CBS Survivor: Some Island Somewhere

Actually, it's Fiji.

I tell you, the time between each cycle of this reality show get shorter each year. Yul and the Race Wars barely faded from memory when they hit us with yet another round of coconut bashing, silly races and Jeff Probst acting smug.

For want of anything better to do, I flipped on the tube tonight and stumbled on the latest episode, the 3rd one into this season. Same old shit, really, nothing much new to report... EXCEPT the very prominent showing of Asians again. They almost fooled me into thinking it was Race Wars Part 2: The Revenge.

No such luck. I was rather surprised, however, when I counted no less than 5 asian players: 2 Koreans, 1 Malaysian, and 1 Chinese and 1 Taiwanese. Making the play for Yul II is Mookie, a business consultant from Connecticut who looks like he could be a very strong contender.

Yes, very impressive, but I really only had eyes for Stacy, the spicy "Interactive Internet Producer" (oh puh-leeese). Stacy sort of blended into the background, as I was initially distracted by the peppy, cute Michelle, until they had their slippery slide ball-toss reward challenge. Then Stacy broke out with her skimpy yellow bikini and I started paying attention right good, bounding off the couch and nearly smashing my face on the TV screen.

Where the hell was this strumpet during Race Wars? Would it have killed Mr. Burnett & Co. to swap her in for humorless Becky?

The Poetic Web 2.0

It's been a few days since I found this video, so I don't exactly recall where I referenced it. This is what happens when you stack up Draft blog posts and put off writing them until they're outdated.

A Kansas university professor puts together a thought-provoking summary of the Internet leading up to the current Web 2.0 trend. This little video showcases what is great about Web 2.0 better than any marketing huckster could ever hope of matching.

A Video about Web 2.0

Super Bowl 2007 Ads Moronic; Civilization Going to Hell

I'm not into football so I have never wasted an afternoon in front of the tube on a Super Bowl Sunday. Never have and never will. What strikes me about the fanfare around this major sporting event is not the competition itself, but the popularity of the advertising spots. Each year, companies spend millions upon millions of dollars to secure ad time. Over the years, the commercials themselves have become a spectacle unto themselves, sparking off catchphrases and various other pop culture memes that stick around in public consciousness and, supposedly, sells lots of product.

It's been a while since I've seen any of these masterpieces of comsumerism. I'm normally forwarded a shit load of links by friends but the number of them who actually care about this shit has dropped off considerably in recent years. It could have something to do with getting older and grabbing a brain. Well today I was treated to a barrage of Super Bowl ads courtesy of V., my long-time buddy and MSN co-conspirator while I'm at work.

What. The. Hell. Is going on here?

I've manage to watch about 60% of all the ads featured on iFilm.com and so far, with only one exception, they uniformly suck. They are disturbingly bad. The only half-decent one so far is the homophobic/-erotic chest hair ad for Snickers. Aside from that, it's been one irreverently shallow flop after another. It appears ad producers have gone to great pains to be clever and quirky (here's looking at you Doritos, Sierra Mist and GoDaddy) and their strained machinations could not be more transparent. Other ads are simply boring and conventional. There's a Toyota commercial showcasing a tough-looking truck doing impressive things, like having functioning brake pads so it doesn't plummet off a cliff. Wow. Or how about that brilliant FedEx Office on the Moon skit. What the fuck was that?

I think if any of these ad geniuses could nudge, even a little bit, the ol' funny bones, then the millions of dollars they shit out to pay for these bombs could possibly be justified. What's more depressing are the gushing comments attached to all the ad clips on the iFilms website. To preserve my last remaining shreds of faith in humanity, I'm CONVINCING myself that the comment panels are overrun by company stooges and marketing moles. I have to.... because how anyone could derive enough entertainment from these ads that they could first watch them, then take those wasted minutes of their life fucking praising them on a website comments page.

Wow.

But here I am, writing about these abominations, wasting my own finger strength on my own blog. So who wins here? I always hear people say they never actually remember what these commercials are selling, merely remembering that it was funny or interesting or shocking. I'm sure the financial reports of these corporations say otherwise... just a hunch.