Check out this review on Variety.com for Nintendo Wii’s Super Mario Galaxy.  Notice the top right corner…

Yeah.. a review of Nintendo sponsored by Sony!  Now, I think the commenters of the article are a bit off (btw, I highly recommend reading the comments.. some lovely vitriol there) in directing their criticism at the author (or, as called in the comments: "shill", "sell-out", "horrid little twat").  People, this is an author for Variety - a magazine geared at the ignorant fucking masses that actually give two shits about Lohan’s latest drug addictions, how Britney straps her babies into carseats, or the latest name conjugations of celebrity couples ("Bradifer", or "Brangelina", or whatever-the-fuck it is now).  Being as they are catering to the lesser intellects among us, one would expect that they themselves aren’t the sharpest, either.

The real criticism goes to Sony.  Sony makes games and laptops and other smart shit, directed to intelligent (and often, undersexed) people!  Companies selling to smart people are supposed to have ad departments that have been honed to a fine edge by their take-no-prisoners demographic.  They are supposed to be too smart to pull a jackass move like this.

So, to the "horrid little twat" (that’s my favorite!), Ben Fritz:  I’m not hatin’.  You write for Variety;  I’m not expecting much from you.  But shame on you, Sony!

Hello, good citizens!  It has been a couple months since my last posting.  I am afraid that, despite my words of caution, I got pretty heavily addicted to Silpada.  Just started out as a little dabbling on the weekends.. you know, a quick rush… a "ladies night out having fun with jewelry".  But then I was doing Silpada on weekdays, missing work.. it was getting bad.  When I missed my brother’s 30th birthday party because "I’m at a Silpada party and just can’t get away", I knew I was in too deep and needed help.

I’m in rehab and doing better.  I’ll admit, there are times when I see some big jangly silver contraption on a 40-something woman’s wrist and think, "god damn it, I need to throw a party!"  But the cravings are fewer and farther between now.

Truth be told, I just caught a bit caught up in work and such.. I hope to start posting a bit more.  And why not start with an ad that I think is pretty damned cool.  The new "Training Day" spot by Nike.

Why is this so cool?  For one, Steve Nash.  To tell the truth, that’s really the reason I’m posting this.  Don’t get me wrong, the ad is pretty good in its own right, but I’ve happened across some Nash articles here and there lately and I gotta say, this guy is The Shit.

In the modern sports world of murdering dogs, beating wives, and sex parties (… well, two out of the three are bad, anyway!), it is so damned refreshing to hear about a guy that has a Zen philosophy about fame, puts team before self, and organizes charity tournaments half way around the world to help children.  Great Nash quote from one of the articles:

He is totally uninterested in being a celebrity, calling it something “to distract the bored from their nothingness.”

Oh, and although he is a pro basketball player, he has a healthy respect for the world’s most Beautiful Game: soccer.  You’ll see that showcased in the ad.

I have some Nikes on order and I’ll admit, it was solely because of the cool iPod plug-in whizzy-bang add-ons, but after finding out they have Nash on board, I’m glad I bought ‘em!

Global warming is the issue of our time.  I realize that our grandfathers fought in the Great War.  I realize they ran onto Nazi machine gun nests, liberated Europe, stormed Siribachi.  They are called the Greatest Generation.  But I’m telling you right now, if we beat global warming, we will be the Greatest Generation (or if we do nothing, the Most Vilified Generation).  I have friends who laugh at this notion, but we’ll see who’s laughing in 100 years.  After all, which is more important, stopping a tyrant?  Or reversing 150 years of industrial pollution, saving hundreds of millions of people from famine/flooding, and saving hundreds of thousands of species from going extinct?

With that being said, Green Marketing is just at its infancy, and where every company needs to be.  Some big companies already “get it”.  The absolutely breath-taking Planet Earth series by Discovery Channel has been fully sponsored by Bank of America, who are going even further by incorporating green solutions into their practices.  Mega-oil company BP has also been making large strides toward environmental responsibility, consistently scoring high on green rankings.  And then there’s GE’s Ecomagination campaign - they have committed billions of dollars and an entire branch of their company to mastering sustainable energy.

The planet’s atmosphere is going to be saved by individuals - individuals deciding they give enough of a damn to take personal action, cut down their carbon footprint and lobby their governments.  But a few companies are taking up the fight.  This is only the beginning - increasingly, consumers are going to be checking the Green Creds of the companies they’re doing business with.  I now buy gas exclusively at BP, and am switching my Commerce bank account (that I’ve had since I was 8 years old) to Bank of America.  I guarantee you I’m not the only one!  Getting out front with green ad campaigns is a sure-fire way to get business and be seen as one of “the good guys”.

Some links of interest:

Ceres.org - great site reporting on how business is tackling climate change.

Power of Green - good NY Times article by Thomas Friedman regarding the present and future of the Green movement.

FightGlobalWarming.com - what you can do personally.

Get off your ass.  Write your Congressional representatives!  {stepping off soapbox}

I just recently saw a commercial for “Hair U Wear”, a new product line of hair extensions by Ken Paves.

Ken’s dad often returns to this pic and thinks “My son and his girlfriend”…living the fantasy if only just for a moment.

Who the hell is Ken Paves?, you ask. Well, he’s the hair stylist for none other than Jessica Simpson. Ken Paves is a “celebrity extension” – not a real celebrity, but instead someone who gets his moment in the sun by being attached to a real celebrity. And if done right, you can’t even tell them from the real thing!

I’m not sure if he and Jessica are business partners in this, if she’s just promoting for him, or what. But it’ll be interesting to watch how well this gambit works. I’ll tell you this much – I first saw a commercial for this just a week or so ago. A few days later I went to get a haircut and this queen had his own centrally-located, free-standing kiosk full of hair extensions at the salon. (Yeah, I go to a salon. What of it?)

Anyway, this could prove a great marketing ploy for new products trying to come to market on the cheap. Can’t afford a celebrity? Use a celebrity extension! Then beg your extension to leverage his or her friendship with the real deal.

As a side-note: the site has Jessica’s new song “Public Affair” playing. I could have sworn I was listening to an 80s Madonna song. I did a little looking around; I’m not the only one that thinks so