LonelyGirl15

If you haven't been exposed to the YouTube Lonelygirl15 saga, it has been pretty interesting from an experimental storytelling perspective. Basically hot lonely girl reaches out via her webcam on YouTube and quickly becomes a wet dream for lonely geeks and dirty old men. Of course there is a romantic aspect and some interesting plot points.

The part I like best is though is Brian Fleming's Weblog post breaking down the cracks in the facade. Great learning for mocumentary makers and viral marketers.

Like he said

The IAU can suck my balls

Normally, I have nothing but respect for the fine folks at the International Astronomical Union. I'd happily invite them to my parties, or cook them up a mess of steaks if they dropped by unannounced. But today they've pushed my buttons.

Apparently Pluto is no longer a planet. Like snot-nosed bouncers at a red-carpet party these eggheads have officially tossed this far-flung li'l guy to the curb for fear it would prop open the back door for a posse of its uninvited friends: Charon, Ceres, and Xena. For an encore I suspect they'll soon dig up the corpse of Percival Lowell and treat him to a few rounds of punitive sodomy.

I like Pluto exactly as it is: enigmatic, icy, and totally cool. I like a solar system that contains anomalies and rule-breakers. Screw the fact that it violates the classic non-definition of a planet - it adds eccentricity to the mix and helps keep the magic of space up close and personal. Truth be told, I'd happily have invited Charon, Ceres, and Xena to the party. In fact Sedna, Varuna, Quaoar can all roll in for all I care. I'm old-fashioned enough to believe space should be bold, wondrous, and crazy.

To my dear friend Pluto: the jerks at the International Astronomical Union can call you all the names they want. To me you are, and always shall be, a planet.

Seeds in Svalbard

Deep in the sandstone mountains of Svalbard's Spitsbergen Island the government of Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust are building an apocalyptic insurance policy like few others. Called our final safety net by Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was designed to store up to 3 million crop seeds collected from around the world for hundreds (in some cases thousands) of years.

Love Song Equation

Finite Simple Group (of Order Two) by Klein Four Group

PS3 vs. Wii

Stop The Bloodshed

If you would like our so-called leaders to do something about the ongoing loss of civilian lives in Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine, please consider signing the petition at ceasefirecampaign.org. They hope to have 1 million names when they deliver it to the UN Security Council this week.

Peace,


Vanessa

Cross-posted from fridgebuzz

Freeganism: An Attack on Consumption

There are those that believe that eating animals is wrong. There are those that will tell you eating anything from an animal is wrong. There are those that will tell you that eating anything that casts a shadow is wrong. And then there are those that will tell you that consuming anything save the refuse and garbage of human civilization is wrong.

"There are two options for existence: 1) waste your life working to get money to buy things that you don't need and help destroy the environment or 2) live a full satisfying life, occasionally scavenging or working your self-sufficiency skills to get the food and stuff you need to be content, while treading lightly on the earth, eliminating waste, and boycotting everything. Go!"
- Why Freegan? - Death Metal Militia Distro/Green Monkey Collective

Welcome to freeganism. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to live the most anti-capitalist, unprivileged, cruelty-free, and occasionally criminal lifestyle you can without actually starting a revolutionary army. Go dumpster diving! Pluck food from the plates of other diners! Steal from stores, or better yet your employer just before you quit! Tear down the capitalist regime tofu brick by tofu brick!

All Bread - No Meat

Agency.com does a pitch for the Subway Interactive AOR in the form of a viral video.

See it here.

Great strategy, but not sure this has the intended effect. While I applaud the post-modern style of making the process the content, I think the content suffers from lack of any real substance - like a hold-the-everything sub (hence the all bread, no meat title of this post). The length is too long and tests patience and it seems to look more like an agency randomly scrambling to put something together rather than being strategic.

However, I will cut them some slack as this seems to be Part 1, hopefully Part 2 will show more actual insight.
Currently they have over 20,000 downloads on You Tube, which is admirable for such a short time (and small potential audience). Good luck on the pitch, folks. Hopefully Subway isn?t as critical of the final product as I am.

Another agency?s parody puts a great spin on it with some inspired use of ad industry jargon.

Cross-post from Webwalker.ca