The Halting Point

Twirl-A-Squirrel

2007-03-13T10:37:00.000-05:00

Ever have a problem with squirrels eating all the bird seed out of your bird feeder? Me neither, but I might buy one of these just to laugh my ass off. The product, sold on Birdquest uses a battery to rotate the feeder. Birds don't mind being spun at a certain RPM but squirrels do. I'm not quite sure how it detects the difference (probably by weight) but this thing is freaking hilarious to watch.

T-Mobile Lies to Customers Part 4

2007-01-04T20:28:00.000-06:00

Read Part 1 of this article

Read Part 2 of this article

Read Part 3 of this article

Shane also shared some interesting info on T-Mobiles customer service workings...I've learned the following:

There is a difference between Account Specialists and Advanced Care Specialists. The Advanced Care Specialists are the ones who can actually DO something for you.

There most certainly IS someone above the rank of supervisor to speak to and under no circumstances should Tom have told me otherwise.

In certain circumstances T-Mobile can indeed guarantee a pricepoint will be good and valid at a later date. The company policy is 72 hours but there can be exceptions like in my case.

T-Mobile does not use scripts, so when Tom sounded like he was reading a script, it was just him getting tired of the conversation and sounding like a robot.

So all in all I feel much better about T-Mobile than I did a few days ago although I'm still going to shop around and see if anybody has any better rates since my current contract with them is expired. If I don't find anybody, then I will probably end up getting another 2 year contract and a brand new V3T for $29.99. Not a bad deal at all. Shane also assured me that my piss poor experience with Tom would be looked into and dealt with.

So remember, don't stop pushing until you are a satisfied customer. Despite what some companies may try to tell you these days, the customer is always right or else the customer will no longer be your customer. Vote with your wallets, and it doesn't hurt to mention that the incident will likely be seen by the entire internet if it gets posted on Consumerist.com

T-Mobile Lies to Customers Part 3

2007-01-04T19:46:00.000-06:00

Read Part 1 of this article

Read Part 2 of this article

After holding for a bit, a polite sounding man named Shane gets on the phone. I bring him up to speed and he agrees that I definitely have every reason to be pissed off. He then makes me an offer.

Shane: "I can certainly offer you the V3 for $29.99 with no rebate."

Now, that would be fantastic...if the rep who transfered me to him hadn't just told me that their current price on the Razr was $29.99 with no rebate having just come down in price from the $49.99 price Tom has given me. At this point I was not going to accept JUST being given the price I was quoted. That should have been the first thing Tom should have offered me initially.

But now I had been:

Been lied to by T-Mobile by one of THEIR representatives, the face of T-Mobile that the customer deals with.

Been treated poorly by a customer care supervisor.

Been lied to by said supervisor about there not being Executive Customer Service and being refused an escalation of my case.

Been lied to by said supervisor again since according to Shane Ryan DID have the authority to lock in that price till after the holidays while Tom kept telling me Ryan did not have that authority.

I wanted more than just my originally quoted price, they needed to make things better, not equal so to speak. I explained the situation nicely to Shane.

Me: "So one of my big issue now is that the main reason I have been with T-Mobile all these years is because of your great customer service, and now I am unsatisfied with the customer service I have received and am likely to cancel my service."

After a bit more discussion Shane offers me 200 free minutes to appease me. Not only is that not a lot of minutes (nor do I use a lot to begin with) but it really has nothing to do with the cause of the issue....me wanting a Razr V3. I explain this to Shane and say that a free V3 would do it. I mean, they were going to give it to me for $29.99, but what is $29.99 compared to keeping a customer happy and paying for service for 2 more years?

At this point Shane asks to put me on hold to speak to whoever has the authority to grant special requests. He comes back on and says that they can offer me the V3 Limited Edition which has a fancy (dumb) dragon design on it and is about $20 more and they will extend that offer for 2 weeks. I explain that I don't really care for the Limited Edition one and mention the brand new Razr V3T which has a MUCH better camera than the V3 and they currently list it on their site for $99.99. He explains that that is a different model and at a higher price, etc.

After a little bit of further negotiations, he is nice enough to offer me the more expensive V3T for $29.99 and will extend (and note in my account) the offer for 2 weeks.

Finally...THIS is the type of customer service that can repair a damaged customer relationship. Especially when that relationship was one of the main reasons the customer is a customer in the first place.

I thank him and explain that I still need some time to consider keeping my service with T-Mobile, but 2 weeks should give me some time to do that.

I explain then that I will still be submitting my article to Consumerist.com but that I would make sure to note how helpful Shane had been.

So Shane, if you read this, thank you again for an exemplary job of customer service. You recognized the bigger issue of the customer relationship at hand and were willing to negotiate a way for me to get a good deal to smooth things over, while still giving T-Mobile some money and maintaining the company's legal position on price changes.

CONTINUED IN PART 4

T-Mobile Lies to Customers Part 2

2007-01-04T19:29:00.000-06:00

Read Part 1 of this article

I decide to bring up the Verizon dollars/cents issue that Consumerist covered not too long.

After asking if Tom was familiar with the incident (he was)...
Me: "So what happened is that a Verizon rep quoted one thing and then the company later told the customer another thing, very much like this"

Tom: "Yes but that was a billing issue and this is a product sales issue."

Me: "I understand that, however that is completely irrelevant since my point was that the company told the customer one thing, and later went back on it and refused to satisfy the customer until a story reached Consumerist.com and was picked up by the news."

After going back and forth a bit more it seems Tom is getting annoyed with repeating the company line over and over again and proceeds to start saying what sounded like a "Sorry you're screwed but get off the phone" script (I later find out they don't use scripts and that was just him being rude). I try to interject but he speaks over me. Guess he only likes the interruptions going one way.

Being completely fed up at this point I ask to speak to Executive Customer Service.

Tom: "There is no Executive Customer Service."

I know when I'm being lied to, and now I'm even more pissed. I decide to try a little name-dropping.

Me: "I have to say I'm pretty unhappy with the service I've received and if there's nothing you can do to satisfy me then I will be writing an article on this experience and submitting it to the Consumerist.com website since they likely will be able to get me the contact info for Executive Customer Service."

Tom: "You are more than welcome to post that story sir."

After exchanging some final pleasantries I get off the phone angry as hell.

A little later in the week (tonight, 1/4/07) I decide to call again since I just wanted to be sure of the prices I was going to cite in my article I was writing. I spoke to a nice cute-sounding rep who helped me out, and then, for the hell of it I asked to please be transferred to someone to cancel my account. My logic was that maybe I might get somewhere with a retention rep (T-Mobile calls them Advanced Care Specialists) since part of the game with customer service is to try speaking to different people if you don't get your way the first time.

CONTINUED IN PART 3

T-Mobile Lies to Customers Part 1

2007-01-04T18:13:00.000-06:00

T-Mobile needs to take a lesson from Verizon and take care of customers who they've made and subsequently broken promises to. My ordeal with T-Mobile began right before the holidays on 11/22. I was shopping around for better rates on my plan, and unable to find any better competitive rates I decided to give T-Mobile a call to see what new things they had available. My discussion with the rep, a certain Ryan F., turns to phones since I have an older Motorola V330 and was interested in the possibility of upgrading. We whittle it down to a Motorola Razr V3 for a price of $29.99 after a mail-in rebate with a 2 year agreement.

I then explain to the rep that I don't really want to spend the money on a new phone right now since not only do I have to buy holiday gifts, but I will likely either get a new phone for the holidays or use gift money to buy it. He says that he can put a note in my account for that price and that I can call back right after the holidays and get the phone at the price he quoted me. Fantastic! This customer service is the reason I have been with T-Mobile all these years.

Fast-forward to shortly after Christmas. I call T-Mobile and have another rep (Mary, extension #413736) check that the note is still in my account which of course it is. I then ask to order the phone for that price and the rep proceeds to tell me that the price has changed. It is now $49.99 with no mail-in rebate and a 2 year contract. I say that the no rebate incentive really isn't that important to me since I'm used to dealing with rebates and would rather have the lower, originally quoted price of $29.99.

Mary's Reponse: "We're sorry, but prices are subject to change and the previous price given is no longer valid."

Me: "But that is why he put the note in my account, so I could get that lower price even if prices went up immediately after the holidays."

Mary: "He was not authorized to do that, prices are subject to change."

I can clearly see I will be getting nowhere with this 1st level rep, being no stranger to dealing with customer care, so I kindly thank her for her help but ask for her supervisor. Her supervisor, Tom S. (extension #8661) gets on and proceeds to feed me the same company line as Mary. After calmly arguing the situation a bit, I start getting annoyed and ask the following:

Me: "I'm curious what reason I could possibly have for having Ryan make the note in my account other than to receive the quoted price at the later date. Do you think I wanted a keepsake or something of that conversation?"

He then gives me the same runaround about how Ryan was not authorized to do that, prices are subject to change, but he will contact Ryan's supervisor and have him deal with Ryan.

Me: "Great, and while I would expect that, you still have an unsatisfied and unhappy customer on your hands."

We then start discussing other phones since maybe there is a comparable one at the price I was quoted. After interrupting me several times during the conversation and proceeding to essentially tell me that my needs for a cellphone and the way I currently use multiple devices (camera, iPod, phone, etc) are bad because they are not his needs (having an all-in-one device), we determine that there is no comparable phone for $29.99.

At this point I'm fairly annoyed, and since I didn't expect this to be a big issue (what's $20 on a phone when I'm signing up for a 2 year contract?) I decide that before I go further, I need to get some employee names and numbers. He proceeds to give me his info and Mary's info and Ryan's name however apparently Ryan did not have an extension, since apparently they do not all have rep ID numbers but rather just phone extensions.

Me: "So just curious here...if you don't have Ryan's extension, how will you know which Ryan's supervisor to contact, surely T-Mobile has plenty of Ryan's working for them?"

Tom: "Our system has ways for us to do that."

Fine, I can understand that although I feel like I'm getting the brush off. I then decide to switch tactics.

CONTINUED IN PART 2

Spike Video Game Awards. Makes your ears puke.

2006-12-14T10:02:00.000-06:00

As I was sitting at home playing World of Warcraft last night someone told me to turn on Spike TV for their Video Game Awards (VGAs). Why pray tell? Oh...they're showing the new WoW: Burning Crusade trailer, cool, I'll watch. BIG mistake. You see, the reason they showed the trailer at the END of the VGAs was because otherwise they would lose 99% of their audience who was only watching it for that since there really was no other reason to watch it.

First, you have Samuel L. Jackson hosting it. It was obvious after only 5 minutes of watching him that he was hired SOLELY to swear a lot. A few of the things he said were actually funny, but I'm convinced that he was making those parts up as he went along since all of the scripted material for both him and the rest of the presenters was painfully boring and dumb. The World of Warcraft chatrooms, filled with what could be argued as a fair representation of "true" game geeks across America (and other countries) were ablaze with people mocking the lines that the talent was forced to read. Even witty people like Seth Green were dumbed down to old internet cliches. At one point Tony Hawk started talking about Zero and made All Your Base references to which his female co-presenter gave the most awkward look in the history of award shows. It was clearly obvious that many of the presenters had not even read their script until they got up on stage. You can see a video clip of that fiasco here. Apologies for the quality...it appears to be a cam recording of a TV, but the audio is fine.

But hey, if I was being paid as much as they must have been to get up there and read a few lines and then head to the crazy Hollywood afterparties I wouldn't mind reading something dumb either.

The level of product placement was also extremely intrusive. I didn't think you could get more pointless sponsorships than what they have in professional sports but thank you Spike TV for proving me wrong.

You can check out the SpikeTV VGAs website at Spiketv.com and then you must navigate through their crappy Flash navigation to get to the VGAs online coverage. Totally not worth it.

At least the WoW:BC trailer was awesome. Blizzard really knows how to make their CG intros and this is no exception. The attention to detail is amazing and the focus in this trailer (as opposed to the original one) was to show off all the cool new stuff while still adding plenty of tidbits that fans will go nuts over (such as the sheeping).

You can find both a .FLV streaming Flash version of the trailer as well as a higher quality DivX version on the World of Warcraft website's video page.

Wefeelfine.org, discover how the world feels.

2006-12-03T01:17:00.000-06:00

I'm a sucker for nice visualizations so I thought I'd share a cool one I discovered recently. It is called WeFeelFine. They employ a search engine spider that crawls various blogs for certain key phrases indicating emotion. They catalogue this data, and display it in a beautiful interactive visualization and if you click on any of the moving symbols, you can read the phrase of the place it came from. Click on the full phrase that just appeared and be taken to the originating website.

