RIP Sean Connery
Who else could have said this line with such aplomb?
Trivia question: with which director did he do the most number of movies?
Posts
Habito- Demon Cleansing Ritual Kit
UK mortgage broker, Habito, has just announced an “exorcism service” for homebuyers. From a Facebook post by the company:
Think your home could be a gateway to the underworld? Research found that 1 in 4 Brits believe their home is haunted, and 55% of people said they'd be put off buying a property if it was haunted.
So, this Halloween, we’ve launched our first “Demon Cleansing Ritual” kit for anyone spooked by the possibility that they aren’t the only presence in their home, (or a thoughtful housewarming gift for your friends who just bought!)
Would You Hire Trump?
That’s the rhetorical question at the heart of this anti-Trump ad, styled as a job interview. More than the idea (which has been raised before, notably here), what makes it stand out is the acting, and the little touches (be sure to watch it till the end).
For me, the icing on the cake was this tweet by a prominent Trump parody account:
Just went on a job interview with @WinAmrcaBackPAC. I aced it. I aced the interview! Please share. Thank you!
-Donald J. Drumpf (@RealDonalDrumpf)
Brusnika- Girl
From Russia: this is a beautiful, beguiling ad that brilliantly captures the shifting emotions of a young girl as she says goodbye to her old home. And it has a cheeky little twist.
Bestow- What if Everyone Knew?
If you haven’t bought life insurance, Bestow- a relative newcomer in the US market- is out to make you feel guilty about it.
Cheek2Cheek Dating App
To be more specific, it’s being pitched as a “poop-centric” dating app for “fecal aficionados”. The founder of Tushy, the bidet company behind the app, explains the idea thus:
People's bathroom habits and comfort levels of pooping in front of a partner can be very divisive for a relationship and this app can help hash out those issues once and for all. With Cheek2Cheek you will be able to meet someone with a similar comfortability level about pooping as you.
According to this report in Forbes:
Aside from the standard matching criteria (age, gender, location, etc.,) Cheek2Cheek will also encourage and allow users to upload specifics about their bowel movements, bathroom habits and other butt/gut health related issues. This sounds absolutely horrible. While we’ve accepted fecal culture with a mildly open mind, taking that information and sharing it as some sort of attraction factor is a level of personal openness that even the most kink-centric dating apps dare not reach.
Once users sign up for Cheek2Cheek (likely while on the toilet, already doom scrolling through their apps) they can include pictures of themselves and their poop. That’s right, this app encourages fecal fetish pictures, as well as pictures of users’ physical bathrooms or toilet setups. Even though this app is poop-focused, it wouldn’t hurt to clean your bathroom a bit before posting it on a dating app you savages. Users, like other dating apps, can scroll through profiles and like or pas. If users match, they can message each other and the app also offers face-to-face video chat which again, will likely be used on the toilet because that’s where we are with this.
This is how the company website describes the app:
Cheek2Cheek is the first and only mobile dating app that matches you based on your booty preferences. Using a state-of-the-fart algorithm, Cheek2Cheek will find you the perfect ass for you to kiss and the only rump you’ll want to hump.
Weekend at Biden’s
An anti-Biden commercial that is genuinely funny- all the more, if you get the jokes. The idea and the title come from a 1980s movie,Weekend at Bernie’s, in which the two leads lug around their dead boss, trying to convince everyone else that he is alive.
BABE Wine- Election Night Survival Kit
The kit includes a pillow to scream into, a pack of tissues, a stress ball (“to occupy your fingers so that you don't go off on Twitter”), a 4-pack of BABE Rosé cans, and a special “Polls Closing. Bottles Opening.” bottle of red wine. In their words:
November 3rd is going to be wild AF, but BABE is here to help you get through it. This kit has everything you need if shit gets real.
Reportedly, the kit was sold out within 2 hours of its launch.
TMB- Accident Insurance
From Thailand: a droll new campaign from TMB Bank to promote its offer of free personal accident insurance linked to the amount in one’s deposit account.
Biden’s Dementia
Or should I say ‘dimensia’? It’s the subject of a billboard on a Pennsylvania highway, presumably crafted by a Trump supporter with little imagination and education. As captured last week by a Twitter user:
Sound the Excuse
It’s pitched as “a genius way out of Zoom hell”: a collection of sound clips that give you an excuse to break away from a video call. You can pick from a range of sounds that include that of a doorbell ringing, a baby crying, a dodgy tummy, kids arguing, and a car alarm. If you’re looking for something more offbeat, you could consider the sound of a stampede, a helicopter landing, or a wasp invasion.
