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Back a few months, I was asked by the dudes in Bane to participate in a promotional advertisement for their new album, The Note. At the time, I had no idea what the deal was. We were just told to show up at Toscanni’s at a certain time.

We showed up, chilled for quite some time (the weather sucked and traffic was all sorts of effed up), and finally began work. Turns out they were going to shoot a commercial to be shown on MTV2 and FUSE. Sounded decent enough. It’s nice to see EVR thinking outside the box on this one. Why bother putting ads in zines that hardcore kids read. Every hardcore kid either loves or hates Bane and knows definitively when the album was coming out. EVR stepped it up and decided to widen the market. Good for them.

So shooting begins. They bring Mitch in first. She’s nervous, and when she comes out 10 minutes later, she is a little confused. She tells me they ask questions and wait for answers. But the questions are really open ended and hard to answer. Great. I’m psyched for not knowing what to say or do.

My turn. I go in, and here is a quick rundown of the questions:

Dude: So, when did you first hear Bane?

Dude: What do you like about Bane?

Dude: What do you think about the new album?

Dude: What is your favorite Bane moment?

Dude: Do you have anything else you want to say?

Ok, what the hell? This was months before the promos were out. How the hell was I supposed to talk about the new album. I’d only heard two songs on the nerd or when they performed them live. And the other questions? Jeesh, not so specific or useful to an interviewee.

I walked out of the room a little confused. How the hell was any of that going to be useful for a commercial? I had no idea. Later that day, Mitch emails me to say she was having all her video pulled as she hated it. She thought the concept was wack, and she didn’t want her likeness used for the commercial. Whatever, I was just hoping my contribution would help out my friends.

Fast forward a month or two. The promos hit the nerd, and the new album sounds great. Then comes the commercial on FUSE. 60 seconds of chopped up quotes. I never saw it, but my brother-in-law and mother-in-law fell off their couch at one point when it came on. The 30 second version then hit the EVR site. I watched it. Wow. Semi lame. Quotes are fused together, taken semi out of context and manipulated into sentences. Great. Hear comes the haters now.

The b9 board gets a hold of this commercial and can’t stop laughing. Kids are straight on clowning this commercial. I can understand that. I’m not so fond of kids clowning my contribution, but after seeing this product, I guess I can understand why. Then someone decides to make a mock commercial. Also pretty weak. It causes a few laughs, but overall, I’m not really impressed by their efforts.

You can check out both commercials. Official EVR Ad and Shortbox.org version. Do with this what you will.

This is the perfect PX label for me. Screw Skrewdriver.

Well, I finally reached that plateau: 50+ sneakers. And it only took me 2 years. As with all collection pics, I buy what I like, not hype. Hence the small supply of pink boxes and the large supply of eurocans. Enjoy.

The next time you want to see some high school ass shaking, don’t go to a Texas football game. Thanks to the dedicated lawmakers at the Texas state house, there is now a law on the books that will ban overtly sexy cheerleading. That’s right. A law. Forget gay marriage, forget abortion, forget civil liberties. Who cares? Those aren’t exciting anymore. They are so last week.

Ok, like many out there, I was getting super fed up with ITunes. Not only was incorrectly ripping cds, but it also had many counter intuitive features. This caused me to go back to my old standby, Winamp. Of course, Winamp was never intended to be used as a direct port into my IPod. Thankfully, they have tons of useful plugins that will do just that.

After browsing for a bit, I found one that was perfect for me, ml_ipod (alternatively, you can read reviews on the Winamp Plugin Site). It specifially had the feature I was dying to use: sorting playlists by album titles. That’s what really drove me from ITunes in the first place.

I had just created a playlist based on The Source 5 Mic list. However, all the songs were alphabetized by the artist name. That’s no good. I don’t want to hear A Tribe Called Quest’s Low End Theory, 1991 before LL Cool J’s Radio, 1985. It was a shame. All my album titles were appropriately tagged [year] – [album title] but ITunes wouldn’t allow me to take advantage of this.

Thankfully, ml_ipod came in and saved the day. Now Eric B. and Rakim come after N.W.A. Ah, life is good.

Attention Nike, please go back to basics. Your new over the top designs are more than over the top; they rest nicely in the gutter. Please bring back the basics. You either have stupid original colourways, or designs that mock previous classics. Most designs look like some lame kids attempt to ID a wacky theme. It’s time to to get back to basics. Simple colors, white / other color will do the trick. Thank you.

For everyone else, here’s a little preview, as seen on NikeTalk. For the full show, check it here and here.

[ The PICS were moved. Sorry. You’ll just have to take my word. They are bad ]

Looks like I’ll be busy tracking down older models this season, or sticking to skate shoes. A few models did actually spark some interest in me, but I’d probably wait until they hit sales racks, as they aren’t that amazing.

[ These sneakers weren’t so bad. ]

Following the RoboRat article was a very newsworthy topic. A 15 lb burger. Yeap, you heard me. A 15 lb burger. 21 slices of cheese, 10 pickles, a head of lettuce, … What the fuck is wrong with people?

For starters, this topic isn’t worth discussing on tv. Secondly, this is the same program that regularly talks about how fat Americans are, and what they can do to improve themselves. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying, “eating a 15 lb burger is not going to curb obesity.” Not only that, but seeing a 15 lb burger at 7:30 am made me want to vomit all over the elliptical machine. There’s no need to show someone flipping a nearly raw burger at that time of day.

Attention America, quit getting hyped up on novelty meals and quit gorging yourself on oversized portions. That is all.

Feel free to read up on the “Barrel Belly Buster”. Stupid.

“The idea is sort of creepy”

Dr Sanjiv Talwar, State University of New York

Scientists have surgically enhanced rats to sniff out bombs. Not only have they trained them to track bombs, but they have also implanted electrodes in their heads as to control which direction they should travel. God, I love science. My favorite moment was when the broadcaster from Good Morning America said, “And if they get injured or blow up, who cares? They’re just rats …” Wow. Read more on the BBC site

Florida reverses it’s position on a 13 year old’s right for an abortion. She is now legally allowed to have an abortion, despite the law clearly stating it was legal in the first place. Hurray. The BBC story gives the full scoop.

Another google API extension. This one takes a search string, finds 20 images and makes a pretty middle school girl collage. Hot. Check it.