the top 10 most viewed super bowl ads

so i'm a little late to the party (not that i care much for the super bowl itself), but for a bit of fun, this youtube trends blog entry gives you some of the better ads that screened during the event. i'd seen a number of them before via facebook etc but a few were new to me and drew some smiles/chuckles. i guess if a company is going to pay the big bucks to have their ad shown at super bowl, they'd want to make sure their ad is worth watching.

stormtroopers 365

this is pretty clever... saw a link to What Stormtroopers do on Their Day Off on a friend's facebook message, and chuckled at the amusing photos. can't figure out what my favourite is, but here's an example of one of the shots, titled 'Are you sure it's a good idea?':

am currently working my way through the entire flickr photostream, which is still a work in progress (one photo a day for a year, started april 2009)

even if you are not a star wars fan, or don't know what a stormtrooper is, you'll probably enjoy at least some of these shots :)

ps. you need to see them with original titles/captions for full effect.

darth vader's many siblings

because we (meaning my workplace) were a state winner last year, we're in the running again for the 2007 ATA (australian teleservices association) awards. the various teams in the call centre have been assigned themes for decorating their work area - this time round movie titles were picked out of a hat, and my current area drew "star wars". one of my colleagues brought in a toy lightsaber (with sound effects) and a darth vader helmet and accompanying gizmo that emits authentic darth vader noises and quotes, as well as modifying your speech to make you sound like the masked heavy breather. another colleague was playing with it, and i happened to bring my camera to work that day, so shot a little clip:

could he be darth vader's long lost brother??!!

for a dose of video fun starring darth vader's "real" brother, check out "chad vader: day shift manager" by blame society productions. it's a fan film series featuring the less well-known brother of darth vader, a guy who works as a day shift manager in a supermarket. the episodes follow his run-ins with colleagues and his boss, and his lacklustre love life. episode 8, which is supposed to bring season 1 to a close, is rumoured to be released this coming week...

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related posts: sorry dr. spin, i'd like a second opinion please

oiav? someone's got this back to front...

was browsing ebay for hdd enclosures when i came across this unit, with a logo which upon first glance was strangely familiar yet disturbingly not:

after a closer look, all i can say is that vaio it ain't, and "it's a sony" it ain't neither!

ok. now that this amusing little distraction has gotten all (and perhaps more than) the attention it's worth... can all the pretenders puh-lease get out of my way so i can focus on checking out those with a bit of quality and class about them?

super bowl ads

yeah i know i'm a bit behind the times on this topic, but i don't watch or follow the sport so i don't really care. happened to be trawling through the google blog archives recently and came across a listing for the ads shown during super bowl, hosted on google video. couldn't watch all of them (some restriction cos i'm not in the US??) but there were a few picks from the bunch which i found particularly funny/creative (though you'd think that it should be a darn good ad for the amount of money advertisers pay to get their 30-odd second slice of airtime):

• 3 of the bud light commercials (Hidden Bud Light, Save Yourself and Secret Fridge)
• Michelob Amber: Touch Football
  
• FedEx: Stick
• Sierra Mist
  
• Sprint: Locker Room

good for some short term diversionary entertainment :)

that "numa numa" song

i recently received this forwarded email with a url pointing to a video clip of what looks to be an ad for 42below. had no idea who 42below is, and didn't really understand why the guys on the video were lip-synching/dancing to this song... anyways the company sells vodka, and the whole reason behind the video became clearer by the end of the clip, and after reading some background info on this whole "numa numa" craze - seems like i've been waaaay out of the loop on this one! talk about parodies and copycats galore... nevermind the back dormitory boys, every man and his dog seems to have their own take on this song/clip :o

anyways, as i listened to the audio in the clip, i couldn't help but be reminded of the same song being played during arpc's new year's eve dinner last month, where a variant of the chicken little dance (performed to this song) was on display - this for me is the definitive numa numa experience ;) maybe it's one of those you-had-to-be-there events, but every time i watch this clip it brings a smile to my face :) the guy dressing up as "chicken little" did the dance numerous times, but this is my favourite clip cos on this iteration they got the four pastors up on stage too to mimic the guy! please excuse me while i go giggle :p

