May Th’ Force B With U (+VW)

For anyone who’s a sucker for Star Wars, or small children, or both:

VW put up this irresistible ad today, and it’s already gotten over 300,000 views (or is that vws?) — all of them well-deserved, at least a dozen of them mine.

This 1-minute ad delivers more tension and wonderment than the entirety of George Lucas’ 3 prequels. The kid acts rings around Hayden Christensen. So does the dog. And the jar of peanut butter.

Go ahead, try not to laugh your head off with glee at precisely 0:53.

AW, DOGZ IZ CUTE

Beautiful footage of dogs being dogs… in slow-motion, at 1000 frames per second. Set to a triumphantly ambient (ambiumphant?) score, reminiscent of Sigur Rós.

A bit sad that the brightest minds of our generation are working on puppy chow ads, but that aside — AW, DOGZ IZ CUTE!

Quite possibly inspired by: Pleix’s “Birds” video, for Vitalic’s Poney Part 1.

Exhaustion

NYC sculptor Joshua Allen Harris makes vibrant, eye-grabbing street beasts from garbage bags, tape… and subway exhaust.

I love how fresh and modern these works feel, even though all of these ingredients have been around for at least 50 years. (Garbage bags: invented in 1950. Duct tape: 1942. NYC subway exhaust: 1904!)

Beauty quote: “The city decides how it’s going to animate the sculpture.”

iCarly: Woh, Dude

Carly Fiorina, the forced-out CEO of HP, is seeking the Republican nomination for California Senate. If she gets it, she’d be running against Barbara Boxer.

However, she’s not helping her chances by greenlighting what is certainly the most tripped-out, bizarre campaign ad in recent memory.

Watch ‘til 0:30, then skip to 2:20, where it gets REALLY BIZARRE.

But it gets even better when you replace all that talking with Pink Floyd.

Once again, Fiorina was once one of the most powerful women in American business, and a top economic advisor to the McCain campaign. Just keep that in mind.

And beware the Demon Sheep.

Lego Brainfu**

Do you like Legos? How ‘bout chiptuny techno? And old-school video games?

Then you’re gonna love this Ice-Cream-Sundae-of-Awesome. It’s like a Boing Boing reader’s wet dream.

It’s from Sweden. I’m guessing that doesn’t surprise you.

Rogue Diva

Peter: Uh, I don’t like my job, and, uh, I don’t think I’m gonna go anymore. 
Joanna: You’re just not gonna go? 
Peter: Yeah. 
Joanna: Won’t you get fired? 
Peter: I don’t know, but I really don’t like it, and I’m not gonna go.
— Office Space (1999)

If I were the citizens of Alaska — who elected Sarah Palin to serve a four-year term as governor — I’d be pretty pissed that she’s decided she doesn’t feel like coming to work anymore.

Or, maybe I’d be relieved.

Video Mashup:

Muppets And Hip-Hop

A few things you may not notice if you haven’t watched this impeccably produced mashup of Bert & Ernie and M.O.P.’s “Ante Up” approximately 250 times, as I have:

• 0:05: As Bert and Ernie jump around to the beat, a boombox is visible in the background. (Well, it’s really a table radio, but this was the early 70’s.)
• 0:09, 1:14, 1:18: Various characters are playing horns and trumpets, mimicking the sampled horn section on the track. (You can hear those horns in their original context, in the first 8 seconds of this hella-fierce Sam & Dave video.)
• 0:18: As Ernie says, “Take chains off! Take rings off! Bracelets is yapped, everything off!”, he looks at his hands, then wiggles his fingers.
• 0:30: As the doctor shouts, “Clamp ‘em down,” his hand is clamped down on Ernie’s wrist.
• 0:38: As Bert says, “Keep a rugged dress code,” he looks at a character in a hardhat, then down at his own shirt.
• 0:40: Right after Bert says, “Always in this stress mode,” he gets visibly startled by Ernie popping out behind his chair.
• 1:07: The instruments that Bert and Ernie are playing — a kick drum and a snare drum — are the two main instruments in the boom-bap beat of the song.
• 1:22: Notice the faraway voice, and how well it matches with the groggy Bert being awakened in the background.
• 1:25: It could also be argued that the growly bleats at the very end are those of the sheep, seen moshing at that very moment.
• Hell, M.O.P. even look like Bert and Ernie. And it goes without saying that Ernie is lip-synching the little guy (Lil Fame), while Bert takes the big guy (Billy Danze).

There are mounds of Muppet mashups out there — Coldplay, Master of Muppets, and of course the brilliant Sad Kermit series — but this is the genre’s Citizen Kane.

Day in the Cloud

An online scavenger hunt. On a plane.

Courtesy of Google and Virgin America: A team on an SFO-LAX flight is up against a team on an LAX-SFO flight — answering crafty clues using only Google Apps and Virgin America’s free WiFi.

I have been invited to be a part of the SFO team.

On Wednesday, June 24th, at 6am, I will board a Virgin America flight from SFO to LAX, Google my a** off, and achieve geek nirvana.

I have invited my friend, game-design rockstar Jane McGonigal, to be on my team as well.

Want to go up against us? You can play from the ground. Check it out here.

It’s on.

Earworm d’Hui:

Catchiest Chorus

Plain White T’s is the young emo-punk-pop-lite band who hit it big last year with the frustratingly undeniable acoustic ballad “Hey There Delilah.” I opened for them last year at the Ottawa Bluesfest, and their audience was full of 12-to-15-year-old girls, who eagerly mouthed every word of their songs by heart. It was, as they say, made of awesome.

I’m sure it was (made) painfully clear to the band how useful another “Delilah” would be for their follow-up album, and damn if they haven’t hit it out of the park — with the Beatlesque “1 2 3 4.” Curse you, Silly Pop Song, for burrowing into my brain so!

The lyrics are as vapid as bottom-of-the-bag cheesepuff-dust, but oh, that chorus.

There’s only
1 thing 2 do
3 words 4 you
I love you
 
There’s only
1 way 2 say
those 3 words
And that’s what I’ll do
I love you.

So simple — the stuff of high school yearbooks and text-messages — you wonder why no one thought of it before. Paul McCartney in 1965 would have killed for that chorus. A line stretching back to the casually tossed-off wordplay of Cole Porter and George Gershwin.

Durned kids. Get off my lawn.

Your Jetpack, Sir

…my manservant would say, as I descend into the BeyondCave, deep below Beyond Manor, accessible only via a secret passageway hidden behind my study full of many leather-bound books.

Top speed of 63 MPH, can fly 8000 feet above God’s green earth. On sale this summer from Martin Jetpack. You don’t even need a pilot’s license — just $100,000. Anyone wanna go in on a timeshare?

Yes, it’s bulky, it’s not exactly Iron Man-sleek, but it’s a jetpack, for God’s sake. Like, in real life. Jeez, some people are never satisfied. Everything’s amazing, and nobody’s happy.

(via Neoseeker)

Do the Duckzilla!

Whoever greenlighted this sugary-beverage commercial should get a Big. Fat. Raise. Hit the HQ button for High Quality!

And the subtitles are in Gotham! Where my font geeks at?