Always a supporter of diy technology development, I thought it was interesting to see that someone decided eating cupcakes with one’s hands was obviously outdated.
Enter the ‘Cupcake Cannon’ created by the folks over at Kamp Grizzly in Portland.
Apparently they made this for the recent Johnny Cupcakes ‘Suitcase Tour’ stop that rolled through and according to the story on their site the cannon they developed was “a steam-punk style pneumatic cupcake cannon and set the stage for eating frosty delights at 120psi.” The video was captured in HD and is now making its way around the web.
Who know watching people get blasted with cupcakes, in slow motion, with good tunes playing in the background would be so much fun. Nice work guys!
So, in the spirit of our ‘Check Out What We’re Checking Out’ title at the top of our blog, I figured I’d share something not marketing related, not wristwatch related and not food related (all the subject matter usually covered in my posts if you haven’t been able to tell the last 8 months or so). I figured I’d throw a curve ball and literally post about what I’ve been ‘checking out’ with my ears for the last 2 days straight. The new album by The Gaslight Anthem, titled “American Slang”.
The best slang there is
If you like music at all and it doesn’t even matter what kind, you won’t be able to help but be impressed by these Jersey boys. Sure, it’s obvious that they like The Boss (aka Bruce Springsteen) a lot. But there are subtle Motown-ish touches, nods to their punk rock roots and the general feeling of Americana that just pours out of the speakers as you play the record. The guitars almost sound as if they are talking to one another and you can’t help but tell that these guys are the real deal with every word and every note, of every song. This is album number 3 from them and the ride just keeps getting better.
Can you tell I’m a huge fan?
They are something special, something fresh and something sincere in the music industry today. That’s not always an easy thing to find for music fans. So go check out the album. The title track is the song of the week on iTunes and you can grab it here
Leave it to bacon and bacon fanatics worldwide to continue pushing the envelope on creating new culinary delights in the bacon food group.
Yes, there is a bacon food group. There is an ad campaign about it right now, helping to increase the knowledge of consumers so they meet their daily minimum, if you don’t believe me:
It's true!
Well, the kind folks at Uncrate.com recently helped inform the world that there is a new innovation in the bacon category: Bacon Moon Pie.
Sweet-Tooth meets Meat-Tooth
Do you like marshmallow, bourbon, maple syrup, dark chocolate and bacon, among other things? Well, this slice of heaven is for you.
We are a company comprised of many foodies (and one member of the United Embassy of Bacon), so it’s always great to see new food evolutions taking place. Connecting your “sweet-tooth’ with your ‘meat-tooth,” it only serves to make it that much better.
You absolutely have to love the Threadless community if you are a t-shirt person.
Day in and day out, someone is always posting a great new shirt design. Best part is, you really never, ever know what you are going to find when you go to the site.
For instance, if you are at all like me, you grew up watching the A-Team. That means you watched every episode, every chance you got. Then there is the theme song, which is pretty much the soundtrack to your daily life, no matter what you are doing. Lastly, you love Mr. T and all the awesomeness that comes along with his character, B.A. Baracus. If this doesn’t apply to you, you may want to stop reading the post here…
I pity the fool!
So imagine how pumped I got when I found out someone made a Mr. T, well, tee. It’s actually called the Mr. Tee and it’s basically a shirt that has shirts sewn onto it that make a portrait of Mr. T!
If you want to get one, of course, go to Threadless. But then, come back and read the HyperQuake blog!
That interactive music video for the song Neon Bible (on album of same name) was so awesome, remember that? Click that link in the last sentence and watch it again right now.
Apparently everyone’s favorite stenciling Brit has been busy on the West Coast in recent weeks in promotion of his new film, Exit Through The Gift Shop.
“I’m thinking of quitting the art world. I want to do something a bit more creative.” Check out TONY’s interview with Banksy here.
Stenciling conjures up images of floral and fruit patterns in my head.
