Video of Sacha Baron Cohen at the Oscars

Ryan Seacrest interviews Admiral General Aladeen on the red carpet. Aladeen certainly left his mark on Seacrest.

Link roundup

Admiral General Aladeen's video demand to be allowed at the Oscars worked. (I hope Hillary Swank is his date.)

And a few more links:

1. Deadspin on the new Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor:

Available only at their Harvard Square location, Ben & Jerry's is selling a limited edition "Taste The Linsanity" flavor, which includes delicious little crumbles of fortune cookie. This, despite the Asian American Journalists Association's clear warning that there's no "compelling reason to draw a connection between Lin and fortune cookies, takeout boxes or similar imagery."

Also, "Taste The Lin-Sanity" features lychee, which is a fruit native to Southeast Asia, which is not the part of Asia that Jeremy Lin comes from. (The part of Asia that Jeremy Lin comes from is Northern California.)

Update: They've removed the fortune cookie bits.

2. Rick Santorum shook Ron Paul's hand like a madman after this week's debate.

3. The new SSX demo (PS3) is a wonderful return to the series, and I've liked every song I've heard so far. My 6 year old instantly fell in love too. Here's the SSX soundtrack lineup and individual downloads at Amazon, and if you preorder the game you'll get a $10 Amazon credit and bonus snowboard.

4. Just added as preorders at the BBTS, DC Universe All Stars Series 02-03 (Flash, Red Robin, Supergirl, Superman, Hawkman, Steel, Batman, Batgirl).

Chopsticks used to advertise a karate school

Grey turned chopsticks into an advertisement for a karate school.

Link roundup

1. "Dog in Ellen DeGeneres costume gets booted from L.A. billboard." (I miss the days of Angelyne.)

2. "How I Found the Human Being Behind Horse_ebooks, The Internet's Favorite Spambot."

3. New army reading list.

4. A new free mission involving Harley Quinn has been added to the Arkham City Lockdown iOS game (which I've previously recommended). I'm downloading it now. Via.

Posters you can listen to

FOAM:

To launch their debut album 'Shallow Bed' (released 5th March), Dry the River created a unique series of string art posters to allow fans to hear the album in full for the first time.

Twelve string art posters are placed around London, each one representing a track from the album and depicting an animal. At the end of the string, the band used old fashioned Tin Can telephones to allow passers-by to listen to a song.

The band created the posters in collaboration with FOAM in-house craft-technologist Sophie Yeoman. This film shows the posters being put together and hung around London's streets.

Sophie hand built each poster and fitted them with an Arduino / Wave Shield combo wired through the string to a speaker concealed in the bottom of a tin-can.

Each poster took around 20 hours to complete.

Via.

Video of Tie Fighters over Copenhagen

It's the Death Star over Copenhagen in this advertisement by Advance for Toys R Us. It's nice to see an advertising company find some inspiration, and instead of ripping off the artist, ask him to work with them. Via.

New advertisement for Nike's Fuelband

Hope Solo, Paul Rodriguez, and Ndamukong Suh show off the Nike+ Fuelband. (How does it tell when Paul's skateboarding, as opposed to riding in a car?) Via.

*Buy Nike sportbands at Amazon.

When Death offers you a light

The grim reaper stars in this anti-smoking campaign by Cafeina. Via.

Link roundup

1. The Oakland A's were the talk of the sports world on Monday after signing Cuban slugger/outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, who put out a truly outlandish promotional video. If you're not convinced it's worth your time to watch, read this detailed description.

2. A lengthy analysis of why the Death Star's trash compactor makes little sense.

3. Bonsai tree houses.

4. Gyroscopically stabilized pool table for cruise ships.

5. Neverwhere, maybe my favorite Neil Gaiman novel, is currently a $3 download at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. 5 secret drinks at Starbucks including the Snickers Frappuccino (Java Chip Frappuccino with caramel and toffee nut).

