Cool light projections by French company Easyweb who base their creations on the historic buildings of Dijon.

Matt

While our fine creative continues to support the US Army’s recruitment drive in the sports arenas of college football and motor racing, the US Air Force have taken a different tack. The USAF have teamed up with Galpin Auto Sports to create the Dodge Challenger ‘Vapor’ in an effort to educate potential recruits to the mechanical and technical opportunities within the Air Force.

The vehicle has enough technological advancements to make Batman’s eyes water including radar absorbing paint, fingerprint access, stealth body panels, a stealth exhaust for silent running, GPS tracking, night and thermal vision and a computer allowing access to UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, apparently). Jeepers.

Matt

 

Attention shoppers of Walmart : you’re the subject of a new blog that has gone highly viral. The site People of Walmart is the latest user-submitted photo blog to take off. It has had hundreds of thousands of hits already, as Walmart shoppers around the country send in photos of the weird and the wonderful that make up this retail chain’s unique clientele.

The founders say they draw the line at people who are handicapped: “We don’t make fun of people who can’t help their appearance. … Let’s face it; we all have seen the people who obviously don’t have mirrors and/or family and friends to lock them in a basement, and they all seem to congregate at Walmart.”

To some this may be a quick joke, to others the potential for way for brands to build a little fun into their social media strategy that appeals to the masses…time will tell how Walmart will react to this. Meantime we’ll keep these wonderful people in mind as we work on the next shopper marketing campaign.

Murray Grossmith

As I’m feeling sore and clumsey today after tripping over my daughter and punching myself in the stomach with the doornob, resulting in a prescribed day in bed and two grumpy babies. I thought a fitting topic for todays blog would be the Darwin Awards, in honor of  the father of evolution, these awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it. 

Runner up goes to:  

Gerhard, 68, was queued at a traffic light in his Porsche Cayenne sportscar. Before one reaches the light, there is a railroad crossing, and Gerhard had not let the queue progress forward far enough before he drove onto the tracks. As you might imagine, given Murphy’s Law, a train was coming.

The safety bars came down, leaving the Porsche trapped on the rails. According to witnesses, it took the driver awhile to realize he was stuck. Finally he jumped from the car and started to run–straight toward the oncoming train, waving his arms in an attempt to save his sportscar!

The attempt was partly successful. The car received less damage than its owner, who landed 30 meters away. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.

The moral of the story? Momentum always wins. 

And the Darwin Award winner: 

Adelir Antonio and his attempt to set a world record for clustered balloon flight was intended to publicize his plan to build a spiritual rest stop for truckers. But, as truckers know, sitting for 19 hours in a lawn chair is not a trivial matter even in the comfort of your own backyard. The priest took numerous safety precautions, including wearing a survival suit, selecting a buoyant chair, and packing a satellite phone and a GPS. However, the late Adelir Antonio made a fatal mistake. He did not know how to use the GPS. 

The winds changed, as winds do, and he was blown inexorably toward open sea. He could have parachuted to safety while over land, but chose not to. When the voyager was perilously lost at sea, he prudently phoned for help–but rescuers were unable to determine his location, since he could not use his GPS. He struggled with the unit as the charge on the satellite phone dwindled. Ultimately the priest’s body surfaced, confirming that he, like Elvis, had left the building. 

And finally a view of what is most likely going on inside my tummy.

 

Maria        

Hello all,
Because I’m 15 weeks pregnant with twins, today’s blog is going to be all about just that. Twins. Did you know that 12 out of every 1000 births are twins.
Twins seem however to be more common among celebrities. Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Chuck Norris, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, George W Bush, Lance Armstrong and Nat King Cole are all parents of twins.

My husband and daughter are very excited about our little family jumping from 3 to 5. Evie takes pride in telling as many people as she can that her mummy has 2 babies in her tummy. Then her fascination with numbers takes over and she updates her stats, telling people I have one, two, three, four babies in my tummy. The scary thing is this is partly true as my chances of having twins again in a future pregnancy are 5 times higher!

Having twins means making sacrifices, we are planning to sell our cars and buy a people mover and the trip to Nepal with my sister will have to wait. However I’m anticipating being a mother to twins will be similar to climbing mountains, and Nepal’s mountains will always be there for a later date.

Having two cute babies is more than I planned for, it doesn’t happen often, which makes me doubly fortunate.

Maria

Following my recent blog regarding bicycle commuting in Christchurch and Chicago I thought I’d see if there was any noteworthy advertising around the subject. As creators of advertising and design we certainly need to be visually aware but I have to admit that I was caught out by this cycle safety campaign for Transport for London.

