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November 15, 2006
KFC Enters "Space Race"
KFC is celebrating its new logo with a giant, 87,000-square foot version that can be seen from space. The massive logo is made up of 65,000 one-foot square painted tiles that were laid out in the Nevada desert in a task that took 24 days.
[The Guardian]
Here is a time lapse video of the construction:
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 04:01 PM | TrackBack
November 13, 2006
Some People SHOULD NOT Make Music!
I happened to be at the front desk when a man came in to deliver his country album today. He told the receptionist that he wanted us to play his album on "WDOD Country." The receptionist blankly stared at the man -- who had a haggard face with long graying beard, dressed in overalls with at least 3 packs of Winstons in the chest pocket -- and then she stared blankly at me. I told him that WDOD had not been a country station for over a decade. He started to walk away, but then turned back and said, "Givr a lissen - it got a Creetmus song on dar too."
To say that the album is bad does it a disservice. It is exceedingly bad. Equal to, if not worse than The Shaggs, a band acknowledged by many to be the worst band in history. It turns out he also "likes to do a little advertisin' after the songs," and so included an advertisement for his ornamental ironwork services as the last track on the CD. His name is Benny McAbee, and below is his vision.
Take a listen at your own peril:
:::Benny McAbee - "She Was Made Just To Love Me" mp3:::
:::Benny McAbee - "Advertisement":::
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 07:13 PM | TrackBack
November 12, 2006
Unpleasant Event Schedule
In September, Covenant College alum Aaron Belz was published on the online literary journal Unpleasant Event Schedule. One of my pictures was chosen as the accompanying artwork. Check it out here.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 03:49 PM | TrackBack
Honda Element Commercials (WTF?)
When it comes to the Honda Element few are indifferent. I really like the aesthetics of the Element, but many I know really don't like the way it looks -- they have an almost visceral reaction to it. So it seems that Honda is trying to market this car to those who feel it is ugly by showing them that the car has a "great personality" with its "Honda Element & Friends" marketing campaign. I find the commercials both hilariously dry and completely bewildering.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 02:44 PM | TrackBack
November 11, 2006
Hacking Democracy
Was your vote counted correctly in this election? In 2004? In 2000? The HBO documentary HACKING DEMOCRACY says maybe not:
Electronic voting machines count about 87% of the votes cast in America today. But are they reliable? Are they safe from tampering? From a current congressional hearing to persistent media reports that suggest misuse of data and even outright fraud, concerns over the integrity of electronic voting are growing by the day. And if the voting process is not secure, neither is America's democracy. The timely, cautionary documentary HACKING DEMOCRACY exposes gaping holes in the security of America's electronic voting system. .
View the entire 90 minute documentary here.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 11:08 AM | TrackBack
November 08, 2006
Cost Of Iraq: 2 Trillion Dollars +
A new article on Nieman Watchdog by Linda Bilmes (Harvard) and Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia/World Bank/Nobel Prize Winner) estimates that the war in Iraq may well total over 2 trillion dollars. That's a lot of money.
:::Read Article:::
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 08:07 PM | TrackBack
Cost Of Iraq: 655,000 Dead
I hope that some of you heard This American Life from PRI this weekend. The majority of the program centered around two studies by Johns Hopkins University that were published in the British medical journal The Lancet that examined the amount of civilian casualties in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003.
The latest study, a cross-sectional cluster sample survey which was conducted between May and July of 2006, estimates that the number of Iraqi casualties is close to 700,000 lives.
"The mortality survey used well-established and scientifically proven methods for measuring mortality and disease in populations. These same survey methods were used to measure mortality during conflicts in the Congo, Kosovo, Sudan and other regions. For the Iraq study, data were collected from 47 randomly selected clusters of 40 households each. At each household selected, trained Iraqi surveyors collected data on the number of births and deaths that occurred in the household between January 1, 2002, and June 30, 2006. To be considered a household member, the deceased had to have lived in the home at least three months prior to death. When interviewers asked to see a death certificate at households reporting a death, it was presented in 92 percent of instances."
See links below.
:::Johns Hopkins/Lancet Study of Iraqi Casualties:::
:::Synopsis of Johns Hopkins Study:::
:::This American Life: Episode 320 "What's In A Number":::
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 07:50 PM | TrackBack
Rums Fired
Sionara, ass clown!
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 01:56 PM | TrackBack
November 04, 2006
New Horizons For Billy Ray Cyrus
In Not So Important Entertainment News:
When I returned home from fetching my coffee and scone this Saturday morning I turned on the television, and what I saw jarred me. Billy Ray Cyrus is now the co-star of a Saturday morning children's show on The Disney Channel. The program, Hannah Montana, stars Cyrus' daughter Miley Cyrus whose character Miley Stewart is a super-hip, 14 year-old transplant to Malibu via Tennessee who is navigating "the tangled web of school life - from getting good grades to impressing her crush, to being accepted by all the various social haves to have-tos!"
Yikes!
Billy Ray Cyrus is of course the country singer most people know by, and ONLY by, his 1992 #4 hit "Achy Breaky Heart." But my favorite Billy Ray moment has always been his role as "Gene Clean," the pool man in David Lynch's brilliant Mulholland Drive.
It also appears BRC is hoping to parlay his recent exposure into a revival of his music career, as evidenced by his new single "I Want My Mullet Back."
You heard it here first!
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 02:09 PM | TrackBack
November 02, 2006
Corker Ad Voted Nastiest In Nation
An RNC ad in support of Bob Corker -- the "Harold, Call Me" ad -- was voted the nastiest political ad of the midterm elections in a nationwide poll on MSNBC.com. It even beat out the ad by Paul Nelson of Wisconsin that states his opponent, Congressman Ron Kind, cares more about "the masturbation habits of old men" than heart disease.
Great work Bob!
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 12:53 AM | TrackBack
November 01, 2006
Partially Hydrogenated Oils
Often radio stations use a voiceover specialist to voice commercials and promos to get a very boomy, "movie announcer" voice. The station where I work is about to start running a promotion for a food drive, so a week or so ago I sent off the promo script to our voice guy. Usually he'll repeat each line of a script several times, with different cadence and emphasis, and send us his raw recordings. Then we produce the spot in-house with our own imaging.
Anyway, this bit of comedy/social commentary was on the raw take of the food drive script after the line "Please donate your non-perishable food items..." It is quite funny/depressing/relevant.
:::Non-Perishable Food mp3:::
In case you're wondering, no, we didn't use it in the promo.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 09:49 PM | TrackBack