the curious case of booze

having never worked on a booze account myself, i've never been in a position to comment on their advertising "strategies" (defn annoying word people in my industry use as interchangeable with "plan", "forward-thinking", "reason we think our forward-thinking plan is right", "reason i should be considered more clever than you").

i simply could not comment.

that is, not until now.
you see, anyone living in SA would have seen the following (amongst others, i'm sure) on their home screens. watching these ads you realise that in order to market beer/cider (for the aussies, this is that stuff that tastes a lot like brak-water) all you need to do is tick one/some/all of the following boxes:


young black male

• must sound educated in oxford
• must be well dressed
• must smack of ambition and/ success
• preferably with a sculpted hair-do and don-your-sunnies white teeth
  

famous (preferably pre-90's) song - following in the footsteps of heineken / windhoek .. not sure?

• must be catchy
• must be a sing-a-long
• must have a chorus that compliments the rhythm of flicking off a bottle cap / pouring into a glass
  
• preferably something by johnny clegg (so as to jerk a patriotic tear)

something "bling-ola"

• cos "research" (defn insights you pay a company to generate through clinical trials) shows that "they" dig things that are shiny ... much like goats and crows
  

don't believe me?

• take castle lite's ice-ice baby executive
• castle lager's rainbow nation .. .good lord, don't even get me started ... "more than a feeeeeee-ling"
• hansa's wors entreprenuer who ends up going into space
• foundry's pyramid-licker
• hunter's global-warming solver "chilling your china's china"
• black label ... come now, do you need an example?

memory fails me as to who exactly started this trend - was it heineken's "quando-quando-quando-quandoooo"or windhoek's (pre-louis gossett jr ... thank goodness for that rejuvenation!) "i need you baby" ?

... and then there's amstel - who apparently, to celebrate their 140 years in the business, will be kind enough to give you a gold (coloured) foil neck.

thanks jer-a-miah

goodness me, but your cup doth runneth over!

why can't they just do this ... proof that white men can dance:



i'm just saying ...is all.

Wii se moer

okay so next to golfers discussing their swing on the 4th hole and top billing, tv games are pretty much up there in my top list of BO-ring things in life.

however i do have the highly-evolved skill of appreciating things are are actually interesting.

take this, a little ditty i put together, of a short history of gaming consoles (those of you who can identify these by name, need to get off the internet right now, go outside, climb a tree, throw a ball ... and who knows, you may just meet your first real friend).

okay so unless you've been living in dalstroom, you'll know the rest ... PS, PSII, PSIII, PStoo_much_money_and_find_it_hard_to_interact_with_real_homosapiens, Wii, Wii-Fit, X-box 360 ... blah blah dee blah fishpaste.

boys (and girls, i suppose) ... check this out

thanks daniel-son

take it. and go.

steri's stumped me

so my bestest one in all the land has been doing some festive things on the interweb and streets of the city, with a FABulous campaign that has taken an ou doos brand and given it a rather festive, cutting-edge cult following.

it be steri stumpie (i hear everyone has a flavourite).

look, i'm not going to lie - it's pretty weird to see a milkshake resurrect itself from the days of riaan cruywagen and the a-team,  only to emerge with a tweet account, a blog www.steri-stumpie.co.za, a facebook profile, brand ambassadors who are fakken strange individuals, two new flavours, an oom-pa band and a range of designer tshirts.


but because of all this and despite being lactose intolerant (defn "don't do diary") even i have found myself galishing at the thought of an ice cold choccie melk as part of my hang over rescue remedy.

now for those of you who are assuming i've been slipped some kind of sneaky-sneaky hand-in-pocket promo-payment, you'd be very mistaken.

no, i'm giving them airtime, in the desperate hope that NOW my  "best friend" will fling a tshirt my way.

i mean just look at this (ltd edition steri-inspired designs by levi's)

so there it is, my final plea for a dose of the radness.

these melk-terts at steri are pretty royal-upstanders mind you - even before they won their recent award at the acclaimed The Bookmarks, they've been clean of any bribery or lumps in their shake. 

guess i'll just have to watch from afar whilst society rewards the melkers 'n shakers amongst us.

monday's drinking lesson

i trust your weekend was festive? mine was spent bouncing between wine farms and restaurants in the 'hoek.  i have no idea how people stay thin or non-broke in that town. that's why i don't live there anymore (which implies i am thin and netting it - get it?)

but more tales of the 'hoek later ... btw, watch this space for the world first reveal of the-lady-gaga-impersonating-cock.  no that's not a freudian slip. i did that on purpose.

okay folks, time for monday's drinking lesson:

DID YOU KNOW?
the denty thumb hole at the bottom of a wine bottle is called a "punt".

*not to be confused with the afrikaans word for "pound" - pronounced "pont". which sounds alot like another (blush) very rude afrikaans word.

sies!
there - now you know. another gem to add to your dinner-time vocab. whip it out tonight (the word, I mean). i dare you.

things you should know

fab list of festive facts about the best, greatest, most rad, fantabulous country in the world ...

this is spec-hoff-ular!

"some people stand in the darkness, afraid to step into the light" but not the ol' hoff-meister. check this masterpiece out. i especially enjoy the cutting-edge graphic treatment and special effects. i know you will too.

it's not even a joke. which is why it's funny.

i heart chris rawlinson

and seen as we're in the propping kinda mood - check out my "sites to inspire and delight" sidebar

for the gentleman's blog: www.chrisrawlinson.com   

(what a gem-tleman)

walken sings "poker face"

there's so much to love about this clip ... the comedic genius that is walken, his dead pan face, the fact that he's a million times better at delivering this dreadful song than that daft gaga creature...

Christopher Walken sings "Poker Face" - watch more funny videos

thanks daniel-son, you continue to delight x

man, i wish someone would poke her  in the face ... me thinks a sharp stick oughta do the trick.

for those dying to know what my current ringtone is - watch the music video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlpvXOuIJT4

i'm pretty sure i shouldn't ... but

... it's inappropriate, totally unPC and fakken hilarious!

the fat fak up ... an update

since the last post under this title, we've learned that the people in the cape town office that have the power to give the Apostille stamp (set self reminder to find out how on earth you pronounce this!), lied to us when they said that they didn't have the power to give the stamp.

do you know those mo-fo's were going to make us send our papers to pretoria?!  anyway, sneaky and nimbled-toed footie managed to uncover the truth.  the kaapse vet koppe do actually offer the service.

so now we wait like sitting ducks (why do people say this? anybody every seen a sitting duck and thought - "man, that reminds me of this morning, when i was stuck in traffic") - for our two tiny pieces of government-sponsored paper to be returned to SA, so we can take it down to these kaapse vet koppe and get them to tie a satin ribbon around the certificate and seal it wiff a pretty wax stamp.

had i known that the skills i was learning in my 2nd grade craft class could have risen me to the Apostille Stamp-giver power seat, lord knows i would have made some very different career decisions ...