Expensive toasting in pursuit of midnight make-out sessions.
Krug, Clos du Mesnil 1995 ($750)
Bollinger Blanc de Noirs Vieilles Vignes Françaises 1998 ($575)
Dom Pérignon Rosé 1996 ($400)
Salon Le Mesnil 1996 ($300)
Krug 1995 ($200)
While age may bring wisdom, there are also things that only come with youth. Sony Pictures' up and coming movie The Messengers leverages ultrasonic sound to prove their point.
"The Messengers, a horror film about a teen protoganist who insists she hears voices that her parents cannot hear. The ultrasonic technology was originally developed in Europe to chase teens away from malls, and has been promoted before as an adult-proof ringtone inaudible to people over 25." -Three Minds @ Organic
The Messengers ultrasonic ringtones target teenagers who want to be able to receive phone calls and text messages undetected by their parents, or whoever is currently fucking their mom. High pitched, priced and highly annoying, the ringtones are currently available for $2.49, but you can preview them hear. While this may seem as an enticing marketing ploy, charging money for content that is simply used for movie ticket sales seems overly greedy to any age.
Piercing the night's sky, China's ice and snow sculptures radiate before the annual festival. The festival boasts over two thousand different sculptures. This impressive sight may just surpass Christmas trees and children's Christmas morning faces when it comes to lighting up.
Pixelated walflowers and interactive post-it notes.
"A wallpaper consisting of four layers of varying grey tones on a bright primary backing. Each layer is perforated in a grid format and backed with a tacky adhesive similar to 'post-it' notes. Pixelnotes is inspired by the way we work within a space. The walls become functional, an integrated noticeboard that documents our activity within the room."
via: core77
So does Google. This month's highlights of search term referrals of how you came to find Shake Well Before Use are in. Who needs search engine optimization when there's enough determined one-handed-typers to go around? Maybe this post will be the start of a new trend.
penis t viral video
mile high club videos
insatiable sex drive
older men blogs
katie rees sex photos
flacid penis
how to get erect
kitten running through a field
sex for xmas
whore trickery
sex relaxing midi
spy sex blogspot
I power Blogger! Err, maybe not. Showing their true colors, the blogosphere proves their one degree of separation with a game of tag. Dragging their feet and whining "I normally don't do this" to make themselves appear 'so above these petty games', they wasted your precious RSS-readin' time. To that, I say, get the fuck over yourselves, you whine enough everyday as is. So your traffic sucks one day because you made a post that only stalkers, and in rare cases, people who secretly want to date you and thus Googled you, want to read.
Here's the background on the link-clusterfuck: Jeff Pulver started it, who tagged to Steve Garfield, who tagged to Zadi Diaz and Kevin Nalty, who tagged to Robert Scoble and Danah Boyd and Steve Rubel (but wait, didn't Jeff Jarvis link to Steve?), who linked to Steve Hall (who when asked said it was stupid to tag him because he's not going to play personal shit on his blog) then some other person who I'm not caring about who at this point linked to Niall Kennedy, Irina Slutsky, Ze Frank, and WMJ tagged me, la la la whatever. You can go to the Blog Tag Tree, but they just tag some advertisement of themselves at the end that I didn't bother to read.
So, without further ado, 5 things my blog readers may not know about me (I'm going with a chronological theme):
1. I'm somehow a long descendant of a King. I'm part Persian (though, I don't look it), and the family name on my mother's side comes from King Khosrov. My grandfather and most of my cousins were born and raised in Iran. Some don't speak English, so I someday would like to learn how to speak Farsi.
2. I'm a modeling school dropout - at the tender age of 13, it just wasn't a good fit.
3. I technically started coming into the agency I'm at now (VML) after being given a tour when I was 14 because I was deadset on being a graphic designer. I would come in on my spare time after school and on days off to play around with Adobe apps on the Creative Director's computer and be a little "cool hunter" of websites for him. At 16 I became an intern, at 17 I became a contractor, and finally at 20 I was officially hired (I'm fairly tenacious).
