Laptop finds

33 Brands in 33 minutes

That's my number...

Mona Lisaaaaaaaa

The Big Con-onization

Eric Yahnker
http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/eric-yahnker

Advertising for life!

Sketch!

Ah to be unemployed again

Recorded this a few years ago and came across it the other day on the computer, so I decided to throw it up. Long and meandering, it is more or less the sound of my self indulgence captured on tape. Enjoy

Link:

Random noodling from a lazier time

More Bite

But I like sitting here...

Looking through the eye of an overcast Wednesday afternoon leads you to quite a number of interesting observations, both about yourself and those around you. Is it really necessary to wear a watch on both wrists? Is it really fair to mistake organisation for obliviousness? Should office politics really be this entertaining?

It’s not important to find the answer to these meaningless questions, they are just that; meaningless. The real genius is to keep asking them, and to endlessly speculate on areas in which no man can claim to be an authority, yet should always strive to be one.

These topics are the foundations of all things great – pub chats, conversations on park benches in the middle of the day despite the absence of either sunshine or warmth, or even the fabled rooftop musings that can only accompany the maiden voyage of a Chinese lantern.

This ramble has unexpectedly turned into something of a thematic piece, which due to the beauty of post-rationalisation will be given a snappy title to make it look like it was planned from the very moment my eyes open this morning, but in reality it was conceived, like all great conversations, through a combination of boredom, a wandering mind and the presence of an endlessly interesting parade of people passing by my desk.

And just this minute, another human truth has been revealed. If you want someone to try and do something you don’t want to do yourself; issue him a challenge. Tell him no one has been able to do it so far, stand back and watch his ego wrestle with a photographic tent.

Works every time...

LoveStrange

Tasty

Unsettling that I instantly recognised that smell...

Tin foil smells like the bottom of old Hornby model trains

Delicious design

Theo Dimson: Joey, TWP Theatre

Way easier, thanks

Interactive ad for depression unintentionally cheered me up. Zing.

Is that Colin Farrell or ur man who looks like Colin Farrell? U know the fella...

Churchcars

Ryan Giggs wearing a hat.

The life of a home shopping catalogue

The anticipation and excitement when the new one arrives, the magic and hope of flicking through it, what do I want, what would look good with what I have, I’ve always wanted one of those and now I can have it. Then as the time passes, the new and exciting becomes mundane and old, the magazine gets passed on to siblings and lower ranking family members and picks up a few tears and dog ears. Now the items have been circled. Something that was earlier coveted since long been forgotten and discarded, as the harsh grips of reality and electricity bills are remembered, and all that is left of that wonderful optimism is the dried ink of a happier time.

God I’m depressed

Getty-finds

Wednesday

You may say that I'm a dreamer...

It’s been said before but advertising would be the greatest job in the world if it wasn’t for clients. Obviously it isn’t fair to tar and feather everyone with the same contemptuous brush but it seems to be a pretty accurate summary from what I’ve encountered in my admittedly very brief time as someone who claims to be advertising creative.

How many times does a great idea get shot down in it’s initial stages because of arguments like “the client said they don’t want anything that takes away from the product” or “but people aren’t going to know what we’re selling” or the dreaded “but child labour isn’t funny”.

Obviously this is a business and in a business the bottom line is everything and taking risks is discouraged. That’s fine. I get that. But taking risks is what any great business/company does. You don’t get to the top by playing it safe. You take a risk it may work, it may not, but you’ll never know if you don’t try and the best you can ever hope for is mediocrity.

Some of the best campaigns in history have taken risks. Basically any old Volkswagen ad was risky. People could have hated them and used the ads to bury the brand. But they didn’t. The iconic Economist ads contain no images. Risky. But the risk paid off and they’re amazing.

The industry will admit, especially in Ireland, that a lot of what is produced is shit. There’s no point in denying it. However, there’s unbelievably talented people working everyday trying to do great work. No one sets out to make a shit ad, piece of art or even child. But it happens. And it’s not always within your control how things turn out. However less and less of the control seems to be with agencies and more so with the client.

If people were more willing to take a risk, maybe we would see more good work coming through and encourage others to follow their lead. Then the floodgates would open with the brilliant ideas that are bouncing around every office and every agency everyday, but never see the light.

