Campbell Brown, the anchor of CNN’s No Bias, No Bull, just can’t seem to sit up straight. I end up watching a ton of her show on mute at the gym. You know, you get on the treadmills ellipticals and always forget your headphones so you’re stuck watching a ton of TV at basically the same time of day without actually hearing anything. (I’ve watched a lot of MythBusters, The Hills, and Survivor.)
Anyway, since I can’t hear Ms. Brown talk, I do a lot of visual deconstruction of her show (CNN recently changed their graphics!), and I’ve started to notice that she is perpetually on a lean. It’s like there’s a permanent crick in her neck.
I tell you what probably really happened: She wanted to look “down to earth” and “casual” to her No Bias, No Bull viewers and adopted a semi-slouch look. Instead, I always find myself leaning my head so I’m somewhat crooked in order to make her look straight. Check it out:
CNN's Campbell Brown seems to always be on a tilt
See what I’m talking about? Don’t worry; I have more proof, complete with technical drawings:
Exhibit 1
Exhibit 2
Exhibit 3
Exhibit 4
Anyway, I love you, Campbell, but I’m glad your tilt hasn’t caused me to tumble off the treadmill yet, but I’ll be damned if it does. Campbell Brown, 1; Me, 0.
Before we get started, if you haven’t already seen the FinallyFast.com commercial, you’re going to need to check it out for the sake of this post:
I don’t know if you’ve seen it or not; I’m not too sure of where it’s played or if it’s just a regional thing. However, there are a number of reasons this commercial is awesome:
The browser URL at 0:17 seconds reads: “http://www.email.com/email.htm/”, a veritably impossible address
The impossibly generic instant messaging program at 0:14
The fact that the program doesn’t work for Macs (0:28), but all the computers in the shots are Macs (example at 0:07)
But the best part of the whole thing occurs before you realize the commercial’s barely been going on. Go back and watch the video and see if you see anything funny in the first 15 seconds. Try right at 0:12 seconds. Check it out in high quality. Still can’t see it? Don’t worry; we DVRed it at home and then took a screen shot for you (click on it for full-size):
A FinallyFast.com commercial screenshot
They’ve written out common fairy tales there in each paragraph (Little Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland, and the Hunchback of Notre Dame), but the best part comes at the end of the Alice in Wonderland story in the second paragraph. Here is the text, verbatim:
They stood at the tail gate—Alice approached the men. “Hello,” said Alice. “Sorry kid,” said the taller man, “you can’t leave Wonderland. This area is quarantined with Sars.“
And why not? If I’m going to Wonderland, I’m sure as heck not leaving to the real world to get Sars!
I have to give credit to my roommate Zane for the idea for this one. He IMed me at work and just went off on any number of songs and pretty soon we decided it was great Top 5 material. It was an incredibly long list so we had obviously had to pare it down to five. (Sorry Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head.)
A note about the rules: These are chosen based solely on usage of gibberish alone. Therefore, songs where the gibberish is mixed with actual English words are thrown out, e.g. The Police’s De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.
Crash Test Dummies—Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
By naming this song they effectively made every Top 40 DJ’s life a nightmare. I remember hearing it for the first time, enjoying the melody like every good mid-’90s kid would, and wondering what the name of it was so I could go (*shudder*) buy a CD. I wouldn’t have believed it except for the fact that the song was about a girl who wouldn’t change in the girls’ dressing room because she had birthmarks “all over her body.”
Crash Test Dummies—Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
[audio:ctdmmm.mp3]
Hanson—MmmBop
I suppose the “mmm” sound is made enough to warrant two incredibly addicting melodies. Don’t knock Hanson. To me they’re kinda like the band you had to hate but secretly listened to when the song came on in the car and ten years later it’s cool similar to Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up”.
Hanson—MmmBop
[audio:mmmbop.mp3]
Third Eye Blind—Semi-Charmed Life
This may be the biggest stretch on the list, but I’ll be damned if I’m not walking around singing “doot doot doot” every time I hear this song.
Third Eye Blind—Semi-Charmed Life
[audio:3eb.mp3]
The Marcels—Blue Moon
This one was almost too easy. I can’t even remember the first time I heard this song (although I’m going to venture to say it was when I was in the car with my mom when I was young and the only thing she let us listen to was either Christian music or oldies. Which in my opinion is kind of funny because some of those oldies songs had some inappropriate material in it) but, just like every one of you, I tried to sing it back and screwed it up majorly.
