Local Commercials

Worst Local Commercials: Always, always hard-to-beat in the super sucky category are Oceanic
Time Warner's local television spots. The national ones aren't so bad.

Runner up: HEMIC

Best adaptation of a national commercial: Kaiser Permanente's "Ha" (breath of life) version of the thrive campaign. Riveting. And it doesn't get old.

Could use some editing: Hawaii Meth Project's commercials need some local people. Great media buy, but by watching,you'd think only haole kids did meth.

Good comeback: Hawaiian Telcom's reminder that they go where no one else will.

Book Review

Stephen Levitt's latest book, Superfreakonomics is out and he is making the rounds.

We've read the book. It's not as startling as his first, nor as well written as Gladwell's Outliers, but the conversational tone makes it an easy page turner, and there are some interesting ideas...

Like ex-Microsoft billionaire's Nathan Mhyrvold's super simple idea for cooling down surface water temperatures, thereby undermining a hurricane's ability to build to a super freaky force.

Or the fact that if suicide bombers bought life insurance, they'd be harder to track.

Apparently a lot of liberal tree huggers are mad because Levitt and Dubner ask us to remove our moralistic angst about global warming (or not) and look for simpler solutions.

We're reading Gladwell's "What the Dog Saw" next.

No Names, Big Salaries

The Yankees have no names on their uniforms because its a team sport. So says Wikipedia, which contends that the Yankees are observing an original baseball tradition.

But nobody has bigger stars, or more money in the coffers. What gives?

Get Healthy Rest

I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently. - Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)

This is posted on American Heart Association's Go Red site. I found it very funny, considering its author, the fact that he lived only 62 years and that he was known as one of the louche-est guys around.

This speaks to brand. To use or not to use? Not to use.

Joe Wilson, Is Andrea Mitchell a liar?

Teddy Kennedy's True Compass is being held for release until September 14. This monday.

I have a running joke of me coming into the store and asking to buy it every day. BookEnds. They are good people. They say no.

On the first day the media talked about it, Andrea Mitchell went out of her way to say she had picked it up at a local book store. The question is:

1. Did the bookstore give her a copy in the hopes she'd mentioned their name? (she didn't)

2. Did the publisher give it to her, and tell her to say it, so we'd all rush to our bookstores?

3. Did the bookstore in question a) not exist b) is owned by Andrea Mitchell c)hate the publisher?

4. Did Andrea Mitchell lie? I defer to the "gentleman" from South Carolina? Wassup Joe? Don't be muzzled now.