Mad Men Mania

Yay! I'm super excited for the next season of Mad Men to premiere on AMC on August 16! I discovered this nifty new avatar maker MadMenYourself.com. I love the retro feel, and the navigation is easy but I just wish they had spent a little more time on the illustration for the avatar parts themselves. Like for example, the noses all look really bad, so mine ended up noseless (a la Michael Jackson... Too Soon?) Of course I had to accessorize myself with a doughnut!





The clothes and the hairstyles are pretty sweet and I like the download options. Promotion for the network guys must be getting cheaper, and more creative thanks to the popularity of social networking.





Speaking of promotion, I also think it's cool that the show partnered with Banana Republic.




The stores feature little guides that help you dress like your favorite character, and on the back of those guides, there are ticket codes that promise a slight chance of winning a walk-on role on the show and a $1,000 BR giftcard. How swell! ;)

Alice in Wonderland Trailer!

I didn't think it was going to be out til tomorrow but here's the first teaser trailer for Tim Burton/Disney's Alice in Wonderland!

Curiouser and Curiouser...

Hey y'all! Time to indulge in my AIW obsession once again.





The Loyal Subjects of the Red Queen, the Loyal Subjects of the White Queen, and the Disloyal Subjects of the Mad Hatter are all building armies on Facebook. The fan page with the biggest army at 7PM EST on Thursday, July 23 will get to see an exclusive new trailer from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland before anyone else. Here is the link where you can pick your page and see some pretty character portraits.

Of course I cheated and became fans of all three, which led me to the main Alice in Wonderland Facebook page where I stole these lovely new promotional posters:







It's a ridiculously simple and smart way to engage crazy kids like me and get free promotion (I twittered the link and passed it on to some other fans I know on Facebook). Thanks again to my favorite enabler, MM. :)

Eat Better All Day

I like this new Nutri-Grain commercial. It's super simple and you don't usually see things from the first person POV.



The supporting website is nice too - decent design (I just wish that big red bar was white. I'm a big fan of lots of white space) and I like how you can scroll through the different varieties at the top.



I think Leo Burnett is behind these creations, although I'm sure some fellow ad kids and I could have made this in school too.

Supersized vs Superskinny

I randomly stumbled upon some clips from this British tv show Supersized vs. Superskinny. Basically they parade an obese person and an anorexic person around in their underwear, and then make them switch diets for a week.



I can't embed, so here's a few links to clips where Georgetta and Amir meet and then attempt a meal swap.

(FYI: According to wikipedia, a "stone" is equal to about 14 pounds. So confusing - I hate metric! Why can't we measure things like the other 90% of the world? Whatevs.)

Of course I don't live in the British Isles so I can't watch a whole episode, even online. Despite it's good intentions, I don't see how this is really healthy. I HATE reality tv, but this is strangely addicting.

I'm actually working on my own food portioning - or at least the sugary stuff. I am so proud of myself for not ordering dessert after dinner last night! Additional beneft: my bill was cheaper too! Pretty sure I didn't need to drink that much beer tho, but it's hard when there is a huge cooler full of it for free at work. lol

This show reminds me of this eerie commercial for this Swedish clinic that treats eating disorders.

Almost

Loving what I've heard off Papa Roach's new album Metamorphosis so far. Here's the latest release/video "I Almost Told You That I Loved You"



I almost love Jacoby! Yummmm

These guys are UH-MAY-ZING in concert! I saw them a couple years ago in T-Bay, and they're on tour again but OF COURSE they aren't making any stops in Florida.

But this song kind of makes me want to get a tatoo.

Summer Reading List

I just finished my last term of school EVER so it's gonna be hard to get used to not having that extended vacation every year. But, I still have some books on the back burner that I've been meaning to devote some attention to. Hopefully every week at the agency won't take up 65 hours of my time, like last week. So here we go, in no particular order:


Ok, I've read this one several times, mostly when I was in Boulder last fall. But sadly I have yet to own a copy for myself. You can enhance your creativity through osmosis, right? This book may replace one of my pillows.





Another book I discovered in Boulder, that I affectionately call by its alternate title "The Douchebag Bible." I rented it from the library and got through about half of it before my workload became overwhelming and it started collecting dust on my dresser. Then of course when I finally had some time to finish it, I had to return it. Even though I've dated enough of these guys that I should have been familiar with everything in the book before I even picked it up.




I might as well round out the skinny bitch book series. I bought the original shortly after it was released, then got the cookbook for Christmas, however, I don't need the "Bun in the Oven" edition...yet.





Basically my favorite story of all time. I haven't re-read it in ages and I feel like I'm somehow hypocritical for not owning a copy of it. I have the Disney version on DVD, but that's equivalent to owning a fake designer bag and pretending it's the real thing.