The Marcels—Blue Moon
[audio:bluemoon.mp3]
Tokens—The Lion Sleeps Tonight
I don’t know who wrote it, and I don’t particularly care. All I know is that this song, while atop this list, also tops the “Easiest to Get in Your Head” list.
I know I’ve been a little absent lately, and for that, I apologize. However, I wanted to just drop a quick note saying I’ve been working on a re-design and that’s been the reason for the hiatus. However, that being said, I’m going to drop some other things that’ve been on my mind:
Found out from my roommate that if you burn a Taco Bell straw, it burns differently than a regular straw. It’ll catch fire, burn down and basically implode on itself. Try it. In a safe place, of course.
Watched an episode of SNL with my brother and roommate. It was the one with Beyonce and Paul Rudd. Just so happened to have one of the most hilarious skits I’ve seen in a long time, the one where Justin Timberlake, Andy Samberg, and Bobby Moynihan dress up as Beyonce’s back-up dancers. We watched her live performance too. (Here’s the original video.) But my puppy Bentley was so inspired that he wrote his own version and made a music video out of it.
It’s always been a dream of mine to grow a full-on mustache. However, these days, if you’re a mid-’20s young adult and you start to grow one you’re all of a sudden a pedophile.
It only makes sense that I start to grow one for the kids.
Mustache for Kids is a national organization in which participants grow a mustache for one month while raising money for charity. You look like a fool for one month while people give money in your name to charity… to look like a fool. And all the while I have an excuse to grow a mustache. There are even rules!
Support me!
I’m begging you all: Please donate! It’s fairly simple: visit my donor page (every Mustache for Kids grower across the nation sets one up), and scroll down until you see the charity I’ve chosen to support. Put in an amount (ANY amount helps!!) and hit Give. That’s it!
Seriously, even $1 is a step closer to the goal!
You’ll be happy to know I never see any of the money. I don’t want to see it. I want you all to know that every amount you give goes directly to the kids. That’s that! And every donation is tax deductible.
In honor of Obama’s win (and before you jump to conclusions, this is by no means a political post or designed to show my support for a candidate), as a designer, I’ve been to his Web site a number of times. It’s an incredibly good piece of work. His campaign will already go down in history as one of the greatest of all time, and his Web site furthered that vision.
But since I’m a designer, not a marketer or a politician, I was checking out the way his site was built a while back and found this really cool easter egg on his site.
Screenshot from Yesterday:
(Click for full-size)
Looks like a standard Web site. But a lot of Web designers use background images to make things look the way they do. It’s like taking a canvas and painting the whole thing black before you starting putting actual content on the canvas.
The Easer Egg
Well, Obama’s Web site used a fairly large background image to frame the look of his site, but there was a little love note left behind from one of the designers. Here’s a shot of the background image (click for full size):
You would have never seen that incredible eagle back there unless you went to view the background image. It’s an impressive design, and it’s hidden to almost 90% of the people that view his site. I think it’s incredible.
These are the types of video games when you realize after you’ve spent four consecutive hours on the couch without moving that you need to get up and do something else. The types where you probable thought, “I would have been better off if I had never purchased this game,” and then promptly smack yourself for ever thinking about living in a world without them.
Yes, these are the Top 5 Games I’ve spent an ungodly amount of time playing—and would probably never admit how long, nor really want to know.
PS – BTW, these are in inverse order. So although it says #1 just below this paragraph, it’s actually #5.
PPS – I also cheated and put six games in a Top 5 list. I know. It’s wrong.
The Legend of Zelda
This is the original we’re talking about here. I’m sure this is much higher for most everyone else who plays video games though; it was revolutionary in that while Super Mario Bros. had you bouncing around smashing goombas and stuff, Zelda had you moving and thinking like you were actually saving a real-life princess. There was strategy. There was a sweet sword. And just like any true boy, you just keep on playing until you got the hot princess.
Soundtrack to this Game
The theme to Zelda:
[audio:zeldatheme.mp3]
MLB: The Show 2008
The most recent addition, I must admit that I probably played this one more than most people because it was my first foray into the PlayStation3. Either way, when you can create your own player, make it look like you, start out as a minor leaguer, and then work your way to back-to-back Cy Young awards and a World Series title? Yeah, count me in. (As if my bias towards my love of baseball didn’t influence the direct amount of time I played this game.)
Soundtrack to this Game
As games got newer, they’ve stopped writing theme music to video games; they just license songs out and make straight cash. So for this one, and a couple later ones, these are songs from the soundtrack to the game.
