If you love pranks, or are just an a$$hole and want to piss off/lose your friends, you may or may not want to check out CalltheFuture.org, a unique service that until April Fools’ Day, I had never heard of. Sure, I’m a little late bringing to the site, but this is still worth addressing for all y’all Dillas out there.
Before I get started, however, let me state that CalltheFuture makes it clear that their service is not to be used for pranks. I personally would never do this, nor advocate it, but that doesn’t mean my buddy (who will remain nameless) wouldn’t… So again, I’m not advocating this– just bringing some interesting knowledge I happened across to the Dillasphere.
CalltheFuture’s service is marketed as a tool to help people remind themselves about important future engagements, from meetings and appointments to other responsibilities, allowing users to schedule “courtesy” calls in the future to any phone number they choose at any given time. In theory, this could be very useful, such as if I have to pick up my buddy from the airport at 3pm a week from now and I’m worried I might forget– I can just schedule a call for 12 noon that day to remind me. Sweet, right? Just type in a string of text you want read to you, plug in the phone number you want to call, type in the number you want to show up as the caller ID(!), and choose one of 7 voices (male or female, aged 30-55) you want to read your text. The rest, as they say, is magic.
Sure, CTF can be useful, but the possibility of tomfoolery is large. My advice is this: don’t not not pull pranks on your friends, such as setting up calls to your roommate at 5am daily, or programming nasty calls to your ex-girlfriend every hour on the hour.
That’s right: all the years of wondering can finally be answered in one easy quiz. It’s good to know that those annoying yet wildly entertaining online quizzes haven’t gone anywhere!
To drum up excitement for the upcoming Olympic games, and to tap into the audiences that watch Lost and still remember (enjoy?) playing Myst, a new online game called The Lost Ring emerged in late February. The New York Times recently featured an interesting article about the hidden sponsorship of the game, players around the world, and the relatively cheap cost of orchestrating worldwide phenomena. (Interestingly enough, the article was written on April Fools Day, so it’s unclear whether anyone took the review seriously).
The game apparently started with 50 bloggers who knew all those sleepless nights spent online had finally paid off, but has now gotten big enough that there are wikis, podcasts and players collaborating around the world to piece together the story and pick up hidden clues left in cities around the world. The game will culminate during the opening ceremony of the Olympics with some sort of tie-in. You can catch up and join in the fun at The Lost Ring Wiki.
Folks, if you’re ever in need of some groovy music and/or video or are looking to expand your musical horizons, particularly on a slow working day, check out my boy Max Abelson’s Super Groovy Music/Video Spectacular (aka “Max Abelson and His Funktified Flying Fortress of Fantastic Videos of Music”– these phrases are copyrighted, folks!).
Each day, Max and his gang of Oompa Loompas over at Tumblr pour through the series of tubes that is the Internet and find awesome, old media content that I personally could never find on my own. The programming schedule roughly breaks down as follows:
Mondays: ’60s
Tuesdays: ’70s
Wednesdays: ’80s
Thursday: ’90s
Friday: ’00s
Saturday/Sunday: ????
Today, for instance, check out the throwback to Gilberto Gil, from 1967. The video quality may not always be great, but the material Max comes up with certainly is.
2006: As some of you may remember, Chevy trucks thought they’d create a cyber-hip-20-somethings ad campaign where you could make your own Chevy Tahoe commercial . . . and it backfired in a major way.
I planned on submitting this fine Photoshop project below, until I discovered that you have to use stupid Facebook Graffiti to do all of your artwork. Dammit!
The up sides to Muxtape:
• You can make a virtual mixtape, to let everyone know that you have better musical taste than they do.
• It’s free.
• It is elegantly simple, super-user-friendly, and setting up an account is free of ass-pain.
The down sides:
• To create a Muxtape, uploaded music must be in mp3 format.
• I miss putting stickers and homemade artwork all over mixtape cassettes.
• If you were born after 1980, you won’t truly understand the nostalgia of mixtapes.
Bonus Round: The book “Mix Tape” by Thurston Moore.
Rolling Rock Beer recently rolled out an interesting and cool interactive advertisingMOONVERTISINGcampaign, allowing users to create their own advertisements on the moon. Blogadilla reader Ben sent me this cool one, designed specially for us– thanks bro!
There are a few items that have yet to make it to their list:
#97 - Having to take conventional things and make them ‘Christian,’ as if everything in the secular world is just too damn corrupt or dangerous or just not magical enough.
#99 - Incessantly talking about being Christian in a self-congratulatory manner, to the point of making unimaginative blogs about it.
A long, long time ago (1998 to be exact) and in anticipation of the release of the first of three Star Wars prequels, toy maker Jason Deyer and his buddy Steve Ross were approached to design ‘Dealer Loaders’ for promotions and giveaways. But because they were ‘unapproved vendors’ (AKA not part of George Lucas’ monolith) Jason and his friend had to base their designs on the original trilogy.
You can check out the original drawings on Jason’s blog, Action Figure Insider, and you also can hear an interview about his trials and tribulations on NPR. Make sure to check out NPR’s Bryant Park Project page on the Star Wars merchandise, here. (Click ‘Listen Now’ for the interview).
Everyone’s favorite dirty word has become a vandalism movement.
With the use of stickers saying “F•CK,” any public sign can become a punchline.
Behold the four-letter fury of F•ckThisWebsite.com
[language NSFYFW - Not Safe For Your Fucking Work]
Over the past few years, most all companies have made the shift to the Internet, creating domain names and webpages to advertise their business and expand their reach. Clearly, however, not all domain names are created equal, and as is the case with the following sites, not very much thought was put into the selection of their respective domain names:
A site called ‘Who Represents’ where you can find the name of the agent that represents a celebrity. Their domain name… wait for it…whorepresents.com.
The Beeskit team has a nice video gallery of their sociological “missions” and art projects throughout Seoul, South Korea. “Free Punch” and “Elevator Workout” are two personal favorites.
FreeRice.com gives you a word and 4 possible defitions. Answer correctly and they donate 20 grains of rice to feed the hungry through the UN World Food Progam. It’s that easy.
Rock beats Scissors Scissors cuts-up Sponge Sponge soaks Dynamite Dynamite explodes Monkey Monkey flings poop at Man Man disproves Alien Alien vaporizes Rock
It goes without saying that there are certain things that white people love (usually because no one else wants to go near these things for good reason). Stuff White People Like is dedicated to chronicling the things that affluent white people go berzerk about:
• #74 - Oscar Parties
• #67 - Standing Still at Concerts
• #64 - Recycling
• #63 - Expensive Sandwiches
• #62 - Knowing What’s Best for Poor People
• #60 - The Toyota Prius
• #57 - “Juno”
• #49 - Vintage Clothing
• #47 - Arts Degrees
• #45 - Asian Fusion Food
• #44 - Public Radio
• #36 - Breakfast Places
• #28 - Not Having a TV
• #25 - David Sedaris
• #21 - Writer’s Workshops
• #17 - Hating Their Parents
• #16 - “Gifted” Children
• #11 - Asian Girls
• #10 - Wes Anderson Movies
• #5 - Farmers Markets
• #1 - Coffee
