so i took a stab at creating my own chuck norris joke for the title of this post...you be the judge on whether you dig it or not. anyways, i'm sure we are all familiar with the chuck norris jokes that have been circulating over the past few years, such as "chuck norris' tears cure cancer. too bad he's never cried." these jokes have always baffled me. how does one man stand above the rest to become the toughest man in the world that people are creating hundreds of jokes based off that fact. i find it to be quite a phenomenon really because it's like the jokes started from no where and blew up quicker than britney spears.
now publisher penguin is being sued for a book containing 400 chuck norris jokes. From the article, "penguin published The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 facts about the World's Greatest Human in November. Author Ian Spector and two Web sites he runs to promote the book, including www.truthaboutchuck.com, are also named in the suit." norris is quoted as saying that the, "book's title would mislead readers into thinking the facts were true." really chuck!?! this whole time i was under the impression your tears did cure cancer, damn...back to the drawing board.
one fact i didn't realize before reading the article...chuck's real name is Carlos Ray Norris...that knocks him about 50 blocks off the tough ladder.
P.S. - so usually after writing posts i'll drop hot links in throughout the article. some informative to the article and some comic relief based off the word you are clicking. when searching for some links for this article i visited chuck's official site...i highly suggest everyone visit...merry christmas and happy holidays
Last April I wrote about a service called 41pounds that helped to eliminate the spam mail you received through your real daily inbox. I personally never signed up for the service because they had an annual subscription fee yet the idea of eliminating at the source half of the mail I annually receive was appealing.
Leave it to the folks at ProQuo to come out with a free online service to help you do the same thing. Much of the action however needs to be user taken to eliminate your junk mail but most of that action is as easy as pressing print, signing a piece of paper, licking a stamp and finding a mail drop.
Check it out at ProQuo.com and sign up today.
Cynthia Haven from Stanford Magazine wrote an article called Small Change Big Payoff about the new non-profit organization, Kiva, that everyone is talking about and how it leverages the power of Web 2.0 to make a difference in the world. Kiva is currently getting heavy media coverage for what they've accomplished by various media outlets such as Oprah, NBC's Today Show and President Clinton's book called "Giving". The article outlines how it's founders created a way to enable people to make micro loans to
entrepreneurs around the world. This practice is also known as microfinancing and tends to help individuals from less developed countries.
Since it's inception the numbers have been astronomical. From the article,
People are lining up. In fact, Kiva has so many lenders—more than 123,000 extending $12.4 million to some 18,000 entrepreneurs in 39 countries—that it recently limited each participant to $25 per business, so that everyone has a chance to make a Kiva loan. After two years in operation, Kiva attracts $1.5 million a month. The impact is bigger than it looks because each loan is touching 15 people, whether it’s other workers in the business, or family.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving and giving thanks for what I have, I decided to join the cause and contribute to an entrepreneur in need. Making a loan on Kiva is very easy and involves reading a short profile about each entrepreneur
and then deciding which fund to contribute to. Kiva leverages PayPal to do all the money transfers and after loaning you are then able to track the progress of the business you loaned money via your Kiva Portfolio. One thing to note, lenders do not earn
interest though the micro-finance organizations that helped Kiva find
the entrepreneur does.
seriously, when is it going to stop...the widespread google-fication of our daily world. i can't say i don't like it. i'm in fact a huge google advocate and turned countless friends onto the whole gmail/gchat/gcalendar phenomenon. however i am still a bit bitter that i sold the stock just shy of 500 after it dipped down in the low 400's, only to see it be able to sustain a stock price +500, which i didn't think it could.
anyhow i digress. the newest innovation that google is taking to market (and sure to take the stock even higher, argh!)...drum roll please...google gas pumps! aimed at helping drivers with locations of local hotels/restaurants, directions to/from a specific location, and in-store offers. the program is designed to be ad-free on screen however they are looking to sell advertisements on the printer paper that is dispensed that contains your directions or coupons.
to pull this all off google is partnering with gilbarco veeder-root, to have the service featured on 3,500 internet enabled gasoline pumps across the us.
every election year we are stormed with campaigns like "rock the vote" and "vote or die." we all get the idea that we have to vote however many people don't know who to vote for. whether it's gen-x-er's, baby boomers or old people the issues and parties today are so convoluted you might as well throw a dart against a wall.
to help make selecting a candidate easier a new website launched this past monday called glassbooth allows you to take a look at the issues important to you and find your perfect president.
the website starts you off with 20 points that you allocate to categories like gun control, foreign policy, the war on drugs and education to name a few. once the site has determined the issues important to you, you are presented with a scalable survey to measure where you stand on each issue. then at the press of a button you are provided with your top three candidates and information on each issue with clips, quotes and videos of your candidate speaking on those issues.
so check it out at glassbooth.org and find out who to vote for, or die.
This past weekend I was in Jacksonville to oversee the Allstate BCS National Championship Mobile Tour that I'm currently managing out of the Chicago office. We had secured a footprint at the Florida vs Georgia and also brought in the real life "Bergwood" to help generate added excitement for the event. Below are a few photos from the event:
As I was sitting watching the game after our event was finished, I thought about how I may have one hell of a schedule for games I've seen/will see this fall...
- Boston College @ Notre Dame (The Holy War for The Ireland Trophy)
- Dallas Cowboys @ Chicago Bears (Sunday Night)
- Georgia Bulldogs vs. Florida Gators (World's Largest Cocktail Party)
- Baltimore Ravens @ Pittsburgh Steelers (Monday Night)
- Minnesota Vikings @ Green Bay Packers (Favre: 60,000 Career Yards)
- Allstate Sugar Bowl
- Allstate BCS National Championship
read an article about Nick Haley, an 18 year old english student from the University of Leeds, who created an apple commercial for the new iPod Touch as part of a school project.
the commercial has the look, feel and sound of a true iPod commercial...and apple felt the same way. apple told their marketing agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, to get in touch with the individual about creating a professional version of the commercial. accoridng to the ny times it's slated to run this sunday during football games and on Desperate Housewives and Game 4 of the World Series that night (10/28/07).
The song is pretty killer too - “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex” by a Brazilian band, CSS
Check out the original video below:
i stumbled upon a new campaign american apparel is running where they provide easy to make halloween costumes with the clothing from their store. the focus is hollywood halloween and they show examples of classic characters such as the famed marilyn monroe white dress, michael jackson's bad, and even the mystery solving scooby doo crew.
american apparel plans to turn to it's customers for other creative ideas soon using their clothing.
you can buy something....or you can "win" something. that's the premise behind eBay's new shop victoriously ad campaign. the campaign taps the inner passion of gamers and the gamblers. i can recall numerous times being in an eBay showdown myself.
if you visit the eBay home page you can see they have added the "shop victoriously" tag line next to their logo. this comes right at beginning of the holiday season where people usually look to eBay to snag that hard to find must have gift. many times these gifts become the center of intense bidding wars between shoppers where in the haste of the final countdown the value of the product becomes priceless to the notion of losing the auction.
apparently, this campaign was foreshadowed by a "teaser" campaign over the summer called windorphis. i had seen this campaign throughout chicago and always assumed it was associated with microsoft trying to lift the poor sales of vista.
shop victoriously is set to run during major prime time television shows, starting with Sunday Night Football
on NBC and continuing with shows such as Grey's Anatomy, Deal or no
Deal, and Heroes. also part of the campaign...coming this november.....eBay GIFT CARDS. barf, sorry i'm tired of gift cards.