The level of interaction is not to be passed over. It is very thorough and provides a lot of interesting things to look at and different ways to break the data up. I will note however that I wish there were more description of what I was doing/looking at. While a lot of it is very self-explanatory and intuitive, I still couldn't shake the feeling of "I don't really know what this will do but i'll bet it'll be cool". So as a statistical tool I wasn't in love with it, but still very cool nonetheless.

Be sure to note subtle differences in things. For example, while there are an overwhelming number of bouncing circles floating around, look for the squares as well. These have photos attached.

All in all, very cool and nice for those small moments when you're curious what is going on elsewhere in the world.

Amazing pixel art poster of Digg and other Web 2.0 companies

2006-12-01T12:51:00.000-06:00

Eboy, masters of pixel art goodness have released their latest poster, FooBar. Click the image for a larger version. I've always been a huge fan of pixel art as the artists tend to put an INCREDIBLE amount of detail in each piece. Be sure to hunt down all the little fun things going on in this one, there's a bunch that are a lot less obvious than the giant robot arms punching through to the surface from under the street in the middle.

For those interested in getting started with their own pixel art creations, check out these resources;

Pixel Art City Generator - Drag and drop in this Flash app to create your own pixel cities, choose from several starting templates.

DeviantArt Pixel Art Forums - Great discussion area focused on pixel art.

PPP = Internet Paid Off

2006-11-22T23:37:00.000-06:00

I recently tweaked the AdSense arrangement on the site in case some of you noticed. The results have been pretty impressive in terms of performance, however the site still makes jack shit in terms of revenue from AdSense. It seems the people who come here do not click ads that often. While I can't actually ASK them to do it...I would be very happy if they would. In fact, if AdSense revenue increased, I could reduce the number of PPP posts I make on here, such as this one.

The reason I still post about word of mouth marketing through PPP on here is because frankly, they pay better than AdSense right now. Much better. This post alone gets me 10 bones. 5 posts like this a month and I've paid for my internet for the month. 5 posts takes me roughly 1 to complete. Well worth it.

New Steampunk Animated CG Movie

2006-11-21T13:57:00.001-06:00

From the people that brought you "Rock Fish" (link goes to full short) and other great shorts, Blur Studio is set to release their new film "Gentleman's Duel" sometime this year. The film tells the story of a Frenchman and an Englishman who are fighting over a noble woman.

The coolest part of all of this, and the reason why you're likely reading this article is for their weapons of choice for the duel. Giant, steam-powered mechs. As a huge Steampunk fan, I can only say "its about freakin time". Personally I'm dying for a live-action Steampunk movie, but this will definitely make due in the meantime. If you aren't familiar with Blur, I HIGHLY recommend you check out their website and familiarize yourself with their work. It is highly entertaining and some of the best quality CG animation out there.

"Gentleman's Duel" is a first for them in many ways not only in terms of the technology they are using for this but also in terms of the art direction. For this film it seems they are trying to go for more of a "hand-painted" feel to things, despite the fact that it was all created with cutting-edge animation software. There is a much longer and in-depth article available at CGSociety that details the technology used and has many more pretty screenshots. Unfortunately, none of the screenshots have pictures of any of the mechs although you can tell in one of them that the man is sitting in the cockpit of one of the mechs even though you can't see very much of it.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is short-listed for the Oscars like their last short and can't wait for them to produce more great animation concepts like this.

Richard Dawkins explains why he is hostile towards religion.

2006-11-20T12:07:00.000-06:00

A recent article on BeliefNet (not sure if he wrote this for them or they just picked it up from elsewhere), written by Dawkins himself explains his hatred of religion. It is a fascinating read because while Dawkins usually presents his information through examples and evidence, this piece is more of an opinion piece, providing a few links to back up his points, but mostly just explaining his animosity towards fundamentalists and any who would put religion over science.

He gives two eloquent anecdotes of what happens when one renounces their beliefs and when one chooses to block out the facts in favor of beliefs. He also does an excellent job of explaining the fact that he is not the atheist equivelant of a fundamentalist. There are many differences, the key one being that if he was presented with evidence that disproved current scientific theories of evolution for example, he would change his view overnight, and be overjoyed that science had progressed. He points out that there is not a single fundamentalist alive who would do such a thing. And he is right.

I truly hope for a day when atheists rule the world, perhaps there will be fewer wars, or perhaps people will just be more honest about why they are fighting them without the excuse of their religion. Part of me wonders what life would be like if we had two planets, one for religious people and the other for atheists. What would those societies look like? What would the rate of technological advancement be? One can only wonder...

This is a good follow-up to my previous article on Dawkins that also has links to download his full-length documentary "The Root of All Evil" which explains as only Dawkins can explain it, why religion is bad for us.

Shaolin Monk vs. Tae Kwon Do...Speed vs. Power

2006-11-11T21:16:00.000-06:00

Everybody knows Shaolin monks are good combatants, but what happens when they are up against another martial art specialist, such as say...a Tae Kwon Do master? Shaolin kung-fu is known for its speed whereas Tae Kwon Do is known for its raw power. Watch below and learn for yourself in this completely unscripted tournament fight which is more important. In case you can't figure it out, the Shaolin monk is the yellow robes.

PokerSavvy...or how to dodge the law

2006-11-07T13:23:00.000-06:00

So, first off I will disclose that this post is paid for by PokerSavvy, and Online Poker site. When I saw this opportunity listed on PayPerPost, I was a bit shocked since I know that online poker is now illegal in the U.S. and the primary audience of the bloggers of PPP is in the U.S. In any event, it seems they get around this with a loophole where you sign up for a poker room and win "SavvyPoints", which you can exchange for crap online. I don't see any listing of what you can get with these points, but I assume it is nothing too worthwhile.

In addition, this isn't even an actual poker site, its an affiliate site which for those not in the know...does the legwork of marketing, etc. to get new customers for the sites they are affiliates for, and they receive a commission. At least they were fairly up front about this in their FAQ unlike most online internet businesses that fall into the same category as online poker.

It also seems they have a bevvy of poker articles which may or may not be useful to you. Ah the joy of +/- opportunities on PPP...I get to write whatever the hell I want about something and get paid even if what I write isn't positive.

Election Day Tomorrow

2006-11-06T17:12:00.000-06:00

Just a quick note to remind you all to make sure you get to the polls tomorrow. If you're a little daunted by the amount of names you haven't heard of, there are websites such as http://voteforjudges.org/ that can at least give you a fighting chance.

Richard Dawkins debates science vs. religion with Ted Haggard

2006-11-05T15:51:00.000-06:00

For those not familiar with Richard Dawkins, he is one of the most admired and exalted scientists still alive today. He currently holds the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University to give you some feel for his credentials. You would be wise to read his full wikipedia entry.

In this video, he debates Ted Haggard, the religious counsel for such people as George Bush, and Tony Blair. Ted was recently caught on video admitting to having bought meth from a gay prostitute.

What do they debate? The very foundations of religion, the essence of science and why the two don't mesh. This is the most confrontational interview I've ever seen Dawkins involved in, and at one point you see his face and you can just see how utterly frustrated the man is at trying to have a logical discussion with Ted. It seems as if he's ready to just reach over, beat the shit out of him and strangle him for the good of humanity. But the kicker comes at the end when Haggard tosses Dawkins out of the church.

Truly one of the most eye opening interviews I have seen in a long time. Mr. Dawkins, through this video you have somehow managed to make me respect you even more.

For those wondering what this is from, this is an excerpt from a series of Dawkins' called "The Root of All Evil." You can watch the entire show at the links below:

Video of "The Root of All Evil" Part 1

Video of "The Root of All Evil" Part 2

Torrent of the high-quality version of "The Root of All Evil"

UPDATE: See a follow-up article on why Richard Dawkins hates religion. Not so much the facts-based presentation as he gives in his documentary, but more of an opinion piece coming straight from his heart, and his brain.

PINKS, not just for Fast & The Furious Posers.

2006-11-03T14:19:00.000-06:00

There's this show PINKS. They race for pink slips like "real live street racers do" in The Fast & The Furious. The video below actually looks kinda interesting and contains a bunch of Drag Racing Clips. I think I saw a Mercedes goin against a Mustang at one point. That's gotta suck to lose. This video is promoting the all-day marathon of PINKS which will be followed by the premiere of PINKS All Out on SpeedTV on November 23rd. Also, FYI, this is a paid post via PPP and SpeedTV requires disclosure, and they require that I put "this post sponsored by SpeedTV.com" in the post somewhere. Kudos to them for requiring disclosure since there's tons of people who wouldn't disclose this, but shame on them for making people do it in the form of plugging their website. If you want us to disclose it, let us do it in language that we see fit.

But anyway, the interesting part of this post is the video below which is actually interesting to watch despite the paid nature of this post.

New Smash Bros. Brawl Trailer!!!

2006-11-03T13:56:00.000-06:00

I am a massive fan of the Smash Bros. series. Although I prefer the original N64 version due to its tighter feeling controls, i'm DEFINITELY looking forward to the Wii version. Now instead of just reaching over and whacking my friends upside the head as we play, I can actually have that make my character attack and kill 2 birds with 1 stone! I'm kind of skeptical as to how accurate the Wii controller will be for this since timing was EVERYTHING in the previous ones and requiring body movement increases delay.

Either way it will be very interesting to actually get my hands on this and play it. I'm glad they kept cheap-ass Pikachu in there. I don't care how cheap he is, he rocks! I'm also pretty geeked to play Snake and he looks like he'll have some pretty sweet moves including what looks like a Raiden-esqe teleport attack.

How much have I made on PPP per hour?

2006-11-03T11:55:00.000-06:00

So by now you've noticed that I post somewhat frequently about PayPerPost (PPP). Those posts are all paid for by PPP. How much? Well, this one post alone is getting me $10. And its going to take all of 10 minutes to write.

They're encouraging us to post our earnings so far so I'll go ahead and flat-out say that from the 9 posts (not including this one) I've made so far, I've made $95.50. The average payment per post comes out to about $10.61. If it takes me roughly 10 minutes for each post (including time spent navigating slow-ass Blogger.com)...that comes out to me making about $63.66/hour.

I'd really love to see what kind of "hourly rates" some of the top posters come out to. Not sure how many blogs they use, but it can indeed be profitable since the top poster clearaed $2600 this month.

Not bad for making a quick buck when you get back home from work at night, or on the weekends. Or depending on where you live and your living expenses...this could even be a full-time job for someone.

I said it before and I'll say it again. I don't mind doing these sponsored posts as long as I can say whatever the hell I want about what I'm posting about, and this is an excellent way for us smaller bloggers to make decent money that we'd never make through AdSense or anything like that.

And FYI, you can always tell which of my posts are paid or not because Blogger does not let you have fully invisible images, so whenever you see that tiny empty box at the end of my post, that is the tracking image for the PPP service to notify them that I've posted this. So if you don't like reading my witty sponsored posts, just ignore ones with that box.

I do plan on starting other blogs to utilize PPP, and hopefully that will let me tone down the amount of opps I post on here, but till then, DEAL WITH IT!

And if you are a small-time blogger and want to make money with them, feel free to use my email address haltingpoint@gmail.com as your referrer. You get to start making money, and I get $5 for having referred you, no skin off your back.

Don't Be Evil?

2006-11-02T12:32:00.000-06:00

It seems that Microsoft have found a way to look like nicer guys than most people think. They're considering pulling out of China because they don't agree with China's oppressive regime.

Remember when Google got all that heat for moving in to China? When they bent over and censored search results themselves? Remember how they argued that giving the Chinese people some information, no matter how slanted, was ethically better than staying out in protest to the heinous human rights violations of the communist government? Remember how so many people said that it really came down to how much money they were missing out on because they hadn't moved in to China yet?

Google always had their good guy image, and faced with a tough decision, they caught a lot of flak and were really put under a microscope because people tended to have such a positive view of Google. Now Microsoft, which has a much more sinister reputation, stands to look like a bunch of really nice(r) guys because they're going the other way.

I remember an old tactic to making friends and managing expectations in a new social group:
Start off being as discourteous and rude as you can get away with. Then, after everyone expects you to be a jerk, start quietly being nice to people. Generally, they'll really appreciate your courtesy, instead of taking it for granted as they otherwise might.

