Source: Thomas Lang

A classic example of (perhaps not so) subliminal advertising. Spend a minute examining this series of three pieces Saatchi & Saatchi created for the travel organization Club 18-30. You’ll see what you want to see.

Ah, one of the reasons I love YouTube: it frees you up to clean out that cabinet of VHS tapes that hold things you plan on watching again, but never really take the time to do. I love the convenience of just pulling up a clip online whenever I feel like it.

Here’s a classic from the STOMP OUT LOUD HBO special in the nineties. It includes the utterly sick basketball-kitchen sequence for six performers. Love this one, particularly once they lock into that shuffle a couple minutes in.

I first saw STOMP in New York in the mid-nineties. I’ll never forget it. They opened with the broom piece, and it was all over for me. Coolest thing I’d ever seen, hands down. I was hooked, and a fan for life. The music smoked, and the eclectic mix of performers made for a refreshing show loaded with personality. It completely killed the Blue Man Group gig I’d seen earlier that week.

Part of me wanted to drop everything I was doing, spend a few months in the woodshed chopping up full-time, and show up to an audition.

I’ve seen STOMP four more times since then, all with different casts. Once at UCLA with the original British cast (including creators Luke and Steve), and three other times in various L.A. venues with fresh new talented casts. While it was the same show, the nature of the music allows the performers to express their individuality. It’s never boring, especially if you’re a people person.

A few years ago during one such gig they replaced the old barrel piece with this basketball piece. Ridiculous. I couldn’t believe they had the, um, balls to try to pull it off live. So much room for disaster.

STOMP’s in Vegas now. Do whatcha gotta do to make sure you catch the show there, in New York City, or on tour some time before you die.

Checkers has been reduced to the level of tic-tac-toe.

From an article today in the New York Times:

Champion at Checkers That Cannot Lose to People
By KENNETH CHANG
Published: July 20, 2007

Checkers has been solved.

A computer program named Chinook vanquished its human competitors at tournaments more than a decade ago. But now, in an article published Thursday on the Web site of the journal Science, the scientists at the University of Alberta who developed the program report that they have rigorously proved that Chinook, in a slightly improved version, cannot ever lose. Any opponent, human or computer, no matter how skilled, can at best achieve a draw.

In essence, that reduces checkers to the level of tic-tac-toe, for which the ideal game-playing strategy has been codified into an immutable strategy. But checkers – or draughts, as it is known in Britain – is the most complex game that has been solved to date, with some 500 billion billion possible board positions, compared with the 765 possibilities in tic-tac-toe.

This is why real men play chess.

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You kids old enough to remember this one? One of the best gimmicks of the eighties. Found it in my auntie’s kitchen drawer; it’s been sitting there for over twenty years.

High fives to the person who took this shot, whoever you are. Spectacular.

Source: Internet

Taken at Fromhold with the phone camera on what’s become one of our typical summer afternoons. I wish this thing has a better zoom.

SURE-FIRE, RAIN-FREE OLYMPICS
China guarantees perfect weather for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing using cloud-zapping rockets
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Another one! Similar to the the Virgin Digital competition, this was created by LOVEFiLM to commemorate their 100th newsletter.

There are 100 film titles hidden in this picture. Toy Story, A Clockwork Orange, and Napoleon Dynamite should get you started. Click here for a larger image.

Acocdrnig to an Elgnsih unviesitry sutdy, the oredr of letetrs in a wrod dosen’t mttaer. The olny thnig thta’s iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevry word is in the crcreot ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one is stlil able to raed the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy.