal world and then awoke in the morning in this one.

Even the office was shut down. It was nice to have a semi-work day. I got the promo video for FutureLions 2009 almost done. So, I'll be sharing that shortly once we pass it off to AKQA.

Everyone be good, be safe.

More brilliance from the border patrol

You read this headline and just think, "What could go wrong?"


Currently the lead story in CNN.com. Full article here.

In other news, I've slept exactly one hour in the last three days. I'm feeling fine at the moment, but I can feel my eyes starting to fuzz up a bit. Also, someone randomly came to visit me at work today and gave me a case of Budweiser. Goodnight.

Why the internet baffles me on a daily basis

Google Maps user reviews are always fun, right?

Yesterday I was poking around Maps to find the zip code to our office (it's on my business cards, duh) when I stumbled across something that only qualifies as bizarre.


Everything looks pretty standard. . . . Hm, wait. There's one review of our agency. Weird. Wonder what it says.


OK . . . One of the best parts is that "1 out of 3 people found this review helpful." And if you click on ole Mike's name you'll see he doesn't have a profile but has also reviewed two other places in town with increasingly bizarre comments.

Online prank or another subversive anti-us campaign? Weird either way.

The Funcooker lives!

Don't know if there are any 30 Rock fans out there, but I had to share this. Sitting on my toilet this morning, I was leafing through Wired as usual when, wonder of wonders, my eyes befell in advertisement in on the second to last page: the iwavecube.

For anyone that watched last week's 30 Rock you know that a main story arc was Jack's launching of a pocket-sized microwave. Well, truth is stranger than fiction because apparent this puppy really does exist. This one-foot cubic wonder promises to blast your vittles with 800 watts of juice. Perfect for kittens too!



Another kudos to the iwavecube for having one of the more absurd taglines(?) I've seen in a while: "Small. Light. Quiet. Personal. Portable. Versatile. Energy Efficient." Catchy. Sure to be the next "Just do it."

Learn more about the next Segway on the icubed website.

If you haven't seen the episode (or the show in general), I suggest you watch below, courtesy of our friends at Hulu.

30 Rock - The Funcooker

Media planning is dead.

Googlovation slays yet another industry. Now, with a few clicks of the mouse you can buy an entire television advertising campaign. This video will blow your mind. (Perhaps only if you are in advertising.)

Google TV Ads

I vote for Google to take over the cable industry. Comcast blows. Plus, I have this idea about in the future being able to serve only relevant ads to television consumers that choose which ads they want to see. And I think Google can make that happen.

Slug Sex

For your Saturday night.

Slug sex

What's the morning after conversation like after that?

(That's to Chris Walker for this one.)

. . . And who doesn't love a good poop joke?

First this:

All Bran - Construction Worker"

Now this:



OK, admittedly I love the spot. Hilarious. Not sure where this print is coming from. Seems a little much. Not sure why. Maybe it's the giant puckered asshole. Maybe not.

What makes one more execution worse than another? Also, if you look closely, it looks like the door is to an elephant pen at a zoo. There's already bits of dried pachyderm dung scattered about.

What do you think?

(Shout out to Ben Salas/Will Thomsen/Jimi Turek for "Moves Food Along.")

S&M Kitty

I might've posted this here before, but it was big hit last night on the Twitters and buddy list. I present for you amazement and horror, S&M Kitty.

Cat S&M

Ha! What the--, I'm so disturbed, so awesome, eww.

A Grand Prix just wasn't enough

Here's a trailer for the new movie by some dude that did Old School or something. Not the most original formula ever. Dude is getting married, friends have crazy party in Las Vegas, wake up the next day and try to piece together what happened in a crazy string of antics the night before (Dude, Where's My Card?, Very Bad Things and basically any other comedy made about drunk dudes). Zach Galifianakis is a genius, but I'm not sure strapping a baby to him is the best use of his talent.

Either way, check out the trailer. Particularly the last scene.

The Hangover trailer

You know you've made something culturally relevant when it appears in a movie (that's not Not Another Teen Movie or Meet the Spartans). And not just the movie but the trailer. Congrats, Juan Cabral. You evil genius.

(If you really have no idea what I'm talking about, click here.)

Speaking of Juan, his Bravia "Balls" continues to get ripped off (replicated?) by other agencies with the Sony account. Here's the latest one out of New Zealand.


Sony Bravia - "Domino City"

Never order the same thing twice and don't decide until the waitress asks, "And for you?"

I realized the other day that my motto for life can be summarized in the single sentence above.

It's a simple thought (or two I suppose), but it's directed most of my life. Any life decision I can think about fits rather neatly under this philosophy. And besides the big things, this sort of thinking can push you creatively too.

