This is a series of actual ads from the 1950s. It is awesome. Here’s why they’re like they are…
“In 1957, Jim Henson was approached by a Washington, D.C. coffee company to produce ads for Wilkins Coffee. The local stations only had ten seconds for station identification, so the commercials had to be lightning-fast — essentially, eight seconds for the commercial pitch and a two-second shot of the product.”
Friend Izaac now has a blog. He has put a link to it in his gmail status so I assume that means it’s open for business.
He’s funnier than me. But he’s a St George supporter so there’s a trade off.
Hello Readers,
I’d like your advice – yes – particularly you lurkers who never comment.
It seems increasingly likely that my geographically specific domain name will become redundant – and it’s problematic even if our geographical location maintains its status quo – because it gets picked up in all sorts of Google Alerts that I don’t necessarily want it to…
So, I’m plotting and planning a change. And I have two current conceptual options (to be narrowed down to specific domains) that would move this away from being purely a site for my personal ramblings and in to something more defined. I don’t want to write my suggested domains down in case some enterprising reader snaps them up and holds them to ransom.
But here are my options:
1. I like to think that the one thing uniting all of my disparate postings and rambling musings is an overarching appreciation of “cleverness” – some things falling into the “too clever” category. I see this site as almost a repository of other people’s clever ideas. This domain would have something to do with the study of cleverness pertaining to stupid and needless gadgetry, coffee and the rest… it also begins with the letter “c” which works given my categorical nomenclature.
2. I also am entertaining a mild fascination with the Biblical character Eutychus. Eutychus is the guy who fell asleep during one of Paul’s rambling sermons and fell out a window to his death – only to be raised by Paul (no doubt through some sense of remorse for being so boring). I hope this changed Paul’s preaching. I like to think of Eutychus as the patron saint of not being boring.
3. I could go down a more boring avenue and pick some other word, or combination that would remove both my name, and location from the equation – I don’t intend to become anonymous, I like the sense of transparency and accountability that comes from using my name. I would just like it to be able to be more permanent and less tied to a state of flux.
So, your thoughts – option 1, 2 or 3…
If, over the next forty years, you want to keep a running tally of how closely Hollywood’s vision of the future matches our own – your job is made easier by this chart…
From Dan Meth.
Awesome. Take that Cookie Monster.
Ahh, PETA, you’ve outdone yourselves.
PETA continue to get great media coverage for being the dumbest group of activists around. It’s like they sat in a strategy meetings and decided that the only way to get people to take them seriously was to act like idiots.
Pike Place Fish at the Seattle Fish Markets is famous for flying fish – there’s a customer service training course that has become a global phenomenon because one day some of the workers there decided to improve life working with stinky fish by flinging them around.
According to PETA this is a no-no. Throwing dead fish around is undignified. Especially at a conference for vets (which raised the PETA hackles on the issue).
“Killing animals so you can toss their bodies around for amusement is just twisted,” said Ashley Byrne, senior campaigner for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Washington, D.C.
“And it particularly sends a terrible message to the public when vets call it fun to toss around the corpses of animals. If anyone should be promoting compassion and not callousness toward animals, it should be vets.”
Update: Sorry, I should have pointed out that PETA is objecting to having “sea kittens” (their attempted rebranding of aquatic life) tossed around.
Serendipity is a lucky coincidence, or making an accidentally fortunate decision. This must be the personification of its antithesis.
Woman who missed Flight 447 is killed in car crash.
“An Italian woman who arrived late for the Air France plane flight that crashed in the Atlantic last week has been killed in a car accident, it has been reported.”
Bugger.
Just in case any of you out there are actually wondering where we’re up to in terms of plans for the future…
I have an interview with representatives from the Presbytery of North Queensland this afternoon as the penultimate (I think) stage of enrolling at QTC as a candidate.
Exciting stuff. I hope they didn’t find my little betting sheet at church last night…
Ben (from Vanishing Point fame – not to be confused with occasional guest blogger Benny) says you shouldn’t see the movie “August Rush”. And with a review like this (in the comments of his post) who’d want to:
“This August Rush movie on the other hand thought it was so life-affirming and wonderful, but really was like the demonic love child of Hallmark and Anne Geddes.”
Perhaps a movie for the U2 fans amongst us…
Justin Moffat (another one of my favourite bloggers – his series on things he’s learned about preaching is worth a read) has a list of ten things he observed about Tim Keller’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church during his time in New York (where he worked in a church plant).
Here are my favourite bits from his list:
3. Redeemer seeks to ‘exegete’ the city. They ‘walked the streets’ early on to breathe in and consider the needs, drives and fears of New Yorkers. They didn’t generalise, patronise, or assume that they knew the needs before they began their project. But when they decided, they were specific.
5. They assume that people can be involved in a ‘service project’ (Mercy Ministry) without sacrificing their commitment to the Gospel.
6. They speak in church as though new people and not-yet-Christians are always present.
7. Tim Keller is positive, insightful, and a good example of the new apologetic. He has clearly identified and articulated certain ‘defeater beliefs’, and he systematically goes about answering them.
It’s a useful reflection – though doesn’t touch on the whole theology/idolatry of the city issue (though he teases a future post on the matter in the comments.
I was going to mention this the other day – but didn’t – but dad paid Redeemer a visit once upon a time during a whirlwind visit of the states – and wrote this useful article about Missional Churches (PDF) (back in 2004 before it the buzzword reached zeitgeist status) – he also wrote something about Redeemer that I can’t find on his old, abandoned blog (again in 2004 before blogging was cool – isn’t he such a trendy/geeky dad) … but I’ll keep looking.
If you’re at a church meeting and you decide that running a betting pool on the people most likely to ask a question about a contentious hot button issue would make proceedings less tedious then don’t lose the bit of paper you’ve written on.
Especially if you were silly enough to write a heading above the list of names.
This will ensure a much better night’s sleep.
That is all.
I suspect I’m starting to understand the utility value of Twitter. Here’s an update on the Slayer Espresso Machine that I’m so excited about – straight from the designer’s mouth…
More bad news at the Sharks. This time about some “creative” accounting.
“The then chief executive Tony Zappia initially told the community relations officer, Jenny Hall, the money was to offset her salary and enable her to go out into the community and attract more sponsorships that reflected well on the club. Hall vehemently objected to that suggestion. She believed the money was specifically for the Guide Dogs NSW and should immediately, and in full, be passed on to it.”
If there’s a lesson to be learned (other than “don’t do the wrong thing”) for CEOs from this situation it’s this: If you’re going to punch a staff member don’t punch a PR worker…
Or perhaps – make sure every PR related employee who knows about your dirty laundry leaves on good terms.
For those who missed it – Flight of the Conchords is now on SBS on Mondays after South Park.
Last night Murray invested the band’s emergency funds with a Nigerian friend he met on the Internet.
Brilliant. Here’s a sample of their brilliance.