4. I used to be hardcore into the "rave scene" (but never once have done drugs). I started going to 2-3 a weekend when I was 15. At 16, I threw and promoted a few alongside a good friend of mine. Oddly enough, "underground rave parties" helped lead to my later calling in viral marketing.
5. I was a straight-A (99-100%) student in every Math class I took throughout my K-12 school career. Though I didn't enjoy math classes, there wasn't an equation or theorem I couldn't naturally figure out... it just seemed to always make sense to me.
For variously random reasons, I tag: Tony Pierce of LAist, the boys of American Copywriter, Regine of (who hands down runs my #1 all-time favorite blog) We Make Money Not Art, Stuart Wallace of DHADM, and a fellow-cute-blog-girl (Regine, Whitney, and I should start a club), Whitney Matheson of Pop Candy.
Apparently released yesterday, a sneak peak at Adobe's icons leaves a bit to be desired. Pleasing creatives is no easy task, but it seems that Adobe may have not been up for the challenge:
"As Adobe's products have grown deeper and broader in their capabilities, the effort to visually represent what they can do in a literal icon has become increasingly difficult. ... Taken in isolation, the individual icons are in no way spectacular - that was never their role," writes Ryan Hicks, Sr. Experience Designer at Adobe. "Their elegance comes from how the entire desktop brand system works as a whole. The more Adobe apps you have, the better the system works. Adobe's icons stand out instantly in the visually-dense world of user desktops because of their simplicity; complexity ≠ information."
Overall, it just comes off as lazy. Identity systems are certainly smart for any brand, however, this one has too many holes in it. Not every icon matches the system, and the abbreviation system is all over the place. Not exactly sure how these are meant to stand out in the visually-dense world when Microsoft has already been using typographic desktop identity for Office. It seems as though a designer was too hell-bent on sticking to the original 'cool' idea of the Periodic Table of Elements when someone realized that the system wasn't completely thought through. This is also apparent in the rest of Hicks' explanation, as he already feels the need to defend the icons against that concept.
Word to the wise and insatiable, over indulgence this season can carry consequences. Literally capturing the femme fatales, Daniela Edburg's new Drop Dead Gorgeous series mixes the gorgeous with a dash of glucose-gore. The photography is delicious for art appreciators and historians alike. Unlike the nutrition facts, the photographer uses the pure ingredients of glamour and death that don't leave your tongue tied. Edburg explains:
"I guess I am pretty compulsive. That which gives me pleasure one minute, causes guilt the next. I am surprised at how much I like the products I consume, but, if you stop for one second to think about it, it’s absurd. Yet, you can’t stop. [The work] is not a criticism it’s just an exaggeration of my own reality."
via: Neatorama
Prancing up and down the catwalk last night, Victoria's Secret Fashion Show models turned glancing to ogling. Hosting hottie and Project Runway icon, Heidi Klum, MC'ed the event.
Push-ups and panties lined the runway alongside every girls' guilty pleasure, Justin Timberlake. With can't-miss-it, light-up typography and dancing silhouettes in every corner, hopefully Justin will no longer feel the need to announce bringing Sexy Back to everyone in earshot. But, we can only have "faith" as the equally sexy Depeche Mode would put it, who did not make an appearance unfortunately, but were at least in the mixture. Victoria also proved that her secrets aren't worth waiting for, as the show "secretly" lets you listen in on the backstage beauties coordinating the obvious "model needs to come from the left side, ok, now the right!". Vicky, take a cliff note from Justin and just look at those hips.