[ arpc dance | 0:46 | 3.2MB ]

christmas quiz

i entered a christmas themed quiz at work, and won first prize! don't know what the prize is yet... might find out tomorrow. my submission wasn't as creative as the effort from a 'smart' colleague, whose anti-answers i found funny :)

1. What is 'Santa Claus' called in:
   
   1. The Netherlands.
      Santa Van Den Claus
      
   2. Italy.
      Papa Giuseppe Claus
      
   3. Spain?
      Santo Clauso (Basil Fawlty told me that)
   
   
2. What were the gifts received in the Australian version of the Twelve days of Christmas?
   12 cold stubbies
   
   
3. Why is December 26 known as Boxing Day?
   That's the day we have the boxing matches with family members who annoyed us at Christmas lunch and gave us stupid presents
   
   
4. I want to buy a candle for each member of my family. I want to get them each the same size, and they come in three sizes priced at $2, $3 and $5. I need a candle for Mum, Dad, Gary, Breanna, Jessey and Bob, but I only have $22. Which size candle should I buy?
   Christmas day is hot and there is a total fire ban in force, no candles
   
   
5. When were Christmas lights first used on Christmas trees?
   
   1. 1930.
      
   2. 1909.
      
   3. 1882.
   Clark Griswald first used lights on a Christmas Tree in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
   
   
6. How many spirits appeared to Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas carol'?
   If Ebenezer Scrooge is having visions, I'd say there were lots of sprits involved but most likely whiskey
   
   
7. In 1974, one Australian city had a miserable Christmas experience because of a disaster. What was the city and the disaster?
   Melbourne - was the boxing day test rained out? That's pretty miserable
   
   
8. What is the name of the Australian Christmas carol that has the line "Racing Santa Claus in the blazing sun"?
   Santa Claus racing in the blazing sun
   
   
9. When is Advent Sunday?
   the day after Advent Saturday
   
   
10. Where did Rudolph come from?
    
    1. He was created by a department store employee as a promotional gimmick.
       
    2. Henry VIII's court jester introduced him to Christmas folklore.
       
    3. A very drunk Christmas reveller rolled into a publishing house dressed as a reindeer – the rest is history.
    Where did Rudolph come from? That's a tricky one. Here goes, when a Mummy Reindeer and a Daddy Reindeer love each other very much……
    
    
11. Which day of the week did Christmas fall on last year?
    It doesn't matter which day of the week Christmas fell on, we had a holiday.
    
    
12. You are trying to wrap a present for your nephew Charlie. The present, a small teddy bear, is in a box that is four inches long by eight inches tall by three inches deep. Which piece of wrapping paper should you use - one that is 16 inches by 10 inches, or one that is 22 inches by seven inches?
    Charlie lives interstate, his mum and dad have to wrap his present. I transferred money into their account to buy it and my work is done.
    
    
13. In which country did the Christmas carol 'Silent Night' originate?
    New Zealand. Have you ever tried to get a beer there on a Sunday Night?
    
    
14. What happened to Christmas in 1647?
    
    1. It was cancelled due to lack of interest.
       
    2. It was made illegal.
       
    3. It became a public holiday.
    In 1647 Christmas was moved to the 18th January 1648 to accommodate the Olympic Games in Tonga.
    
    
15. What were the gifts brought by the Three Wise Men?
    The three wise men brought ties, socks and handkerchiefs
    
    
16. Some people like turkey at Christmas time. If you were hosting a dinner and each person eats 300grams of turkey, how long will it take to cook a turkey for ten people if a turkey should be cooked for one and a half hours per kilogram?
    Mum looks after that sort of stuff.
    
    
17. Why is Santa Claus portrayed as wearing red and white?
    
    1. A Coca Cola ad showed him in these colours to fit their branding.
       
    2. To represent the white of snow and the red of berries.
       
    3. So children can see him as he flies through the sky.
    He's jumping on the Sydney Swans bandwagon
    
    
18. From where did 'Good King Wenceslas' hail?
    Good King Wenceslas hailed from the castle - all kings live in castles
    
    
19. What plant is traditionally hung in doorways at Christmas time?
    after a few too many cold ones over lunch, it seems like every plant in the world is in the doorway as you stumble onto the verandah then down the steps, sprawling into the front yard on your way home.
    