Battle of the Vinyl Album Art Mashup

2006-10-30T16:38:00.000-06:00

While I recognize most of my music collection by their MP3 file names and the folders I save them in, it appears the older generations were treated to a vast array of iconic vinyl record album covers. The artwork on those albums ranged from mysterious, to pornographic and always seemed to tell a story. Well, it seems someone with incredible video editing and rotoscoping skills feels the same way and has created the video below that mashes up the various album covers in a hilarious blend of violence.

Trivia Anyone?

2006-10-26T19:02:00.000-05:00

So my friend and fellow poster Erik has been trying to wrangle me in to come to Trivia Night every Wednesday at a local Chicago bar. While trivia can be fun, especially when there is wings and beer involved (ie. "Super Trivia" episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force), I just haven't been up to it, mostly because I don't have a vast wealth of knowledge about stupid little facts I would have no need of knowing. But, I've decided to do a little training. Found this handy trivia blog that gives random facts about a certain topic in every post. Pretty useful I guess. I wonder if there are any good free online trivia games that can top You Don't Know Jack. Now THAT was a fun trivia game.

Yoda Stewie and more in the Best Photoshop Contest Evar!

2006-10-23T12:14:00.000-05:00

The Worth1000 Star Wars celeb photoshop contest has to be one of the best I've seen yet on there. Some of the entries are just amazing as you'll see in the first 10 or so top-rated ones. My second favorite (for obvious reasons) is this mashup of Uma Thurman as a Sith Lord. As one of the commenters in that picture points out, there is a little bit of blurring around her arms which was just sloppy Photoshopping, but when she looks that hot, do you honestly care?

The new Audi R8. Drool...

2006-10-12T23:49:00.000-05:00

When I was younger, I used to see myself as a BMW boy. They handle great, and they're fun cars. Then as I got older I thought...well...I could be a Mercedes man. It is a bit more refined...

Then I saw the new Audi R8, and I knew I wanted to run BMWs and Mercedes off the road with it. Audi, I <3 you. As I look at the new luxury cars available, I've always appreciated Audi's extremely refined and modest sense of style, finesse and power. This tosses that all aside and says seems to squint at you as if saying..."let's race." Too bad I could never afford one of these. In the meantime I'll have to set my sights on the Audi S4.

Bono and Oprah and The Gap make fans wait and freeze for nothing.

2006-10-12T09:35:00.000-05:00

As part of The Gap's PRODUCT(RED) campaign, they arranged for Bono and Oprah to make an appearance at The Gap on the corner of Ohio and Michigan Ave. here in Chicago. According to the press release, (RED), the organization founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver, seeks to marry charity with consumer spending power, harnessing many international brands in their fight against AIDS in Africa. Some of the other companies participating in this are Converse, Emporio Armani and Motorola.

The campaign site features the entire range of PRODUCT(RED) albeit in an agonizingly slow slideshow format. Although to be fair it is October 12th right now, and their website says the line will be available October 13th. I saw the crowd of people on the way to work on the 151 this morning, so I stopped by and said that Oprah and Bono should be showing up at 9-9:15....at 9:15 I decided it was too damn cold and went to work. Went out again at 10 and there were even MORE people there. Both sides of the street were packed, as was the median in the road. As you can see from the pictures, there was quite a bit of space between my crowd of people I was standing in and the red carpet. It wasn't initially that bad when I first showed up at 9...we were right at the carpet, but then they kept pushing us back and back and back, and set up blockades.

Did I mention that during this time Chicago was in the midst of receiving its first flakes of snow of the year? Then, to add insult to freezing injury, a group of young too-trendy looking people show up all dressed in red with jackets on. Must be the gap employees. They of course got to line up about a foot away from the entrance and completely blocked any view we would have had. We then got to sit through some rousing fake cheers from the gap employees directed by the Harpo crew. Least we all got a good chuckle out of how fake it was. Although I admit I feel bad for some of those people because Harpo made them remove their jackets to get good footage, even though there were blistering winds.

Then, after about another 45 minutes of waiting, people start cheering as a Mercedes with its hazard lights on comes down the street and stops at the corner. Its Bono. He gets out and walks back to the red Thunderbird right behind him to open the driver's side door and lets out the big O. Although she wasn't that big. I'm not one to follow celebs, but Oprah looked pretty damn thin. The more amazing part of that though was that she was ACTUALLY DRIVING. Although I'm sure her "people" just had her driver get out of the car and swap seats with her at Illinois and Michigan. Can't leave things like that to chance now can we!

There was much cheering and then 5 seconds later it ended as Oprah and Bono promptly walked into the store, leaving the many fans, some of whom had been waiting for 2 hours to see them, standing slack-jawed in the freezing cold and flurries.

Did they need to push the fans back that far? Certainly not. Was it unfair for the Gap people to be right up front completely blocking the views of people who had been waiting for an hour or more? Most definitely.

When I left they were setting up a microphone stand and said that they would be speaking, but it would be a bit later, probably in more than an hour and they had no real idea when.

While I am all in favor of the promotion, which donates 50% of the PRODUCT(RED) proceeds to fight AIDS in Africa, I have to say that Harpo and The Gap really screwed over the fans on this one, making them wait in freezing weather for upwards of 2 hours just in order to get a 5 second glimpse of Bono and Oprah...if their view wasn't completely obstructed by The Gap employees. And for those thinking I should have been on the other side of the street, well, that wouldn't have been any better since there was a wall of news crews and massive camera rigs lining the edge of the sidewalk, preventing any reasonable view at all. The only good spot was on the median which looked like a bunch of castaways clinging to a life raft due to how many people were trying to crowd on there.

I asked if they would be coming back out to speak since there was a mic platform set up with all the news station mics, but they said it probably wouldn't be for another 45 minutes, if not an hour or more. Not really worth sticking around for with the weather like that. What a disappointment.

Us common folk completely distanced and blocked off from the "redshirts" before they were forced to remove their jackets by Harpo.
Shot of the store window with a text board talking about PRODUCT(RED)
Hilarious placard they placed near us on the sidewalk letting us know that Harpo OWNS us, or rather any images and video they take during this promotion.
*Note: All photos were taken by Michael Shostack, copyright 2006

TechCruch's Love/Hate Relationship With PPP

2006-10-05T16:16:00.000-05:00

TechCruch recently posted a story about the PayPerPost blog advertising service that I currently use to fund this site. Of course, this is freely hosted, so what I mean by that is it funds the time I spend writing here and providing you all with content to soak up like the little news sponges you are.

It seems PayPerPost just acquired $3mm in VC funding which definitely goes to show they have a viable business. But TechCrunch seems to take issue with the ethical concerns that come up. I too have concerns about this, particulary for opportunities REQUIRING a positive review. Which is why I opt to only take opportunities marked "+/-" which means I can say whatever the hell I want about things, positive or negative. This allows me to make money...basically by providing them with a "sponsored" post, and giving them the credibility of having my site (with a Google PageRank of 5) link to them, while at the same time allowing me to maintain journalistic integrity.

As I've said before...this sort of service is a godsend to small and medium size blogs unable to monetize through Adsense and other ad programs. I will be paid $10 for this post. Compared with the $11 I've made in the entire time my blog has been active through Adsense. You be the judge whether this is a good thing or not.

Death of Adsense Article Just A Front For Spammers?

2006-09-30T22:51:00.000-05:00

I've been seeing links all over the net for an eBook called The Death of Adsense. So, since my blog was getting crap AdSense results, I tried to download it to read. It didn't work for whatever reason after I used my spam email account, so I decided to do a little research.

At the bottom of the page is a link to TheListVirus. Upon arrival, you see the image posted on the left (click image for larger version). It reads:

14 Days
31,500 Opt-Ins
Highest Alexa Rank During Campaign #424
The Virus Is Spreading!

Doing a little more digging, I found this blog post through Technorati linking it to a Scott Boulch and mentions an affiliate program which you can see login links for on the main product page. He now has several others called Life After Adsense? and one other book I can't find the webpage for. The affiliate program pays people $.50 for every person they get to submit their email address to download the eBook. But wait you ask...why is this bad? Its a free eBook right? Yes, it is.

But there is something very fishy about all of this, and I recommend nobody else downloads it. They are collecting email addresses for SOMETHING. And they do not list a privacy policy which is about as big a red flag as you can get. Wonder why...

With your help Diggers, we can uncover the shady mystery behind this. If this were really all about Adsense, they wouldn't be collecting emails, nor would TheListVirus exist. I found a blog entry here that suggests this is a viral campaign to build up buzz and generate opt-in leads for this guys launch of his own ad network. I think this is a damn good guess.

But please Diggers, assist with the research, try to cut through all the affiliate spammers trying to push this product and find some REAL information! Help discover the connection! And please for the love of god do not sign up for this eBook after you read this article. I am not promoting it (you can tell because I did not include a referral ID when I linked his site) and want others to stop.

Please post your findings in the comment section below, this way if there are a lot of negative findings, we can get the word out by having them all in one place. Also, please Digg this story to get more people involved. Yes, there are ads on my blog here, but I really don't make anything off of them, and this is not about driving blog traffic. This is about stopping a future spammer and fraudster.

Ruby Tuesday's New TV Spots, A Step In The Right Direction

2006-09-28T12:10:00.000-05:00

Ruby Tuesday recently embarked on a new campaign featuring their triple prime burgers and I have to say I am now both impressed and hungry. As someone who has advertising experience with the QSR/Fast-Casual Restaurant segment (for those not in the know, QSR stands for Quick Service Restaurant like McD's, etc.) I know that they have been lumped together with the likes of Friday's and Applebees, although perhaps on the higher end of those. Well, these spots definitely show they are trying to move up even further and establish themselves as sort of a "gourmet" fast-casual destination. And they work.

Not only is the music catchy (and if anybody knows the name of the tune I'd love to download it), but they use interesting and dynamic screen divisions during the spot which serve as transitions between each shot. You can see the first spot in the campaign below, and feel free to check out the second one that is available so far at the Ruby Tuesday Commercials page of their site. Not sure yet who the agency and director/producer is on these spots yet but if any of you know post it in the comments section.

While the ads aren't that unique in and of themselves, they are just well produced, pleasing, and get the message across. Yes, they could be a bit more creative...I mean, how many times have you seen a restaurant promoting an item saying how delicious it is and talking about the quality of their ingredients and the passion of the people who make the food...but I do want to give them credit for making an excellent example of those types of spots.

PPP Team Invades Today Show?

2006-09-27T21:55:00.000-05:00

So the PayPerPost team made a bunch of signs and basically made a bunch of signs and shirts promoting their site and went to see the Today Show. Interesting Guerilla Marketing tactic and definitely a smart approach for a fledgling company. The main news here though is that apparently there are VERY hot girls that help run PayPerPost. I'm not sure what their names are, but all of them are very doable. I have to admit though, the video is a bit long and boring in many parts. I think they need to show the girls more, perhaps modeling the t-shirts. Needs to be trimmed down QUITE a bit for it to go viral as typical viewers don't have that kind of attention span. Also, the end bit makes them look quite retarded. Reminiscent of the infamous "fist bump" in the Agency.com viral video.

Anime Music Video Mashup With Over 100 Anime Titles

2006-09-21T00:12:00.000-05:00

This person has WAY too much time on their hands. The creation of this video took this guy a full year to do because he not only had to edit the video together, he also had to ROTOSCOPE THE FUCKING CHARACTERS IN EACH FRAME! Basically what that means is that he went through all of these scenes....and traced an outline of the bits he wanted to use in his video in every single frame of animation. Then he put them together in video editing software and through some great editing managed to not only make the characters look like they are racing, but also have them acting and fighting in a way that makes it appear they are interacting with each other.

Click here to see his comments on the sidebar which details all of the anime titles used (over 100!). Apparently he also won a bunch of well-deserved awards for this. Man...I made a rotoscoped 5 second video of myself wielding a lightsaber once and that took me 2 hours. And that was BASIC. I can only imagine the living hell this guy put himself through for an entire year.

Transparent Paid Blogging

2006-09-21T00:01:00.000-05:00

So while using the PayPerPost service, I keep learning more new things about it, for example they maintain a blog where members actually post about using the service and use actual photos of themselves! Of course, this being the net, they could easily be fake, however it seems a lot of these people are every day Joe Blogger who don't mind people knowing that they get paid to advertise on blogs. And oddly enough some of them are making quite a bit of money with some topping $1400 per month. Now I'm not saying that to pitch the service, I'm just genuinely amazed that people could make that much with this since the vast majority of the opportunities are only for a couple bucks each. Do these people have lives?!

