SAW a good idea

Joyful (Inappropriate) Art Viewing Gains Popularity on Web

What I consider socially acceptable is often not in line with the views of others.  Here are three examples of the inappropriate (I call them joyful) acts I commit on a weekly, if not daily, basis: dancing to my iPod in public, calling my superiors "Dude," and playing with other people's children (being a stranger).

While other art students from my old school in Boston would quietly sneak touches of artworks by artists they adored (if you're shocked, get over it - artists frequently touch each others pieces), I would get hyper and jump and shout when a piece really knocked me out.  I have received the nastiest "Your-behavior-is-SO-inappropriate!" glares in the gallery setting.   

Today, I found a sister in art reaction, Allison Reimus, a MFA student at American Univeristy in Washington DC.  Her blog, a compilation of user-submitted photos gathered since 2007, is titled Jumping in Art Museums.  I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have.

WiiSpray: Virtual Painting

Just saw this cool video on gaming blog offworld.com of a graffitti game for Wii:

WiiSpray Teaser from Martin Lihs on Vimeo.

Designer Martin Lihs developed this open-ended game, in partnership with Montana Paint, in an effort to "give graffiti a new virtual level surpassing tactile boundaries of the tangible world."  I think the guerrilla aspect of graffitti is lost in this concept, but nevertheless, I dig it for two reasons:

1) Its simplicity.  No instructions are needed to interpret the console, so users are free to explore the possibilities on their own -- ie. get creative faster.  The simplicity of the program is what gives it fluidity, makes it easy to get from concept to creation.

2) Its cleanliness.  One can tag up their wall until there's no tomorrow without inhaling any xylene fumes or covering themselves in toxic paint.   This is more of a plus for someone who is an actual graffitti artist because they can practice and plan their pieces without mucking up so many walls and brain cells.  In that light, I guess it's a plus for moms as well.

iTouch Texting

Who needs the latest generation of iPhone when you have an iPod Touch? If you aren't ready to make the jump to AT&T, you can have all the same SMS text functionality at your fingertips with an iPod Touch. MogoTXT is an online service that let's users with or without cell phones send text messages to anyone as long as they have internet access. It's a pretty neat idea. Incorporate that with the VoIP/iPod set-up and you have a makeshift iPhone. Way to go, MacGyver.

Walmartopia - The Musical

If you think about all of the strange events that have hit Off-Broadway, this has to be one of the stranger ones. Walmartopia, a musical targeted as a satire of Walmart, debuted last week. The plot: A mother/daughter duo, after getting passed on by a less experienced male co-worker, get transported 30 years in the future, where they have to help a rebel faction in Vermont. Their enemies include the talking head of Walmart founder Sam Walton, as well as an army of Smileys.

The point of this column, however, is not to point you to the show, but for you to sit and think about your own office. If a former employee decided to create a musical about your company, what would it look like? Would it be a comedy, a satire, or a tragedy? Is your company managed well enough so that it's a tightly run ship, or would the office's dirty laundry be aired out quicker than Britney Spears flubbing her lyrics at this past weekend's MTV Music Awards? Image isn't everything, but sometimes, it can be very important. Just ask Walmart.

Down with the Sickness

The amount of Purell I put on my hands on a daily basis has destroyed at least five layers of my skin.  Between the subway, the bathrooms, and volunteering at the Ebola research facility, germs are all around me.  I just don't like to be reminded of them. 

And we've all felt the spray.  That sprinkling of water you want to attribute to a light morning mist, but more likely flew out of the mouth of the guy standing next to you on the subway following his seemingly exaggerated sneeze.  A Brazilian company has zeroed in on this phenomena and created ads where water vaporizers mimic "explosive" coughs and sneezes.  The tagline reads "Flu is in the air."

It's worth noting that Sao Paulo has banned all outdoor advertising as it contributes to visual pollution. The creators of the ad worked around that challenge and came up with the effective and fun campaign.

