VISA is blanketing Argentina with a new ad in which a shopper named Hernan is turned into “HER-NAN,” like HE-MAN, imbued with the powers of Castle Greyskull. You don’t need to know Spanish to experience the awesomeness, but we also have a translation. [More]
videos
How SimCity Teaches Us The Pinnacle Of Urban Planning Is A Totalitarian Death State
By 10.12.10
Vincent Ocasla says that in fashioning the “Magnasanti” metropolis, he has “beaten” SimCity by creating the max stable population of six million. It consists of four grids of identical 12 x 12 grids with everyone’s workplace within walking distance. There are no roads, the city runs entirely on subways. There’s zero abandoned buildings zero congestion, and zero water pollution. It sounds like paradise, but it hides a dark core with a sinister message for would-be top-down urban planners. [More]
VIDEO: The Meat Deboner Machine
By 10.6.10
Seeing how much you all love science and pictures of giant pink goo/mechanically separated chicken, here’s a promotional video for an automatic meat deboner. Chicken carcasses go in one end, meat pulp gets extruded from a screw on the other. Warning, this video may be considered gross by some. Or many. [More]
Didn't Pay $75 Fee? Firefighters Watch Your Home Burn To Ground
By 10.5.10
A Tennessee man watched in horror last week as flames consumed his house. Also watching? The local subscription-based fire department. The man had not paid his $75 firefighting fee, so the firemen would not lift a finger or a hose. [More]
Unbearably Noisy Biodegradable SunChips Bag Terminated
By 10.5.10
18 months ago SunChips launched a new 100% biodegradable bag that, because of a unique molecular structure, sounds like a freakin’ lawnmower when you opened. After a drop in sales and a rise in consumers hating it, FritoLay is discontinuing the bags and retooling. Here is what one sounds like: [More]
Choose A Multivitamin
By 10.4.10
Multivitamins come in an array of packages like “Silver,” “Kids Chewables,” and “Schwarzenegger,” but it’s all marketing. Just buy the cheapest. They’re all the same, just in different colored boxes. That’s the advice Consumer Reports is dishing out after it tested 21 different kinds of multivitamins, and finding most were indistinguishable from one another, with two exceptions. [More]
Panda Kicks Your Ass If You Say No To His Cheese
By 9.29.10
A compilation of several delightfully disturbing ads for Panda Cheese from the Middle East. If you say no to his cheese, he looks at you with gooey eyes while lovey music plays, then he gets all gangster on your ass. But you can purchase panda rampage insurance just by buying a box of Panda Cheese. Apparently, that’s just the name, it does not contain panda milk. [More]
Mompetitors Make It Hard To Have Mom Friends
By 9.27.10
This is a great video that makes fun of “Mompetitors,” those crazy moms who are as addicted to their kids as they are to one-upping other moms about what superior moms they are. What makes it even better is that it was made by a stay at-home-mom. [More]
NPR's Pet Toxic Asset, "Toxie," Dies
By 9.24.10
To see what would happen, reporters for NPR’s Planet Money pooled their money and bought a toxic asset for $1,000. At 99% off, it seemed like a bargain. This week, “Toxie,” as they dubbed their pet, gave up the ghost. Contrary to expectation, she was killed not by foreclosures, but by loan modifications, which reduced the amount of cash flowing into the bond. Planet Money tells the whole story in this awesome and hilarious animation. [More]
Pennies Are "Bacteria-Ridden Disks Of Suck"
By 9.24.10
Caffeinated vlogger John Green of the Vlogbrothers outlines the case against pennies. Namely that it costs 1.6 cents to make one, and we could save taxpayers billions if we got rid of them but don’t because of sentimental clinging. He really loathes pennies, referring to the one-cent pieces as “disgusting bacteria-ridden disks of suck that fail to facilitate commerce.” [More]
Apple Makes Newsday Take Down Awesome iPad App Ad?
By 9.21.10
Last week Newsday put out a hilarious new ad to promote its new iPad app, and now Apple has made them take down the most widely distributed version, according to an insider tip posted by by Network World. Maybe it was because the ad shows a guy who has replaced his newspaper with the iPad trying to swat a fly with the device and ends up smashing his iPad into shards. The tipster said Apple told Newsday had to get rid of the ad, or they would eject their app from the App store. Touchy, touchy. In case you missed it, here is the ad again (reuploaded by another user): [More]
Man Runs Away From Being Fat, Loses 120 Lbs
By 9.20.10
Ben Davis was 348 lbs and depressed. At the bottom of his hole and sick of being single, he called up his brother and said, “I need to get my life together.” His brother said, “All right, I’m signing us up for a 5k. It’s in three weeks.” [More]
The Credit Card That Rewrites Itself
By 9.20.10
This week Dynamics is showing off a new credit card that can rewrite its own magnetic strip on the fly. So you get a card that you have to punch in a code before it can be swiped or before you can read the credit card numbers. After a few minutes, the information erases and it returns to being an inert piece of plastic. Or, for the convenience factor, a card can have multiple credit cards on it. Just push the button of the card you want to use. The future is here and its in your wallet. [More]
Passengers Tossed Like Ragdolls Inside Storm-Stricken Cruise Ship
By 9.17.10
CCTV video has recently resurfaced showing what happened inside a Pacific Sun cruise ship during a severe storm. Passengers smack to the floor and locomote from port to sideboard and back again like ragdolls on ice, cling desperately to anything they can get a hand on, and try to dodge the piles of furniture caroming around. Cruise ships can be fun, but out there on the open seas Mother Nature can have her own ideas about what constitutes a good time. [More]
Shards O Glass Freezepops Recalled
By 9.17.10
Shards o Glass Freezepops has realized that “some of our products are addictive and deadly when used correctly” and is calling for an immediate recall of all their products. They’re shutting down the factories “until we can provide consumers with a safer line of glass-filled treats.” Maybe they don’t need to go to extremes, how about a light, narrower version? New menthol flavor? [More]
Small Carriers Running Domestic Flights Using Major Airline Names, But Minus The Name Brand Safety
By 9.16.10
In Feb 2009, Continental flight 3407 crashed shortly after takeoff before landing, killing 50 people. Investigators found that the pilot had had less than half the flying time required by the major carriers, and that he had failed five flight performance tests in his career. Though the tail, uniforms and ticket said “Continental,” the flight was actually run by a smaller regional carrier, “Colgan Air.” [More]
Pack Like A Pro
By 9.15.10
This guy show off a cool “clown-car” technique for packing a lot of clothes into your luggage. [More]
The Candwich Is Real! Sorta.
By 9.9.10
I thought the Candwich was a hoagie-in-the-sky scheme stringing along hapless, and, sometimes, unwitting, investors, but here’s some video of actual market-ready sandwiches rolling off the Mark One production line. Unfortunately, instead of a pre-made sandwich in a can, they are simply sandwich ingredients in a can, consisting of a bagged bun with a packet of jelly and a packet of peanut butter. This is not the future I was looking forward to. [More]