ZZ Top—I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide
[audio:zztop.mp3]
MegaMan 3
This is kind of a tricky one. MegaMan 3 wasn’t actually a tough game; the tough games usually waste the most time because you can’t beat them right off the bar. But this one is up here because I’ve replayed an insane amount of times. Not to mention, it has some of the best theme music in the history of video games. Segue…
Soundtrack to this Game
Theme to MegaMan 3
[audio:mm3.mp3]
Tony Hawk 3
The thing that made this game so great and time-wasting was the playability. You could get a seemingly infinite amount of points as long as you keep your nollie rolling. And then when you got bored, go ahead and throw in some codes and end up on the moon and spin forever.
Soundtrack to this Game
CKY made a huge splash here before Bam Margera was pimpin’ them out. Bodyjar’s “Not the Same” is also awesome, go check it out.
CKY—96 Quite Bitter Beings
[audio:bitterbeings.mp3]
Guitar Hero 3
The thing about Guitar Hero is that you have four different levels to play on. So right when you get done beating the game and blistering your fingers on medium, you’re start in on hard and expert feels unattainable. But when it’s that unattainable, just like the hot cheerleader in high school, you just keep on going, keep on trying until you get there. I’ve still never beaten “Raining Blood” by Slayer on Expert.
Sountrack to this Game
Slayer—Raining Blood
[audio:blood.mp3]
Dr. Mario
Rather than tell you about this game and how many hours I’ve spent playing it (which, honestly, probably amounts to almost 30 days straight), I’m going to tell you an anecdote about what happened in my life during the playing of this game. I first learned about it from my buddy Kyle. I didn’t have a car in high school when I was a freshman or sophomore, so he would take me home when we got out. Sometimes, instead of going right home, we would go to his house instead to hang out. Eventually, we started to listen to music, kind of mindlessly, while we played. This turned into us only listening to one CD: Ace of Base’s The Sign.
Soundtrack to this Game
Theme to Dr. Mario
[audio:drmario.mp3]
Honorable Mentions
I wouldn’t be doing this list justice if I didn’t mention the following:
Halo—Only Halo 1, though. I was in college. Lots of long nights trying to illegally connect to an Xbox server and get people to j-up and play.
The Oregon Trail—I don’t know if this one counts, but it was the number one game I’ve ever played while in a school setting.
NCAA Football 2003—Joey Harrington was on the cover. That shows you how long ago that was… and how mis-covered it was.
Alright, everyone’s seen the FedEx logo. I know you have. It’s almost as ubiquitous as Coke or the golden arches. And just as a reminder, here you go:
Normal, right? Not so. Never was. Best design “easter egg” ever. I’ve got to give credit to BadAssIdeas.com for opening my eyes:
That picture is from their site, so I have to give credit where credit is due. I’ve never seen that arrow before in my life. I feel like such a fool and now I can’t stop staring at it. Way to go, Landor Associates.
If you know me at all, you’ll know I absolutely love horror/scary/suspense/thriller movies. The campier, the better. Much to my mother’s dismay, I still watch them all the time, originally went to school to make them, and am one of the few people who saw Black Christmas and liked it.
This love for horror movies has obviously trickled over into a love for Halloween. Ghouls and ghosts and zombies and freaks-coming-out-at-night… Love it. So this year, in honor of Halloween, my roommates and I are officially announcing 25 Days of Horror, our toast to the crazy month of October.
The Official 25 Days Schedule
Please note the theme nights of the week: Mondays are Camp movies, Wednesdays are Zombie movies, Fridays are The Best Movie You’ve Never Seen movies.
All movies will begin between 10-10:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted.
Oct. 6
Sleepaway Camp
Oct. 7
Army of Darkness
This one wasn’t originally planned, but when we got home this night and scoured our house, we couldn’t find the DVD. It will be bought and watched in place of the re-make of the same movie.
If Ice Cube were a motivational speaker (motivational rapper?), he would already have a good foundation to go on. Circa 1990, he already gave us a number of reasons to have a good day:
Ice Cube – It Was A Good Day
[audio:itwasagoodday.mp3]
He woke up that morning
The dogs that typically bark in the morning were not
There was no smog, despite the fact that it’s Los Angeles
His mother cooked his breakfast before he was awake, and it didn’t have any type of pork product
While eating, he received a call from a girl he’s been into lately and set up a date