(Via Creative Social Blog) 

Popping the Questions

Your Pop-Tart knows more than the average breakfast pastry.  That scone you had yesterday?  It doesn't have the cognitive ability to sharpen the #2 pencil your Pop-Tart used to take the Mensa test.  That's right, it's Stephen Hawking, "Let's calculate quantum-gravity," smart.

Kellogg and Hasbro have teamed up to produce Pop-Tarts with Trivial Pursuit for Kids questions on them.  (Don't worry, the questions are placed on each tart's frosting with an edible ink.)  Adding to the trivia environment, the Pop-Tart boxes contain fun facts as well.  So your kids will finally have that nagging answer to how deep 20,000 leagues under the sea really is.  (60,000 miles)

Personally, I restrict the "expanding of my mind" to reading Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books and only on Arbor Day and bank holidays.  But the dual-promotion is a great partnership, especially if it averts your eyes from reading what's exactly in that delectable little breakfast sweet.

Dunkin' Prizes

Donuts are part of a balanced breakfast.  It's just cold-hard fact.  Your day will be much better with a jelly donut sitting in your stomach.  Most of this science can be attributed to my favorite nutritionist, namely myself*.  And nothing goes better with a donut than a new car or a trip to Florida. 

Dunkin Donuts has hopped on the Starbucks Card train and is offering their new Dunkin Donuts Card complete with chances to win prizes.  Part of their "Use it.  Win it." promotion, it increases awareness of the card as well as driving customers into stores to play the contest.

*This from a man who ate DoubleStuf Oreos for breakfast throughout college.

All You Need is Bruce Campbell

No words necessary. I highly recommend heading to this site for more information ... and learning.

Little White Flakes

We didn't want to be the ones to break it to you.  But if not us, who?  We've established a trust these past few months and, quite honestly, we only want to help. 

That black sweater you bought which, in your words, is fierce when combined with those new shoes, makes for a great outfit.  We agree on that.  But your dandruff problem makes your shoulders look like a Colorado mountain pass five hours after a blizzard. 

These conversations don't have to be so awkward.  The gently-reassuring folks as Head and Shoulders have placed a camera on the ceiling of British photo-booths so those concerned about psoriasis can get a bird's-eye view of their noggin. 

A good secondary use is keeping track of that rapidly expanding bald spot. 

Divorce is Tasty

If you're getting a divorce, chances are you're distraught over the collapse of your marriage. But if you're Shanna Moakler, divorce is the natural next step after milking all you can (a reality TV show, a stint on Dancing With the Stars, 3 kids, and the promise of heaps of alimony) from your marriage to blink-182 band member Travis Barker. To celebrate her new single status, Ms. Moakler threw a divorce party in Vegas with all her best friends, and served up this amazing piece of confection. There's something captivating and beautiful about it, and not just because i'm sure it tasted delicious.

Juice It

Like Scott's Will It Blend? post, Nike is pushing the release of a new, barely legal golf ball called the Nike Juice 312 with a segment on their site called Juice It.  Next up to be juiced?  It's a vote between a piggy bank and a bunny.

I recommend the birthday cake and jello mold videos.

Wig-out

Last night, Team Renegade convened at the Bowlmor Lanes for an agency party hosted by Blue Lithium. Our 16-person contingent included seasoned bowlers, such as D. Kortum with his incredible cock-and-release form, J. Davidson with her magnetic spin, and Kirsten??, fooling us with her soft-spoken looks to lead her team to victory with 2 spares in the final round.

Somewhere in the course of the evening, a wig was discovered and found its way on different people's heads. Inspired by the photos and memories of this magical wig, Nicole and I propose the first annual Renegade "Wig-out." Who's with us?

Brawny Academy

Granted, the women may find this a better idea than the men, but Brawny has launched a campaign to reach their target audience: women, who make approximately 80% of all purchase decisions.

