Advertising Gone Wild :: Cool actually!

Los Angeles sort of inoculates one against awe. Yet, once in a while you see something just remarkable. I just had my jaw drop, when I plucked the current issue of Entertainment Weekly from the mailbox. The magazine was a little stiff and though “yeah another stinkvertisement  or a promo CD. Yet, when I opened it a the fold I saw this 

and had my mind blown: A fully functional videoplayer sandwiched into a magazine.The actual picture- and audio-quality was stunningly good: A 2.5" (6.35cm) clean and crisp video screen and a 1.5" (~ 4 cm) not-to-tinny speaker. The whole package not even 5mm <1/4" thick.

The entire contraption presented as a double-page spread:

 

promoting the CBS-TV Fall 2009 season and Pepsi Max (Slogan: The only diet cola for men).  In total it contains about a half hour of previews and Pepsi ads suggesting a rather beefy memory chip.

This is marketing really taken to a completely different level. It is a stunning eye-catcher, but I can only imagine it comes at equally stunning cost. A quick check at a newsstand on Main Street, St. Monica revealed, that the over-the-counter copies of the magazine do not contain the player. Yet, I can actually not imagine that all ~ 700.000 subscription copies were so equipped, the cost would be plainly prohibitive. It is easy to see why:

A little destructive materials testing revealed this. A quite sophisti- cated setup that has the processor and memory under the shielding foil to the right of the screen. Five buttons with excellent tactile quality allow to select five indvidual video clips in additon to the auto-start message shown above. 

In the center of the page is the power switch that is triggered in conventional manner by a plastic tongue that pulls out when the left leaf is opened. Remarkably the device is equipped with a rather capable 350 mA/h rechargable Li-Ion battery (blue) and even a USB-recharging port (below the screen) that can be accessed through a punch-out flap in the back.

Let's assume all the hardware is sourced a bargain-basement prices in China. The screen will probably come in at about $ 5.-, battery $ 3.- processor, memory and miscellaneous parts another $ 5.- Add assembly (clearly a manual job), programming and printing for another $ 2.- the cost of the whole thingamajig is somewhere around $ 15.- and that is before the fee charged by Entertainment Weekly. 

That cost level suggests that the campaign is most likely limited to subscribers in certain target areas in Los Angeles and New York City where there is a perceived concentration of entertainment industry and media workers.

Will I now rush to my couch and watch and gush about such drivel as "Two and a half men", and "Accidentally on purpose" or the rather lame NCIS spin-off "NCIS Los Angeles"? Probably - make that definitively - not! Will I keep this thing, charge it and show it off as proof that I was there when advertisement jumped the shark? You betcha! 

Footnote: Given, that is is pretty much a deconstructed iPod in a cardboard sandwich you get a pretty good idea how much Apple is making on these things, even given a somewhat better screen, a nice aluminum housing and 16GB of memory ($20.-)

Cheney cleans up

Dick Cheney doing some post-interrogation clean-up??? Just wondering...

Obnoxious little heckler boy

Despite the fact, that certain elements of the Republican Party have been mining for a bottom ever since Barak Obama was inaugurated President, a new low in the American political discourse has been reached earlier today, when Joe Wilson a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representative (2^nd District, South Carolina) shouts out to taunt and interrupt the President during his address to the Joint Session of Congress, in fact calling him a liar. Obviously the guy is a nimrod, since quick perusal of the document in question would have revealed, that the President in fact was correct, yet the lack of civility is astonishing. But that is not the end of it…

Little heckler boy Joe Wilson

Now, as Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) readily pointed out, Barak Obama "is a big boy", who can take silly stuff like this, and in fact the President just gave Wilson a quick stink-eye and moved on. This could also be easily dismissed as just another manifestation of the belligerent heckling, that all things democratic get these days from the right-wingnuts.

However, this was not an incident at some county fair in the sticks of the Deep South, no, this was in legislative chambers in D.C., giving it a different quality altogether.