Jeni Mattson's Sweet Ass Lockpick Business Card

2006-09-20T22:54:00.000-05:00

Let me start by saying that Jeni Mattson is my new favorite graphic designer of the month. Be sure to check out her work for her other after you're done looking at this as it is equally as skillful and creative albeit slightly more "inside the box" (no pun intended).

Moving on...one of Jeni's clients, Melvin, commissioned her to create a business card to highlight his mischievous nature as a hacker and entrepreneur. So what does she do? She creates a business card that breaks down into a fully functional set of friggin lockpicks! Talk about attention getting.

Kinda makes me wish for a set that could be put back into card form though like those credit-card sized utility tool cards that Victorinox makes. But this just goes to show that it really does pay to have a good designer create your identity. In fact, while at art school I learned that if you're smart, even if you are a talented graphic designer, it is always good to have someone else at least create some concepts for you based on a description of yourself and some parameters you give them. Often times they will not only surprise you, but spark several ideas of your own as to how you would like to brand yourself. Also, for those of you who already have business cards for your job, you should really consider getting personal business cards. Think of how useful they would be for times when you would rather people focus on who you are and how you express yourself versus what you do for a living. Plus, you can put information on there you woudn't typically find on your everyday business card such as your personal email address, your cellphone number, your personal stats, dating preferences etc.

PayPerPost vs. Adsense

2006-09-19T17:12:00.000-05:00

Yes, this is a sponsored post, but it is an opinion based one so I am free to share my opinion whatever it may be. Basically, the question is which has worked better for me, Adsense or PayPerPost. I joined PayPerPost to make money with my blog because honestly, since my blog has been up for several months now, I haven't made more than $10 from the two Google Adsense units I have on the page. And to be quite honest, I am getting paid $10 for spending less than 15 minutes writing this post.

Is it worth it to me to do this? OF COURSE! As long as I have the freedom to select opportunities that allow me to maintain my journalistic integrity by choosing whether or not I give a positive or negative viewpoint on something, I am ok with being paid to discuss a certain topic. In fact, the truth behind PayPerPost is that people are paying more for the value of the backlinks they get which helps them on search engines they they are for the actual content of the posts.

So while I doubt the big blogs funded by the likes of Federated Media and Blogads and such would ever consider using the service since they have the traffic volume to justify PPC (Pay Per Click, like Adsense), this type of service is really great for small to mid-size blogs like The Halting Point to help us writers make a little cash on the side, which is basically 100% profit for those of us who use free hosting services like Blogger or Wordpress.

I think as long as bloggers don't completely sell out by selecting opportunities that allow both positive and negative viewpoints, its a win/win for everybody.

HP cameras have option to make you look thinner, more insecure.

2006-09-19T10:36:00.000-05:00

HP now offers a feature on their cameras that allow digital slimming. Basically you take a picture, select the function, and it squashes the middle of the image to make you look thinner supposedly. Based on the before/after shots above, I wouldn't say its worth its weight in gold (no pun intended). However what WOULD be interesting to see is how many people on internet dating sites this will disappoint and enrage when they find out their date took all her photos with one of these babys and is 10 lbs. heavier than advertised.

I mean, I understand we all want to look good for people, but do you really want to be known as someone who only looks good when viewed in a digitally altered photo? I mean, if you are one of the individuals with low self-esteem who is considering purchasing this camera, perhaps there are better ways you could spend your money, such as joining a health club, buying excercise equipment, seeing a therapist...the list goes on.

Or how about we take it to the other end of the spectrum since people who buy these cameras for this feature are obviously not too interested in actually WORKING at looking better and losing weight. Why not start saving up for liposuction and a tummy tuck? We know how guilty you are of constantly changing channels between MTV and The Plastic Surgery channel.

If you know of someone guilty of using one of these, please don't laugh directly to their faces as that might cause them to have an emotional breakdown that could potentially lead to them running to the nearest restroom to purge. Instead, compliment them on their extra meat, make a negative remark about how models are too skinny anyway and then quietly spread the word amongst people that this person is insecure, has low self-esteem and zero work ethic.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for supporting overweight people who want to lose weight and ACTUALLY WORK AT IT, but this is one of the most pathetic things I've seen in a long time and my heart truly goes out to those people who are mentally weak enough to feel the need to buy a camera with this feature.

Digg hit by PayPerPost

2006-09-17T11:47:00.000-05:00

As a member of PayPerPost, it has been interesting to see the opportunities that have been flooding in. I've seen SEO spammers try to hype up affiliate links of theirs that go to link farms, I've seen company's ask for positive reviews of products people have never tried, and now I've seen someone try to get posters to digg up their article on their blog.

I just took the following opportunity from some guy trying to make money blogging and the Opportunity text read as follows:

Check out this Digg by a fellow PayPerPoster. http://digg.com/tech_news/PayPerPost_The_Consumer_Generated
_Advertising_Revolution_Has_Begun What do you think about what Dan has to say? If you dig it digg it.

The opportunity pays $12, so for the 15 minutes or so I spent making this post, I made $12. And, there is nothing in this opportunity saying I must digg his story. I personally did not find it digg worthy, so I did not digg it, just wrote about it. What is interesting to read though the comments on the actual digg article page most of the comments are understandably from PayPerPosters like myself. While you would think it would be nothing short of people astroturfing, they are actually providing some interesting discussion. However I don't digg up an article for its discussion, I digg it up for being interesting, so no digg.

Naked Protest Promotes Launch of Outdoor Juice Campaign

2006-09-15T16:30:00.000-05:00

Naked Juice kicked off its major outdoor advertising campaign today in a bold non-traditional move by staging a protest in front of the Tribune building in downtown Chicago on Michigan Avenue.

According to on-scene Naked PR manager Rachel Kenney who was kind enough to let me interview her, the Naked employees and giant fruit people (hired talent) wielding picket signs, free drinks, chapstick and stickers were speaking out against the evils of preservatives, added sugar and inferior juices.

The signs bore slogans like "Say no to added sugar" and "Down with free radicals", while friendly giant fruit started breakdancing in the circle they had formed.

According to Rachel, the outdoor campaign launch this was kicking off is the company's first outdoor media campaign. It will feature billboards, urban panels (large signs in front of subway entrances), wild postings and cabvertising (ads on cabs) with 60 cabs total having ads on them and 30 being fully wrapped.

While she could not comment on the campaign's budget, she stated that it was very small, which is partly why it is being bolstered by these events. However Naked has a tradition of promoting itself through grassroots efforts and word of mouth campaigns. To quote Rachel in an earlier preview article from PROMO, "Naked Juice prefers to spend the majority of our marketing budget on grassroots efforts to really connect with our consumers, we're very interactive with our consumers."

Definitely a great surprise for me today as I walked (more like sprinted) out of work early today. I thought it was just going to be some little demonstration, but it was fully backed up with a selection of sample drinks in several flavors (I chose the delicious mango one), a Green Machine flavored chapstick, a sticker and a card directing me to enter the printed ID code on it at the Naked Juice survey site to participate and get free promo junk.

While I definitely appreciated the free swag, the best part of course was the cute girls helping with the promotion. I'm not quite sure who was a Naked employee or hired help, but they definitely made me wish their next promotion was a bit more true to their company name.

I took a few small video clips but unfortunately I cannot figure out how to successsfully convert the craptastic .3g video format into something that will upload to YouTube (please place howto's in comments if you know how!) so these pictures will have to suffice. I will update later if I can figure out how to get them to post.

Be sure to catch their next protest for some cute girls, free swag and strange giant fruit people at the Lincoln Park Zoo tomorrow (Sat. the 16th) from 10am-5pm.

Hilariously Creepy Vintage Ads

2006-09-14T14:20:00.000-05:00

Found a great post on vintage ads on Boing Boing this morning. Some of these are absolutely brilliant such as the one pictured at the left (be sure to click it for full size). I really wish agencies produced more ads like these, but of course we have to be politically correct and not mock old people and their senile agitation. And I can only imagine what the women's rights groups would do if they saw the ad who's headline reads: "But lady..."dishpan hands" make you look older than a wrinkle does!!". Sounds to me like this should be Dove's next campaign. If anybody is old enough to have been around when these were circulating, I'm curious, what were the thoughts of the time about them? Did they find them nearly as hilarious as we do today? Obviously cultural changes affect a lot of that, but some of them are just pure gold.

PayPerPost? Whats the real story?

2006-09-14T12:49:00.000-05:00

So there's been this internet service making the rounds on blogs called PayPerPost that essentialy pays people to post ads on blogs in the form of blog entries. The Halting Point has started experimenting with this service, and while I had some initial concerns about the ethics of it, I have found that you can choose to only write about opportunities that allow you to give either positive OR negative feedback, which means I get paid for mentioning something, even if I don't like it and tear them a new one. Which means I write more great Editorial For Geeks, which means you readers get more fun stuff to read!

So I was curious about this service and honestly, I think it is backed by all of the top blog advertising sales companies like BlogAds and Federated Media in order to drum up interest in advertising on blogs. You see, the big hurdle has been finding a way to get credible bloggers to push products, and this service offers to pay them WAY more than services such as Google's Adsense do if they are a small to mid-size blog that can't pull in the pageviews like the big boys. Once bloggers are more open to doing this, advertisers will flock to them as has started happening with this service.

Charlie Brown Menorah? The Hanukit, A Menorah Made From Matches

2006-09-13T16:09:00.000-05:00

The Reddish Design Studio has created what I can only describe as the Jewish equivelant to the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Behold, the Hanukit! Featuring an aluminum "candle" holder, you simply stick the matches in, lightem up, and read those blessings fast!

This actually reminds me a lot of my attempt at making a homemade ghetto menorah senior year of college when I discovered that not only does Target NOT carry menorahs, they don't even carry the candles. Fortunately I was able to find the candles at a supermarket and since I didn't have a menorah, I decided to craft one out of tinfoil.

I said my blessings as I lit the candles and when I was done,
I went to play some computer games and have some fun.
While in the middle of a shooting spree,
I noticed a reflection on my monitor,
What could it be?

It seemed the candles were burning very brightly.
So I turned around and startled slightly.
Flaring up in my room, on top of my TV,
The whole friggin menorah was ablaze,
How could this be?!

I frantically ran over to douse the the flame,
Nearly tripping and killing myself, I have my backpack to blame.
I put it out promptly and made a firm decision,
Next year I'd have a Hanukkah Bush instead, screw the tradition!

Hmm, not bad for an impromptu Hanukkah poem. Anyway, great little product, and they have a cool diagram which you can see below!

Paid Search vs. Organic Search?

2006-09-10T23:15:00.000-05:00

So I'm beginning to think about advertising for The Halting Point. In preparation I've begun research of paid search advertising. I learned a few things from the Apogee site when I found it researching some of the industry terms, but I'm not quite sure how much of it is applicable for me since I do not really have a way of monetizing my site yet. Just trying to build my readership. I guess if I ever officially build in advertising into this site then things like setting bid limits will be important to me but not at this point.

Have any of you readers had experiences with advertising your blog?

Picture of the Day: Creepy realistic Mario Brothers

2006-09-10T14:22:00.000-05:00

Click the image for the full-size version.
Found this story on Digg this morning. Apparently the artist's name is Handre and he's selling his video game prints through the SomethingAwful.com AwfulMart. Oddly enough I don't see this particular print for sale there, but it is easily my favorite. Who would have thought Mario was hung like a Koopa?

Video of .50 caliber sniper rifle gibbing people in Afghanistan (GORY!)

2006-09-07T14:33:00.000-05:00

In the recent Gears of War "realistic headshot gore" story that made the front page of Digg today there was mention of a video in the comments section making the rounds showing a .50 caliber sniper rifle and what it does to a body when it hits. This video shows several different targets fragged in the most truthful sense of the word. Warning, this gory video is not for the faint of heart as it contains flying limbs and brain goo. Also, be sure to Digg the video I posted of this on Digg by clicking here and clicking "Digg It".

Also, someone in the Digg story I posted has said that these are marmots being shot. However if you look at :40 into the video, that looks a helluva lot like a human arm flying off...I wasn't aware marmots had human-like appendages. Food for though.

Team Fortress 2 Trailer 2!

2006-08-31T10:58:00.000-05:00

While I was mostly a CS person, I don't think there's a single FPS gamer out there who doesn't appreciate what the original Team Fortress did for the genre. It introduced classes to the genre and its concept of defending and attacking bases paved the way to games like the Battlefield series.

Now Valve is about to do it again with the upcoming release of Team Fortress 2 for the Source engine. What's most interesting about it is the extremely intriguing art direction which you can take a look at by clicking the image to the left. It looks like it was created by the same creative team that did The Incredibles! The distinctly cartoon-style graphics mesh perfectly with the physics of the game and serve to make the personalities of each of the classes stand out.

