found at Ignite, Camps Bay

crazy twinnage. with rieshdah in the middle.

websites that have been eating up my time.

Creativity Online is like the Daily News for anyone who works in and around the ad industry. Filled with interesting snacks of marketing related info.

Stormhoek’s just won an award for doing some innovative marketing. This is their blog, which is good reading. It’ll make you relook how you approach your product’s positioning, and rightly so. Big up to these guys and the work they’ve done with Cerebra.

Mike Stopforth’s blog is always worth checking out, especially if you’re confused by the whole web 2.0 thing (what does that really mean? etc etc). Dig around here for some easily accessible information and case studies, in normal, non-tech speak. Super cool.

There’s been talk of RCRD LBL  for a while now but it’s finally up and running. If you’re single and lame like me you’ll want to set aside a friday night – okay, a sunday afternoon – for this gem. For those genuinely interested in the music industry.

And then I’m still twittering. This program is something you’ll only get into digging once you bother to sign up and use it. But it’s making marketers all abuzz at the moment since the word ‘micro marketing’ came onto the scene.

And lastly, Superfuture is not new, but it keeps me coming back. You’ll see why.

what i’m drinking at the moment

love it. vodka with vaguely sparkling lime spring water. not very sweet at all.

why i bought the car i bought.

a lot of people have been asking ‘why’d you buy the toyota yaris’ so i thought i’d do a bit about it.

first things first, the obvious car in that category to buy would be the renault clio. since every young professional i’ve ever known has bought into the clio vibe, i just couldn’t do it because it didn’t make me feel like a pioneer, like i had discovered a product all for myself. also, to be honest, i find their advertising seriously patronising… not sure about the clio’s stuff specifically but the megane’s pseudo-french ‘Shake your Booty’ – seriously? you really want me to buy your car so i can shake my booty? just thinking the words ’shake your booty’ makes me cringe. no deal. as for the actual car itself – the ads created some serious barrier to access, couldn’t bring myself to test drive one. pity, coz they’re lookers, the renaults.

the peugeot 207 was tempting, although my peugeot-owner friends are never satisfied with service quality, or attention to customer complaints, or even with the quality of the car. they’re an unhappy lot, though i believe service has improved in SA of late. as sexy as the brand is, i’m not at the point where i can afford to mess around on basics like, does the car work?

next on the list is VW Polo, which are cute little cars but i find VW to be quite outdated on the whole. also every second person drives them. that, and the fact that they get stolen all the time – not really practical in South Africa. again, i’m not at the point where i want to be messing around with insurance companies who may or may not pay out.

then we have the Hyundai Getz, and while it’s a rad little car it’s still a Hyundai and i don’t want to be like the girl in the ad who keeps telling Officer Bob to take his hand out the window. i’m also not a fan of the body shape – too square and clanky. ‘clanky’ is just the word that comes to mind when i look at the Getz.

also on the list are Fiat’s offerings but their body design is also completely unappealing to me so i didn’t even go there. the Multipla nearly made me choke on my own tongue when i first saw it – awful.

a close contender was the Ford Fiesta, because of the value for money and the many happy customers i know. while i was looking for a car my friend Kate was too, and she ended up with the Fiesta, but having driven around in hers i found the Yaris to be infinitely more spacious inside. again, Yaris beats Ford when looking at something as shallow as the body. but i am shallow like that, and it was a close call.

Opel Corsa - the new shape is better than the old one, though my ex boyfriend bought a corsa and we want to move forward in life, no? also it’s a bit pricey for what you’re getting. though the car i traded in was an Opel and exceptionally reliable. don’t have much bad to say about the car except for the associations with an old life.

those were the cars i looked at. the other little mini toys cars out there are not really cars in my opinion, and a major factor that i haven’t mentioned yet is safety – i am safety obsessed, therefore the airbags and side impact beams and high mounted engine in the front all working towards keeping me in one piece while out on SA roads made me very happy with my purchase. and the Yaris is the nicest design of all the hatches out there are present in my opinion, barring the peugeot, although their headlights are looking rather beady-eyed in comparison to how the other manufacturers have put a spin on what was their trademark.

and now you know.