2. Online ads:

Who’s buying the lions’ share of advertising on news websites? Nobody. For most of the 22 news organizations PEJ studied, the top category of advertising was in-house — ie. self-promotional ads for the publishers’ own products or services. Those accounted for 21% of the ads on in the sample of websites the study tracked, a group that includes newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, web-only outlets like Yahoo and the Huffington Post, magazines like Time and The Atlantic and TV networks’ web companion sites like cbsnews.com and cnn.com

3. Looks like Kickstarter will make close to $100,000 by the time Double Fine's Kickstarter ends.

4. If you don't mind spamming your friends on Twitter, MTV is giving away a big McFarlane toys prize pack.

5. Here's another art idea, create a poster for Angelina Jolie as Maleficent.

Cabinet of Dreams: A Virtual Charity Shop

WomensAidGifts by Grey:

This Valentine's Day, advertising agency Grey London has teamed up with national charity Women's Aid to offer shoppers something a little more interesting than the usual chocolates or flowers with some truly magical, once-in-a-lifetime gifts. The Women's Aid Cabinet of Dreams features nine extraordinary Valentine's gifts that, literally, money can't buy! Designed by Grey and displayed majestically in bell-jars in a Soho shopfront 3D installation, each gift has its own unique interpretation and illustration from one of London's top artists or collectives, including Rob Ryan, Kyle Bean, Fred Butler, The Last Tuesday Society, Nicole Mueller, Suck & Chew, Francesca Mair, Marie-Louise Jones and Charlotte Brown. Shoppers can "purchase" the gifts by texting the number next to each item, and donate an amount between £2 and £20 to Women's Aid. The purchase will then be sent via text to the recipient who will be informed of the donation and their unique present. While £10 can buy a simple bouquet, for Women's Aid it would be a valuable contribution towards providing lifesaving services, with the added extra of being a truly romantic and unique gift.

You can buy the virtual items here, and read about the designers of the objects here.





Via.

Advertisements for a karate school

Karate school advertisements by Grey. Via.

*Previously: Clever karate school sign.

Gotham City Impostors cosplay

Marketing for Gotham City Impostors. (I like the character designs infinitely more than the actual game.)

Alan Wake's American Nightmare

Here's the first developer's diary for Alan Wake's American Nightmare. Ignore their blather about the game's features and pay attention to what's going on behind them. Via.

*Previously: Watch Bright Falls, the Alan Wake prequel.

The Secret Policeman's Ball

Advertisement for Amnesty International's The Secret Policeman's Ball, featuring character designs by McBess.




*Buy McBess Dunnys at eBay.

Woody Harrelson and his publicist misunderstood Reddit

He volunteered to participate in an Ask Me Anything session, apparently thinking he could simply promote his new movie, and ignore the community's questions. Big mistake. Huge.

Link roundup

1. Links to the personal websites of the Tron Uprising art team.

2. Astonishing data on the number of politicians in India also facing criminal charges.

3. "'Huffington Post' Employee Sucked Into Aggregation Turbine
Horrified Workers Watch As Colleague Torn Apart By Powerful Content-Gathering Engine"

4. Are we headed to a future where our wars will be entirely fought by robots and the only people at risk are contractors?

5. Oops:

An advertising agency for BMW has paid to name a cold weather front sweeping Europe "Cooper" in Germany, after the carmaker's Mini Cooper.

But the public-relations stunt by the agency went wrong after the freezing conditions led to dozens of deaths.

*Buy Tron Legacy posters at eBay.

Commercial for Nike Football Combines

Advertisement by Nimpsy for Nike's football training sessions. Via.

*Buy the Nike+ Sportband at Amazon.

Me and You by Nero

Me and You by Nero - - the song from the commercial for Beats by Dr. Dre at Best Buy.



This is good, too: Nero - Must Be The Feeling (Delta Heavy Remix):



Available as a free download.

Super simple way to use Facebook to promote your town

One tiny town in Switzerland found a fun (and entirely wholesome) way to promote itself on Facebook. Via.