Do You Want to Touch - hey!

I just saw a commercial for the HP Touhsmart PC and I'm pretty intrigued. First off, the music in this commercial made me want to shout and dance - seriously. The commercial itself was very iphone/ipod-ish. Cool song, very visual, quick, sleek and intriguing. This computer has a large touch screen monitor, a blue-ray disk drive, easy to organize media, a build in webcam, and other features I have never heard of. Seems to me like this is there opportunity to stay ahead of the Apple curve and it will be intersting to follow the reviews on this.

Web 2 point what?

What is web 2.0? - The second phase on the Internet I hear. With so many competing companies and applications it's all a little overwhelming to me. I'm looking forward to making use of these 2.0 resources and have been active on myspace and facebook for some time now, igoogle, google reader, blogspot, and really everything google. I recently joined LinkedIn too. I just want everything to happen by using one button (a google button I hope). I hear about digging this and delicious that so I guess I have a lot to learn. Look at all this...

Happy Ads Make Me Mad (Sometimes)

I was reading this depressing article about the train crash and saw this image of a happy girl. Now I know it says "advertisement" in the upper left corner of the image but for some reason I didn't see that right away and thought to myself "oh my god, what does this happy girl have to do with this story." When I realized it was an ad (and I still don't know what for, I assume t-shirts) I still felt it was inappropriate. I'm sure these are randomly placed but it just didn't fit the story and it seemed so useless. This reminds me of when you're watching a TV show and something really sad or dramatic happens... a tornado just swooped up your favorite character who may possibly never walk again and then it cuts away to the thicker quicker picker upper, Bounty. It just screws you all up inside because one second your like "gasp, oh my god" and the next second you're like "what the f is this crap that just threw my emotions all out of whack!" I'm sure you know how I feel... I think that advertisements randomly placed in the middle of an article or even during a commercial break need to take the storyline or context into greater consideration in order to not piss people off or have them tune out.

Eyeballs

Alright, I just saw these eyeballs on the streets of Hollywood. When these type of things spring up out of nowhere it's always some artist trying to make themselves know in a mysterious underground kind of way. I didn't see these a week ago so keep your "eye" out for more and let me know if you figure out what this is all about. These are both on Hollywood Blvd. one is at the corner of Wilcox in front of Kung Pao Kitty and the other one is 2-3 blocks west in front of this place that is all black that has a door bell and a video camera - super stealth.

energy crisis? Drink Vitamin Water

Nobody can escape the economic/energy crisis so in a time where people's lives are falling to pieces, brands are trying to let you know why they are relevant to your life, how they can solve your problems, and how they can be part of the economic crisis too. I'm not totally sure I'm on board since people have serious issues to resolve, but everybody needs water so it might as well be this water right? - especially if it has something to do with the economy. This was a wrap on a van outside a huge concert. I would have jumped on the bandwagon if after standing on my feet all day, I could have received a free massage and Vitamin Water inside the van, but I don't think that was part of the package.

Famima, Ikea, Fresh and Easy

I went to Famima the other day to buy Tea's tea and a corn dog and suddenly felt smitten by the branding of Famima, Ikea, and Fresh and Easy. While I honestly can't tell the difference between these brands at first glance (which sounds like a bad thing), I still enjoy them all equally (disregarding furniture quality). I mean, nobody owns "simplicity" and that's exactly what these brands do right. Their simple, clean and honest. Peas are peas and carrots are carrots if you get my drift - it's exactly what you are looking for and at a very affordable price, yet somehow they don't look as if they should be sold in the 99 cent store. If these brand names were removed from the label would you notice a difference???

Luchador Masks

Dear Blabby,
I've been seeing these crazy masks everywhere, what the heck is going on?

Lucha Libre (not the movie) is a form of Mexican wrestling in which the wrestlers wear these masks that cover their faces... yes, you may have seen a few of them in my apartment. In the past year it's become quite a Hipster symbol - not totally sure why yet but maybe it's the mysteriousness of them, the unfamiliarity, the humor, the cultural association? First there was Lucha Va Voom http://www.luchavavoom.com/ which was this awesome wresting match that took place in Downtown Los Angeles. Then, I noticed it with Monster Massive http://www.monstermassive.com/ - an electronic music festival, and lastly, I saw some posters in the liquor store window for the energy drink Full Throttle. I'm sure there are plenty more examples, but I feel that has become a modern and relevant symbol for youth culture in the past year and I imagine you may start seeing them around town more often.

Blogging - Despair.com

This is funny to me

I'm a flash mobber!

Even wikipedia knows what a Flash Mob is: "A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse." I know, it's so 2003 but I still like it. Apparently I have even participated in one (SantaCon) without even knowing it! Basically it's a social experiment which is often used to get some point across (or just to be ridiculous for really no reason at all). Anything from planting a banana tree to dressing up as soldiers outside the McCain campaign offices. It's very guerrilla and often organized through email. Like everything that is once cool and loses it - the brands have started to catch on. Can flash mobs be on the way in or out? Yahoo recently partnered with Improv Everywhere to launch a flash mob campaign which was announced on Ad Age last month.

ESPN Astro Turf Ads

On the corner of Cahuenga Blvd. and Hollywood Blvd. is an ESPN ad for Monday night football. I've never seen anything like this, it's made out of fake grass so if you touch it the ad sticks out a few inches. I took a bad picture with my camera phone and went back to take a better one later however it was no longer there :( I looked online to find a pic and found tons of stories surrounding the subject of theft... apparently I'm one of many people who really enjoyed it but now they are being stolen left and right. I'm sure this has been quite costly for the brand however it may be worth the extra attention - what do you think? They are even running similar ads in print which is where I pulled this image from however it would have been really spectacular if it was also made out of a special pop-out material like green felt or something along those lines.