    
20. When was 25 December first celebrated as the birth of Christ?
    
    1. From the day he was born.
       
    2. From AD 440.
       
    3. From 1634.
    25 December was first celebrated as the birth of Christ in the 20th century when everybody realised it was perfectly positioned the day before the boxing day test at the MCG.
    

cucina of italy

can you guess what this is? probably hard to tell without looking at the full sized pic, but it's a display of assorted sets of fake nails!

we have a free weekly suburban paper - there's not much of it that i actually read, but i do usually flick through it scanning for local community information. and mentions of local eateries. cucina of italy was one of these eateries i saw, and it was the dining destination for this evening. it was at the entrance that i spotted these nails, which actually belongs to the beauty shop next door.

i figured i'd kill a few birds with one stone by combining a desire to try out this restaurant, with the desire to take a few soon-to- depart friends out for dinner. i'm glad i made a booking because when i first walked in (and the entrance is a bit disorienting because you have to go past the take-away counter and the kitchen before you really see the tables etc in the restaurant proper, so i was momentarily confused if maybe i had missed the main entrance) the place was pretty much at full capacity. it had a real buzz about it though, a good sign that it's a "happening" joint. the decor looked smart, perhaps helped by the Christmas decorations and the lighting effects - you can see a sample of the result in this next picture, where the wall on the left serves as the canvas for the ever-changing display of colours and shapes/patterns from ceiling mounted light machines.

i quite like this photo. yoonta was sitting across from me and i wanted to capture the table flowers looking along the wall. the distance is perhaps too great to really notice the flowers from the tables behind her, but the colours go well and the foreground flowers are nicely out of focus - my digicam doesn't provide any depth of field control so i couldn't really get a more exaggerated effect.

the food was nice and quite filling, though IMHO a bit on the pricey side at an average of over $20 per head for mains alone - no drinks, entrees or desserts (speaking of which, i find it hard to accept how one of the dessert choices, which looked from the description to be no more than a glorified ice-cream sundae type affair, can be worth almost $12, no matter how good it may taste). we decided to share our meals so that we could maximise our tasting opportunities. first up was a "feed the man" pizza, then (about 50 minutes after the pizza was served) our 3 pastas: the penne romana, linguine con gamberi, and tagliatelle con pollo somethingorother. my favourite was the third dish, whose full name i couldn't remember - there's a menu on their website, but it's not exactly the same as the one we saw in the restaurant itself.

[as a bit of a side note, while i was checking the names of the dishes, i saw that the website has the tubular pasta dish listed as a rigatoni romana, whereas i'm sure we ordered a penne romana. not being well versed in things pasta, i tried surfing to see what the difference was. after doing some brief checking (see the list of pasta at wikipedia) think what we had was the penne... but i digress (from this digression). while surfing for an answer i came across this totally wacky paper on how Penne Rigate will spontaneously insert itself into Rigatoni (order pasta) under liquid to gas transition conditions of H2O to create the previously unobserved species Noodleous doubleous!!! how weird is that? lol. and that page then led me to discover the DHMO.org, website of the DiHydrogen MonOxide research division. if you don't know what dhmo is, you'd better find out, read the FAQ, and maybe even check out the material safety data sheet, cos your life very well depends on it! ahhh dearie me, some people have too much time on their hands :p]

ok so back to cucina... actually the main reason i was attracted to this venue was that they had a piano bar. italian restaurants are a dime a dozen, but how many of them have a grand piano in it?? it's a nice hook, and one that convinced me to check it out. the website says it only plays friday and saturday nights from 10pm till late (up to 2am??), but the music was already flowing when we got there at 7:30pm - maybe because they had a full house? most of it music actually came from the keyboard/synthesizer rather than the piano though, and i for one would have preferred pure piano for the classier effect and feel. still, it was a positive contribution to the ambiance of the place, though i was a bit disappointed on two other points. firstly, i had the image of a slightly separate area of the venue dedicated to this "piano bar" area, but in reality it's right next to the dining area and the only seating in this section is a sofa that could fit 3, maybe 4 people. and that right next to the piano... i'd feel a bit too up close and personal an arrangement to be sitting, enjoying the music, and having a bit of a chat with the pianist a mere 2m away! secondly, we tried to request some songs without success. tekken suggested on bended knee by boys II men - i was doubtful whether the pianist would know it, and my doubt proved right. i thought we'd have better luck with some of the older artists, and tried "anything by lionel richie, elton john or phil collins" as our round two offer, but he didn't know any of them either! oh well... it was still a nice night out where we chilled and chatted, including some discussions on my recent post about the down syndrome detection test article (tekken being a known reader of this blog - *waves hello*), enjoyed some good food in an agreeable venue, took some silly photos (more pics available on my msn space album), got some free lollipops on our way out, and even had the owner take a group shot of us with the piano bar dude :)

