Shaq in Orlando

So James Cameron was on Charlie Rose a little while back. He was there to talk about, what else, Avatar. He "addressed" a lot of the complaints about the film, including the exploitation of the noble savage archetype, the simplistic storyline, and the horrendously cliched everything.

But most importantly, right at the beginning of the interview, he makes it very clear that the environmental message of the movie (which I have written about quite a bit on this blog) was the reason he wanted to make it in the first place.

Especially interesting is that he claims that the omnipresent force of evil that any filmmaker will name drop when they want to sound victimized, "The Studio," attempted to interfere with the film, and get him to downplay its environmental message.

Apparently, such a thematic element can cost a major commercial film half of its profit. If that is the case, then I suppose you can just tack on at least another 2 billion to Avatar's gross.

At this point, Cameron surely told "The Studio" something along the lines of, "BITCH, I'M JAMES MAFUCKIN' CAMERON! I MADE TITANIC! STEP OFF!" And the film's theme stayed unabridged.

But check it out, he actually talks a lot about the inherent failings of industrialized societies, our collective denial as a civilization, and a lot of other sustainable themes. He even comes off remotely knowledgeable. But he still kinda seems like a douche.



It's a great interview, as one's conducted by Charlie Rose usually are.

31

If you are at all interested in biting satire, you're probably already a fan of Futurama. As it was a program of undeniable quality broadcast on the FOX television network, it was, naturally, cut down in its prime.

Although, given the lackluster nature of the four full-length films that would follow the show's cancellation, maybe it was for the best. Perhaps it is better to go out guns blazing, rather than die a slow, painful, excruciating death.

Death being a metaphor for decline into mediocrity. I shouldn't poke fun. A recent episode of the Simpsons was actually quite good. (This was largely thanks to a Julius and Ethel Rosenberg joke that freaking kills it.)

Where am I going with this? Nowhere, as usual.

But there's a particular episode of Futurama known as "Crimes of the Hot." A satirical condemnation of humanity's inability to achieve true sustainability even 1000 years in the future, the episode also features one of the best robot sex jokes ever.

And who can forget the best explanation of Global Warming ever:

SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!

Question: If the 1974 Democratic National Committee had made it's headquarters in L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, would every pseudo-scandal be affixed with the suffix -fant?

Por ejemplo: "Oh man! Did you here about the entire football team getting arrested for embezzlement? Holy god man. Get ready for Footballfant!"

Not only does that not make any sense, (notice -fant isn't actually a suffix, but just the latter half of the word L'Enfant) it just sounds dumb. So the next time there are rat droppings at Denny's (Hot Cake-Gate) or when a 1938 Parisian ballet turns out to be an international drug smuggling ring (GaîtéGate) just call it something else.

That said, I am pained to bring you what professional journalists, scientists and ass-clowns have dubbed "ClimateGate." (That repeated banging you're hearing is my head against my wall)

Basically what happened, before the anti-grammar heathens got their grubby, anti-grammatical hands on the issue, was that a some scientists fudged a bunch of data about the climate crisis, tried to cover it up, and got caught when someone hacked into their email accounts. Long story short: The Himalayas will still be there when Will Smith is saving the earth from a robot uprising.

Uh... I couldn't find a place to put this link in the last sentence, so... SPLADOW!

So while this is pretty troubling, it is nice to know that scientists are just as dumb as the rest of us sometimes. And it sure puts OdenGate in perspective. (If you don't know, you don't want to, so I won't link to it. But you probably know.)

It just seems so easy to understand the effect that mass-scale industrialization is going to have on an ecosystem. It boggles the mind that some people are so resiliently ignoring simple logic in favor of wide-sweeping generalizations. And it's really quite unfortunate that such a key piece of supposed "scientific evidence" has been proven to be fraudulent. It just gives the naysayers more ammunition.

One last note: I can't decide if this is sad or scary.

29

What's good?

Reese's Puffs, Arvydas Sabonis, and public transportation.

The new Aliens vs Predator game is pretty great too.

But let's talk public transportation. It's great. Coming from Portland, I've been completely spoiled by the fantastic MAX light rail system and pretty decent bus system.

There are a few minor faults, but it's safe to say that Portland got it right.

Houston? Not so much.



As bad as those drivers appear to be, that is just excruciatingly poor city planning. A light rail system on the inside lanes? WHAT? Really? Okay. Cool. Whatever you say.

In a related note, Houston's bike lanes are serpentine, and weave in and out of lanes of oncoming traffic.

28

wha... um... so yeah. Not gonna lie on this one. Totally expected to be able to write this during the Blazers game. You see, as we're playing Utah, and I was preparing to get rolled.

But it looks like Los Blazers are channeling a little magic from the legendary Double Uno, and have actually showed up to play. This will make my concentration on the blog wane.

I'm going to give it a shot anyway. So I was recently doing some thinking about sustainability and... oh nice, guy in a Wu-Tang shirt in the front row! WU WU WU!

Aw, damn. There I go again. Back on track.

A lot of the criticism directed at greenwashers focuses on the insincerity inherent to the messages that these organizations proliferate. God that Charles Barkely Taco Bell commercial is fucking awful. That has to be the worst commercial I've seen in a long time. It's eye-stabbingly bad.

On the other hand, Miller Lite's new commercial is hilarious. Spoofing dating site commercials has never been done so expertly. It almost, ALMOST, makes up for the atrociously bad other ad in the campaign. You know the one I mean? The one where the girl decides to tell the guy she loves him at a bar right after he said something about monkeys? Stupid.

And I've got to give a shout out to the Kia Sorento Super Bowl Ad.



Big ups to The Heavy! They're about to blow up.

