Watch a Lithuanian mayor roll over a parked car in a tank

Clever promotional video for Vilnius Mayor A. Zuokas.

Link roundup

1. Gawker on Newt Gingrich's 1.3 million Twitter followers:

About 80 percent of those accountsare inactive or are dummy accounts created by various "follow agencies," another 10 percent are real people who are part of a network of folks who follow others back and are paying for followers themselves (Newt's profile just happens to be a part of these networks because he uses them, although he doesn't follow back), and the remaining 10 percent may, in fact, be real, sentient people who happen to like Newt Gingrich.

2. NBC is claiming that its new show The Playboy Club is about female empowerment.

3. A little less corporate-funded propaganda in schools:

In response to pressure from parents, educators and grassroots advocates, Scholastic Inc. will drastically limit its practice of partnering with corporations to produce classroom material, the company announced last week.

The publisher had been under fire since May, when it was forced to stop distributing a fourth-grade curriculum called “The United States of Energy” that had been paid for by the coal industry and distributed to classrooms across the country.

Via.

Image roundup

Cats, waiting.



Hand sanitizer.



Number wan realtors.



Surface tension.



Stuck in a raindrop.

Image roundup

Tip.



Weightlifter.



Creepy neighbor.



Game of Thrones cast in street clothes.



Pedicab Game of Thrones ad.



Precious.

Image roundup (and one video)

Valve mascot cosplay.



Man-eating bus.




Emma Stone (and Jimmy Fallon and the entire studio audience) vs. the shake weight.



Chimp feeding a tiger cub.



Gas Mask Tourism on the Izu Islands. Via.

The credits for this advertisement do not include Kris Kuksi?

The listed credits for this advertisement:

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Jakarta, Indonesia
Executive Creative Director: Gary Caulfield
Creative Directors: Eric Yeo, Troy Lim, Yuwono Widodo
Art Director: Anthony Tham
Copywriter: Adrian Yeap
Illustrator: Eric Foenander
Illustrator: Qiu Jing

But it sure looks like Kris Kuksi's work to me:

Link roundup

1. No pictures on the web?:

Focus and LAIKA were on hand at Comic-Con today to show concept art, puppets and props used for the family-friendly comedy thriller [ParaNorman], including Norman's room, which is peppered with zombie posters and a coffin alarm clock, and a room from the house of Mr. Prendergast (John Goodman), the town crazy guy who has a great trucker hat featuring a beaver with a wrench.

2. If this is real, I don't see why it's not fraudulent.

3. The BBTS has available for preorder the Batman Legacy series 2 figures I previously posted (Batgirl etc).

Disney markets to moms

This video about dining aboard the Disney Dream isn't particularly interesting - - the restaurants actually look not much nicer or inspired than tacky mall theme-restaurants (is LA the only place where Spielberg opened a submarine-themed restaurant?). But one brief scene in the video really caught my eye. It's like a mom dining in a stone room filled with statues:

Link roundup

1. Glowing review for Fallout New Vegas: Old World Blues. (There are a few walkthroughs on Youtube already.)

2. "NY Times Story on First Gay Federal Judge Complemented by Tasteful Bathhouse Ad."

3. Gabe Delahaye's latest hilarious True Blood recap. "Breed, ghost daddy, breed." (Probably NSFW.)

I just thought you might enjoy this Fabio wallpaper

W+K is now scraping the bottom of the barrel to get attention for Old Spice, casting Fabio in a series of inane commercials. The real irony is that the commercials were probably never remotely as succesfuly as they were claimed to be - - they just happened to coincide with a coupon that was very useful to coupon ninjas.

Nike Addiction

Nike Addiction commercial by F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi.

*Buy the Nike+ Sportwatch at eBay.

Rooftop lake of slime

Truvia® Voyage of Discovery with Bompas & Parr:

Selfridges 21-24 July 2011

Bompas & Parr is flooding part of Selfridges roof to create a crystal island and boating lake in celebration of the impending UK arrival of Truvia® calorie-free sweetener, from the stevia leaf.

The Truvia® Voyage of Discovery invites visitors to enjoy their first experience of the Truvia® brand and their first introduction to the stevia plant, astonishingly 200 times sweeter than sugar.

The project encompasses an emerald green boating lake, thousands of stevia plants, 12 rowing boats, a gushing waterfall, a life guard, cocktails by ECC, design by Studio Toogood, uniforms by Tour de Force, tropical soundscapes by Dom James, teas by Rare Tea Company, coffee's by Caravan, and a Crystal Island - all six storeys above Londons busiest shopping street.

You can read a description of the event here and here.

*Previously: Bompas & Parr is building a five tonne Chocolate Waterfall in London; Truvia's target audience.

Clever energy drink packaging

Packaging created by Saatchi & Saatchi Belgrade for Booster Energy Drink.

Clever/Irritating advertisements for Antique Roadshow

"To promote a new season of Antiques Roadshow on Prime TV, DRAFTFCB Auckland took to the streets, placing price tags on numerous objects that could well be considered an antique in the future. From shopping trollies and picnic benches, to cars and arcade machines, all objects were labeled with prices far greater than their current value." Via.

Link roundup

1. Cartoon Brew is conducting a reader survey and giving away a $50 Amazon credit.

2. DIY modern platform dollhouse.

3. If the aquarium was closer to the airport, I think I'd take advantage of the $4 flight Jetblue is offering from Burbank to Long Beach this weekend. (A major freeway is going to be closed all weekend, so residents have been begged not to drive.)

Clever cartoon showing off new Nike technology

Cartoon showing off Nike's "hyperfuse" technology. Via.

Link roundup

1. For other Blogger users, here's a useful comment by a Blogger employee from Ann Althouse's blog:

While our export tools may have been somewhat unreliable when handling blogs this large (Althouse is one of the largest Blogger blogs!), along the way helping Ann we discovered ways to improve them and moving forward Blogger will be much better equipped to handle cases like this.

So Ann while I'm personally sad to see you go (if that is indeed the decision), I wanted to let you know that you will always have a home on Blogger and a team who cares about your experience with Blogger. That also (of course) goes for everyone. We love hearing from users, and anyone can bug me directly on Twitter (@electrobutter) if something is on their mind, or hit up the team via @blogger.

It seems like such a typical Google thing to do to make such outreach efforts only when it was too late to keep her on the platform. Her entire Blogger blog was deleted, possibly by error, possibly by a rogue Google employee, last month.

2. "An investigation into Atlanta’s public school system has uncovered evidence that teachers and principals have been secretly erasing and correcting answers on students’ tests for as long as a decade."

3. "For the past few years, networks have been digitally inserting ads and product placements for new products into old reruns."

Seagram's predicts the future

Seagram's predictions of the future (from 1950).

*Previously: Paul Pope looks at the future of Japanese cars.

Earworms

Advertisements by Y&R for Penguin audiobooks

Advertising Durex condoms at soccer matches

McCann Erickson for Durex:

We decided to use the electronic boards held up at half time and the end of matches to signify how much extra time will be p|ayed.These boards were branded with the Durex Performa colours and logo. Of course, with our branding of the boards, the extra time took on a whole new meaning and relevance.

Via.

*Previously: Durex pillows.