I recently stumbled across this video while browsing Reddit. Although I take issue with some of the pronunciation (e.g. Deinonychus should be pronounced "die-NON-ih-kus," "not die-no-NICK-us"), this is about as accurate and hilarious a diatribe on dinosaurs as I've ever heard. For a much longer, maybe slightly less hilarious but equally intense diatribe, ask me why I have serious issues with the movie Jurassic Park as well. Seriously, every dinosaur is somehow misrepresented. Don't get me started.
Thanks to the folks at CollegeHumor for making this. It's the most realistic depiction of how dinosaurs may have interacted with one another that I've ever seen:
Btw, if you think that the voices sound like voices from The Cheat's flash cartoons within the HomestarRunner website, you're both not alone and as big of a dork as I am.
Tracy Morgan as Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock coined the quotation that I've used as the title of this post and I try to heed it myself. But, for those of you who need something a little extra to to get you pumped for Shark Week, I offer the world's largest shark tank, live streaming from Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. For more info, check out the Wired article with the same stream. This is a pretty easy way to lose 15 minutes of your work day, so be warned before you press play! [Wired]
1) First of all, I recently joined Google+. If you're wondering what Google+ is, I will refer you to the incredibly witty webcomic, xkcd, which sums it up perfectly:
As soon as I'm allowed to invite people, I'll do my best to get my friends on. For now, it's a little lonely on Google+ but I must say, the Circles feature is really cool. Facebook, take a note!
2) Second of all, I saw this ad on Reddit today wherein a girl's boyfriend charms everyone at the table. I have to admit, I found myself charmed as well! See if it has the same effect on you!
Good advertising... it really makes you hate bad advertising, doesn't it? I'm looking at you, Ed-u-ca-tion Con-nec-tion!
3) Third of all, it's been over a month since I posted anything at all! I'm really slipping and Google seems to have noticed. MichaelBlock.org has fallen to a PR1! Oh, the shame! I've got to get back on the posting horse and ride. More posting will be coming more often, whether you like it or not!
PS: I'm totally ripping Petros & Money with the "Three Things Thursday" motif. Hope they don't mind!
PPS: If you didn't see my article on Google Search by Image in the Wpromote blog, please check it out.
Okay, that title is a little misleading. There is probably something about traipsing through the Renaissance streets of Florence on your way to the Uffizi or grabbing a bite to eat in the City of Lights after a day at the Louvre that Google won't be able to duplicate perfectly. Therefore, it's likely that the museums of the world have nothing to worry about, in reality. In fact, Google's Art Project might have the opposite effect; it could lead more young people toward the world of art, inspiring trips to the world's great museums!
Either way, it's an impressive undertaking and another step toward Google cataloguing all known information on Earth like the giant brains from Futurama. Hopefully, Phillip J. Fry is safely in his cryogenic tube so that he can save us from Google in 989 years. [Engadget]
Golf has a lot of obstacles to becoming a really popular sport. It's expensive (greens fees, lessons, clubs), courses don't often exist outside of exclusive neighborhoods, the scoring is esoteric, the lingo is strange and, for the most part, the golfers themselves seem to all be moulded from the same boring, vanilla-beige plaster. Not only are they all white guys but they're all boring white guys.
Tiger Woods solved part of that issue for golf because the combination of being multi-racial and wildly talented made up for his boringness and broadened the viewing audience for golf. Then, um, he did some stuff and became somewhat less popular.
Since then, it's been tough to figure out who to root for in golf. I always rooted for Tiger myself but now I feel slimy for doing so. Nobody else seems anywhere near as talented and if nobody has a particularly great personality, then why root for a boring loser when you can root for a boring winner?
Ben Crane is, apparently, the coolest, funniest dude in sports that I've never really heard of before. It seems that in the vacuum created by Tiger's fall from grace, Ben and his people have launched an initiative to gain some fans for him through the magic of a series of legitimately hilarious videos. Well, he earned at least one fan; I'll give you a hint, his name is my name. Also, I'm him.
Check out Ben's site or YouTube page and try not to fall in love with this guy. Sure, he only has three PGA wins to date and has never finished better than 9th in a major championship, but he's my new favorite player! Go Ben, if your golf skills don't take the world by storm then your viral marketing acumen surely will!
My boss, Mssr. M. Graham Mothner, threw Delivering Happiness on my desk today with a "you've gotta read this" look on his face. Luckily, I'm a slow reader and I'm already reading two other books right now, so I'll probably be done with it around November... of 2012.
Seriously, though, Zappos is one of those companies that--love them of hate them--is good at what they do. The more that I find out about them, the more impressed I am. So, for those of you who might not get to the book, here is a video of Zappos' CEO, Tony Hsieh, discussing his take on company culture and its importance to the success of a company.
I found this to be the most inspiring line from the video:
We're willing to hire and fire people based on whether they're living up to [Zappos' core values], independent of job performance.
Just about every company claims to put the good of the whole over the needs of the few but I think we all know that exceptions are always made for the "high value" or "high maintenance" employees:
"Yeah, John sure can be a jerk but he's our top salesman, so what can you do?"
"Sure, Jane is nightmare to work with but nobody on the team can program like she can."
It's good to know that one company that has been wildly successful has managed to achieve its success without compromising their core values. [Fora.tv]
Thanks to Anderson for shooting me this link! In maybe the most brilliant marketing move of the year, Old Spice has used their handsome, worldly spokesman to answer the tweets of Twitter users, both famous and ordinary. The insanely intelligent aspect of this is not the creation of additional, hilarious content to endear you to the Old Spice brand; rather, it's the combination of interactivity and getting more value out of their popular mascot than they initially intended. Old Spice must have worked hard to come up with the persona of the 21st Century version of the Old Spice Guy; why not extract as much value as they can while he's still popular? The key aspect of all of this is that this is where advertising is heading. No, not necessarily toward buff, fast-talking dudes who stand eerily still; it's moving toward creating value. The value that the Old Spice Guy provides--in addition to his charm and good looks--is comedy. So far, every video that Old Spice has put out has been funnier than anything that the writers of Two and a Half Men have ever developed. In addition to being funny, viral and re-watchable, the videos are honest. They give no false pretenses about what they are, which is, of course, advertisements. Even though many people lament the thought of living in a world saturated with ads, the upside is that the cream will rise to the top and those are the ads that will be emulated and improved. It won't just be about getting eyes on your ads in the future. With all of the capability of the Internet, people will begin to expect comedy, interactivity, value and more when jusdging whether a company will get their business. So, that may mean more ads to deal with but hopefully, they'll be half as good as this Old Spice campaign! [TechCrunch] Kevin Rose (of Digg): Justine Bateman:
