HUSTLIN’ HEALTHCARE is a fun new boardgame that brings the thrill of being a large insurance company into your home! Deny claims, jack up your premiums, and undercut the competition. But be careful, if too many of your patients die, then you can’t collect their payments and you’ll go out of business. The game is a thesis project by Clay Ewing. It uses real Medicare claims data to form the prices. [More]
videos
VIDEO: Unusual Selloff 30 Min Ahead Of Crash?
By 5.10.10
Might there be more to last week’s crash than a “fat fingered” trade, or someone mistakenly entering a “billion” instead of a “million?” An online stock trader has a video showing an unusual spike in trading volume, followed by a very quick sell-off, by funds at large investment firms BlackRock and Vanguard and some other funds 30 to 15 minutes before the big crash. Prescience? Watch the video, check the logs, and decide for yourself. [More]
VIDEO: VISA Is A Monster That Feeds On Human Wealth, And VISA Is Hungry
By 5.6.10
“Go. Get it. Run. Use your VISA card right now. It doesn’t matter what you use your VISA card to buy. It doesn’t matter what you use your VISA to buy. All that matters is that VISA is a monster that feeds on human wealth. And VISA is hungry.” The credit card companies’ rapacious desire for your debt is laid bare in this commercial parody video. I guess you would call what we’re going through now the purging stage? NSFW due to naughty words and suggestive simulating gestures. [More]
VIDEO: MS Office Rigged With Alarm (Candid Camera Prank)
By 5.6.10
In this video, a copy of Microsoft Office is rigged with a touch-sensitive alarm and a secret camera that tapes what happens when people around town try to pick it up. Usually they become extremely shocked and lose control of their muscles, dropping the box, shuddering, and even losing their balance. I can’t blame them, that Clippy scares the crap out of me too. Whether it’s just a straight up prank or some kind of anti-software piracy viral video, one thing is for sure: I am amused. [More]
Apocalypse Sweet: 1/3 Of Bees Didn't Survive Winter
By 5.3.10
We’re all going to die: Over 1/3 of US bee colonies didn’t make it through the winter, for the fourth year in a row. Bees are an important part of the global food economy; It’s estimated that at least a 1/3 of the stuff we eat gets pollinated by honeybees. At this rate, we may only have the comic stylings of Eddie Izzard with which to remember our apiatic friends by. (Video after the jump). [The Observer] [More]
VIDEO: Store Clerk Learns He's $258.5 Million Powerball Winner
By 4.26.10
If you’ve ever played the lottery, here’s your chance to vicariously live through the moment of realizing you’re the winner. Store clerk Chris Shaw recently became a $258.5 million Powerball winner of the Missouri lottery, and here’s the footage of him arriving at the gas station where he bought it and learning he gets all the marbles. If anything he seems pretty aw shucks and humble about it. [More]
VIDEO: You're Doing It Wrong, A Tribute To As Seen On TV Ads
By 4.22.10
Whatever you’ve been doing, you’ve been doing it wrong. That’s what infomercials teach us, by showing us failing at simple tasks, and then offering the amazing new product to solve it. Showing it in black and white or monochromatic with a big red X seems to drive the point home for some reason. Never mind that these products are usually substandard and make most of their money on over-inflated shipping charges… you need this now! To this end, here’s a tribute to your failure, a remix, set to “Help!” by The Beatles, of 50 different “before” scenes of consumers grinding, chopping, squirting, chopping and wearing their pants intellectively. Can you name all the infomercial products shown? Give it a shot, then scroll down after the jump for the answers. [More]
Star Of Microsoft Kin's Sexty Ads Has Sext Parody Video History
By 4.21.10
Last week, Microsoft pulled some ads for the new Kin social media device after our prurient pals over at Consumer Reports pointed out that they seemed to promote sexting (In one of the shots, a teenager puts the gadget under his shirt and takes a picture). “Microsoft takes the issue of sexting very seriously,” said a Microsoft spokesman regarding the yank. Well they certainly must, reports ANIMAL, because that’s exactly the kind of content where they seem to have found Rosa Salazar, the campaign’s main actress. For instance, her starring role in the parodic safe-sext-take on Salt n’ Peppa’s 1991 smash hit, “Let’s Talk About Sex.” [More]
VIDEO: Hey Streets, What's The Worst Company In America?
