$550 very specious Brooklyn apt. to share

At least they’re honest, just like my previous spammer.

Aside from being updated only four times in two months (!), the site is woefully underwhelming. The newest innovation? A photo mosaic of Destiny’s Child made completely out of thousands of pictures of other celebrities. Both the subject and the technological method are over a decade old.

Next on the list is an obnoxious flash application about iPhone “killer apps” that doesn’t fit on the screen, is hardly navigable, and which forces you to watch commercials. No, thanks.

After that is a 360 panorama from Venice. Again, late-90s stuff here.

I have been trying to believe this is some sort of April Fool’s joke that won’t die, but sure enough the “innovation” blog is still linked to on the front page of the Post’s website. Who the hell on their web dev team came up with these ideas? Creating blurry pictures of celebrities and obnoxious flash interfaces are not going to save newspaper journalism. In fact, it just drives away serious users and seriously damages the credibility of a once-venerable institution.

Update: Seems the Post “accidentally” tried to sell access to its reporters and to Obama administration officials. Now that’s innovation.

I find television to be very educating.  Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.  -Groucho Marx

For example, the new TurboTax commercial. In an advertising binge, Intuit has created a series of ads featuring Ben Franklin, Ulysses S. Grant, and Andrew Jackson*, stars of the $100, $50, and $20 bills, respectively. Here’s the twist: they are painted green as if they just stepped out of their pointillist portraits from our most-coveted currency. Ignoring the fact that the front of all US bills are printed in black (hence the term greenbacks), the TurboTax marketing team have presented us with a terrible alternate reality.

As you can see in the above video, our two relatively forgotten presidents and one founding father are presented as helpful zombies who are looking out for the common man by offering advice on various fiscal matters.

If there is one thing that George Romeo has taught me, it’s that if the reanimated corpse of old Benny shows up at your door backed by Grant and Jackson, you don’t invite them in and discuss IRS statutes, no matter how helpful they seem. Club them on the head and flee to your nearest windowless basement with a bat and a radio. If the zombie apocalypse does befall us, my last worry will not be how much I’m saving on taxes; it will be whether I need to bludgeon my best friend to death before he’s transformed by the bite he got trying to be a hero.

In short, get a new angle, Intuit. Drop the dead presidents before the US becomes inured to the undead threat.

As an aside, this is the first video I ever captured from TV and uploaded to YouTube. I’m ashamed that I went to the trouble, come to think of it.

*Jackson’s bank policy is looking mighty attractive now, aren’t they?

As if watching the idle rich being paid to be even more idle isn’t stupid enough, the commercial ends with the gentle command to “CELEBRATE ORIGINALITY.” What better way to do so than to wear the same clothes as everyone else?

Once I spotted it, I couldn’t believe how simple it was. Some choice items from their online catalog look strikingly similar to Mormon undergarments. To wit:

Popular items from American Apparel
vs.
Popular items from your local LDS temple

As you can see, the two differences are that the American Apparel designers have taken the huge leap of using dye and that Mormons prefer flowery backdrops for their glamor shots.

After some research, I discovered that one of the groups uses these sacred garments as an outward showing of their devotion to a peculiar and exclusive religion. So do the Mormons; the only difference being that they refuse to wear them in public.