Below is the latest trailer released highlighting many of the different classes available. While it is still uncertain whether or not it will actually feel like this when we play...at least it looks like a helluva lot of fun. But the real question is how much of the video is scripted...In any event, watch below and ENJOY! For those interested in downloading a high resolution version of the trailer, I've included a link below.

Click to download the high resolution version.

BestBuy selling the new Sony Cybershit 7.2

2006-08-27T12:07:00.000-05:00

First, click at the image on the left. Read what I searched for..."cybershot 7.2". Now, this should have turned up results for Sony's 7.2 megapixel Cybershot. Now take a closer look. Apparently no results were returned. However it seems they have plenty of something else in stock! I think the guy who runs BestBuy's website is about to lose his job...or have a very shitty Sunday.

You can indeed try this yourself on their website as shown by this video of it working. I think its safe to say that this probably won't be up much longer on their site!

*EDITOR'S NOTE: Well, the inevitable happened. They fixed it. Sucks for their web guy to have to do this on a Sunday. And yes, as people have been pointing out it is very likely that this was a simple typo since "i" and "o" are right next to each other. All in all very funny though and made for a good chuckle on a slow Sunday.

Rock version of Pachabel's 'Canon in D' by Tiawanese musician Jerry C

2006-08-16T18:14:00.000-05:00

This is a bedroom video of Tiawanese rock star Jerry C. He starts up and just completely rocks out to Pachabel's 'Canon in D'. Not much more to say than that. Watch it and love it. This is one of my favorite songs and if anybody knows where I can grab the .mp3 than point me in the right direction in the comments. His homepage can be found here. Enjoy!

Attention 18-34 males, you are idiots!

2006-07-27T10:30:00.000-05:00

Before you read any further, click the image to the left to view the larger version. Then, just take a moment and read the copy for this ad for the distinguished University of Advancing Technology's (UAT) game design program. This 1/3 page vertical format ad can be found in the July issue of Computer Gaming World and a few other game magazines.

While I certainly do not think you readers are idiots, apparently the folks at UAT do because they think that this ad will encourage you to give them a large sum of money to learn how to make games. I mean, come on, who wouldn't be swayed by phrases like "nerds are for dorks...GEEKS ARE 4-EVER" and "BYTE ME". The reason I picked those as examples is because the rest of the terms make about as much sense as the US being in Iraq. Most of them are just random names of development technologies and random industry buzzwords.

However the real kicker is in the headline which reads: WE SPEAK G33K

Did they seriously just try to appeal to us using 1337 5p34k? And do they honestly think they will gain credibility by claiming to speak it? I mean, I know when I was searching for a center for higher education that I really gave a lot of consideration to schools that sounded like that annoying 15 year old who you love to TK over and over again just to hear them bitch you out in barely intelligible "english".

I really hope the copywriter who wrote this is inhouse because I feel bad for any agency who would be forced to produce this ad. Talk about not being the least bit in touch with your target audience. Newsflash: it is no longer cool to talk like a retard on the internet. Yes, it used to be somewhat in vogue, however now it has gotten so bad that this kind of language is typically used as the basis for sarcastic jokes. Like this ad.

And UAT can't have all the credit. Bad gaming ads go beyond bad copy. They also are mangled by horribly pathetic stereotypes such as those hilariously pointed out by the good folks over at Penny-Arcade.

Why do companies advertising to gamers actively try to insult the intelligence of their target audience? When your ads end up as the laughing stock of the internet, it tends to be a sign that you missed your mark. Why could they not instead have provided information about their strong ties to major industry players, or their experienced professors or awards/success stories of previous studients? Oh, thats right, because gamers are dr00ling idiots who only communicate in alpha-numeric tongues and readily eat up whatever buzzwords are tossed their way.

If this ad got you as annoyed as me, feel free to give UAT a call at (800) 658-5744, ask for their Admissions Director and ask them why they felt this ad would be effective. Please keep it respectful, but by all means let them know how much you appreciate the absurd stereotyping of our demographic.

If anybody from UAT is reading this, feel free to contact me at haltingpoint@gmail.com to explain yourselves or even if you'd just like to discuss my review of your ad a bit more.

Vader gets pwned by Japanese

2006-07-14T12:57:00.000-05:00

Evil Photoshopped Cartoons

2006-07-12T16:08:00.000-05:00

Worth1000 is hosting a collection of photoshopped classic cartoons featuring a much darker side of our childhood friends. The best one by far is the Thomas the Tank Engine pictured to the left (click to enlarge).

The Halting Point...Official Sponsor of DUH

2006-07-05T14:16:00.001-05:00

George Parker of AdHurl has a rant up about how fed up they are with "Official Sponsorships"...citing the recent Official Sponsorship of the the Brooklyn Cyclones by Chef One Dumplings, the new official dumpling of the team.

Now, I think everybody in this industry can agree that this is just about as dumb as you can get in terms of matching the brand to the team, but I have to wonder how George, how could you not see the marketing value in something like this? From your own words:

"As part of the deal, Chef One will distribute samples of their dumplings, hold 'dumpling nights' and dumpling eating contests."

They're getting samples in front of a large audience in a fairly captive environment that (I hope) matches their demographics. So the question raised of whether or not fans will buy a brand because its an "Official Sponsor" is not the correct question to ask. Rather, we should be asking whether the business and buzz generated by this sponsorship (not to mention all of the advertising blogs here on the net ripping it apart) justifies the cost of the sponsorship.

Of course, this is the account manager side of me speaking. I really don't know the demographics of this dumpling place, nor do I know the demos of the Cyclones, but I don't think you should so hastily draw a comparison to Bud's sponsorship of the World Cup (which is beyond idiocy).

However I do feel that poorly chosen sponsorships can in fact damage a brand's image. This often occurs when the brand is a horrible mismatch for the sponsorship (ala Bud) or when their sponsorship just sounds so horrendously force-fed that it just makes consumers feel ill hearing it announced...as may well be the case for an "Official Dumpling". Just watch or listen to any TV or radio broadcast of a major sporting event to hear some other magnificently stupid ones.

Laser can track movements in 3D space and in realtime.

2006-06-27T17:15:00.000-05:00

Researchers A. Cassinelli, S. Perrin, and M. Ishikawa from the Ishikawa-Namika Lab at Todai (short for Tokyo Daigaku which translates to Tokyo University) have created a laser system that can track natural gestures of say...a finger tip or ping pong ball in realtime and then take the data from that and map it in three dimensional space using modeling software.

Now, I don't have to tell all you geeks about what kind of doors this opens up for us gamers....this baby can track multiple objects (albeit at a slower speed) without needing an additional hardware setup, you could do WAAAY cooler things than what the Nintendo Wii's remote will let you do. Imagine a fantasy game where you are a wizard....instead of being limited to making gestures with a wand (with the Wii) to cast your spells, imagine being able to make complex hand gestures and have recognition software in the game that can determine how accurate your movements are and if you got the spell correctly it would cast it, and if it was close, there might be variations, it might fizzle, etc. Suddenly you can take a game like WoW that is all grind and hitting buttons at the appropriate intervals to a game that requires a LOT of skill to be a caster. Especially for higher level spells when you are in the middle of combat and speed and accuracy are essential.

I'm sure there are other applications beyond gaming, but for now all I can think of is making the coolest magic-based fantasy game ever!

Old School Daft Punk video from Even Further in Wisko.

2006-06-26T21:37:00.000-05:00

I have a flyer for this party on my wall! It was a rave in Wisconsin called 'Even Further' and was a huge event. This video rocks and shows what Daft Punk used to play before they went all cheesy with French House which, honestly I don't love. And they are not mixing vinyl, they are using special hardware decks that let them mess with music samples they have saved and they create the music on the fly. Its really incredible stuff to watch up close as the flow of it is intense.

Another good live PA person to watch is Skylab 2000. Awesome sets. Anyway, enjoy the freakin video!

DDR God. Who cares if its DDR, it rocks.

2006-06-26T00:59:00.000-05:00

I'm not a huge fan of DDR, mostly because I don't like the idea of dancing being confined to 4 squares. Oddly enough I also dislike Square Dancing. Perhaps I just have an aversion to squares.

In any event, there are times when even if you dislike something, you still have to stare in awe at someone who has taken their "thing" if you will, and just takes it to a nigh unattainable level. Every skill in life has this level. For some its being an incredible athlete, for some its being exceptionally creative, and for others it demands the attention of others due to the sheer jaw-dropping coolness of it. This is one of those things.

Yeah, I still am not a fan of the game, but this guy rocks and I hope the arcade at least refunded a portion of the hundreds of dollars he must have spent there to practice enough to do this.

I hope competitive free-style DDR becomes a competitive video game sport like Counter Strike and Star Craft.

Yoda backpack? Millenium Falcon Transformer? Good day indeed.

2006-06-22T11:04:00.000-05:00

Today is a good day indeed. Just found out there are two new Star Wars products that are t3h r0xx0rs. First off is the Yoda backpack. Now you too can relive the stinky training Luke received on Dagobah!

The second completely awesome toy is a Millenium Falcon Transformer! According to the description and photo below, it looks like there are two separate parts that individually transform into Han and Chewie, complete with their weapons, and then these combine to make the Millenium Falcon. There are also mini-figs to stick inside.

And don't forget to check out the other toys in the series. Apparently there is a transformers "set" that has a few other different Star Wars characters including a Boba Fett that can transform into the Slave I!!!

Want to cancel your AOL account? HAHAHHAHAA!

2006-06-13T16:47:00.000-05:00

A very kind (and agitated) soul has recorded his experience with trying to cancel his AOL account. As you will soon hear it is no easy task. I feel only the slightest amount of sympathy for the AOL employee since it is a mark on his record if he is not able to retain the customer, but he chose his job so its his problem.

Not much to write about, just listen and laugh! To the guy whose .mp3 I am hard-linking to, apologies. You've already been hit by Digg so my site can't do much damage on top of that.

Direct MP3 Link (Currently Down)

Working MP3 Mirror

Gnarls Barkley, Star Wars Style.

2006-06-12T10:45:00.000-05:00

This picture sums up why this is such a cool video. There's really not a whole lot to say other than this is Gnarls Barkley, performing his hit song "Crazy" with his entire band dressed up as different characters from Star Wars.

I won't completely ruin it for you by telling you who they have costumes for, but they are all very high quality costumes and this video is sure to bring a huge shit-eating grin to any Star Wars fan's face. If anybody has any links to high resolution images from this, I'd LOVE to make a framed poster out of a Storm Trooper playing the bass.

SPIN: God Is A DJ. Coolest Music Video Evar!

2006-06-10T20:59:00.000-05:00

Even though I am a huge fan of electronic music, I've never been much of a fan of their music videos. They tend to be a bit too much on the artistic side (and this is coming from an art school graduate) and don't make much sense.

This video is completely different. It is actually a short film created by Double Edge Films and is all over YouTube and Atom Films.

Summary:
"A mysterious DJ is sent to a busy city block to mend a series of tragic events that occur in our everyday lives."

While the video techniques to create this movie were simple, the execution is brilliant and the choice of beats mesh seamlessly with the action. You can download the track played in the film from the Double Edge website.

So click below to watch and enjoy this excellent video narrative masquerading as an electronic music video.

YO GABBA GABBA! For little kids, or stoned college students?

2006-06-05T12:50:00.000-05:00

It looks like Teletubbies wasn't trippy enough for children. There's really not much I can write to prepare you for the shroom-induced odyssey that is YO GABBA GABBA! From their site:

Yo Gabba Gabba! is a fun live-action program for young children ages 1 and up. Join our host DJ Lance Rock as he introduces us to friendly toy monsters in a magical land full of music, dance, colorful cartoons and simple life lessons that will get you and your children up off the floor to learn and dance along. Muno, the red cyclops, Foofa the pink flower bubble, Brobee the green little one, Toodee the blue cat-dragon, and Plex the robot are ready to sing, play and teach whenever you're ready. Just say the magic words! YO GABBA GABBA!!

I personally think they should get together with Augenblick Studios, creators of the fantasticly edgy Wonder Showzen and make an adult version of this show. Be sure to watch the trailer below. I think Sponge Bob has some new competition in hazy smoke-filled college dorms across the country.

A Day In The Life Of Mario

2006-06-05T11:11:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my hookup over at Nerfect (He makes and sells cool geek stuff) for sending me this video featuring everybodies favorite plump plumber. I mean, who HASN'T wondered what Mario would be like if he lived in the real world? And no, I'm not referring to the old live action Super Mario Bros. show or the movie. Nice use of sound effects.

