This is amazing! Origami animated film "Pursuit of Perfection" by Mabona Origami
origami asics video
xmas classic
Seeing this always gets me in the xmas spirit and it always takes me back to my childhood. I used to borrow sky high stacks of Peanuts books from the local library and devour them. And I'd watch all the holiday specials without fail.
scaring white suburbanites case #337
Ok, I haven't documented all of the previous 336 times, but they're filed away in my head. Files that provide a glimpse of minority life (8%) in white American suburbia. Most cases are very mundane and uneventful. I've talked previously about getting tailed by cop cars for no reason. Or cashiers who silently stoneface us while smiling and chit-chatting up the caucasians before and after us. Nothing earth-shattering or revolution-worthy, just examples for studying subtle (and not-so-subtle) expressions of prejudices passed down from past generations like family heirlooms.
At my local WaWa convenience store, a middle aged white lady was about to exit through the same door I was entering. Upon seeing me, she changed directions and exited through a different door on the opposite side. Her next move would clue me in to her views on race. If she kept going in the same direction after exiting the door, then she might not be racist. Maybe a poor sense of direction or forgetful in locating her parked car...but not racist. Now, if she exits the door and turns around 180° to revert to her prior path (before seeing me), then she's a racist. Not only racist but fearful of sharing a door with a person of color. So, I watched her with an eagle eye weighing the meaning behind her next steps. And low and behold, she exits, pulls a 180° and heads in the original direction that was detoured by my unfamiliar presence. I actually grinned at myself and whispered "Goddammit" for even giving her the slightest benefit of the doubt. I looked at my clothes and felt respectable (not like it should matter). But maybe the darkness of night added to her sense of apprehension.
The next morning, I'm standing in line with my wife at the local post office. Its packed like sardines - especially with everyone hugging boxes of holiday gifts to send off. To my immediate left, a four-foot tall white haired old lady had her back to me, scribbling forms at the counter. Suddenly, she looked up in confusion - like she forgot something, turned around and almost crashed into me. Her eyes, set at my arm level, widened - surprised that someone was right behind her back. After preventing a crash, she looked relieved. "Oh, excuse me" was probably on the tip of her tongue. Then she looked up at my face. Her relaxed expression turned to horror. Eyes bugged out and mouth gaped. Like I was about to cut her. The progression of her facial expressions was amusing. In a matter of seconds, she went from confusion to surprise to relief to horror.
Again, I looked at my clothes and felt respectable (not like it should matter). And its not a nighttime in a dark alley...we're in a fluorescent bright post office. The old lady looks away from my face with horror subsiding. Her attention then goes to the person next to me - my wife. The old lady looks at my wife face and gives another fearful look. She didn't look like she feared for her life. More like, "Where on god's green earth am I? And who let these people in here?" Finally she regains her bearings and gets around us. Maybe she went home to pack her bags and relocate. Good luck finding a more white-washed suburb than this one, granny.
how bout them ravens?!
Way to close down Texas stadium and turn the lights off on the Cowboys!
I wasn't optimistic before the Ravens game at Dallas. The chips were stacked against them in a must-win situation on the road against a resurgent Cowboys team that just beat the mighty Giants a week earlier. How would the Ravens recover after that controversial heartbreak loss to the Steelers that cost them the division? The offense had gone into a shell with Flacco looking like a shook rookie during December. Not to mention it was the final game at Texas Stadium. In the media's eyes, the Ravens were surely an afterthought with little chance to spoil the homecoming game for America's Team. Surely an overflow of emotion, hoopla and the presence of Cowboy greats would be tough to overcome.
Yet somehow the Ravens overcame. Gutsy and defiant in victory. The team played with a chip on its shoulder, - knowing that before the season, Jerry Jones specifically requested the Ravens as the Texas stadium finale opponent becaused he smelled an easy win. Ed Reed and the defense smothered Romo for 3 quarters until an unexpected offensive avalanche in the 4th. Gutsy call by Harbaugh on the fake field goal to set up the first TD. Props to Derrick Mason for playing with one arm and scoring a tone-setting TD in the 3rd quarter. Props to McGahee (where have you been?) and McClain for their back-to-back long TD runs to stop the 4th quarter Cowboy comeback.