Matt

This month Christchurch is promoting it’s Bike Wise Battle encouraging commuters to ditch their four wheels and hop on two in the name of health, fun (some would say) and the environment. Today in particular is their Go by Bike day and some of those Zoners who don’t walk to work have rocked up on their metal steeds.

Christchurch’s position on the Canterbury Plains makes it is a cycling cummuter’s dream due to the lack of hills and the abundance of cycle lanes, although we still have a way to go if measured by Chicago’s efforts to get folks sweaty before work. The McDonald’s Cycle Center (located in Millennium Park) provides secure bike parking, lockers, showers, towel service and bike repair amongst others. In fact the city’s Mayor, Richard M. Daley , has his own Bicycling Ambassadors to promote bike safety and his goal of making Chicago the most bicycle friendly city in the US.

If you’re still reading, here’s a few facts for you…

• The first two wheeled rider propelled machine was invented by Baron Karl de Drais de Sauerbrun, in France in 1818. It was entirely made of wood.

• On a bicycle you can have your cake and eat it. A moderate half-hour each-way commute will burn 8 calories a minute, or the equivalent of 11kg of fat in a year.

• On a bicycle you can travel up to 1037 kilometres on the energy equivalent of a single litre of petrol.

• On a bicycle you protect yourself against the ‘Western diseases’ of heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity and stress (although car doors can cause the occasional freak-out).

Matt Armstrong

I am a big fan of The Wire and I’d go so far to say it’s the best TV show ever. It may be a little sadistic on my part, but the program leaves me drained and disturbed at the end of an episode thanks to the complexity of its multiple storylines and the number of characters. There is also the challenge of following the localized black dialect that the program tries to represent as truthfully as it does its other details.

The show is set in the Baltimore ghetto, “Yo” is both a salutation and the third-person singular pronoun; “feel me,” means “listen to what I’m telling you”; and the use of “b*tch” has mostly replaced the N-word.

The cops have their own language as well, in which a capable officer is “good police,” bystanders caught in the crossfire are “taxpayers,” and young boys up to no good are called “hoppers.”

The Wire won much love from critics but not much in the way of ratings. Maybe being trapped inside a “black, drug-dealing, gangbangers head” isn’t a nice comfy place to be hanging…

I encourage you all to watch this excerpt on the rules of playing chess, ghetto style.

 Feel me. Richard Spielberg.

This year the timeszoneone creative team has decided to part-take in hot Mexican food and tequilas for our Christmas send off. I can’t believe Christmas is almost here, we need time to practice our spanish. I came across a fun site that translates our names into Mexican wrestling pseudonyms. I would like to note at this point that it is all completely random and I had no part in the outcome….however accurate or disturbing it turned out.

let the show begin in Mexican – dejar que el espectaculo comenzara

Kim Hickford – brazo famoso (famous arm)

Lor Gold – padre supremo (father supreme)

David Mcleod – el gringo ridiculoso (the ridiculous gringo)

Simon Buutveld – el lobo fantastico (the fantastic wolf)

Rob MacDonald – hermano flaco (brother disservice)

Rose Carson – el monkey guapo (the monkey lady’s man) as rose is soon to be wed she will become Rose Wells – rapido rapido muerto (fast fast dead)

Richard Tattershaw – turbo estupido (I disturb the stupid)

Elizabeth Davidson – cabeza picante (sharp head)

Jackie Clark – la fantasía numero uno (the number one fantasy)

Tim Chapman – tio flaco (the skinny uncle)  

Mark Cornellison – el maestro sin pantalones (the teacher without trousers)

 

Hamish Macdonald – el taquito del chupacabra (the chupacabra taquito – mexican dish made of mythical goat eating monster)

 

Raewyn Topp – canadiense cibernetico (the canadian cyborg)

 

Liz Bissland – el ray azul (the blue ray)

 

Andy Carruthers – el dragon ultimo (the ultimate dragon)

 

Brett King – el burrito rosa (the pink young donkey)

 

Richard McDonald – el pollo de miel (the honey chicken)

 

Lisa Lye – amigo en los pantalones (friend in the trousers)

 

Brett Folkes – hurican toxico (the toxic hurricane)

 

Matt Herivel – el chango loco (the crazy monkey)

 

Murray Grossmith – el pollo mucoso (the chicken mucous)

 

Melanie Waddell – guerrero picante (sharp soldier)

 

Nigel Foley – caballero mojado (the wet knight)

 

Have a great weekend everyone! And please have a thought for Rose. Her hens night is tomorrow and us girls will be proving our love and respect for her by taking her to a classy establishment and thoroughly embarrassing her. Rose we do this because we care.

 

signing off Maria MacDonald – demonio en fuego (the fire demon)