It’s an initiative from the support network, The Book of Man, and the idea is to help fight the stress that comes with endless video conferencing: the so-called “Zoom burnout”. As they put it, “no one should have to make excuses for their mental health”.
Here’s a link to the campaign video.
Self Stimulation on Zoom Calls
While the debate goes on whether Jeffrey Toobin’s act of self-stimulation on an official Zoom call was an “embarrassingly stupid mistake” or constitutes sexual misconduct, it was this piece on BuzzFeed that particularly caught my attention.
Purportedly, it seeks to ask how is it that in so many months of quarantine (and Zoom calls), we haven’t read of more cases like this? The author goes into remarkable detail (embellished with a certain kind of literary flourish) to make her point. Here’s an extract:
Some of you, I’m sure, have turned your video off for a brief moment during a video conference to take a big, hearty pull off a joint, and turned it back on when the smoke finally dissipated and your eyes look, miraculously, droopy. I, of course, have never done this, as I am a good employee and have never done any drugs at all (my review is next week, please be cool), but it would be naive to think that most people aren’t engaged in some fuckery during a work Zoom. That’s the benefit of all this time working from home — the aberration in our routine allows for deviations in our day, which can include pleasure. You’re going to tell me you’ve never taken a quick three minutes midday to crank your hog? To mash your meat? To butter your own muffin? There’s so little joy left in our lives; are we not at least owed the time to toot our own horns?
I mean, maybe not during an active Zoom call where your video is still on. Time and place, I suppose.
But as our home lives and our work lives have fused more and more, it was inevitable that the cracks in our professional demeanors would start to show. The slow ebb of our professionalism is becoming visible in a hundred little ways: bringing our pets to work calls, showing up in loungewear and no makeup, chewing on stale bread mindlessly during quarterly reports. Do we work from home or do we live at the office? Whatever the case, it was inevitable that someone might slip, and let their colleagues witness them at their most primal: hunched over their weiner, choking it frenetically, hoping their colleagues can’t see them at their most crude.
Vote for Enjoyable Silence
This commercial has the whiff of a US political advert but it comes from distant, neutral Switzerland.
It turns out that this is not the first time that the firm- which describes itself as a “small and exclusive coffee roaster”- has featured Trump in its ads. In January this year, when Trump visited Davos, it put out this ad.
Adidas- The ZXience Network
You may need to brace yourself for this. Adidas has released a 12 hour video to promote a shoe. Yes, 12 hours. The shoe in question- ZX 2K BOOST- has been labelled as “an experiment in feeling”. The promotional video- dubbed ‘The ZXience Network’- is a collection of streams/ clips that include slow motion hydraulic press videos, liquid nitrogen experiments, 3D animation and more. This is how Adidas describes it:
We explore the weird world of "oddly satisfying" with a stream of things that feel too good to explain, the ZXience Network turns the experience of wearing sneakers into shows that mesmerize the senses. Celebrating and showcasing our most satisfying shoe yet, the ZX 2K BOOST, this mixture of creations from artists and experts is made to mesmerize. Sit back and sink into a stream of squish.
Here’s a link to a sampling of the streams that make up the video.
Here’s a link to the complete video.
Face Masks for Foodies
No, you can’t eat with them on but you can smell the aroma of food, wherever you are.
Jack in the Box: Chicken-scented face mask
Hormel Foods: Breathable Bacon Mask
A Most Unusual Revelation
This is one of the most astonishing lines that I have ever heard in any commercial (or anywhere else, for that matter). As uttered by a mixed martial arts fighter while fronting an ad for a used car dealership in Arkansas, USA:
When I ripped my testicles open with a drill, I had to drive myself to the hospital in my pickup truck. I really wish I would have had this Corvette. I would have made it on time.
When I did a bit of digging, I discovered that a couple of years ago, the said fighter did indeed have an unfortunate accident involving a power drill. Notably, he showed incredible candour, as well as humour, in talking about that. He also displayed remarkable resilience in bouncing back from that life-altering episode.
As for the commercial, in some quarters, it has been described as funny, and in some as very funny. Personally, I found it strange- and that’s an understatement. Here’s a link.
Bolt- Save Your Ears
From the Ukraine: an ear-splitting approach to get passengers in taxis to fasten their seat belts. Taxi firm Bolt rigged its cars to automatically play annoying music that stops only when everyone has belted up.