The lighthearted campaign consists of an eight-episode online reality show that aims at turning regular Joes into thoughtful, romantic, helpful Brawny Men. Eight men were sent into the woods by their significant others to attend “Brawny Academy.” The interactive campaign keeps the wants and needs of the female consumer in mind; a Brawny spokesperson explained that the online show format was chosen to reach their busy target audience – episodes are only 10-15 minutes, as opposed to television shows that run twice as long, and the online series can be accessed at one’s own convenience. Not only that, but the big benefit for Brawny is that the content of the show is the ad, unlike in television where ads interrupt content.

Check out the first episode and special features here. The next installment is expected on June 26.

Share the Air

Last Friday evening, we launched the new Panasonic Action Sports Site. The interactive site is a cool place for action sports enthusiasts to experience the Panasonic brand while expressing themselves creatively. The site features an Action Sports film contest, Dew Tour info, a gear section, and an Oxyride sweepstakes page.

Another highlight of the site, the photo blog, offers unique perspectives from action sports heroes Atiba Jefferson (photographer, editor of “The Skateboard Mag”), Sam Smyth (Team manager of Girl Skateboards), and Jimmie Mcguire (motocross athlete). The photos are, of course, taken with Panasonic digital cameras.

GAP bus tour – right down the street!

Allison, Marissa, Jason, Lindsey, and I just had the pleasure of experiencing Gap’s fun and funky Summer of Love / Rock Color bus, which just happens to be about a block south of here.

The spirited campaign is great; in our short visit to the bus, we noticed a good deal of people around the bus, cool FREE and for-sale gear (for a look, stop by my desk or Allison’s), and a friendly street team/staff making an emotional connection with potential customers (one gentleman personally tied my and Allison’s FREE “friendship bracelet”). Additional elements include a concert sweepstakes to see rockers such as John Legend, the Counting Crows, the Goo Goo Dolls, and Dave Matthews Band. The whole campaign is aimed at evoking “the fun and freedom of summer while enabling [the Gap] to connect with [its] customers on a personal level.”

 

Axe Booty Tones

The mantra “Sex sells” apparently also holds true for deodorant. Axe is now using different “booty call” ringtones, or Booty Tones, to promote their brand. The company has launched a website where guys (or girls) can download up to three free songs, such as “Shook Me All Night Long,” to their cell phones.

This site nicely targets Axe's main consumer -- young party boys 18-24 who are looking to stay fresh through all of their exploits.

Rice to Riches

New Yorkers may be familiar with the kooky façade of Rice to Riches, a rice pudding shop styled after the Italian gelateria, but as a new-comer to the city, I was enchanted by its fun spirit and approach to marketing and style. The shop stands out against the backdrop of Mullberry Street, right on the edge of Little Italy.

The unconventional store lured me in with a humorous sign in the window that read, “These premises are occupied by compulsively obsessed dessert loving people with no self-control or discipline.” Sounds like my kind of place.

And it was. Besides good rice pudding, the store offers really creative design, marketing, and packaging (the spoons are so cool!!). These small details turned a basic concept into something exciting. It’s definitely worth a visit, if you haven’t been yet.

But if you can't make it out there, the website www.ricetoriches.com offers a small taste (haha) of the experience.

David Hasselhoff - Hooked On A Feeling video

David Hasselhoff is known for his dashing good looks, hot style, and outstanding music videos. Stop drooling already and watch this amazing video for "Hooked on a Feeling." Enjoy here

This Weekend: Laser Stencils Workshop

If you are in NYC this weekend and are interested in creating stencils on a laser cutter, please come to the Holiday Hackshop. The event is run by Eyebeam. Info is as follows:

Design and laser cut your own stencils for holiday turf tagging and t-shirts.
Come work with Robot Clothes to create tools for street art and activism. Bring concepts and images, design vector graphics and laser cut them into acetate to create your own stencils. Share techniques and practice using your new stencils on t-shirts and walls with fabric paint, chalk spray paint and clay pens.
Session 1: 12-1:30
Session 2: 2-3:30
Session 3: 4-5:30
1.5 hour workshop, 10 participants per session - $15 Saturday, December 3, 2005
12:00 PM - 6:00 PM
540 W. 21st St.

IVR Cheat Sheet by Paul English

Another example of compiled knowledge benefiting the online masses. Paul English has put together a  helpful list of secret numbers and tips to bypass IVRs to get to a human. Need help when calling Social Security? Simply press "00" to confuse the computer and send you to an agent

Link here

Freeline Skates

[CoolHunting] Skateboarding x snowboarding x surfing = Freelining, a new sport invented by Ryan Farrelly that looks  crazy. Freeline skates each have two wheels which are attached to a small aluminum frame with a flat top that has grip tape on top. There are no straps—you ride it like a small skateboard under each foot. Check out these videos, which show you how to start Freelining. A box of two skates is $129 and is available online from Freeline Skates.

Have you called Tom Green yet? 310.717.1919. Seriously.

So, uh, who wants to say hi to Tom Green?
In a display of sheer genius, Tom Green has posted his personal cell phone number on his website. You can call him...he'll actually pick up and chat. I think it's pretty sweet.

The Moment I Lost My Mind And Gave Out My Personal Cell Number. 1 (310) 717-1919

From the Official Tom Green Website...

Okay, so I didn't mention this. But I documented the moment that I lost my mind. On video. It was the moment I decided to post my phone number on my blog. It's neat, because you see how long it takes for the phone to start ringing. About two minutes or so after the post. It hasn't stopped since. I'm not complaining. It has been awesome talking to all of you people around the world over the past 24 hours. If you watch this video to the end, you will see the first call I recieved. And me making some goofy faces, as I tend to sometimes do. You guys are awesome. Cheers Gang!

Harry Potter Rocks my World

I know I am a big dork, but I am way excited about the new Harry Potter movie.  To whet your appetite, you should check out the official site, which is pretty cool.  You can even be sorted into a house and watch yourself on the maurader's map.

What are you going to be for Halloween

This Halloween, wake up as the king!

Nike Football: the vending machine

[Adverblog] An excellent outdoor/guerrilla campaign for Nike Football in Singapore to promote the idea of football anytime/anywhere. Footballs vending machine placed were placed in high-traffic urban spots, such as metro stations.

The agency is Kinetic.

Family Guys Gets Subservient Chicken Treatment

[Adrants] To promote the release of FOX's The Family Guy DVD, Fuel Industries has created a Subservient Chicken-like site, called Stewie Live, featuring the character Stewie. As is usually the case with these command-based sites, Stewie, of course, burps, farts and has sex. Beyond that, Stewie reacts to 160 commands so far and the list will surely grow. To view an homage to the grand daddy of this genre, be sure to type in the word "chicken."

Smarter not Harder

[From Boing Boing]

This enterprising Livejournaller had a "work-blind" printed on vinyl, depicting him hard at work in his cubicle. He hung the result in his cubicle doorway, so that it appears to the unobservant that he's at his desk pounding the keyboard no matter what the reality.

link here

MyOpenBar.Com

Everyone: down tools. The ultimate technology has been created. We no longer need to seek further progress. MyOpenBar.Com is here.

Rob Hitt and Seva Granik from Williamsburg realized the dire need for a centralized and coherent source of openbar listings (because "paying rent and shelling out 7 bucks on a Brooklyn Lager just wasn't working out"). Each week, they'll send out an email with a listing of bars offering free alcohol. Over time, they promise zip-code driven search and sort capabilities too!

MyOpenBar.Com

Crash the Wedding Crashers Movie Trailer

Ever wonder what you'd look like in a movie trailer? Well, thanks to the Wedding Crashers new interactive viral site all you need is 2 minutes and a picture of yourself to turn that dream into a reality.  Click here and let the magic begin... 

Counting Crackers

Drew sent us this site:

Personal, and hilarious parody of The Gates! see here

Dragostea din tei

This and Paris Hilton's address book are probably the most viral things on the web right now.

NBC article: Teen's video is biggest rage on the internet.

