Fun and ads- updating the week

Learn math with the Simpsons.

Lots of tiles in Philly and New York. Toynbee idea in Kubrick's 2001 is the most common theme of them. Weird.

Commerical Alert wants to keep commercial culture in its proper sphere...whatever that means. Personally I have issues with this. These are probably the same folks who complain that they don't want their taxes raised to help their community schools get enough funding to properly educate their children. If the taxes aren't raised then the schools and other groups have to find funding some other way.

Five billboards showing Beckham's face have been covered with black cloths and the tv spots have been pulled.

Return of Napster - On the eve of its relaunch, the infamous file-trading company Napster appears to be defacing other companies' billboards with stickers of its distinctive kitty logo.The stickers -- showing a cat wearing headphones -- are appearing on street-level billboards, the kind that feature blocks of identical posters. (via dab)

Flash badgers are just weird. Heh. (via clay)

Ferocious animals with cute names are the faces of a £2.5m anti-smoking advertising campaign, created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, which aims to finally get over the message that low-tar cigarettes are just as lethal despite sounding otherwise. More details on the campaign can be viewed here.

Billboard bathroom ads and some of the new-fangled technology advertisers are experimenting, however, which leaves room for speculation. Take, for instance, talking billboards. This breed of bathroom billboards is equipped with motion-control sensors that set off audio recordings as unsuspecting people draw near. ABC News reported late last year that Zoom Media, a Montreal-based company, had placed LaBatt beer ads in nearly 150 bars and pubs in Canada and on university campuses. The audio components jarred a lot of people. One woman told the news program that, at first, she found the ads intrusive and annoying since mostly male voices were used. "It's jarring to hear a male voice in a woman's washroom," she said. One man, who was subjected to an ad that was made to sound like an answering machine with voices of family members, didn't like having to hear a message from "his mother" while he was urinating. Plus, he said, "they scared a lot of drunks at the urinals." Then there was former "Saturday Night Live" comedian, Norm McDonald, who was shocked and dismayed to learn several seasons ago that advertisers at ABC-TV had created talking billboards for public restrooms to promote his short-lived sitcom "Norm." McDonald told several reporters, including Post-Dispatch TV critic Gail Pennington, that he believed when making the recordings that they were not actually for public consumption. Furthermore, he was highly embarrassed by the vulgar, "must-pee TV" ads. I don't have a problem with bathroom ads, but I have a problem with talking ones. I can see why they would freak people out. I'd rather not hear voices while I pee.

Euro and the Dollar posters have been pulled in Russia. Great job on these. Shame they are taking them down.

New Subway spots get the thumbs down.

Brandalism taking over London and other major cities.

Labatt Blue flash fun. Reminds me a bit too much of a Corona setting though. But nice.