This is in no way a revelation or anything, just a pleasant little lunchtime rant I felt like having with myself and decided to share. I’m also sure none of you fine people are the ones I’m talking about either since you decided to read this blog, which in itself is a major risk to any real person, living or dead.

Now, back to work

La Haine vertigo effect

I'll just leave this here 'cos I always reference it, and spend ages looking for it.
La Haine = great film if you haven't seen it. One of my faves

Alfred Hitchcock supposedly developed this camera trick, hence the Vertigo name.

Educational innit?

Johnny Depp; wig artist

Spills, thrills and cleaning bills

Can you really buy security? Can you put a price on safety? Recently after moving house an issue has arisen involving your humble narrator, an evil over-bearing tyrant and the issue of what is an acceptable condition to leave a house once you’ve resided there.

I think the greater issue at stake here however isn’t a mere matter of someone being a bit irresponsible with the vacuum, but rather the fiscal ownership of intangible concepts.

Who are we to draw up legal documents and claim that we as humans can wield these metaphysical constructs like some sort of powder-headed Jedi to demand compliance from mere couch loafing mortals.

Also if a landlord says he will do something before you move in, and he then does not in fact install said alarm system all year, wouldn’t that make any previously entered upon contract, of which this was a clear conditional clause, null and void?

Very interesting stuff indeed. Although, as I previously stated this isn’t about finding who put the screw in the tuna, but about poor old Plato, whose theory of the forms - which has delighted university types and stoners across the world since they days of Ancient Greece – is being unceremoniously defiled on a daily basis by the lawmakers and the moneylenders, the very sort that young upstart kicked out of his temple all those years ago.

Maybe they didn’t clean the oven either

Plato
Kicking it Circa 400 BC

Take a spin on the carousel

Leopardstown Inn.

Messy

Daily Wig #22

Surprising I never heard of it before...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIjJ8efftk

via Mark's mind

Cus he's rollin', he's the rollin' stone

Gerry Rafferty died today at the age of 63. Had this album on tape years ago and it used to get me through the dreaded nightshift stacking shelves in Dunnes Stores.

This is one of my favourite songs on the album (and of course have to include Baker Street). Apparently he used to be in a band with BIlly Connolly too, weird.

(Guitar solo at 4:48 deserves it's own national holiday)

Really like the album art too

Gerry Rafferty

1947 - 2011

RIP

Thank F**k it's January

So January has finally figured out how to remove the handbrake and as it begins to coast unconvincingly out of the garage, the grind resumes for all those smug bastards who have jobs to provide them with their daily 8 hour dose of anxiety.

This however, is not something to dispair over, it is in fact a good thing. For beneath this looming storm cloud of greying depression is the shiniest of silver linings for the lovable, carefree group that society has cast aside and branded as 'unemployable'.

Yes, for while the workers among you have been relaxing and getting fat over the past two weeks during the 'much needed' break from work, you fail to appreciate that you have thoughtlessly and unapologetically turned our cosy little jobless worlds upside-down.

We have a daily routine too just so you know, and it largely depended on the fact that the rest of you clowns are at work during the daytime hours.

Your boredom at work leads you to post articles and videos on the world wide webfooted picture box which we can use to help generate a small insincere laugh while we sit on the couch in our pants eating our third bowl of cheerios.

We can journey freely and unemcumbered about the city safe in the knowledge that the busses, trains and coffee shops we lurk in will be free from your smug pinstriped tyranny until at least half past five when it doesn't matter any more.*

But the bitterest of pills to swallow presents itself in the final few days before you have to suit up again and trudge back to your selected methods of exasperation:

"God I'm so bored, there's nothing to do. I dunno how you do this all the time, I'd go mad. Can't wait to get back to work."

We don't do "this" all day. We do many things, but as previously stated, they generally don't involve you moping about, complaining that there's nothing to do as a centre piece. We all want you to go back to work, then life can resume as normal.

We both have our daily routines, ours is just far more entertaining.

I hope this has gone in someway to vaguely entertaining you at work.

I'm off to make pancakes and watch the wire.

* This is due to a recent high court ruling which said that it's ok to start watching films from said time without being branded a lounged lizard

Experiment

New Year, New Nonsense