Music Plasma

Calling all music lovers. Type in your favorite artist and see which other artists share similarities with them. A simple but engaging graphic design makes the site come alive.

Music Plasma

No idea how the White Stripes are related to Sigur Ros, but damn... they knew I like them both.

hilarious cartoons on advertising

hugh "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" macleod is a creative director who writes about the new, happy, fun, grim meathook realities of marketing and advertising.  Some seering pearls of wisdom set in b&w scribbles.

link here

why laugh at yourself when you laugh at someone else?

Another offering in embarrass yourself (or in this case, your friends) for someone else's amusement and/or profit, shamings.com is billed as "The Olympics of Drunken Embarrassment".  Users submit photos of mostly passed out friends in compromising positions.  Submissions are then rated.

The site is part of the Connected Ventures Network (collegehumor.com, busteedtees.com, etc.), and, given the apparent demographic, it does include the requisite "make sure your friend is not suffering from alcohol poisoning" paragraph...(very nice of them to put that above the fold :)

NYC bloggers

“The idea is simple: A map of the city that shows where the bloggers are, organized by subway stop. Find out who's blogging in your neighborhood!"

NYC Bloggers

A pencil odyssey

Truly pushing the interactive frontier. Hey! Isn't that a oneshow pencil [via styleboost]:

A highly humorous interactive site where you take on the role of an ant in search of a pencil. It may sound dumb, and it really is. But that doesn't matter, as it's so much fun to play and lovely to behold."

Link here

MJ's Punchout

Hilarious video that remakes the classic Mike Tyson's punch out in a style worthy of the king of pop!

Dodgeball

More on the SMS front, Dodgeball is a location based SMS social networking tool (if that makes any sense). It sounds very cool (although I admit I've never used it). Basically, you text your location and texts come back with a list of everyone in a 10 block radius. Here's a description from their FAQ:

Q: What does it do?
A: The idea is simple: tell us where you are and we'll tell you who and what is around you. We'll ping your friends with your whereabouts, let you know when friends-of-friends are within 10 blocks, allow you to broadcast content to anyone within 10 blocks of you or blast messages to your groups of friends.

Q: Give me an example.
A: Okay, so you're having drinks at Luna Lounge. Send a text message to nyc@dodgeball.com with the message "@Luna Lounge" and we'll send out a text message telling all your friends where you are AND send you back a message letting you know if any friends-of-friends are within 10 blocks. If you have a camera phone, we'll even send you their picture.

Free SMS directory assistance

Tad swears by this:

Free directory assistance is now available for SMS junkies. When visiting www.upsnap.com, users send a message to their own mobile phone. After that, they can send messages to UpSnap, with the name and location of the person or business they’re interested in, and they’ll receive a replywith the number requested.

Instant City

Not sure I can completely wrap my mind around this, but apparently it's a bunch of transparant building blocks and depending on how you build this thing, you create different musical compositions.

Here's the writeup from their website [link and text via cityofsound]:

Instant City is a music building game table. one or more players at a table can create architecture using semi-transparent building blocks and in the process make different modular compositions audible. Every performance is unique because the sequence, timing and combination possibilities are completely in the hands of the players! For each game one composition is chosen. To date, eight different musicians have each produced special compositions which serve as the basic music building kits of instant city. The repertoire and compositions can and will be continually renewed/replenished.

It appears to made by a Dutch company called Rosen & Spademan, who also happen to have a fairly cool website: http://www.rosen-spademan.net.

Technics MK1200 (Air Edition)

Check it out, and watch the video here

Draw it. Store it. Sell it.

Link: http://www.pixeltees.com/

PixelTees -Clever business idea that lets you design your own pixel tee, and make money selling them on the web.

Fake Funk Jump Project

I hope the FakeFunk Jump Project will make you smile

Lomolitos

At 20 for $7.50 each, you can bet that the new disposable Lomo cameras are going to be to be the freshest party favors in town. Add some splash to your party snaps.

Lomolitos

iPATCH

The latest Apple product is going to revolutionize the world: iPATCH