Tag: US
Ready, Aim, Phh-ire
If you live in the US one of the hardest things about being a quadriplegic is that you can no longer exercise your right to bear arms. Unless you arrange to go hunting with a mouth controlled shotgun.
For a quadriplegic, firing a shotgun requires help from a companion. In Mr Cap’s case, a friend sets up the contraption, safety on, on Mr Cap’s wheelchair and Mr Cap aims the shotgun by moving the toggle switch with his mouth. Once his partner releases the safety, Mr Cap fires by sipping on the breathing tube.
I don’t want to make light of Mr Cap’s situation – but how cool would it be to have a shotgun that you could control with your breathing.
Good news for bad brands
A study profiling relationships between 21 countries – coincidentally the 21 countries in the map above – has revealed that while all the usual suspects are still generally disliked worldwide, yesterday’s rogue state is today’s favourite son. Germany, who surely would not have scored this well in the 1940s, is the world’s most popular country according to the BBC survey measuring populace sentiment in each of the 21 countries.
If Germany can hit the top spot there’s hope yet for Iran, Israel and Pakistan. This year’s losers.
Japan’s top for finish is further proof that World War 2 is truly behind us.
If these countries can recover market perception in this way there’s still hope for brands that have lost face with the general public. Perhaps Nestle* or other evil brands will find themselves clawing up the charts if they do what Germany and Japan did – stop being evil.
The Obama brand also had a minor effect on the US ratings. It will be interesting to see how much movement there is on that front next year.
*I don’t know if Nestle is still evil, I just couldn’t think of anybody worse.
Americans to get Summer Heights High…
…or probably not. I suspect it’ll be the latest in a long line of exported Australian comedies to go over their heads thanks to an underdeveloped sense of humour. Still it will be interesting to see how many Americans think is Ja’mie actually a real person. Something the early Australian audience had trouble dealing with when “We Can Be Heroes” was released and “she” was interviewed on radio stations across the nation.
I’m not really fazed by the failure of the American audience to appreciate Kath and Kim – I didn’t like our version the first time round (or second, third or subsequent screenings for that matter). But Chris Lilley is a comic genius – so it would be a shame to see it not receive critical acclaim worldwide.
Anyway – this post was entirely based on the heading – and the fact that I suspect they won’t get it. I should stop writing posts purely on the basis of a pun laced heading.
I told you so
For Ben.
Red vs Blue
Red vs Blue was a cool machinima production featuring Halo characters.
If you haven’t discovered it – you should.
Today is all about this Red v Blue (a map of election results) – I want to be able to say “I told you so” my first endorsement of Obama was in March 2007 – right here. I really want to say I told you so in particular to Ben who tried his hardest to pick candidates nobody had heard of and assure me they would do well.