1. Kristian Anderson wanted to thank his wife for supporting him through chemotherapy so he got some celebs help to wish her happy birthday.

2. Ok nothing about the Bed Intruder Song made me teary, however I was heart warmed to discover Antione Dodson is saving up the profits from this meme so he can move his family out of the projects.

3. This Pulitzer Prize winning article by Gene Weingarten is actually over a year old. However I read it for the first time this week after Karalee said it made her cry. I will start you off with one paragraph, but you must go read the whole article.

The charge in the courtroom was manslaughter, brought by the Commonwealth of Virginia. No significant facts were in dispute. Miles Harrison, 49, was an amiable person, a diligent businessman and a doting, conscientious father until the day last summer — beset by problems at work, making call after call on his cellphone — he forgot to drop his son, Chase, at day care. The toddler slowly sweltered to death, strapped into a car seat for nearly nine hours in an office parking lot in Herndon in the blistering heat of July.

And if that article made you cry (which it will) you can watch this video for some cheering up:

There are two more featuring Trevor and Ryan. (Via Make the Logo Bigger >)

They imply that a perfect man knows more about pads than you do.  The Libra ads are hilarious because they do the opposite, make fun of how little men know.  The boy who gets his period campaign was loved by men because they think it shows that they can write tampon ads better than women. I don’t want to get into an essay on how terrible most menstruation ads are, but these are prime examples of why more *talented* women need to be given jobs in the creative advertising.

I’m not talking about giving people jobs purely based on gender, I am talking about the creative directors who haven’t given me (and plenty of other ladies) a chance because I’m not “one of the boys”.

Or maybe where I went wrong with those types was not washing my vagina with Summer’s Eve before the interview.

I can’t imagine Brian Tamaki’s following will take this very well, but no one has yet been killed for using his image in vein. On the other hand when Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons of Muhummad, their embassy in Pakistan was bombed. One 75 year old cartoonist will be in 24/7 police protection for the rest of his life because of the death threats and attempts against him.

What shocks me about these designs is not the derogatory way these figures are portrayed (haters gonna hate), but that someone actually pasted them up all around Auckland City:

Surely a poster which puts lives in danger breaches the advertising standards?

In reality Auckland has some great food, amazing beaches and lovely people. I am writing this guide so you can skip the dull bits and actually enjoy your stay in Auckland.

1.  I may be biased because I grew up here, but I think most people agree it’s a pretty great suburb which can be summed up in one word: gentrification. You can still grab a decent coffee at some of Ponsonby’s original grungy cafes, just look for arty names like Cezanne or Byzantine.

For the best food in the city go for Italian words; Bambina for breakfast and Prego or S.P.Q.R. for either lunch or dinner. One of the best things about NZ being a farming nation is even in the hippest part of the big city you eat delicious fresh (often organic) food. You can tell the waitress you liked your meal in Maori by saying “ka pai te kai” pronounced ”car pie tea k-eye”.

2.  About an hour north of the city are some of my favourite bits of the region. Goat Island has been a marine sanctuary since the 70s, you don’t have to swim very far from the beach to be surrounded by fish!

On the way there stop off at Matakana which is popular for it’s many vineyards and organic cafes.

3. Growing up I took black sand for granted, a whole side of Auckland’s coastline has it. After living in Australia for a while I have realised how incredible this phenomenon is. The best place to experience it is Muriwai Beach because you will also encounter spectacular wildlife such as the large gannet colony or seals.

You know how painful it is to touch a steering wheel when it’s been out in the sun all day? That’s what this sand is like, so wear closed shoes on hot days. Also remember to wear SPF30 sunscreen whatever the weather. Due to global pollution there is a hole in the ozone layer right above NZ. This means it’s very easy to get sunburned and the country has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. If you want to undo some of the damage done to our environment consider donating to the NZ Cancer Society >

4.  If you want a Haka there are plenty of places you can pay to see one performed. However if you want to experience real Maori culture I suggest you pay a visit to this Marae which is used daily by the Ngati Whatua, my adoptive Iwi! Although not technically open to the public if you go up during business hours you may be lucky enough to find someone who is happy to show you around.

The land which it sits on has a spectacular view of Auckland, and an intense history. Remember no shoes!

5.  After a day exploring you may want to get into bed and appreciate one of the country’s finest talents… advertising. We must have easily won the most international advertising awards, per capita. NZ is particularly good at TVCs. To watch some fantastic ads tune into primetime telly like Outrageous Fortune which currently airs 8.30pm Tuesday on TV3.

Is there anything that needs to be added to this list?

Top Sculpture: ‘Summit’ by Chinese artist Shen Shaomin.