By 4.12.10
I hit the streets of New York with a video camera, asking taxi drivers, youths, store owners and chicks eating donuts, “What’s the worst company in America?” Most people laughed and said, “Worst company?” — and then thought real hard and gave us some answers, answers which may shock you! This video has subtitles so you can watch it at work without anyone knowing. [More]
Video: Too Weak To Move Your Arms? The Food Lift Feeds You!
By 4.9.10
We’ve all experienced the the age-old quandary, “I’m hungry, but I’m too weak/lazy to move my arms, whatever shall I do?” Enter the Food Lift! It’s a revolutionary new product that takes the work out of eating! Simply place the food in the trough and then the dynamo-screw lifts the meal through the tube into your mouth, “like a waiter climbing a staircase.” Try one today! [More]
Video: Plunder Funnel! New Consumerist Original Scam Spoof
By 4.7.10
How would you like to be wallowing up to your eye sockets in filthy lucre?!?! PLUNDER FUNNEL is a sure-fire money-making factory that will teach how you to cannibalize any human relationship and turn it into cold hard cash. Taylor Sternberg from Broadway’s “Jersey Boys” stars in this Consumerist original video parody, written and directed by Ben Popken. [More]
AirTran Makes Fun Of Southwest Seating In Commercial
By 3.31.10
If you’ve ever been part of the mad dash for seats on a Southwest Airlines flight, you might find this video from AirTran funny. In it, mooing passengers race down the jetway while a Southwest employee makes ridiculous jokes. Meanwhile, AirTran serves its assigned-seat passengers Kool-Aid. Wait, now I’m confused about who’s being mocked here. [More]
Shiny Suds! Creepy Singing Bubbles Watch You Shower
By 3.30.10
Oh, those helpful, singing, dancing scrubbing bubbles! They frolic through your shower and make all a-sparkle! But what happens after the cameras stop rolling? Let’s see. Looks like some of these bubbles don’t want to leave, but remain as chemical residue, and watch you shower… The video is an amusing piece of animated propaganda from Method to drive interest in the Household Labeling Act, which would require cleaning products to list all their ingredients on their labels. [More]
Tim And Eric's Crazy Price Fight! Blood!
By 3.29.10
Tim’s got discount prices, Eric’s got premium prices. No, they’re not selling goods and services at discount and premium prices, they are selling actual prices. “Get $39.99, for forty dollars!” Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric parody discount super-stores and crappy local ads. NSFW for crude gestures, sexual remarks, and a horse beheading a man. [More]
Make Your Disposable Razor Blade Last For 20 Months
By 3.26.10
Disposable razor blades can cost $4 a pop and last only a few weeks, but Terry has been going for 20 months on the same cartridge. And yes, he still has a face. How does he do it? [More]
Reality TV "Brat" Sues ABC For $100 Million
By 3.25.10
Alicia Guastaferro, 18 year-old teen beauty queen, is pretty much crass consumerism made flesh, and the figurative lovechild of Disney and Forever 21. To support her beauty pageant lifestyle, her parents lavish her with $100,000 in clothes every year, do her homework for her, and keep up a Christmas tree year-round and give her a new present every day. But what happens when she goes on Wife Swap, and her new mom is a feminist Quaker preacher? Whoa! Explosions! Tears! Now Alicia is suing ABC for $100 million, contending they framed scenes to “maximize her public embarrassment.” Um, duh, that’s what reality TV is. Or did your parents also watch your television for you as well? [More]
How Does Brake Override Technology Stop Runaway Cars?
By 3.24.10
The recent fuss over Toyota’s recalls has brought a lot of attention to a previously rather boring car feature: brake override. It wasn’t a very sexy feature until we began reading about throttles gone rogue, taking drivers on a terrifying ride. Brake override, and its absence on the affected Toyota models, became very interesting all of a sudden. But how does it work? Does it really work? Our sister publication Consumer Reports has a test track and some Toyotas lying around, so they set out to find out. [More]
