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Dr. Pepper 10 has me confused

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I heard a commercial on the radio the other day for Dr. Pepper 10. This is a new product from Dr. Pepper that’s not exactly diet (0 calories) and not exactly regular (7,000,000 calories). The ad campaign has sparked some controversy, since it caters exclusively to “manly men”. The commercial I heard basically lists all the most manly things, and implies that Dr. Pepper 10 should be added to that list.

This really surprised me. Here they are using super manly He-men to try to sell diet soda to a group that traditionally considers diet soda outside of their domain. It’s certainly a good thing that men, who are traditionally allowed to be as fat as they can while simultaneously putting pressure on women to watch their weight, are now starting to realize that weight is something they need to pay attention to and be responsible for. On the other hand, the whole commercial is dripping with stereotypes and starts by saying how Dr. Pepper 10 is “not for women”. How do you manage to be both extremely sexist and gender-barrier-breaking at the same time? Or maybe they really are only being extremely sexist, because they’re really overcompensating a little bit there, aren’t they? “We know that diet drinks are inherently girly, but maybe if we surround them with pure manliness, we can trick someone into drinking it without realizing the 10 calories are from the added estrogen.”

Not only did they manage to offend women with the ad campaign, but they also managed to offend me. As a male who loves Dr. Pepper, I expected to be firmly in their wheelhouse. I began to be dismayed a little bit as every “manly” thing didn’t apply to me. Am I not man enough for Dr. Pepper? Does this mean I can’t like it anymore? (well, technically I like Diet Dr. Pepper, so maybe I was already in the “woman category” anyway)

Luckily, the last item on the list was, “If you have ever blogged about bacon…” Whew! Qualified at the last minute. I feel like they threw that one in just to include me. They might as well have added, “If you have ever answered to the name Shane Halbach…”

Anyway, here’s another ad from the same campaign. You can decide for yourself what it means:

George Lucas should hire this guy

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Full disclosure, I didn’t think Episode 1 was all that awful. I think people had very, very high expectations and the movie couldn’t possibly live up to them.

That being said, it wasn’t that amazing either. There was certainly something…missing. I couldn’t say exactly what, until I watched this quick (12 minute) video. This guy totally nails it. It’s kind of surprising how little he would actually change, and how much better it would make the movie. I don’t know if it is because the movie was approached more from a merchandising point of view than from a purely storytelling point of view, if this guy just has more of a feel for story than Lucas does, or if hindsight is just 20/20.

Anyway, enjoy:

Link via somebody, on Facebook I think, but I couldn’t find it anymore.

I never knew YouTube was so creepy

/ Shane / 2 Comments

The other day, I went down a dark and scary road on YouTube.

It started innocuously enough. Someone found my blog by searching for “the dancing gnome scary”, which struck me as odd and/or hilarious. So I did my own search and found this video.

Now, this video is probably very offensive to little people. There is absolutely no reason why this person is scary. He’s just little, with some difficulty walking and dressing himself. However, the way the video is set up and the way the video is filmed, is a little creepy. I think we have been trained to believe that anything filmed with that grainy night vision is automatically creepy.

In any event, the related videos on the side of that led me down a whole cadre of frightening videos. I just couldn’t stop clicking on them. Ghost sightings, unnamed mutant creatures, demons, aliens. There’s a lot of creepy stuff out there! It can be hard to find it, because there’s also a lot of people goofing around and making silly things, but there’s plenty to see if you look.

So turn off the lights, sit back, and enjoy:

Okay Dancers…

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Evie has started ballet class. Now, I haven’t had much experience with ballet, so I kind of thought it would be mostly goofing around, maybe learning a little dance routine to perform at the end. I am surprised to learn that it actually looks like ballet, even from the first day. Between almost looking graceful and the little ballerina  (excuse me, dancer) outfit, she looks so grown up!

My favorite part is the funny things they do to teach them the ballet moves, such as bird beaks and open windows, painting the ceiling with your feet, and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on your feet. They sound so silly, but when Evie does them you think, “Oh yeah, that actually does look like ballet when you do it.” They’re just really good descriptions.

Anyway, what you really want to see is the adorable video, so without further ado:

Youtube How-to

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A while back we were having some issues with our washing machine. I wasn’t sure if it was worth repairing, or if we needed to replace the whole thing. I was kind of stuck: I didn’t want to pay a technician to come in and look at it, if we were ultimately going to get rid of it anyway. So I turned to my old friend, Mr. Internet.

If you go to youtube and look for information on how to fix something, you’ll be amazed at the amount of detailed information people have put out there, in video form! I found a video that showed me exactly how to take my washer apart and repair the suspected problem.

Now it turns out I didn’t need to fix my washer, but I could have! And now I have a new go-to place to find examples for fix-it projects. I wanted to find the exact repair video I watched, but I couldn’t because there are just so many. And very high quality, with good production budget too! Anything from how to fix your refrigerator, replacing your spark plugs, or this fantastic video, which will show you how to repair a broken leg:

Thank you, Internet, for this high quality information! I will follow this video exactly next time I need to set a broken bone!