The toilet backpack, perfect for yuppies who like to camp.

2006-06-01T15:17:00.000-05:00

So I'm in a crappy mood (no pun intended) because I had written a beautiful long story and then my browser crashed on me. Rather than rewrite it, I am instead sharing with you all my new found wonder invention of the day....the portable backpack toilet!

No longer must you brace yourself against a tree in the woods, or feel the burn from squatting for longs periods of time to enjoy a simple crap in the woods. Just unfold, unzip, and crap away! It uses standard 4 gallon garbage bags and any type of absorbant pads (diaper pads, maxi pads, you name it). $25 at Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us.

The 7 forms of lightsaber combat...or...Help, I have no life.

2006-05-24T16:00:00.000-05:00

Wikipedia has a very, very *ahem* VERY in-depth writeup on the various forms of lightsaber combat, which any true Star Wars nerd should be familiar with. Aside from covering basic stances, it also has several sections detailing other lightsaber techniques, maneuvers as well as training techniques. Very interesting read. I have to say though that it scares me to think how many hours of research went into this.

Chilling video interview with Iraq veteran who killed children.

2006-05-23T14:03:00.000-05:00

This is the saddest, most sobering video I have seen about the war in Iraq to date. A Ranger who was recently discharged for injuries talks about the atrocities he was ordered to commit by our government. He talks about how if someone they were interrogating wasn't giving them the answers they wanted, they'd shoot his youngest son in the head. He talks about how he was ordered to kill women and children pleading for their lives.

I'm wondering, at what point will our government turn the guns on those of us who are against the war at home?

After you've watched the interview, please support the members of IVAW by visiting the IVAW site and supporting them in any way you can. This war MUST end.

Final Fantasy: Burger Time

2006-05-23T11:45:00.000-05:00

To Seth Green and the other creators of Robot Chicken...thank you.

If you have Morgellons Disease, read this.

2006-05-22T14:08:00.000-05:00

After the fantastic story fellow ad geek Steve Hall wrote on Ad Rants about my "investigative report" into the whole Morgellons Disease being a viral campaign for "A Scanner Darkly" thing, both his site and mine received posts from people claiming to actually have Morgellons Disease.

Now...aside from the fact that one of the comments on Steve's site seems a little fishy and the same comment is posted twice by two different people....I have to say that I think people overreacted a little bit and need to reread what I initially wrote. I specifically say that I believe it is possible that this is an existing disease that was so obscure and had such mystery around it was "hijacked" for purposes of this viral campaign.

By that I mean that they possibly added some new speculation and links to "studies". I in no way meant to imply that the disease is fictional, nor did I intend to anger anybody who is diagnosed with it. All I'm saying is that I think your disease was hijacked for marketing purposes.

Of course...who knows, maybe the people who are leaving comments are actually working for an agency....I mean, its kind of random that SEVERAL sufferers the disease all posted on Ad Rants, most within a 5 minute time span between 1:10 and 1:15 this morning. Not to mention the fact that two of the comments are the same comment but posted by different people.

And as I mentioned in the comments on the Ad Rants story, I think it might be worthwhile to see what the referral links for those IP addresses are for those who posted claiming to have the disease. I'm willing to guess that they're all from the same subnet. I mean, which is more likely....that several people with this rare and mysterious disease all suddenly post at the same time on Ad Rants....an extremely popular website amongst the very companies who do this sort of viral marketing for a living....or that someone in the industry read the story, and thought "Oh crap! If word gets out about this I'm fired! Better try to draw attention away from it...."

Anyway, again, not meaning to piss off people who actually have this disease. Having any disease sucks and my heart goes out to you. But there is a large chance this is part of a viral campaign, so I need to look at every possible angle, as we all know that there are some marketers who aren't below hijacking a disease for a marketing campaign.

Link to my original story

Morgellons Disease....Viral marketing for A Scanner Darkly movie?

2006-05-20T11:11:00.000-05:00

In a recent Slashdot story concerning Morgellons Disease it has been suggested that the recent buzz about Morgellons Disease has all been part of a viral marketing ploy for the upcoming movie A Scanner Darkly which is based on the Phillip K. Dick book by the same name.

The Wikipedia entry linked above cites the evidence for this as follows:

The website claims that a "national news broadcast" will occur in June or July. The release date for the film is July 7.

Morgellons.org and Morgellonusa.com (currently down) are both registered by a proxy company and contain no contact info.

The first Morgellon's article on Wikipedia was created in February as a link to one of the above websites.

By far the biggest piece of damning evidence though is what is uncovered by the Slashdot post mentioned above that contains an excert from the opening chapter of the original Phillip K. Dick novel, A Scanner Darkly.

Even though initial research did not uncover which ad agency or PR firm is working with Warner Bros. on this, I'd have to say when you connect the dots this makes a lot of sense. Something similar was done before King Kong was released which amounted to a lot of popular internet news sites carrying stories about giant apes right before the movie was released. There didn't seem to be much evidence of this but it was fairly obvious to most readers of these sites that it was one big viral campaign, since while the stories were real, having that many published in such a short amount of time during that particular time is just too many coincidences.

I wouldn't be surprised if their plan for building awareness of this Morgellons Disease goes as follows:

Step 1: Find some obscure idea that has a relation to the movie and has been researched by and baffled scientists in the past.

Step 2: Create websites for this idea using anonymous registrars.

Step 3: Generate buzz by seeding press releases of the story on popular internet news sites.

Step 4: Get story picked up by TV stations as a result of PR contacts and network interest from the internet popularity.

Step 5: Release movie July 7th of this year.

Step 6: ?????

Step 7: PROFIT!!!

If anybody knows what agency could be behind this, please drop me a line in the comments section and I will post an update crediting you.

If this does indeed turn out to be a viral campaign for the release of the movie, then more power to them because I have to say it was one of the stealthier campaigns done. Of course part of the fun behind viral marketing is what I am coining "The Discovery Phase".

The Discovery Phase is the part of the viral campaign where the viral hook used has built up so much steam that people are actively trying to learn all they can about it. This leads to a discovery of the true nature of the viral campaign. While there is a potential for negative response to this, as long as it is done in a good natured, ethical way then the response tends to be positive, and can generate a surge of interest in what the viral campaign is promoting.

This is largely due to increased web traffic to the website of what is being promoted. While the internet is not the only placed people will seek information (many will ask their peers), it is the most likely and provides the best opportunities for capitalizing on the response of the surge generated by the viral campaign.

||Edit||
Since being written up on Ad Rants both the Ad Rants site and mine have received several comments from people claiming to suffer from this disease. While I am slightly skeptical about the people posting those comments due to some red flags that were raised...I am sorry if I had offended anybody all the same. I have written a response to those who commented claiming to have the disease, and since many of you are jumping directly to this story from another site, you can find the direct link to my response here.

DJ/VJ creates system for generating visuals from scratching!

2006-05-17T13:37:00.000-05:00

Using an optical mouse and some creative programming, Valerio Spoletini has created a unique visuals generator that uses input from several variables of how music is being played. Be sure to check out the two videos of him performing to see this thing in action!

Personally, what I'm dying for is a drum machine that makes drum & bass beats based on the rhythms of your fingers tapping. Of course I'd rely on software to turn it into something listenable.

PoTD: The man with a bicycle helmet for a head.

2006-05-15T16:39:00.000-05:00

I have the newest Batman villain....Bicycle Helmet Head Man! This guy scares the crap out of me but his head is such an interesting shape...looks like it was sculpted almost.
Perhaps he has a symbiotic relationship with a bicycle helmet whereby it protects his head in exchange for nutrients?

This image is from a Chicago talent agency called Stewart Talent.

Hey Chicago, stop staring at my tits!

2006-05-11T21:55:00.000-05:00

Its official! Chicago is the most perverted city according to recently released Google Trends.Honestly, while cool from a "gee-wiz" perspective this new Google Tool is more novelty than substance. Ok.....we can tell how many searches come from a place.....and based off those searches we can make assumptions. However wild they may be.

So if you take a look at the searches they tested this with:

balls, dick, cock, penis, vagina, g-spot, boobs, breasts, tits, facials, blowjobs, naked women, sex, anal sex, oral sex, nude pictures, porn, child porn, masturbation, masturbation tips, orgasm, orgy, girl next door, suck, lesbian, fetish, slut, whore, Jenna Jameson, Tiffany Towers, Brianna Banks, John Holmes, Peter North, Devon Michaels, Mandy Michaels, murder, kill, rape, and torture methods…

you see that you can't honestly make an assumption about some of these search terms since many of them could be someone searching for anything not necessarily perverted.....balls....murder....kill....torture methods...

But then you see search terms like Jenna Jameson, Briana Banks, masturbation tips, g-spot and facial.

All I know is I'm not entirely surprised. Yay us.

Fake Testimonials? Is this for real?

2006-05-11T21:21:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that I find it quite odd that people who can be so devious in scamming people out of money online can be so fooled as to think the target audience for this service would fall for this.

But it was incredibly ridiculous so I thought I'd share it. And don't worry, that isn't a referral link. Whats funny though is how much they try to fluff up the wording of the Affiliates Section of their website. Its almost like they want people to think this is serious!

The site is registered to a company called: Domains by Proxy, Inc. which lets you register a domain name anonymously. Wow....real surprised they used that...

Too bad, I was about to make a witty remark about what kind of stereotype their name and address conjured up. In any event, whoever made this site is a fucking moron. I don't say that because I feel that this kind of crap doesn't belong on the net...because I don't care either way honestly...I say that because if you go through the trouble of using Domans by Proxy for your scamming activities, don't you think you might want to put a little thought into actually coming up with a halfway decent scam?! Why not sell Jesus Crackers® as "Your one true chance at salvation, getting there one bite at a time."™Least people might consider it for the novelty value.

Your monkey wants a cold one.

2006-05-10T12:31:00.000-05:00

A recent study just confirmed that, guess what? Monkeys love getting hammered just as much as you do! The study revealed some other interesting similarities, such as monkeys who drink until they puke, monkeys who drink too much and pass out, and the fact that monkeys who live alone drink more than monkeys who live together.

How cute...monkeys can be closet alchoholics too!

Plasma Pong. Best. Pong. Ever.

2006-05-09T19:51:00.000-05:00

If you have a PC, click this direct download link and download Plasma Pong. By the time you have finished reading my review, it will have finished downloading and be ready to play within a minute or so. You will thank me later.

Play the regular game until you feel you have mastered the arcane complexities of what is essentially Pong on Shrooms and then play the Sandbox mode and you will be evilly amused.

Steve Taylor has taken pong, and placed the paddles in the realm of real-time fluid dynamics. You can alter these settings to adjust how the fluid environment the game takes place in reacts to movement in the fluid. This directly affects gameplay in the regular Pong mode but the Sandbox mode offers different tools that affect the plasma fluid environment in different ways. Your "brushes" are on the bottom row of the screen. The top row consists of different viewing methods that transform the screen using real scientific visualizations that are awesome to watch.

To play:
Move the paddle like in pong.
Left-mouse button: shoots plasma out of the paddle
Right-mouse button: draws in the plasma and ball to the paddle, then release to use a shockwave that will send the ball to the opponent.

What did I think?

Graphics: Top notch for what this game is trying to be, which is another insanely creative pong knock-off. They're very mesmerizing and the Sandbox mode friggin hypnotized me.

Sound: Decent music for a tiny free game like this. Nothing special, but it was enjoyable for the game. I liked how it sped up when things were getting intense.

Gameplay: Its pong...honestly. For me the main game didn't pose much of a challenge to me once I got down the system of "catching" the ball and firing it back effectively. The Sandbox mode on the otherhand was amazing and could have easily hooked me for a solid hour of just tinkering around with the fluid world. Awesome work in terms of bringing this to reality as a visualization of something that tends to be fairly boring and numbers-oriented.

Overall: Sucks if you don't have a Mac because it is PC only. If you have a PC and did not listen to me at the beginning when I told you to download the game, you should smack yourself and click this link here for the direct download. I'm nice enough not to make you scroll back up to the top.

New E3 Spore Video....RELEASE THE DAMN GAME ALREADY!

2006-05-07T11:36:00.000-05:00

Below is the new E3 Spore promo that contains footage to be used in tv commercials during E3 that was captured by someone and placed the net. You can see the original video featuring Spore gameplay in this post I posted about back in March. Also, you can grab a cool Flash game from there that, while not affiliated with Spore, is very similar to what Spore's first level is supposedly like and its an amazingly fun game.