*Update* I also first took a liking to Toyota during the final montage of the final episode of 6 Feet Under, where everyone dies and Claire drives off in a  Toyota Prius. 6 Feet Under is one of my all time favourite shows, and that scene also got me thinking about hybrids and the feasibility of environmentally aware cars being normal and for the first time seriously considering driving one.

Brian McCarty, toy photographer

found at NotCot.

dear sony

please make it so that i can download the songs i choose to sing on singstar. please make the songs cheap, and also please make it compatible with your PS2 console because the PS3 one is just way too expensive, plus i have already bought Nintendo Wii and i just don’t have it in me to buy another one.

thanks, Alex

“don’t cry we’ll make you a design”

Says an SA Creative Collective that hails from Jozi called TeamUnCool“. here’s some of the stuff they do:

chinxxx is an electronica dj and producer it would seem (described on the site as OI-LEE – drawing + flash animation + live visuals + kungfu kicks + huggs) and has all these rad pics and gifs on her myspace. worth a peek.

and this is designer / illustrator / sound designer kidu’s I Love Zulu book:

and Chris Saunders who is a photographer:

more wine on the move

looks like the cloop – as the sound of a cork leaving the bottle is called – is soon going to be one of those things we tell our kids about while they look at us funny. here’s some new packaging for arniston bay and versus.

somewhere, a brand manager spills his coffee on his lap

like, the guys at wklondon said, this video of Pete Doherty shooting heroine probably isn’t what McD’s had in mind when the signed up to sponsor the viral video of the day. found on The Sun’s homepage by these folk.

want: rings by Olive Green Cat

see more of their stuff on their website.

cool stuff seen around

these ginger sweets are awesome and quite spicey. from the chinese shop in town.

then this incredibly strange cat stationary arrived in the post for me, from a childhood friend living in korea who knows i like lolcats. Choo Choo Season II (they clearly have ’seasons’ within their stationary series) is done with such detail and filled with delightful choo-isms one feels the need to warn the folks over at Hello Kitty. i spent about an hour laughing about it. a good way to start a week.

and this is lauren beukes and matthew brown’s kitchen – stunning, though the whole house is stunning.

got a new vehicle. thanks toyota.

and it’s a yaris! and it’s black, and i had that anti smash-and-grab film put on the windows it so it’s also quite gangster. which i quite like. anyhow nobody told me buying insurance was as painful as it was. standard bank originally quoted me R700 odd, and then told me flat out i wouldn’t get a better rate. so i called first for women, and they offered me R426 monthly premium, which is a lot better. then i went to dial direct who gave me the best rate, R416 a month with a R1 575 excess.

note that none of them told me i could bring my excess down by adjusting my monthly premiums, which is quite dodge, i think. it was sitting at R2 500 before i asked about it. all’s well that ends well and dialdirect got my business. i quite like the fact that most insurance comes with perks, like free roadside assistance etc etc. i didn’t know that they did.

so, i got my black Yaris T3+ on Friday. it’s a great little car but it feels enormous inside. very bubble and safe-feeling. and you also sit quite high on the road, which i enjoy. and i like anything that wins rafety rating contests. i also like pretty things and do believe it’s the nicest looking of that category hatch at the moment.

rad phone

jenny just got her upgrade. it’s shiney and silver and like a compact mirror. say hello to the samsung U700. i’m not saying i’m dissatisfied with my nokia N73 but you know… it’s so pretty.

cool stuff seen around

rad sticker on shirley’s locker

naughty pens painting by james b hannah, found at paige’s place

chandelier, also at paige’s place. stunning, is vintage, i <3 it.

this is a waterproof book especially for summer by the pool – you can wet it and drop it in the shallows and still read it, rocking. last summer i managed to drop Shantaram into the pool twice, so it bloomed like a flower and became unreadable. although you have to have wrists like a man to handle that book.

Amo’s Birthday Treasure Hunt

it was Amo’s birthday yesterday and Ruth came up with this idea that we should make her work for her presents. or at least run around a bit. so we each got her a gift and wrapped it and her first gift was a clue, which hinted at the next person’s desk where the gift would be hidden. with each gift was another clue, so she had to hop from desk to desk. we followed her around like a crowd of paparazzi, and every time she found a gift we all yelled YAY and it was good times. here are some pics:

and ruth, mastermind of the adventure