If there is a better song from 2007…

…than Spoon’s “Black Like Me”, then I haven’t heard it yet.

Spoon performing Black Like Me on Leno

“Mr. Whipple” Dies

Dick Wilson, the actor who played the Charmin ad icon Mr. Whipple, has died at the age of 91. I imagine Kelly O’Keefe is pretty saddened by the news, whereas Luke Sullivan may have smiled a little. So long, Mr. Whipple.

It’sa Me…Mario!

Today marks the release of the latest Super Mario platformer, Super Mario Galaxy. It’s hard to believe that Mario is such a big figure in the videogame world since appearing in the original Donkey Kong game 26 years ago. I wasn’t around then, but I was in 1985 when Super Mario Bros. was released for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Ok, so I was two at the time and I probably didn’t play SMB until 1988, but when I did I played the shit out of it. My friends and I got so excited when we played that we wouldn’t be able to sit down and play; we would stand up and whenever we made Mario jump, we jumped with him. Fast forward to 2007, and I play Nintendo Wii standing up, moving around, and with the same enthusiasm I had as a kid.

My first “big” consumer purchase was Super Mario Bros. 3, which I bought at Toys ‘R’ Us after saving up my allowance and birthday money. I won an inflatable Mario at a carnival and used that to decorate my bike for a 4th of July contest. I won the contest, and I am sure Mario had a hand in that. Last year for Halloween my roommates and I dressed up as characters from Super Mario Bros. I was Luigi, not Mario, but close enough. I even grew a real mustache for the role. That’s dedication. The fact that I have very vivid memories of my childhood that involve Mario is a testament to how great of a character he really is. I would not be surprised if Mario is still alive and kicking (and jumping and throwing fireballs) when I have kids of my own.

BONUS NERDERY: A rapper named Random put out an album this year where he rhymes over beats constructed from sounds and music from the Mega Man series. It’s called Mega Ran and you can get it on iTunes. Another rapper who goes by the name ytcracker released an album with beats from other NES games. You can download for free here.

I’m Screwed

There was an article on Yahoo! today about the top 25 entrepreneurs under 25, and I learned about an ad company called Aarrow Advertising. Here is the description of the company given in the article: “Athletic routines that involve manipulating six-foot-long arrow-shaped advertisements.” Sounded crazy, so I checked out their website. I realized I have seen these guys on Broad St. twirling around signs for Healthy Back. They do some pretty crazy moves, and it’s a great way to get people to pay attention to those people who are paid to hold signs on the side of the road. Normally they’ll just do some stupid dance, but it’s not as cool as some of the acrobatic moves Aarrow employees can do. I can’t do that. If this is what is in store for me in my ad career, then I’m screwed.

Perhaps most interesting is a lot of these guys record themselves or get their friends to record their tricks. They post videos on YouTube to try to one-up each other. You can check out some videos here. It’s like those old skate videos, but with sign spinning.

Here is a documentary on sign spinning called “Spinnergy.”