Alice Cooper and Richard Simmons... hmmm, never typed THAT before

Such a good news, bad news moment.

Alice will be appearing, albino snake in tow, in a Superbowl commercial for Bridgestone Tires. While I still think the NFL is missing the boat in not securing him for part of the halftime performance, a Superbowl Commercial isn't too shabby.

Unfortunately, he will appear with Richard Simmons in this commercial. Kinda takes a bit of the luster off the deal. The premise....

What happens when a fitness icon, a rock legend and his slithery companion confront a speeding car equipped with the precision technology of Bridgestone-brand tires?

More info and a couple of screen shots are available on the Bridgestone media site.

Alice REALLY needs to evaluate the company he keeps. Golfing with David Cassidy in the 70s - and now this :)

Test your powers of observation

Fun little quiz to test your memory/power of observation.

19 for me with no cheating - tempting as it was.

Best I can tell only works in IE and not Firefox. Sorry about that.

Something old, something new

Two fun images on the web...

The old - zoom into the paint flake level on the Last Supper

The new - source image that provided the "bigfoot on Mars"

Album dead?

Interesting post regarding the demise of albums by Mark Cuban (Blog Maverick). While you can't argue with the drop in sales, what Mark Cuban (Blog Maverick) incorrectly discounts is that certain artists - usually vintage I grant - create music that is to be enjoyed as a collection.

Sure, much of this comes from my Alice Cooper bias - "From the Inside", "Brutal Planet", "Alice Cooper goes to Hell" simply are better as a collection of songs than as a one by one product. Also, I might never have bought a single track off of Capt. Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica" or Graham Parker's "Struck by Lightning" - but I gotta tell ya, but they grew on me after repeated plays.

Buy "The Wall" on an installment plan? I think not.

Mr. Cuban (Blog Maverick) also offers up this point of view:

My guess is that consumers will feel better about subscribing to an artist and getting a song a week or every 2 than dropping 10 dollars at a time for an album.

I guess if they are math challenged, or have the attention spans of dogs, that makes sense... but 99 cents paid out every two weeks eventually ends up around 10 bucks for 10 or 11 songs (or 18+ songs if you buy TMBG albums).

In fairness, the subscription idea does address the need to keep things simple. I would rather not have to scan the horizon for new stuff from favorite artists. Bundling them as albums helped me keep track - pretty sure subscriptions would too.

And any approach that would have let me opt out of "No More Love at your Convenience" off Alice's "Lacy & Whiskey" has some merit.

Going green by going black

With some iffy data to back it up, Blackle promotes the concept that moving from the stark white of Google to more of a "Google noir" could save oodles of energy. Sounds a bit to me like typing in lower case to save hard drive space, but who knows.

Reminds me of the First Citiwide Change Bank...

How do we make money doing this? The answer is simple. Volume.

Hello Kitty assault rifle.

Yes.

You read right.

A Hello Kitty assault rifle. Cute, in a internal organ destroying kinda way. Still favor the Darth Vader-Kitty brand extension :)

Standard Green Bay Packer fan behavior

Res Ispa Loquitur (the thing speaks for itself)...

Packer fan duct tape caper

Being Jackson Pollock

In my quest to help others waste time, I have highlighted opportunities to fly a pig or destroy websites, but here is one that will not only VERY effectively gobble up time - but with the right printer and aggressive marketing - you might just become Jackson Pollock.

Don't forget to click your mouse once in awhile once you start painting.

Wikipedia/Wikia v. Google part deux (inversed) - Knol vs. Wikia

The fun continues. Since Wikipedia is trying to provide an alternative to Google in search via Wikia, now Google considers out wiki-ing Wikipedia with Knol.

Market forces at their best - we all win in the end as quality improves. Now, spelling (wikia? knol?), that is a different story

Roll your own RSS

Dapper is a pretty slick little tool do add RSS to a site that doesn't offer it. Easy to use. Worth playing with if you are so inclined. Thanks to Cheryl for the heads up on this.

Vintage technology ads

William Shatner, Commodore 64 (65K for $595!!!) , Burger Time, and a line dancing Link from Zelda... pretty fun stroll down memory lane with some vintage commercials.