Anthem is right behind Alice on my favorite books list. I fell asleep several times while attempting to read Atlas Shrugged. So it's pretty much a coin toss for me whether or not I'm going to like, or even finish this one. Regardless, Ayn Rand is pretty cool. And not just because we have the same birthday.

Get Wet

I think Orbit has done a pretty decent job differentiating their product, if only for it's weirdness. Who can forget this classic copywriting masterpiece?



What the French, Toast?!

Anyways now they are claiming to be the wettest gum on the market. Ok. I wonder what kind of focus group that came out of. Introducing... Orbit Mist:





I grabbed a pack at Walgreens today, partially because the packaging is swirly and shiny and partially because I like watermelon-flavored confections (watermelon jollyranchers are the best - and if you say sour apple, I will stab you in the jaw!).



I'm actually chewing it right now. When you first pop it in your mouth, its really hard (Ha! That's what she said) and for like 6.5 seconds you can tell something is going on, but it's hardly much of a "hydrating sensation."

Still, some funny stuff from BBDO.

A New Design Direction

I had to get off the island today for a little bit to stock up on food and supplies. My preferred suppliers are Publix and Target. I've been a fan of Publix's generic product design forever and apparently Target is too because they just relaunched their store brand as "Up & Up." The packaging is so similar - simple, clean sans-serif and monochromatic with generous white space. I mean, these generic packages look better than the branded ones that they're competing with. Better Design AND Better Price. Everyone wins! Yay!



It's hard to find much about it yet since the brand literally launched last month, but according to Reuters, they have about 730 products available right now and will have close to 800 by the end of this year. And according to this press release,

"By re-launching Target brand as up & up, we’re able to create a unique identity for this powerful owned brand. The new packaging incorporates an element of design, giving us the opportunity to deliver on both the ‘expect more’ and ‘pay less’ sides of our brand promise."

Target consistently reevaluates its owned brands to ensure they meet guest expectations. Before introducing up & up, Target reviewed more than 4,000 guest comments on the quality and performance of its store-brand products. This resulted in the reformulation or enhancement of more than 130 products in the line.

Like I said, the design is really similar to my favorite generic grocery brand, but unlike Publix, the Up & Up brand doesn't have a website for fans of its packaging...yet.



(Even though it hasn't been updated in almost two years, LoL. Guess they weren't THAT big of fans.) Here's a cute, more current website that encourages you to get into a "Green Routine."

It's not YourSpace, It's MySpace

I'm finally doing it. I'm putting my MySpace profile out of it's misery. This email was the last straw. I'm starting to feel like MySpace is an oblivious, desperate ex-boyfriend begging for attention.




Dear MySpace,
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have led you on for this long. It's just not working out. I thought we might have a connection, but I haven't had feelings for you in a long time. I wanted to try to make things work since some of my friends like you and we have similar interests in music, but I've found other sites that better satisfy me. Please don't hold anything against Facebook and LastFM. Please don't email or otherwise contact me anymore. I hope there are no hard feelings.
Sincerely,
Miranda

Hope everyone had a fun & fabulous Fourth of July! I thoroughly enjoyed celebrating in West Palm Beach during 4th on Flagler with Steve, Carly, Jef, Carrie, Beth and Gregg and this guy:

Kevin Rudolf - New Music - More Music Videos

He was better live than I expected.

The Chicken, The Egg, or Social Networking?

Whoa, whoa, whoa.
WHOA!
Since when could you start recording videos through YouTube?



I saw this little button when I was uploading this completely random video I found buried within my hard drive from my days on the squad (sidenote: why are cheerleaders the only ones on a 'squad' when pretty much every other athlete is considered part of a 'team?').



Anyways, I was pretty sure this wasn't possible a few months when Aron & I concepted and submitted our future lions campaign idea for Hallmark which included mass video greeting cards on which you can upload yourself instantly.




But when I investigated further, I got stuck in YT limbo, clicking on the same two links a few times before I figured it out it wasn't going to work...Is it not functioning because I'm on a Mac or because I need to register for/download something or is it just plain not functional yet?




Can anyone enlighten me on this subject?

I ran into a similar scenario recently when I was simultaneously posting a tweet on my iPhone and driving (was technically in the backseat at the time - not literally driving) from home in South Carolina back down to Miami. I was suddenly inspired and posted this:

"Just crossed the border into Georgia! I want to invent a roadtwip app using twitter and gps/google maps!" 12:11 PM Jun 17th from TwitterFon

And out of nowhere someone replied to that tweet last week:

"KurtyD@sevenmir your roadtwip sounds fun. check out what we did http://roadtwip.us/bk.html c'mon!1:14 AM Jun 29th from web"



It's exactly the same name. I mean I guess it's not THE most original thought ever, but still. The internet is so incestuous.