I think I can safely attribute this to the type of old-schools stenciling I believe I’ve seen my grandma do in the past. Not that stenciling of that sort is bad, it just isn’t necessarily my cup of tea.
Well, I stumbled onto a Tweet out in the Twitterverse the other day that shows that stenciling is more than just a bunch of pastel flowers or pretty images of fruit.
Old-School Stenciling
This tweet I stumbled upon was about Sten and Lex; Italian street artists that utilize an approach to stenciling called ‘hole school.’ Apparently, they cut a huge stencil, basically paste it on a poster (it appears the canvas they use is primarily wood as far as I can tell), paint over the whole thing in black and then peel everything away leaving behind a negative image. Through the removal of the stencil, scraps are left behind as the stencil is destroyed. From there, the scraps are actually left on and are allowed to become part of the art. The resulting stencils are just awesome.
Sten & Lex Stencil
If you want to see how the whole process goes down, check out the quick video below. And if you find yourself in Brooklyn in the fall, you might want to look up their showing at Brooklynite Gallery.
"I pity the fool who doesn't know the theme to The A-Team!"
What ever did happen to the TV themes we grew up with? I was reminded of this the other day as I was humming the theme to The A-Team with my five year old son. (He has committed most of it to memory now.) In fact, this is such a great theme, when you listen to the new movie trailer, you can pick out the theme from the original TV series. A classic.
It struck me as odd to see only a five second musical chord build and a big letter “V” for the TV series V. In fact, one of the only theme songs I can remember from more modern TV shows is the Law and Order theme. “Who wrote that?”, I thought to myself. Wikipedia credits the theme and most of it’s soundtrack to Mike Post.
I dug deeper into my more formative TV watching years of the 1980s and early 90s:
How about The A-Team?: Mike Post
Hill Street Blues?: Mike Post
Greatest American Hero?: Mike Post
Magnum P.I.?: Mike Post
Prolific Composers Wear Short Shorts
Mike Post, composer of the TV theme song to Magnum, P.I., pictured here with Tom Selleck on a 45 RPM album cover. Permission by R. Masters.
The same goes with LA Law, Quantum Leap, Doogie Howser, MD, NYPD Blue, and just about every successful TV show over the last 30 years. Even if Mike Post didn’t write the opening theme music, he’s scored literally thousands of the soundtracks to many of the TV shows we still watch today. In fact, Mr. Post is also good friends with Stephen J. Cannell, the creator of over 40 TV series.
So my question is this: Without Post and Cannell, would the extinction of the TV theme song have taken place even sooner? Perhaps, but in today’s world where networks forgo the intro theme to fit in another :30 TV commercial for profit, I believe there is still a place for a TV theme song, the kind that you can remember and hum along with your five-year old son. Perhaps TIVO and DVR technology will help, and the true value of the intro theme music will be appreciated once again. Until then…
So you may have remembered a post we shared in the blog here a year or so ago about how Old Spice was on a quest to reinvent their brand.
Hit unexpectedly hard when AXE launched onto the scene, Old Spice had to step up its coolness factor and remove the ‘your dad’s deodorant of yesteryear’ tag.
The brand’s choice: retain the character and identity, but flaunt it. Make it fun.
For a refresher course on what the brand did, check out the original post.
Fast forward to today; Old Spice unleashes upon the general public a series of pretty much the most hilarious commercials myself and from what I can gather, many others of have seen.
With the commercials, the brand has moved more aggressively (I’m being literal here) into the body wash category. This move is probably again thanks to AXE pushing hard in the segment and Old Spice wanting to build loyalty so men are using their whole product line.
So, the commercials retain the old-timey whistled jingle, but that doesn’t come until the end. Up front, they use chaos, comedy, confusion, old-school Batman style visual descriptions (think POW! & WHAM!), a well as Godzilla style demolition.
The manly man approach is clearly still there, they’ve just built on it to make it more over the top.