Radar Magazine claims to have made their list, checked it twice, crammed it with naughty and left out the nice. The list not being the VIP entrance to that upcoming panty party you were wanting to sneak out to, but the 10 most dangerous play things of all time. Topping the list is everyone's backyard buddy, lawn dart. Features including real, live puncture wounds and totally awesome pet piercings. Unless you're fatigued with all the end-of-year, best-o-6, and holiday gift lists plaguing the blogosphere, you can view the entire list here (page by page - admittedly annoying and most likely an ulterior move at increasing ad figures) or cry about what didn't make the list but sent you to the ER.
via: wmmna
According to an earlier article put out by Senior Analyst Debra Williamson of eMarketer last week, "Gen Y women have digital cameras, phones and video games on their lists." Oh, that's not all many of us hopeful harlets have on our lists, Ms. Williamson.
While the survey lists computers, cameras, and tvs at the top of the list, a whopping 1 out of 4 women were listed as "none of the above". Any senior analyst should be able to see the clear skewing of figures here. eMarketer is in fact confirming that the majority of women interviewed are too embarassed to put vibrators as their number one tech gadget this year. Thankfully, leave it to gadgets to put a bit of tingle back in our tech. Last year's bluetooth vibrator found its way into our hearts and hips. So, as the holidays approach us, remember to donate to the Toys for Twats foundation, despite the surveys.
For hopeless romantics and mile high club fanatics alike, a new kind of dating/networking service offers to bring you closer to your dream. AirTroductions acts like an eHarmony for the open skies. By filling out a profile and interests, you're seated next to a "match" on the next time you fly. While mainly intended for finding a date, friend, or job, the fear of sitting next to one of the three dreaded "typicals" (the sickly, the chatty, and yes, the baby) alone should be enough convincing to at least try it out. While no immediate flights are in queue, the delicate mixture of fear and fantasy will probably make me give it a try.
via: Fimoculous
Prime and pervy real-estate for the uber-elite-geeks. (via: Fleshbot)
PCs continue to have penis-envy over the I'm A Mac ads. (Previously: Hi, I'm a Mac and I'm an Imitator)
Troublesome pests growing in your girlfriend? Try spray on condoms. Like Head On, only without the looping late night commercials.
We already knew Jay McCarroll was a whore, but a company one? The Project Runway Season 1 winner that supposedly turned down the $100k in order to take a competing deal seems to have landed up in some equally not-so-bright predicaments. While there is much love (how can you not?) for Jay and all his fantabulousness, being paraded out under McDonald's narcissistic product launch is akin to a major fashion faux pas. Oh, Jay.
In a very welcome venting session a la 'dropkick the punks', my friend alphamonkey over at the Transbuddha/DHADM blog clique calls out clueless 'viral marketers' in what can only be described as a "Cockpunch the Chumps" manifesto.
"We [bloggers] willfully and happily render ourselves crappy content meat shields so that our readers don’t have to wade through the infinite trench of crap that runs through the heart of this here intraweb. Our success is as dependent on our ability to provide background and context as it is to find that perfect football to daddy’s crotch video. Because of that, we won’t just post a viral site because an heretofore anonymous person sent us an e-mail telling us to. That’d make us chumps, you see? We’ll post it because we can provide a reason to visit. We’ll post it because our ability to be in the know (and by proxy let the reader know) makes or breaks us.
So in essence: Don’t treat site editors and bloggers like they’re dumb, and we won’t immediately consign your e-mails to our ever increasingly vigilant spam filters. If you (and your client) think your site is mierda caliente, then have enough faith in it to provide us the details we want. Who built the site? Who is running the campaign? What other campaigns go with it? That information won’t tank a campaign, I promise."
Admittedly being involved in viral marketing, I do whole-heartedly agree with alphamonkey. Just like a few companies have slowly done, viral marketers will eventually need to come out of their shells and be willing to be more transparent. It is possible to maintain a balance between company confidentiality and transparency (because I do realize that viral marketers often need to represent and give credit to the client and not the ad agency). If anything, it is a viral marketers job to be the one to direct a viral campaign and insist on transparency. If not, the viral marketer is potentially single-handedly ruining their client's image to a very large community.