What really makes this so appalling, is the fact it coming from one of the same guys who – during the previous administration – incessantly and loudly demanded “respect for the office [of the President]” at any and all times. Even when somebody raised the most  timid – and heavens beware, legitimate – question or criticism. At the same time this country had a government for eight years that immediately and aggressively labeled anybody not willing to  goose-step with bowed head and cap in hand behind their ideas as "un-American".  The petty little boys that run the Party of Lincoln these days have some serious growing up to do!

Update: Apparently many citizens of this country are entirely not happy with Hecklejoe's behavior. His official website at http://www.joewilson.house.gov/ was taken "down for maintenance" only a few ours after his solipsistic and sophomoric outbreak.

Update: Creep boy apologizes. Sort of... "I was contacted by the [Republican] leadership and told that my comments were inappropriate. They suggested that I called the White House to apologize and I did." He needed the leadership to tell him that?

The beauty of disaster

With the "Station"-Fire now into its sixth day and no wind to speak of, the sky over Los Angeles is blanketed by a gossamer of smoke, creating a mesmerizing yet somewhat eerie spectrum of colors. 

Oldtimers tell me, that the smog ca. 1960 had a similar effect, but this is certainly very pronounced. Yet, while decidedly unhealthy to breathe, the smoke creates spectacular sunsets.

More pictures here.

The Mighty Martin Mars (Fire fighting aircraft)

There are a lot of fire-fighting aircraft buzzing over L.A. these days: The helos: Bell 412's, Eurocopter AS 350B2 Ecureuil , Sikorsky S-70A Firehawks, Sikorsky S-64E Skycranes and the fixed wings: DC-3, DC-4, DC-7, Lockheed P-3 Orion, Canadair CL-215, Bombardier CL-415, Consolidated PBY Catalina, Grumman S-2 Tracker, Lockheed C-130 Hercules and now DC-10's and even a Boeing 747. If you can cram a tank into it, it is now flying over the "Station"-Fire in the Angeles National Forest. 

(Hawaii Mars, above, in current paint,
Philipine Mars, below, at NAS Alameda, CA in 1945) 

I thought I had seen it all. Until today, when a 1945' Martin-Mars (Coulson Flying Tankers' "Hawaii Mars") swooped in from Canada to join the fray. The biggest flying boat of all times has a wingspan (200 ft, 60m) wider than a Boeing 747 and while considerably shorter, it is several stories high, looks very intimidating floating, and even more impressive flying. 

Only seven were ever built, "Hawaii Mars" and "Philippine Mars" are the last two surviving specimens. Now tanking up at Lake Elsinore "Hawaii Mars", (video) - doing drop-after-drop - is an amazing WWII museum piece, doing some very impressive work and awing airplane fans in the process.

However, the cost is stunning: At $ 2.50 per gallon of water ($ 0.66/liter) dropped the Martin Mars is one of the cheapest fire-fighting aircraft. Average cost for all aircraft is $ 4.00 / gal ( $ 1.06 / liter )

The health care discussion.

The whole health care discussion summed up in one cartoon panel by Mike Luckovich in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Nuff said.

http://blogs.ajc.com/mike-luckovich/2009/08/27/aug-28-cartoon/

Teaching yoga to nude gay men

As far as life goals go, "teaching yoga to nude gay men" is certainly one of the more interesting ones. Life from New York (by way of Sweden) it's ... naked guys twisted into a pretzel! (Thank you Aftonbladet thank you!)

100 years of misguided fire management biting us in the butt.

Heavy plumes of smoke from the STATION fire near La Cañada Flintridge billow up to 15,000 ft over the Hollywood Hills on Saturday Aug. 29, at 4:00pm.

I can't but gasp at the fire in the Angeles National Forest. An area larger than the size of the District of Columbia has now burned.

An area, where fuel has been allowed to accumulate for 40+ years, because the pigheaded policy of the U.S. Forest Service in the last 100- year has been suppression at all cost and allowing humans to settle in natural burn areas.

Scary impressive firepix here, and here

An updated fire-map is here