This piece captured everything that fascinated me in Europe; display of glass coffins, Madame Tussauds and of course dead politicians. The first glass coffin I walked up to was Kim Il Sung and then I saw Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Vladimir Lenin. Without reading a blurb I instantly recoginised each leader from the fantastic wax modelling and could assume it was a meeting of the great Communist minds. I saw Andrea standing next to Fidel Castro and thought what is he doing here, wont he live forever? When I walked over I realised the model of Castro was not in a glass coffin, but on a makeshift hospital bed with air being pumped out his mouth as though he was breathing.

Amazing.

Top Photography:  ‘Goat Sluice’ by Kiwi artist Yvonne Todd

This exhibition had the perfect setting, an old lodge house which had 1960s wallpaper falling onto the floor. The slightly creepy portraits of teenage girls reminded me of Twin Peaks, especially the figure in “Goat Sluice” (left). Laura Palmer much?

Top Video: ‘The Feast of Trimalchio’ by Russian artists AES+F

We spend a long time sitting in a circular room with 9 screens playing this video. It was mesmorising and some how very relaxing. You can watch it on YouTube, but it has nowhere near the same effect:

I recently watched a documentary called We Live in Public, about an internet entrepreneur called Josh Harris who physically predicted future online trends. In the 90s he was often compared to Andy Warhol, but Josh knew people didn’t want 15 minutes of fame, they wanted to be famous all the time. In the days of dial-up he invented social media by creating an underground “hotel” where residents interacted through 24/7 surveillance. When he got sick of that project he and his girlfriend moved into an apartment with cameras everywhere and crowd sourced their lives.

Yes that’s right he did that way before rubix cube guy had the idea.

The amazing thing is no one has heard of Josh Harris. Even the CEO of MySpace had no clue who he was, and yet he pioneered web 2.0. Go watch the movie.

I feel Wave has fallen to a similar fate, too advanced and bold for it’s time. Sure it probably would have taken off it had integration with Gmail, but that’s not really the point. People are saying they predicted it would fail because of various faults with the interface, but the interface did no justice to it’s working capabilities. The back end of Wave was far beyond anything else currently available and I sure hope in 10 years the whole internet functions the way it does.

Will be interesting to see what the talented team behind it end up doing. Josh Harris has been long forgotten and is currently living in Ethiopia, it would be sad to see the Google Wave team fall into the same obscurity. (Hopefully Greg leaves Google to become the next Willy Wonka.)

To all you haters, I hope in a few years you have the hindsight to see Wave pioneered Web 3.0.

I saw some Haier billboards when I was back in my hometown, Ponsonby, which is now over run with hipsters.  At first I quite liked them because they do exactly what advertising should do; make a purchasing decision easier for the target market.

But then I thought you can’t really claim to be a hipster if you buy cheap Earth-hating appliances made in China.

Or if you drive a car:

This ad like the Haier ones has some fantastic insight into the target market. Probably because most ad creatives are hipsters themselves. But my guess is the target market simply isn’t looking into those categories.

Hipster ads can be great if your product is organic or eco-friendly.

And small bright blue cars were best advertised when everyone was into azn street battles:

Brew Dog

A full social media experience based around a couple of Scottish lads (who are part time furries) brewing the strongest beer in the world. There are different stories around each of their different lagers, and the one which has really taken off is “The End of History” which literally puts the stout in stoat. These limited edition taxidermy beers made the  sm rounds and quickly sold out:

Dos Equis

Following on from the Chuck Norris meets Old Spice guy TVCS > is this online treasure hunt. I pitched an idea similar to this a little while ago so it was a pleasant surprise to see it executed well by someone else. The premise is treasures are hidden in adspaces on different sites and there are rewards for collecting them:

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Pacifico

This is simply brilliant, just a webcam on a sign in Mexico. I’ve always liked the idea of having a real life billboard used as a website, but the crucial element I was missing is the live webcam on it. You can’t help but watch intently to see if someone will come to clean the “website’s fountain” or repaint the “website menu”. Love it:

“The idea is to have tasting sessions in which she would participate… They want to market tea to a new, younger generation – particularly in America, and Gaga is making drinking tea cool again.” via Stuff.co.nz >

(News to me and all the teacup collecting hipsters that drinking tea is not cool.)

It will be a great success for anti drinking campaigners if Lady Gaga gets American teenagers drinking tea instead of booze. However Long Island Iced is probably the closest compromise they will come to.

Any guesses as to what brewed Lady Gaga will taste like?

Sad to hear the Goldstein ads are over, but there are a few funny suggestions on how to end his career >