My addition to the call-out would be, don't be a one-off. Viral marketing isn't about hitting as many people as you can, that's what TV is for. Viral marketing should be about building relationships over time - if the content is good, then it will speak for itself. For this reason, I have taken a liking my personal suggestion of a more appropriate title: Purveyor of Cool Shit.
Best Week Ever points to two photoshoots of the bosom-beloved Scarlett Johansson. This week, Louis Vuitton unvailed their Spring/Summer campaign with a 1930s flare of pin-up passion. Also giving release this week was a photoshoot eager to please with a bit of pain. With spiked heels, a red lip, and uncrossed legs, the PussyCat Doll rendition left little to the imagination but much to desire. So which fancies your flavor, PussyCat or pin-up? Vote here.
Ditch the fake numbers, awkward emails, and Googling. You're not on the list. Instead of "no jumpers, no trainers", and a bouncer with a clipboard at the door, Hot Enough, a new dating agency, holds a Studio-54-like secure entrance online. The currency of trade? Pure, clean(?), unadulterated hotness.
"Especially in online dating's early days, "It wasn't always the most attractive people -- it was the boldest, the bravest, and the most desperate," says Pellegrino [CEO and founder], who believes that less than 15 percent of traditional Internet daters are great lookers. "Let's face it -- when you go online, you look at photos and the profiles second. I wanted to create a site for a demographic that was being overlooked on the online market.""
So, while Hot Enough boasts catering to a growing demand, are the good ones actually online or is it like the unemployment line, where there's a good reason why most everyone is there? Increasingly I've overheard reports that no one would get any dating done if it wasn't for online presence in cities like New York. Is this true or should you take your chances outside of the photo-of-myself-in-the-mirror-profile-page bubble?
via: Fleshbot
As December wears on, many of us are debating calling in sick for holiday parties or simply taking advantage of the liquor along with anyone lacking quick wit around us. Thankfully, those equally snotty types at Enlighten have streamlined the process of holiday party excuses. While not providing any excuses for inebriated interns, xerox machines, locked doors, hangovers, or affairs, the Holiday Party Excuse Generator does at least give you snippy ways of avoiding the chaos. On the other hand, you may be able to snag some job security with a digital camera in tote if you do decide to make a cameo.
For as much viral as there is out there on the not-so-vast interweb, it's easy to to become jaded and let the laughing-til-tears fade into snickering to snorting to lol-typing to an eventual "meh" with each YouTube link sent your way.
Following the happy trail of flawless viral, however, discreet Remington hits the runway and gives something for the ladies in the battle of body hair viral. Giving Philips' Shave Everywhere campaign a bit of one-ups-manship, Stefane Monzoen's collection puts out an array of eye candy. From the Precious Peacock to the Seductive Snake, Monzoen has erected a new series of trends that no one can quite place their finger on, despite their wishes. Women have a bit more creative freedom with their hoo-haw anyhow (someone tell Britney) so it was only a matter of time before pussy playtime. So, ladies, which folicular fashion are you sporting under that lace?
Pry yourself from YouTube and download the video here - (mov) or (wmv)
With fishnets, feathers, and a dash of pasties, Nike promoted their new store in Paris with a mixture of fashionable addrenaline and attitude. The store interior takes a tangent from its ad with bold yet sexy typographic details. The interior was designed by none other than the visual scientists at Why Not Associates. Having the pleasure of visiting their office a couple years ago in London, the team explained their background and true love of experimentation with both photography and typography. While the ad pictured was produced by DDB Paris, all the elements of the Nike Paris launch are in sync in expression.
Hooray, it only took a month. But yes, comments should be back up and running (if you experience any issues though, shoot me an email). Unfortunately, if you submitted any comments previously, they were never received - so feel free to comment away now!
In other comment news, Gawker reports on This Week in Commenter Executions:
"Executed: Verlaineverlaine
Crime: Downgrading Ian Spiegelman to the status of "anonymous tipster." Also, sheer idiocy.
