Voiceover fun

Presented for no reason whatsoever:

Don't work late

I have been terribly busy of late, which explains my absence from blogging for the past three weeks. I'm sure this has caused much dismay for my reader(s).

There are many matters on which I could opine, but for now here is a totally fake but effectively creepy video from Singapore depicting an "elevator ghost":



I was expecting it to be a trick of light or something. Turns out it's just viral marketing. There's a video explaining how they did it (SPOILER: It's computer editing), but it's not in English (possibly Singlish--I'm not too familiar with the languages of Singapore).

To get an idea of how effective something like this can be amongst the public, check this out:

Wrong, but ever so right somehow...

Something about this seems insidiously taboo...



I do so appreciate the judicious use of subtlety now and then.

'Tis the frickin' season, I guess

It's quite simple: if I see another commercial for inexpensive diamond jewelry that will guarantee nasty lovemaking from your spouse, I will put my foot through the television.



Enough said. Really, every time a woman goes apeshit over dimaond jewelry, somewhere, a feminist loses her wings. Think about it.

Take that, Vegemite!

And to think this was made by people trying to sell this product!

Chest Cushion - Spew Tastic

See more like this on kontraband.com

If you've ever tried this or Vegemite, you'll understand. Sorry, Australia, your food sucks (although Marmite is actually British--it still sucks).

PSA?

I couldn't not post this one too:

It's just like, it's just like a mini mall...

Must be seen to be believed. Crank the volume and groove to this:

The USA's slick new marketing campaign (UPDATED)

This one really threw me off for a while:



This was apparently created as part of a campaign to combat rising anti-Americanism in the UK and elsehwere in Europe. I hate to be a spoilsport, but I have to argue with the some of the "history" presented here--if there were no America, would everything else have proceeded exactly the same way except with right-wing-talking-point-friendly side effects?

Just a thought: if America never existed, there might have never been a French Revolution, so no Napoleonic Wars, no dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, no Franco-Prussian War, no World War I, and therefore no World War II in which the Soviets could liberate Paris first. That may be going a bit far, so let me slow things down a little.

If there were no America during World War I, but otherwise everything else was the same, how long would the Allies and Central Powers continue slugging it out on the Western Front? It has been suggested that, without U.S. intervention on the Allies' behalf in 1917, the war in the west might have eventually ended in a draw of sorts. Here is one interesting scenario:

In World War I, America remained strictly neutral until the beginning of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917. To this, America had to respond, but as the President pointed out, this did not commit America to taking part in the disastrous ground war being fought on the French frontier. Instead, a vigorous and ruthless naval campaign was carried out against both German submarines and surface vessels, whether civilian or military. At the same time America’s scientific establishment cam into action, developing a sonar device as early as 1919 and effectively ending attacks on American vessels. Without American intervention, neither side could prevail, and in 1921, with both Germany and France physically and financially exhausted, and threatened from within by Communist revolution, the Western Powers concluded a peace treaty that left matters substantially as they had been in 1914. Without the indignity of military occupation or the vindictive conditions of an imposed peace, including vast “reparations” from the defeated, radical right-wing German parties could gain little traction; an obscure agitator called Hitler was killed in a beer garden brawl in 1937.

My point is simply that nothing about history is pre-ordained (a point I've tried to make in earlier posts) and that hindsight is 20/20.

All the same, it is kind of nice to have the UK stumping for us, isn't it? USA! USA!

UPDATE:

It occurred to me that it sort of sounds like I'm saying that, without America, there would not have been any war for the past 200 years. There certainly would have been wars, just not the same ones. The Crimean War may have occurred unchanged without a US, as well as the Russo-Japanese War. A lot of things would have been different, though, and "better" or "worse" is hard to say. I'm inclined to say worse, though.

Sex sells...education? Part two in an unintentional series

CTV.ca Hong Kong tutors market sex appeal

The other day, I posted about sexy baristas in Seattle, and I figured it was a random bit of news I stumbled across. Now I see this thing about sexy tutors in Hong Kong--again, I suppose I feel it is my duty to point these things out to the general public. It's just that I think I last saw this as a bad joke in a movie (NOTE: I'm only linking to the clip referenced here--it's too NC-17 for our younger readers.)

Sex sells...coffee?

The Seattle Times: Local News: Some coffee stands get steamier

I just had to m ake a note of this. Apparently, since coffee shops outnumber humans 15 to 1 in Seattle, at least one shop is featuring scantily-clad baristas as a way of setting themselves apart. I'm sure this won't backfire in any way at all. I guess sex can seel anything now. How long will it be before Lindsay Lohan appears wrapped in nothing but the Washington Post, saying something like "Nothing comes between me and the David Broder column..."

Actually, that's not a bad idea.

Here's one of my favorite examples of the concept (WARNING: Decidedly PG-13):



This one is noteworthy for the fact that it was even made at all (WARNING: Decidedly NC-17):



Kinda predictable in retrospect.

Anyway, there's no particular point to this post, except that it gave me a quasi-intellectual excuse to link to some moderately dirty videos. And to make a broader societal point. About something.