But anyway, back to the video....so this time its not Will Wright himself taking you through it, so there is no interesting commentary explaining why the stuff he's showing us is so cool from a feature perspective....like how the game is pretty much procedurally generated.

Did one creature smack the others ass with a whip partway through? I like how even when you have a spaceship and are pretty much an omnipotent space-faring, planet-creating race, if you go to an enemy planet and they have good technology, they can and WILL beat you like a red-headed stepchild.

Super Soaker Oozinator...ready for its money shot.

2006-05-03T15:05:00.000-05:00

Either this is one of the most genius viral spots of late or some Creative Director has never seen a porno. How any client could approve this is beyond me, but I'm glad they did. My heart goes out to the children they used for this spot as they will have to deal with being made fun of for this for the rest of their lives. Unless they are going into gay porn, in which case it could be an excellent piece to put on their reel.

Thank you Ad Rants for both making and ruining my day, simultaneously. BTW, make sure you check the Amazon/Toys 'R' Us listing for it after you watch it and read the comments....I almost wet myself.

3D Holographic Ads. The new pop-ups of reality.

2006-05-03T10:46:00.000-05:00

Looks like our future is about to be ruined and the company to thank for it is ProVision who have what I have to say is one of the coolest pieces of ad tech I've seen in a while. 3D holographic ads. I'm sure you're all very familiar with the Star Wars scene where Leia is projected by R2-D2 onto the table...well yeah, its like that, except it will be saying "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope....This SOS brought to you by McDonalds."

I tried to find a video link to embed but had no luck so unfortunately you will have to click on the image below or this link to view the Flash video on the company website. I'm still debating whether those are actual live shots or if the video was doctored for presentation purposes...but it does seem like it must be real since they are partnered with some pretty big companies such as Viacom and 3M among others.

So yes, this is pretty cool, unfortunately the same people who thought pop-up ads weren't intrusive and well worth whatever backlash they drew are the same people who will be demanding that their agencies jump all over this new tech. And yes, there are plenty of cool uses for this, but you can guarantee that this will tech will saturate the market so badly if it takes off that people will begin automatically ignoring it in record time. Unless of course marketers resort to scare tactics like the Jaws ad in Back To The Future II...but they'd never do that....

Teddy bear gun...only from Japan.

2006-05-02T16:47:00.000-05:00

The Mainichi is carrying a story about a Japanese paint company called Sunamiya who apparently are targeting wedding goers who, instead of tossing flowers, toss teddy bears at their weddings.

Well...where's the fun in just tossing a stuffed bear into the air? No, the Japanese recognize the lameness of this, and so have created the ULTIMATE SUPER MEGA TEDDY BEAR CANNON!!!10101011!

This cannon launches the teddy bear cartridge at high velocity into the crowd, thrilling the wedding attendees and disabling ninjas all with the pull of a trigger. Looks like it will go on sale later this month.

Whilst doing a Google search for them I discovered that apparently the company also offers some Jewish products as well...Shalom Jew-san! Be sure to check out the other sections of their website as they are filled with typical crazy Japanese humor. God I love the Japanese.

"Shaving adds an extra inch" & other truthful advertising!

2006-05-02T13:28:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Ad Rants for letting me know that Philips finally had the balls (no pun intended) to give consumers what they really want. A razor to trim their nut hairs! Not only that, but they are also targeting current non-shavers who may not be aware that one of the awesome side-effects of keeping a well-groomed man zone is that you gain the illusion of an extra inch or so to your police baton once all that hair is out of the way. I gotta give them respect for this campaign for telling it like it is and not trying to be insidious about it. But I'm honestly not that awed by a personal grooming company once again trying to play up an entirely superficial angle. Not quite as amusingly lame as Axe, but close.

But I have to say, this definitely got me thinking...what if more advertisers were truthful? Maybe we'd see some more interesting, politically incorrect headlines...

Weight Watchers - "Because men don't like fatties and you'll never get laid with those thunder thighs, you huge bitch."

Altoids - "That rumor you heard about Altoids making blowjobs feel better may or may not be true...but we bet you're willing to buy some to find out."

Ritalin - "If you can convince your parents to put you on Ritalin you can make $$$ selling them to all your pill snorting friends at your white, upperclass suburban highschool!"

Taco Bell - "Because when its 3 A.M. and you're stumbling around hungry and drunk, you won't think about all the fun you'll have on the toilet the next morning."

Jack Daniels - "If you don't drink us, you will look like a girl. You don't want to look like a girl do you?"

World of Warcraft - "Chinese gold farmers ruin the game for you, but they're also more profitable than you because they buy a new copy of the game each time we ban them. Do you really think we'll get rid of them? Where's our $15 bitch?!"

Apple - "If you buy Apple, hot art chicks will pretend they like you to use your Mac, but your Emo-loving ass still won't get any."

PoTD: The Devil Inside

2006-05-01T16:20:00.000-05:00

I was leafing through this illustration and design book at the office and came across this sweet image you see to the left (click it for the full size image). This is a wonderful piece by Nenad Jakesevic. Unfortunately I was unable to find this print on his website.

D'Fusion. D'Vision of what's to come with the Nintendo Wii (Revolution)?

2006-04-28T21:28:00.000-05:00

A recent Digg story has just set the rumor-mill running full power again. For some background, the Nintendo Revolution, recently renamed to the "Wii" much to the dismay of most of the internet has had one big secret about it which nobody at or affiliated with Nintendo is even willing to hint at other than to say "prepare to see games in a way you never imagined". There has been much speculation as to what this could be but the consensus has typically been that it was some sort of additional virtual reality device to enhance the controller experience, perhaps a camera or something.

Now, the link in the Digg article just discusses some of the speculation going around, however the comments in that article as well as the Digg comments link to a video which you can watch below that demonstrates some technology from a company called Total Immersion called D'Fusion. Now, for some reason that video is not on their website.....I wonder why. Perhaps it was too much of a giveaway? In addition to the video below I HIGHLY recommend you check out the other demo videos on the company website to get a better feel for the technology as the video below is probably leaving you with about a million questions after you've picked your jaw up off the floor.

There has been a definitive answer from Nintendo that there will be no visor or helmet for the system, and this could very well be why. You see, this technology relies on cameras having a fixed viewpoint. It would be very difficult to make it render accurately through a visor from the infinite viewpoints that would be created by that. You would need SEVERAL cameras for that. But just imagine playing on your bigscreen in your living room with a table in front of you. You have some piles of books, a couple empty glasses, and you and your friend are sitting at the table watching slack-jawed as you see yourselves on the TV, like a mirror image, and on the table in front of you there are little armies marching around and fighting, and INTERACTING with the books and glasses on the table as if they were real world obstacles. Whats more, your controller interacts with them with force-feedback.

Now imagine another scenario...networked play. Your friend is at his house with his system, you're playing on yours. You see him on the screen in his living room and he sees you in yours. Suddenly a lightsaber ignites in his hand and you flip your switch in response and smile as you see the blade follow every precise flick of your wrist on the screen. Every Star Wars fan's wettest dream. Aside from Carrie Fischer in her Jabba outfit.

I honestly believe there are true geniuses over at Nintendo because if this video is any sign of the reality of this system...they will have truly and utterly pwned this round of the console wars.

Add to this the fact that the system is expected to be priced around $200 in comparison to the fortune the Xbox 360 goes for and the fortune the PS3 will go for and it is a slamdunk.

I've already made up my mind to get a Revolution...sorry...."Wii"...for my next console...unfortunately if this the reality of the system, it just means I will have to get a place in line that much earlier the night before launch. But anything that is cool and innovative enough to almost make me say "Fuck Spore" is well worth that wait in line.

4/20/2006

2006-04-21T08:54:00.000-05:00

Apparently a large number of students were absent yesterday from high schools in the north suburbs of Chicago. What does the news think caused this mass truancy?

Columbine.

Of course! Why else would rich white high schoolers miss class on 4-20?

In completely unrelated news, medical marijuana was rejected by the FDA.

5x increase expected for in-game advertising industry.

2006-04-20T10:38:00.000-05:00

In a recent Slashdot story and it really made me wonder...

How in the hell are companies like Massive going to penetrate the fantasy game market? You can't just drop a billboard in the middle of IronForge.

No, if advertisers want to break into the fantasy games, they're going to have be much more creative about it, and much more humble. Advertisers have to EARN the respect of the gamers who's virtual worlds they are invading. They can do this by going with the grain of the setting rather than against it. How can this be possible?

Lets take a look at who currently sells things in these games. Not the gold-farmers or auction hounds...but the NPCs. I wonder if gamers would take much offense at seeing a food vendor named "Cournel" selling "K'ntuckee Fried Gryphon wings". It spoofs the real brand and product, is creative, yet also is done in a way that makes it easy for gamers to get the joke and make the connection to the real brand. I'm willing to bet quite a few players would respond positively to a brand parodying itself.

This is a very integrated method of bringing a brand into a fantasy world. And it works completely in-character. There are of course methods that are a bit more out of character that still affect the game world directly. What about an invasion that displayed a text message in the chat window along the lines of "This invasion sponsored by Teamspeak"? Yes, it is significantly more intrusive, but still adds value to the gameworld in the form of the invasion. Unfortunately, Teamspeak is unlikely to advertise their products in such a way due to budget, and a brand like coke would seem very out of place.

For this reason there exists a third option, however it is by far the most intrusive and as out of context as it gets. Advertising placed in the interface. Perhaps just a logo or a tiny text ad in a mostly out of the way space. Yes, this is probably going too far, but it could be worse...you could see a :15 spot on your loading screen when you switch zones.

Video of new female robot.

2006-04-18T11:14:00.000-05:00

Those crazy Japanese are at it again. This time they created a female robot to go with all the male(?) robots. Apparently what makes it female is that it has hips and knows how to shake its ass from side to side. The big question though is whether it can go to the kitchen and make me a goddamned sammich like I told it to an hour ago!

Robo One....or.....why the Japanese rock.

2006-04-16T17:54:00.000-05:00

The Japanese have been world leaders in robot fighting technology from day one. What was conceived as a work of fiction in the roots of anime history has materialized into a real live competition that is seeking to live up to the fantasties created by the likes of Gundam, Robotech, Neon Genesis Evangelion and the countless other giant robot anime titles that exist.

The Robo One competition, which started off with simple robots fighting on a table is now bringing the conflict into space. As shown in the video below, the robots are launched into space and when the round starts, they are "ejected" on tether's from the central fighting satellite. Each tether has a sensor embedded in it that can detect when a robot has been pushed to the end of its ether, like when one robot punches the ever-loving shit out of another.

I embedded the video below, but that doesn't really do it justice.....you need to watch this full screen because thats how cool giant robots fighting in space are. So please click on the link below to go to the video's page and then select the full screen option for the true viewing "experience". Or something.

Permalink To Video (click to access the fullscreen view)

This Passover brought to you by Maxwell House.

2006-04-13T12:26:00.000-05:00

Last night was indeed different from all other nights. What started out as a Passover seder dinner at the home of a family my parents knew but that I had never met ended up with me coming up with a new avenue for marketers to hawk their wares. Passover!

My inspiration came from the Maxwell House haggadah (Passover prayer book) that we used for dinner that night. Now, many of my Jewish readers might recognize this book pictured to the left, however this was news to me as my family has our own haggadahs. Apparently though there is some serious history behind this and the campaign is quite famous!. According to this press release from Maxwell House, they began distributing these things in 1934, and at 72 years and counting...this is the longest running promotion by a major brand in the US with 40 million copies distributed so far.

I thought that was fantastic, but why stop there?! Passover is an expensive event for any family, and in these tough times we need all the financial help we can get. So without further adieu I present to you my sponsored Passover promotion ideas for other brands!

Seder Plate: Typically these are decorated, very expensive plates that the symbolic food items are placed on. These items range from parsley to horseradish. So why not take that god awful tasting horseradish flavor away with a nice, refreshing Pepsi! The plate would of course feature the Pepsi logo and instead of a dish of salt water, lets bring back Crystal Pepsi for people to dip their bitter herbs in.

Yamukahs: Otherwise known as the funny little hats that us Jews wear. Aside from the expensive custom-made ones, these tend to be either solid white or solid black. Perfect for sporting one or more brand logos! Why should athletes get all the benefits of wearing sponsored uniforms? Plus, you can charge extra for space on the yamukah of whoever is leading the seder!