Stop doing what you know, and start ordering the goat for a change. (Sorry, I ate Nepalese food this weekend.)

Burning the candle on all three ends

Sometimes I wonder if clients realize how much—as "advertisers"—we kill ourselves for them, lose sleep for them, lose relationships for them.

Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be on the other side of the phone call. What it's like to have some people you pay present you ideas, say "Cool, we'll take 'em but can you change these five things?" and then go home for the night, usually in time for dinner even.

I wonder all this because I'm coming off a marathon of a week. I was in the office essentially non-stop since . . . Well, I was going to say when it all started but I can't even remember. I know I was basically living here from Friday to Monday. Like, literally working the entire time, without sleep. Then, another project came up. So, until last night, I slept about 14 hours since Saturday.

It's been insane. But it's a good insane. I'm getting a chance to get my hands on a lot of thing, getting some awesome opportunities to work on some amazing clients under/alongside some insanely talented people.

But all I can say is I might have to take a mental health day tomorrow and go hiking. I wonder what the clients have planned this weekend.

I dumped my pants while watching this

OK, it might be the four beers, utter lack of sleep and sweet episode of LOST talking, but this video is actually one of the best I've seen. (Forget the last one I posted.)

The Quattro toilet


This video is basically the toilet version of Belndtec's Will It Blend? But, the thing about Will It Blend? is that it doesn't relate the products being blended to the messy results of bowel movement.

But, never fear. Because the Quattro by St. Thomas Creations can handle any load you dump on it. I've just been sitting here imagining what each test drop represents. This is truly a priceless video. If intention, brilliant. If lucky, not surrprised.

This is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen

Just watch.

Poodle Exercise with Humans
I must be a year and a half late on this scene, but this is crazy. Thanks, Thanh!

The little joys of comping Guitar Hero

Like any job as a creative, you spend a lot of time comping ideas for presentations. Luckily for those of us working on Guitar Hero, Flickr is a veritable bottomless magician's hat of picture of people playing the game. Like any social phenomenon, it's well documented on there and on YouTube.

But the best part of comping for Guitar Hero is finding really, really weird shit on Flickr involving Guitar Hero controllers. The images below are highlights from about a two-minute session for "guitar+hero+back".









Yeah. I have no idea what that last one has to do with Guitar Hero or backs, but hey, it was there. My favorite is obviously the dude in the Matrix cape on the roof. You can't make that up.

What Indie watches when it's not reading Pitchfork

Here's the trailer for the new flick 500 Days of Summer. You will gather almost immediately that this movie is attempting to be the most "indie" film of all time. (Look out Garden State!) Just when you don't think it can get any more indie, BAM! A Feist (or Feist-ish) song! BAM! Running through a department store! BAM! Rotoscoping on top of live action!

500 Days of Summer trailer
It seems the premise (as usually) is falling in love, when it's just not the right time, with someone you're destined to be with yet can't because of both of your irreconcilable idiosyncrasies.You know, I wouldn't care. I would feel the agony of love-lost a million times over to just be in love with Zoe Deschanel for a week. Actually, I think I did fall in love with her after Elf came out. I should've claimed her them

Damn you, Ben Gibbard, and your wily indie ways!

You should've spent more budget on getting a better concept

I think I was searching for "businessman seated" today on Google Images when this came up.

I suppose it's a more contemporary version of clipart. (Ah, remember lovely, horrible clipart?) Every time I come across images like this (and there seems to be an abundance of them related to businesspeople) I always wonder to myself, Who are these photographers? Who are these people that concept, set up and then shoot these atrocities? Then there's the retoucher, props people, models, all that.

Truthfully, I'm fascinated by this sector of the communications industry. I guess you can find bad art anywhere, just like you can find bad ads, bad writing, bad TV. It still just blows my mind.

Speaking of bad TV/movies . . .

Death scene from Hard Ticket to Hawaii
Tough break.

iPhone band covers MGMT

I wrote a little while back about the idea of exclusively iPhone-produced music.

Well, here it is. Middle-aged women dressed in funky clothes to make them feel better about their waning hipness playing "Kids" by MGMT on their Apple-birthed devices. (I'm sure that's not what they titled it; they just called themselves The Mentalists. But I find my nomenclature more accurate.)

MGMT - Kids (on iPhones)
Will this start off a meme? Is it the next frontier of music? As cool as this video is, I'm going to say probably not.

Album Cover Meme

Finally. The much anticipated debut . . .


Check out a few other classics, via Buzzfeed.


CREATE YOUR OWN ALBUM COVER

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days

Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 - Tag the friends you want to join in.

Memes are generally pretty dumb, but I love this one more than most things in my life. I wonder how many actually bands this will spawn. And will real bands start using this as a device for designing/naming albums? I sure hope so.