Newman’s Trump Takedown
Seinfeld fans have something to smile about. Wayne Knight has reprised his iconic role as Newman for this political ad, and he has a message for American voters- and for Donald Trump.
Trump as Superman
According to a report in The New York Times:
In several phone calls last weekend from the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Mr. Trump shared an idea he was considering: When he left the hospital, he wanted to appear frail at first when people saw him, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. But underneath his button-down dress shirt, he would wear a Superman T-shirt, which he would reveal as a symbol of strength when he ripped open the top layer. He ultimately did not go ahead with the stunt.
Samsung- Freshly Laundered
Make of it what you will. This is a commercial for a washing machine that also promotes a perfume.
It seems that a Samsung survey of British adults concluded that their favourite aroma is that of fresh laundry (followed by clean bedsheets, cakes baking in the oven, the seaside air and freshly cut grass). Keeping that in mind, alongside the launch of its latest “ecobubble” washing machines, Samsung has also launched a fragrance. It’s a “crisp, fresh scent that captures the essence of freshly washed laundry” in a bottle that is an exact replica of the washing machine.
And if that was not odd enough, it roped in gymnast Max Whitlock to philosophize over life and laundry (apparently, a homage to the Brad Pitt ads for Chanel) and also demonstrate how the washing machine might serve as a pommel horse.
Eight Plus- Wonder of Water
From Thailand: drinking water brand Eight Plus has released a series of head-scratching yet hypnotic 15 second spots.
No Douche Bag
Swedish transport company Västtrafik has come up with a simple and polite way of implementing social distancing on its buses, trams, and ferries. It has distributed tote bags (“No Douche Bags”) to commuters that help keep fellow passengers at a safe distance.
Macs and Viruses
For Mac aficionados. A brilliant 35 second clip put out by an Australia-based osteopath and software developer.
Excel Bungles UK COVID Tracing
Those who work on databases will find a lot more to be amused by this report.
People may have caught Covid-19 because an Excel spreadsheet failure stopped nearly 16,000 cases being transferred swiftly to the test-and-trace system, a Cabinet minister admitted today.
The error is believed to have been caused by a spreadsheet containing lab results reaching its maximum size, and failing to update.
It is understood the Excel spreadsheet reached its maximum file size, which stopped new names being added in an automated process. The files have now been split into smaller multiple files to prevent the issue happening again.
Jack Irish (Movies, Seasons 1-2)
Jack Irish is the creation of Australian crime writer, Peter Temple, and the lead character of four of his novels. He is a lawyer turned debt collector who moonlights as a private investigator. I haven’t read the novels but I got around to watching the televisual rendering of his adventures. So far there have been 3 made-for-television movies and one six-parter, directly based on the novels, and another six-parter with original content around the character.
It is a distinctly Australian drama in its setting, characters and humour. Where it stands out is that despite brutal murders and a high body count, there is a lot to smile about, thanks to the colourful characters, running gags, and witty dialogue. The ace in the pack, though, is Guy Pearce as the title character, in a role that some say, he was born to play. In the words of one reviewer, he exhibits a “world-weary charm exemplifying the best of the Australian character –getting on with the job at hand with a minimum of fuss and bother, always with the aim of doing the right thing by the underdog.”
On the downside, the plotting, while engrossing, is twisted to the point of being convoluted, especially in Season 2. Or as one character puts it to Mr. Irish: “It's never just straightforward with you, is it, Jack? You know, never a meat and three veg murder.” Nevertheless, I enjoyed this a lot.
Here’s a link to a clip that captures some of the flavour of the movies and the series.
Here’s a link to the aired order of the movies and the series. On some streaming services, the season categorisation is as shown here.
Getting the Vote of Dog Lovers
This new endorsement ad offers an unusual reason to vote for Biden over Trump- the love of dogs. Will it work? This is what one reviewer had to say:
Dog ownership is obviously not a prerequisite for elected office, nor should it be. But when it comes to crafting an image, there is something deeply humanizing in seeing how public figures interact with their canine counterparts.
Political coverage and posturing is so manufactured, every moment seemingly scripted, every line meticulously planned. A dog doesn’t know any of this. So politicians are arguably at their most genuine when interacting with their dogs.
President Trump doesn’t have a dog, but as his refusal to condemn white supremacist groups suggests, he does seem at his most genuine when he’s blowing their whistle.
Hugh Jackman Bares His Love For RM Williams’ Boots
Actually, he bares a lot more in this cheeky new commercial for the Australian bootmaker.