The Ravens have played well beyond my expectations (I pegged them for 6 wins at best) and credit goes to Harbaugh, Cameron and Ryan. The vaunted defense - although not dominating - has been solid despite key injuries. The offense has emerged from the dark ages of the Billick years to involve a little razzle-dazzle (wildbird package, reverses, receivers throwing TDs) while discovering new blood in Flacco, McClain and Rice. Playoffs would be lovely and anything beyond is icing on the cake.
tweet this: the media is dying
Following the media is dying page on Twitter. Interesting juxtaposition as social media tweets about the meltdown of traditional media.
adele 1988
Mick Boogie transforms Adele's album "19" into "1988" - a late 80's hiphop remixing of the UK artist's grammy nominated album. DL here.
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Labels:
music
obama logos that weren't chosen
Below were the three finalists. They made the right choice. The "O" logo is such an icon. The brand design and marketing of Obama was flawless.
kimiko yoshida
Kimiko Yoshida is a French/Japanese artist who created a series of self-portrait photos as a bride in different cultures. via trendland.
no mo
So long, Mo Cheeks. He's a great man and a legendary player of his time - but a mediocre coach. Nevertheless, he seems like the scapegoat for the 76ers poor play. When things go bad, the coach is the first to go. Is the coach at fault? Or has team chemistry been compromised by the Elton Brand signing? GM Ed Stefanski cited a regression in team play and a shake-up was needed to re-implement fast-break basketball. Stefanski gets a lot of credit for last year's surprising playoff run in urging Mo to play the young guys in an uptempo style. And it yielded results - and high expectations for this season.
This year's Sixers have lost their identity and have only succeeded in disappointment. Is it Mo's fault for not finding a way to push the transition game with Brand. Or is the low-post game of Elton Brand a bad fit for this team? Now, Mo has been a mediocre coach by record, but perhaps Stefanski's off season moves (signing Elton Brand and re-signing Iguodala) are not paying off and he's searching for a new coach to justify the expensive acquisitions. Elton Brand looks like a shell of himself and Iguodala is totally overrated and not worth the resigning. Can another coach make this work? Hmm, imagine Josh Smith running the floor.
pac-man
Pac-man proved again that he's pound for pound the best fighter in the world. Props to Manny Pacquiao for dominating Oscar De La Hoya and bagging $11 million in the process. He jumped up 2 weight classes and outclassed the bigger - albeit over-the-hill - Oscar De La Hoya. The outcome was not a suprise to any boxing fan, but the actual domination was ugly. Manny's speed and agility neutralized any size and reach disadvantage. Pacquiao's straight left repeatedly connected to the head, eventually forcing De La Hoya to quit on his corner stool after the eigth round with a swollen shut eye and a bruised face.
Oscar admitted that he doesn't have it anymore and hopefully he hangs his gloves up. I was a fan of the Golden Boy during the '92 Barcelona Olympics and through his wars with Mexican legend Julio Cesar Chavez. Oscar's skills fell off early in this decade, but he deserves respect for being boxing's biggest box office attraction and for being the first Hispanic American to own a national boxing promotional firm.
maroon remixed
Maroon 5 | Secret (DJ Premier Remix)
Maroon 5 (feat. The Cool Kids) | Harder to Breathe
Maroon 5 | Sunday Morning (Questlove Remix)
puma city - nomad store
Nice piece of architecture by Lot-Ek. Puma City is a mobile retail and event building traveling the world.
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Labels:
sneakers
burger virgins
BK is catching some flak for its Burger Virgins campaign. Flak is what they want of course. But who should be offended more - virgins or Thais?
yao ming tranformer
First Yao Ming does a funny T-Mobile commercial:
Almost as funny as his old Visa commercial:
Now he's a Transformer. Just in time for xmas...or chinese new year. This plastic bball transforms into yao with wings.
brooklyn go hard
Jay-Z's Brooklyn Go Hard video by Evan Roth of Graffite Search Labs. The song was made for RED & the Global Fund to Fight AIDS in Africa and for the upcoming Biggie biopic. Who knew Jigga was into typography?
Jay-Z (feat. Santogold) | Brooklyn Go Hard (prod. by Kanye West)
marketing is dead...
...or at least the old world of marketing is dead. This was the main theme of Seth Godin's recent webinar that I attended. From before the "Mad Men" days up until now, advertisers' bread n' butter relied on interrupting people's time. Buy up TV commercial time, radio spots and print adspace and expect a majority of people to pay attention. Now, media has been fragmented into a billion outlets (hundreds of tv channels and millions of websites) making it impossible to interrupt people's time. Moreover, people don't want their time interrupted. Godin draws parallels to the industrial revolution - in this case, power has shifted to the consumer via technology. They have the power in controlling their own media programming. Less and less people are going to find your Time magazine ad or watch your prime time tv commercial. Want to bombard people with email ads? Spam filters are everyone's best friend. Direct mass marketing is not what it used to be.
So how do you connect with consumers? Godin presents an analogy with finding a mate. You can go to a bar and ask someone to marry you...and if you get rejected, you keep asking people until one person finally says yes. Or you can ask someone on a date, develop an intimate relationship and eventually move towards marriage. This points to his theory that marketers need to develop a more intimate, personable and interactive relationship with consumers who are craving authenticity. Some of this points to social networking but its more about developing stategies to target a variety of markets and bringing them to your site. Create a forum of social discussion about your brand and product line. Capitalize on the fact that people are consumed with web interaction. A premium is placed in the actual product rather than creating a "story" about a product. Yelling offers in their face is akin to yelling at a wall.
happy thanksgiving
Asian American sketch comedy troupe 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors celebrate the holiday with their Thanksgiving Special: The First Illegal Immigrants.
ray young chu
Ray Young Chu takes on the commercial art world with his graffiti roots and anime influences.
fail / bail
Can my company get a bailout? Watching the economy implode has been frustrating and fascinating at the same time. But you don't necessarily feel the effects until your job security is in jeopardy. While the subprime mortgage mess got messier and Wall Street self-destructed, I continued to collect paychecks and paid my thankfully fixed-rate mortgage, bills and car notes. Even shopped a few times while shaking my head at the growing financial crisis.
Then came the layoffs at my company. 10% of the workforce gone. The president announced sales getting worse next year with more layoffs scehduled for next January. Yes, its not as bad as other companies - but it doesn't make it easier to hear. The whole culture has changed. What was always a stable work environment during my time has changed into a place of paranoia, nervousness and concern. People are wondering who's next. Unproductive people were cut first, but ultimately no one is safe.
One morning, I was talking to a buddy in another department at his desk. He was away on family vacation during the layoffs and said he was thankful to still have his job upon returning. 30 minutes later, he texts me from his home saying he was laid off (after 11 years of service). His wife has a struggling business and they have 2 kids in daycare and an expensive mortgage. Luckily, he gets severance and he'll collect unemployment. But they'll likely have to downsize housing, cram all their medical checkups before their current health insurance runs out. Pull kids out of daycare and look for more affordable care (or relatives). Lives get turned upside down and its mind-blowing how so many people are in this same boat. A boat with that Titanic feeling. This isn't the Great Depression, but are we approaching a "Little Depression"?
Call me late to the party, but now I've pulled back on my consumption. And now, I can see firsthand why the economy isn't moving. People don't spend or borrow when there's no job security. Worse when they're unemployed and in debt. Simple but true. I suppose we're paying for the sins of over-consumption and reckless spending. But for us common folk, we're paying for the sins of others. Reportedly, $300 billion of the bailout has been wasted - given to big banks for their own purposes (bonuses, shareholder benefits, unassociated acquisitions) rather than buying up clogged mortgage securities. How frustrating is this to watch when those AIG execs take a lavish half-a-mil spa vacation a week after getting bailed out? Or when those Detroit auto execs take a private jet to Washington to beg for taxpayer money? Its like going to collect welfare in a limo. You get the feeling that these fools will collect the bailout money and just commit the same mistakes again? Yeah, me too.