Matzah: I often refer to this as the cracker of the Jews! It is unleavened bread that is flat, crunchy and has lots of holes in it. We hold it up frequently during the course of the night, and one piece of it is hidden for little children to find for a prize. So what can we do to spice this plain bread up and bring in some dough (pardon the pun)? Well, lets steal an idea from Face Cake! Those are the cool cakes where you can have an edible photograph literally printed onto the cake! Well...why stop ata cake, lets have sponsored matzah! Logos and copy could be printed onto the matzah and everybody would marvel at the unusual and interesting ads you could please on there. Instant eyeballs.

So next year, consider saving some money on Passover dinner (and what Jew doesn't want to do that!) and consider bringing corporations to your seder table because they are interested in the same thing us Jews are. Money.

Make 3D plastic models of your WoW characters!

2006-04-11T10:50:00.000-05:00

A new piece of free open-source software called OGLE, which stands for OpenGL Extractor, allows you to grab 3d modelling data from online games and other pieces of software where you may not have access to the actual models.

How does it work this magic? The software (which is Windows Only) acts as kind of a middleman between the data flow of the program and the computer's OpenGL library. Then it puts all of this in standard 3d modeling format.

So how do you get your little likeness of your virtual "you" in plastic form? Well...thats the more expensive part. The plastic model seen in the picture above was printed on an $18,900 (base price) Dimension BST 3D printer with ABS plastic as the printing compound.

The upside is that if you have any friends at art and design schools (like my almamater MCAD, they most likely have access to these printers and would be able to print them out for you for most likely just the cost of the raw materials. And while I'm not familiar with any companies that do this...there may be some companies out there that will fill small prototyping orders and ship the models out to you.

(Click the above image for a larger version)

*edit
Thought I'd add some download links as well...but please also check out the creator's site for all the cool goodness they have on there.
First you need a DLL called GLIntercept and then you need the OGLE software.

GLIntercept Download Page

OGLE Direct Download Link

Scientists find equation for perfect ass!

2006-04-09T11:39:00.000-05:00

Scientists have done it again. In an article from the Sunday Times we learn that the scientific formula for the perfect ass is:

(S+C) x (B+F)/T = V

S = Overall shape
C = Curvature
B = How much it moves when she shakes it
F = How firm it is
V = Hip to Waist Ratio
T = Smoothness and cellulite

According to the horribly unscientific survey the scientists conducted in the UK...Kylie Minogue has a great ass...as shown in the image above, whereas J-Lo's is huge. Wow, Latina women have statistically larger than normal asses...film at 11!

Personally I think they need to release the simple measuring device they used for this on the open market. Seriously...every woman wants something to make her guilty over eating that last pint, and what better way to do it than having a simple scale they can hold up to their ass to realize how fat they are! Patent pending...

Crabs Killing Unicorns...WTF?!

2006-04-07T11:51:00.000-05:00

I ran across this great viral ad created by Y&R Southern California on Adrants. Appears to be for the Newport Beach Film Festival. All I have to say is...WTF?!

Honestly...with the complete saturation of viral content these days, there has been steadily decreasing signal to noise ratio, so it takes a lot to catch my attention now...but this honestly made me burst out laughing. Definitely nails the recent "random humor" trend that makes shows like Family Guy and Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab 2021 so great. Way to "get it" Y&R!

New Star Wars comic from the creator of "Troops"!

2006-04-06T14:36:00.000-05:00

Many of you might remember a fan-made Star Wars spoof filmed in 1997 called "Troops" (link goes to YouTube version of film), which could be considered one of the first true viral videos on the internet.

Well, looks like the writer of "Troops" is back at it after having been brought on by Dark Horse Comics as a writer. Check out this preview of his hilarious Star Wars spoof comic on the Dark Horse website. Make sure to click the "next page" link at the top of the current page to read a few pages.

The premise of the comic, called "Star Wars: The Return of Tag and Bink" follows Tag and Bink, two Imperial troopers who, through their mishaps and adventures unknowingly have a lasting impression on the Star Wars universe as we know it through the films, much in the style of "Troops".

Latest MIT hack...stealing Cal Tech's cannon.

2006-04-06T13:32:00.000-05:00

According to the Cal Tech Cannon, MIT students posing as a moving company called Howe & Ser (get it? howitzer?) socially engineered their way past security and moved it to their campus with the addition of a giant machine-tooled version of their class ring, the Brass Rat, slid over the barrel. Absolutely brilliant. See their site for more images. See the Slashdot comments on this here.

Thanks to redhotwheels on Digg for pointing out that I can't spell for shit and had Cannon spelled wrong. It has since been corrected.

Amazing robot sculpture

2006-04-02T22:09:00.000-05:00

This guy machined this little robot and my jaw is on the ground. I want one, badly. A post on Digg claimed they saw a story on this and it supposedly has over 700 moving parts. I wish I could find some more details on this but the pictures alone are just absolutely stunning.

See more pictures | Digg coverage

I shaved my Wookie.

2006-04-02T15:17:00.000-05:00

I took some camera phone pics from a magazine yesterday that had some funny stencil graffiti of Star Wars material. Found some of them online. A print of the Wookie one can be found at Eelus.com, while the R2D2 one was created by a guy named Dolk and was spray painted on the 1st floor of Leicester Street in London according to the Flickr page I found it on..

Chuck Norris: The Cartoon

2006-04-02T15:08:00.000-05:00

My wonderful friend Jina just informed me that last night instead of Inu Yasha (piece of crap), Adult Swim aired an old 80's Chuck Norris cartoon. Found a lovely clip of the intro on YouTube to watch. Bloody brilliant, these people were truly ahead of their time. It honestly just gets better and better as you watch. I couldn't make it out clearly, but was one of his sidekicks called TiVo?!

Nissan Terranaut...The Homer?!

2006-04-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently someone at Nissan is a Simpsons fan because I swear, this thing looks like The Homer from the outside. But I want one...bad....and I want a chauffeur to drive me in it so I can sit in the command turret. And I want weapons mounted on it, big freakin weapons.

Suicide Girls Killer

2006-04-02T05:52:00.000-05:00

So on an odd internet journey which began at Digg.com...went through a site that listed news gathering sites similar to Digg...and ended up at a collaborative porn site (funny how that works). Well, one of the links was for a site called http://www.godsgirls.com (site isn't live yet, temp site with samples is on their MySpace page) which the poster claimed was a Suicidegirls.com killer.

Hmm....he might have been right if this sample picture is anything to go by.

Google Maps for Zombies?

2006-04-01T10:29:00.000-06:00

First off, this is an April Fools story. I get sick and tired of trying to trick people through text on a website...its too damn easy. But this was funny, and I kinda wish it was actually real. Found this Google Maps for Zombies link over at Lifehacker.

Splice your own chimera.

2006-04-01T01:40:00.000-06:00

A company called GeneDupe is creating software that will allow you to take an image of a mythological creature and dump in the genomes of the two or more animals that the mythological creature (often referred to as a chimera) is composed of. Once this is done it will go through several generations and several rounds of simulated evolution to output what the most likely successful genome combination of the two would be.

Thats cool enough as it is, but their REAL goal is to take this new mashed-up gene sequence and create a real animal from scratch with it. In otherwords, they want to make REAL mythological creatures. Now, whether or not they would end up being horribly deformed animals that constantly try to kill themselves from agony is another story altogether.

Now, this being April 1st and all, I wouldn't be surprised if this is completely fake, seeing as how I grabbed it off of Digg, but who knows. At our current level of genetic understanding, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this had half a chance in hell of working.

*EDIT
So yes, this actually was an April Fools joke. What is sad is that Slashdot actually picked this story up from Digg. They can't even make their own April Fools stories?

How do you know when you've played too much WoW?

2006-03-31T08:06:00.000-06:00

We all know that one guy...who gets a little too into his games, or anime etc. Well, this guy was caught in the act. Now I feel REALLY dirty about playing a wood elf in EQ and scamming guys for plats. Must....shower...

Thanks to my good friend The Dread Pirate Billiam over at ScathedObsidian for bringing me THIS little gem.

OMIGOD YES

2006-03-30T16:05:00.000-06:00

New commercials from the folks who brought you "Got Milk?" SO EXCITING:

http://www.planetinneed.com/

It's a planet with brittle bones, insomnia, bad teeth, thinning hair, bad PMS, and the like--that is, until they discover Da Iry on an exploratory trip to Earth and convince the almighty Da Iry (a cow) to return to their planet with them, where they worship it. Simply put, this is wonderful.

The high: Diary is wonderful and if you don't think that this quasi-Hindu worship of cows and dairy is awesome, then you don't deserve good enough living conditions to afford a gallon a week. Drink a gallon a week.

The mediocre: The cow translator isn't another interactive chicken or interactive bartender, but more of a magic 8-ball concept.

The low: The whole deal is put out by the California Milk Processor Board, which means both that we won't see much of it in the Midwest and that it's not endorsing cheese nearly enough (CA surpassed WI in milk production in 1993 but still lags behind in cheese.) Also, there are too many people and not enough cow and cow product. Either way, California is inferior and "best recognize."

I think I will have steak, cheese, and a glass of milk for dinner. Maybe also some yogurt.

World Of Warcraft

2006-03-23T15:12:00.000-06:00

I've been playing World Of Warcraft for sometime now, I'm coming up on 8 months. In that time I've laughed plenty, yelled sometimes, and occasionally lept out of my chair and danced around the room. I never thought I would stick with the game until I hit 60 but I was wrong. WoW has continued to amuse, entertain, and impress me. From "humping the griffin" to leading a 40 man raid on the Undercity its been alot of fun. It's been a unique experience playing a Paladin too. You see the Paladin class is probably the most controversial in its playstyle, noone can seem to decide what you should do with them. Even Blizzard is nebulous in its class description. Being a Paladin for me means beating ass in some god's name. I tend to piss of the Warriors and am the bane of soft casting classes everywhere in PvP. Now comes Molten Core, Zul'Grub and all the other level 60 instances. Huzzah!

Total play time on Spircoff: 18 days, 22 hours.

Griefer in MMORPG crucified in-game for 7 days.

2006-03-23T14:25:00.000-06:00

A story over at Warcry shares newest method of dealing with griefers in online games. Pinning them up on crosses. All this happened on the MMO Roma Victor after a player named Cynewolf started spawn-killing newbies. Rather than just banning his ass or tossing him into some jail cell zone where nobody would see or hear from him, the game moderators temp-banned his account for 7 days during which his ass was nailed up to a cross, which is very fitting given the time period of the game.

Why oh WHY can't other MMOs do something similar? It doesn't have to be putting someone up on a cross...just making them an example to the rest of the players in some creative way.

Several screenshots of the event have been posted.

So does this mean all the other griefers are forgiven for their sins?

Watch select Adult Swim shows online 24/7!

2006-03-22T12:29:00.000-06:00

The latest news item on the Adult Swim website divulged the following little nugget of goodness:

*****
"Do you like Friday Night Fix? Can't stay up to watch Adult Swim at night? Want to spend more time on your computer?

The Adult Swim Fix is going live Monday, March 27th, offering you free access to full-length Adult Swim programming 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Each week, we will feature 7 episodes from our original comedies and some select anime titles. Friday Night Fix will still run Fridays from 11 PM - 6 AM and will feature premiers of shows two whole days before they air on Sunday.

Watch the shows you want. Whenever you want. For Free. "
*****

Yes, you read that correctly...certain FULL EPISODES of shows from the Adult Swim lineup will be viewable from their website. This is like taking the Comedy Central approach a step further and making it what it should be. I love you guys over at Adult Swim. It is encouraging that one of the few companies out there who has no problem attracting the elusive 18-34 male demographic is taking this very liberal position on how they are letting viewers watch their shows. Thanks for understanding how our demographic consumes our media guys, we appreciate it.

Gamers are better at shooting things remotely?

2006-03-22T12:13:00.000-06:00

From the "No Shit Sherlock Dept."

This article from The Raw Feed made the amazing discovery that today's soldiers in Iraq are apparently quite adept at shooting big guns remotely with a joystick. Gee, who would have thought?

These Common Remote Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) systems are also being implemented in America's Army to train future generations of CROWS gunners.

Sorry guys...Robin Williams had you beat years ago.

PULL!!!

2006-03-22T10:38:00.000-06:00

Thought I'd post a truly awesome photograph that was posted on Fark of all places. Still very cool, except the prints you can buy at the photographer's site look like cheesy motivational posters.

As a side note...am I the only one that feels like this should be a bonus level in Duck Hunt? PULL!!!