Executed: raincoaster
Crime: Mind-blowing unfunniness, excessive "me-too" action.
Executed: Aidan O
Crime: Being totally wrong, on several points.
Executed: RobotsonCasiotones
Crime: Using the "I'm looking at you, X" joke twice in two days."
(Sidenote: A big thank you goes out to all the victims that helped along the way with the code from hell that could only be this blog: Gerald, Ken, Scoot, Seth, and Steve)
Obviously in the age of DVR and overall lack of giving a damn, tv spots are pulling at straws for attention spans. While some are taking the flipbook APF approach, others are simply relying on the goodwill of our fast forward moderation. Mountain Dew MDX, an "energy infused soda", has launched a series of smug commercials during the late night slots that show video clips and then ask specific questions about what you just saw (assuming you gave a damn) followed up by the StaySharp URL. Visiting the site, MDX counts on consumers to lose. If you prove not to be "sharp", you're fed an advertisement.
Google Earth takes the lens cap off on its nude scenes. Trying to compete with the celebrity crotch shot obsession, Google Sightseeing lists the Top 10 Naked People caught from space. Ken, a Top Ten fanatic, cites Top Ten lists being at their peak when they're a "comedy of errors". Despite the comedy, perhaps it's best to keep these pixelated.
Scott G pointed me to his article recently, calling a ban on hiring fellow advertising employees who are associated with what he deems to be "bad advertising":
"I also feel that those of us in the marketing, advertising and communication industries should refuse to hire anyone associated with these [see Pepto-Bismol, Charmin, etc.] campaigns. Creative, product management, research, media, and brand management personnel on these accounts should be shunned and forcibly nudged into another line of work more suitable to their lack of taste and talent."
Dare I ask, are you fucking kidding me? One of the few fundamental lessons I learned from a teacher was, if you're going to fuck up, fuck up loud and big time. Meaning, if you make a mistake, it is far better to proudly show it to the world than to cover it up or walk on eggshells so as to attempt to not make mistakes. This lesson also applies to blogging, as many of us risk parts of our careers simply by doing it. You will almost never be anyone in this business until someone has a backstory on you about "that one time you fucked up big".
I reject Scott's argument and substitute my own: don't hire people who haven't made mistakes or taken risks (even seemingly stupid ones like suggesting a Pepto-Bismol dance).
Imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery. VAIO sends mixed messages our way with this spoof of a Mac ad. Asking "who do you want to play with?", your choices are between a farting PC, a smug Mac, and a red-headed hipster-girl VAIO. Making the choice clear, you can e-pinch her butt and make her giggle.
Giggling hipsters aren't the only mixed messages VAIO sends our way, though. Promoting themselves as the "Non-pc PC" makes little to no sense. So, VAIO is the Non-personal computer, personal computer? It seems VAIO may have struck gold in stabbing the hipster/emo kids with the unintentional, indirect jab of "I'm different, just like everybody else". Perhaps just taking the concept out for a test drive, it only appears as a small Flash piece on Sony's C-Series VAIO laptop site.
Unlike the previous week's obviously fake-as-double-D banned commercials, this one appears to be a bit closer to the truth. Showing once on TV last Sunday, this French spot has now taken the deep dive into viral. For Manix condoms, the spread is shown as anything but "viral" as a tsunami of fucking, sex, and lovemaking causes the world to explode, like a, a... an overkill of innuendos. Coming in three variations that make you remember why you avoid ordering "Thai Hot" at noodle shops, Manix offers "Intense", "Hot" and "Xtra", with an additional vibrating ring for the adventurous types.
Mocking singles with the aggrevating "Need new partners?" line, New Partners dating agency offers their services. This campaign makes the point in always making time for "playtime". Modeling dolls and yes, barnyard animals, into self-satisfaction positions, Ken at least seems happy about not getting oinked. Barbie, unfortunately endearing awkward silences after occasional "where's the bacon?" lines.
50,000 chocolate bars. Move over, Cadbury.