so, will i be back? i don't know... i guess if i want "sophisticated yet affordable" (their own words) it's a venue i'd consider, but while i had a pleasant time there on my first visit, i don't think it makes in into my list for "must eat here again" places. still, it's probably worth checking out at least once if you've never been before, and i'm not against the idea of coming back at a later stage to see if the piano bar thing has taken off any... maybe as an after-dinner/supper-y type of thing. we'll see...

back dormitory boys

i didn't realise when i first came across these lads a few weeks back, but they're no one hit wonders! more on the asian backstreet boys here... includes info, links, and collection of video clips. it's a bit mind-boggling that two guys miming to songs in front of their computer can attain such fame in (what i presume is) a short span of time.

another interesting find is tian's other site called hanzi smatter - a sort of reverse engrish, "dedicated to the misuse of chinese characters in western culture"... more mind-bogglingness!

*chuckle*

well, given my pitiful score from yesterday, i don't think geek girls are an option! it's funny reading though, hehe.

but i should really sleep... and initial plans for an early(/ier) night are a distant memory...

relevant humour

yes it's still peak. no i don't like it (and there's nothing like having just taken a holiday to make the daily facing up to the busyness of work that much less joyous). this comic from a mass forward at least raised a timely chuckle...

having said that, i haven't actually purchased any petrol since late june! and that was still back in the day of being below $1.05 a litre. imagine that...

Ohnosecond

That silent moment it takes for you to realise you've just made a VERY BIG mistake.

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above "workplace definition" spotted recently in an internal newsletter at work. speaking of which, it's been a bit busier last few days, and for some reason i seem to be taking longer with my calls, and occasionally giving out wrong/incorrect advice or failing to observe set protocols for call handling... hence the ohnosecond which kinda happens after hanging up, or the delayed onset variety where i find out later i did something wrong.

bleh. and it's budget night tonight, which probably means we'll get swamped tomorrow...

been walking to and from work too, given that the cost of my current parking arrangement has recently undergone a 180% hike! more environmentally (and personal health?) friendly... that's what i tell myself :p

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more definitions...

Salmon Day – The experience of spending all day swimming upstream only to get screwed and end up dead.

Percussive Maintenance – The fine art of whacking the life out of an electronic device to get it to work.

Adminisphere – The management layers which begin just above the rank and file (ie people who do all the work). Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

The number of people watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action.

(some light philosophy from a forwarded email...)

so i was sitting in the back seat of a friend's car yesterday... the radio was on, and a cd was sitting in the ejected position from the single in-dash cd player of the car. front seat passenger picks up the cd, takes a look, notices a song and asks to listen to it.

i was curious, so asked the driver "why do you have a cd half hanging there anyway?"

"cos i wanted to listen to the radio" says she. (ie when the cd is ejected, the unit switches back to radio).

"why don't you just change it to radio?" asked i.

"how? can you do that?"

"yes... see that little 'AM/FM' button? yes... just press that" by now the cd was already playing, so the pressing of the button had its desired effect.

"wow! i never knew you could do that!"

"ok how do i change it back to cd?" asked the front seat passenger, who wanted to listen to the cd in the first place, as she pressed that same button repeatedly without success.

"umm... you press the *other* button next to it that says 'CD'..."


ps. more of a funny moment tangentially related to the headline, than a real comment on anyone's intelligence ;)

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am supposed to hear back early this week about whether this door is open or closed... (well, for the next stage of the process anyway).

saw this signature in a newsgroup posting; thought it was pretty clever:

There are 10 types of people - those who understand binary and those who don't.

:)

to place or not to place... on the question of eggs and baskets, an interesting (at least in the beginning - it got a bit long and contrived) and sometimes humorous read.