Today in the office: 10:30 am conversations about lunch. Today is apparently Fat Friday… AKA an excuse for the office to eat greasy, fatty New York Burgers. Thursdays = Taco Bell Thursdays…

How long until Martini Monday?

Aurumania, a Scandnavian bicycle company, took track bike to a whole new level and created a Gold Bike Crystal Edition that every visible surface are plated with 24-carat gold and decorated with more than 600 Swarovski cystals. The price for this intense fixed gear bike is over $108,000 and will delivered to you personally anywhere in the world via white glove service. Impressive, impressive… I wonder what it feels like to do wheelie on this bike. Sometimes, bike can cost more than your car.

We’re all in love with the sound of our own voices. C’mon, lets break out the honesty here; all curation is merely subjective opinion.  It’s what primordially in the world of commercialism determines the fashion catwalks, billboard advertising, and music sales.  Posed with the realisation that all artists need structure to produce order, the Klein Dytham studio started a new underground night in the depths of Roppongi, Tokyo - Pecha Kucha.  Pronounced “peh-chak-cha” from a Japanese term for the sound of conversation (”chit-chat”), it urges precisely that.

Laden with only the obstacle of time, designers are invited to discuss their work with 20 images (each shown for 20 seconds only) and given 6 minutes and 40 seconds of Andy Warholism till the next speaker is up.  Rather than sucking up to the guy who turns out to be the banker in the room, individuals can find exactly who they want to wax lyrical with.

It’s happened in 180 cities since 2003.  The first one of this year in NYC is now but days away.

Ron Winter’s drum website urges even the dumbest of drummers to get their type on and blast out a track.  Frustrated secretaries who can bang out 85 words a minute might just be ready to show down Asian computer nerds and their nimble fingers.  Ipod battles and Guitar Hero now seem so clunky in comparison.

So another booze beverage has hit the shelves; this time a fancy sake called Ty Ku.  Hailing from Japan I can only guess, it’s new promo campaign, “Show us your skin’ asked a bunch of tattoo-heads to send in photographs of their body art.  The prize; star in a new ad campaign starring ‘you’ with a party thrown in your honour at your most loved tattoo parlour.  A tad naff I hear you mutter, but check out this dude -

So yeah, naked dudes that risk a needle going anywhere near their nether regions fascinates me - all the way to the dog tracks.  The judges are a bit suspect - Creative Director of Inked (check), Mario Barth (renowned tattoo artist, winning a gazillion awards - check), but um, Neyo?  Richie Rich? Dhani Makalani Jones?  Oh that last one is an American football player.   I’m all about segueways but really??

Being in this industry, one thing you’ll find that marketing people are quite fond of is numbers. Nice, cold hard facts. Nothing will ever justify a creative budget more than a big pile of metrics and data, that may or may not correlate with your agencies efforts.

One move I’m very interested in, is Facebook’s User Rated ads. Tech Crunch has wrote at bit on the process. It’s supposed to be a way for Facebook users to custom target the ad stream that they recieve on their homepages, by providing dynamic user feedback.

Although it’s not functioning quite as you expect, you’re typically served perhaps 3-4 ads that sort of loop over and over, regardless of skipping or Thumbs-Down Ratings.

So, as a nice stress reliever, I do the following. I’m sure you’ll enjoy:

Being a pretty avid reader (And loving NYC’s Library service), I’ve always envied the people on the subway I see reading the Amazon Kindle. It’s an awesome device, with eInk, which beautifully and faithfully reproduces printed text. And there’s a growing library of titles appearing on Amazon, for a lot cheaper or equivilent to a paperback.

The problem for me is the device is in the $300 range, which is pretty steep for a bookreader, that doesn’t do much more, with a 16-greyscale shade screen. But an iPod touch, which is roughly around the same price (which I own) can function a million other things, just like it’s big brother the iPhone.

So this is a pretty big deal to me. I’m sure for you too.

Download it!
Clickable iTunes Link

Facebook Advertisement - by jimisaacs

I thought Facebook was supposed to taylor their ads to be specific for the user. Should this worry me?

I really wish this was real. It would’ve been a great gift this year.

PANTONE® 14-0848 to us nerds or “Mimosa” to everyone else has been announced as next year’s color.

“In a time of economic uncertainty and political change, optimism is paramount and no other colour expresses hope and reassurance more than yellow,” Pantone says.