Just gotta hope Obama gets things in order. It seems he has all the right people on his economic team. Although its funny seing Robert Rubin advising when he directed Citigroup through its current mess...
adpushers / multi-media-tasking
Nice article in the NYT featuring several ad creatives discussing the new world of advertising and the challenges in connecting to a population with new media habits. Its true that many people spend all day in front of screens - and not just a computer screen or a TV. There's the phone/PDA at your fingertips (I seemingly can't function without my iphone in my hand and others, including Obama, feel the same about their Crackberrys), touch screens in the back of cabs, digital billboards and sides of public buildings.
Are we nearing the scene in "Minority Report" where Tom Cruise walks through a public street and hologram billboards interact with him personally with knowledge of his background and buying habits? I still get weirded out when Gmail and Facebook advertising changes to match the titles of my emails...
Going beyond the sensory overload and the non-existent attention span, people nowadays are accustomed to controlling their media content to fit their schedules and interests. TV has changed dramatically in my lifetime. Its no longer about the 3 main networks. Its not even about the hundreds of cable channels fragmenting the viewing audience. In the age of the internet, dv-rs/tivo and on-demand, most people act as their own TV programmers and schedule what they watch and when they watch. By the way, I hate how you're forced to watch a commercial when you stream a tv show or even a clip off the net.
In the old days, ad agencies could get away with selling anything because consumers were in the dark about the products. Now, the internet has given consumers the power of information on products and the old axiom about advertising being a business of lying may still be true but the reality of it has become more challenging.
So the admen in this article believe in promoting authenticity of a product and niche target marketing in all available media. All of this targeting will pull in all the fragmented groups of consumers towards a personable yet dynamic brand. One guy specifically cites sneaker companies that issue customized editions with designs honoring rockers, rappers and president-elects. Capitalize on the compulsion of media participation and interaction. So many fools want to be a reality star and every brainiac wants to comment or speak their mind on the internet. So an effective campaign gives customers the opportunity to customize products, participate in websites, viral videos or ad gimmicks.
I enjoyed their take on Katie Couric - I wonder if CBS is going to take their advice on promoting her as a multimedia brand (unless they've decided to dump her). Its true that the Walter Cronkite model of the evening news is outdated - who still sits through a full 30 minutes of news from one source? We gather or get alerted by seemingly hundreds of news sources a day through blogs, websites and news feeds.
I can barely sit through something I love to watch - like a football game without itching to multi-media-task. I remember reading a news report discussing the multi-tasking effect on children. Back in the old days, parents told kids not to watch TV during homework time. Listening to the radio in the background was debatable. Nowadays, many high schoolers do homework on their computer while answering hundreds of IM screens, listening to itunes, peeking at youtube clips, writing blogs and gossiping on facebook. The danger lies in a lack of focus, but it may just prepare them for the real world at its current pace. Yes, there is a lot of time-suckage within the multi-media-tasking, but perhaps the absorbent couch potato is a dying breed.
the roots do yo gabba gabba
Vid performance of "Lovely, Love My Family" for the Nickelodeon show Yo Gabba Gabba.
poldaroid
Poldaroid is a cool app that transforms your digital photos into vintage polaroids. Sample images from their flikr group.
japanese obama
This is an old bit that aired before the election but its still funny. Japanese comedian Mr. Nocchi impersonates Barack Obama and goes on a mission to meet the real deal at a St. Louis Rally.
1950's SAS airlines menu
Found this off grainedit. Great 50's design in this 1958 dinner menu celebrating the 1st anniversary of Scandinavian Airlines' North Pole Route from Copenhagen to Tokyo.
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