Wikia and Google

Some time ago, I posted about the Wikipedia (Wika) search concept and how it may or may not compete with Google. Well, it is out. Got a good comment on my previous post extolling the "wisdom of crowds" and how it could indeed result in a better search. I would argue that the way Google uses links to set relevance is really a "wisdom of crowds" thing too - less direct, but that might not be all that bad. Still - point well taken.

The different thing here, is each day (at least in theory) Wikia will improve. Should be fun to watch and see.

Wi-fi virus risks

Interesting read on the concept of wi-fi based virus attacks. Anyone with a laptop and a wireless card has probably seen the surprisong large number of completely unsecured networks (often with the default SSID "linksys" or the like). Some folks take "plug and play" a bit too literal :)

I still recommend doing something

Watchus Caucus

Nope, not a long forgotten Roman Emperor, just something for the political junkies out there... here are some resources to see Iowa Caucus results as they happen.

Mike Birbiglia needs you

Mike Birbiglia could use your help on the Comedy Central "Standup Showdown". I thought about writing something clever to encourage voters (it is like Chicago, you can vote multiple times - just have to wait a day each time), but then I realized being clever is kinda Mike's thing, so in his words...

Go to the comedy central website and vote for me in the Standup Showdown. I know it’s superficial but since I haven’t won anything since author of the month in 3rd grade, my self-esteem hinges directly on the results and right now I’m almost off the list! You can put it in bookmarks and vote once a day, or hire someone who knows how to outsmart computers to vote THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF TIMES PER DAY.

Purpose of the Internet - volume 2

Without the Internet I could not have patched Bioshock to work on my lame video card (more on that later - curse you shader 2.0), I could not have fixed various family laptop problems, I could not waste time regularly on YouTube... but all this pales when I see sites like this...

Missing something?

Is e-mail dead?

Not according to this article.

Seems to me the "big three" in asynchronous text communications are e-mail, texting, and IM. Also seems like IM and texting get more of a volume pass than e-mail - tons of IMs just don't carry the stress factor of an inbox with 100 unread messages. Also seems like you are held less accountable to responding to texting and IMs - a good thing since all of these comminication buckets are overflowing.

Of course any long standing readers of this blog are aware that the solution to all e-mail problems has already been provided.

I guess at the end of the day, it will come down to where is the most reasonable place to find person "B" in "A" to "B" conversations, for me that is seem my e-mail inbox.

For now.

My hatred keeps me warm

Ok. Fine.

I have had several "friends" ask me if I have seen the following JC Penny commercial:

A young boy is opening a Christmas present -- it is a doll. He is surrounded by many other things pink and frilly. You see his frown deepen as the doll is revealed. It appears to be the end of a harrowing unwrapping session.

Then it cuts to a shot where he is writing a letter to Santa. Which says:

"Dear Santa Kelly is a boys name too."


Well har har hardy har.

Boys CAN be named Kelly. It is actually quite a manly name. Look it up - its meaning is warrior. Can't get more manly than that.

If you research more, you might also discover that it is further refined as female/princess warrior, but I strongly encourage you to stop before then. Once you see it means warrior, walk away immediately - with new found respect for the burly nature that is Kelly.

Remember:

Pat = what you do to a puppy's head
Matt = what you wipe your feet on
Bob = what wood does in water
Mark = a scuff on your shoe
Kent = a sissy location in England
John = well you know
Robin = now THERE is a girls name, as well as a tiny bird
Jamie = means Jamie I guess, but it is the baby sister of Robin in my book
Nick = a chip of a china plate
Art = art

Kelly = WARRIOR

(just found a no so great quality online version of this commercial here.)
(now a good quality one - oh joy)

Stop blocking?

A Canadian study suggests business and marketing leaders believe social media is replacing traditional media.

46% of them said social media is more important than TV, radio, newspapers and magazines.

85% believe it has become a vital element in communication.

66% don’t think employees should be using it at work.

Go figure.

This information, and much more insight on this topic can be found here.

X-wing rocket launch...

... and subsequent BOOM!

Someone had a tad too much time on their hands, but very cool.

You might want to watch this this version to see what REALLY happened.