Well now I've got to figure out I was talking about before all that.

Criticism of greenwashers. Right. So like I was saying, there's a lot of talk about the insincerity of green messages; people question (rightfully so) whether or not generalizations are made about business practices; if certain policies are highlighted while others may be brushed under the rug of ambiguity.

Ultimately, what the criticism comes down to is a plea for transparency among greenwashers. People just want to see honesty in advertisers BATUM WITH THE BLOCK!!! OOO WEE!

I warned you.

Transparency in advertising is kind of like...

Oh dammit. I hand something for this.

Well, they're like two things that that don't go together well.

I do think that requiring a high level of transparency being imposed on advertisers would naturally make those companies improve the social and environmental responsibilities. Imagine if every company in U.S. had to post their energy expenditures, pollution levels and waste volumes on a monthly basis, along with a whole handful of other easily digestible statistics.

MMMMM... Statistics. Everybody loves them.

In all seriousness though, that level of openness about business and industrial practices would force companies to, for lack of a better word, behave. No one is going to feel too good about buying from a company that pollutes their favorite river with 200 gallons of diabolically deadly neuro-toxious-pain-induction-serum every month. Get your goggles.




Who knows, people might even be prompted to some sort of socially beneficial action.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

30-3

I think the most interesting thing I took away from Adam Werbach's talk was that he seemed adamant that greenwashing was on the way out.

While I respect his opinion, I've got to say that I think this is more than a little naive. I would guess that we have a bit more time until brands stop greenwashing. Increasing consumer awareness does not instantly equate to corporate transparency, as he seemed to feel was the case. I would posit that this intellectual upsurge among the masses will be simply be met with an intellectual upsurge in greenwashing tactics.

Werbach is totally right about the days of slapping a green leaf on your labels makes you "green" in the consumers' eyes. Those days are gone, because the consumer has definitely gotten much more wary of environmentally friendly* messages.

*"Humans are a part of the environment. And it's friendly as hell to us! BOOSH!"

But just because brands can't get away with the ol' leafy green label business any more, doesn't mean they're going to stop looking for ways to skirt actually changing.

Stuff like the Chevron ad discussed in class will become the norm. Where brands encourage employees to bike to work and shit, then put out an ad talking about "human power." So it's like,

"Aww... That's nice. They bike to work, eat local, put solar panels up, and adopt, like, NINE puppies A DAY! They're so socially conscious. I'm going to use Xe for all my PMC needs!

Wait a minute... They kill people for money."

But that is just my overbearingly pessimistic view of things. Maybe (I'd certainly hope) Werbach is right. Lord knows he probably gets the benefit of the doubt, because of, like, the years of experience, the book under his belt, not to mention the whole "actually being a part of the industry" thing.

But I could've done that stuff. But, it's like, SOMEBODY has to make sure video games get played.

26

Escape from IDEO on Vimeo.

This video is featured on Ideo's homepage, so I just thought I would talk a little about it.

More like RANT a little bit about it! HAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, how I love my rants.

I think this presents a very interesting solution to a potential energy shortage in a world without fossil fuels. I find it odd though, that the creators of this little ditty of a motion comic choose to forgo the obvious solution to this problem:

Hamsters running on wheels.

I mean, it's like, "Duh!" Those little bastards can book! Mad energy be created, yo.

All joking aside, this is a pretty fascinating take on a human-centered, electric-powered future. The only question I have is whether or not people would actually be willing to do that.

We, as a society, seem to have developed a severe case of monumental laziness, coupled with a generation of crippling apathy, and I wonder if people would have the drive to power their computer by foot pump.

But I certainly like the idea of charging batteries by attaching them to generators on play structures and bikes. That's pretty cool. It's nice to think that, in future generations, see-saws may be seen as a beneficial element of society, rather than implements of death and pain.

Quarter

Of all the issues plaguing true sustainability models, the problem of getting consumers to consume less shines brighter than all the rest. Spelunkers spelunk, ballers ball and consumers consume. It's just kind of the way it goes.

We operate inside a worldview that allows for the grandiose to thrive and the minuscule to perish. Bigger is better. Size does matter. Less is most certainly not more. This cultural mandate has been inculcated to our psyche since birth.

So how do you, the sustainable brand, reverse this thinking? How do you get people to think the exact opposite of what they have been told to think ever since their collective eyes first bore witness to this world?

Um... You don't. It's too late. The only option left is not giving them a choice.

Take the video game industry, for example. Time was, when a fella wanted to pick up a game for his personal computer, he would have to lug his ass down to his local retailer, pick up a ridiculously sized cardboard box, which contained any number of CDs, bring it back to his house, and install the discs on his computer one at a time.

Then, manufacturers wised up. Turns out you didn't need a box eight times the size of a CD case. Packages got smaller, and around the same time, the advent of DVDs eliminated the need for a game to have five install discs, all those gigabytes of gamey-goodness could fit on a single DVD!

But you still had to go to the damn store! I know. Shit was a pain in the ass. Luckily, the internet age came to be around this time, and Amazon.com maed retailers all but obsolete. But what about all that messy packaging? And now it came wrapped in an extra layer of shipping nonsense?

Dammit, I can't go tiring my fingers out opening shit up! I need them for precious gaming!

Don't worry, sweet gamer. The internet one-upped itself yet again. Why order a game through the internet, only to have to wait for delivery, and then, on top of that, STILL have to open a package? I call bullshit. There has to be a lazier way to get video games.

Once hardware manufacturers decided that hard drives didn't have to be, like, four gigs, a flourish of massive hard drives made downloading entire games directly to one's computer a reality. THANK GOD!

With the release of Half-Life 2, preeminent video game developer Valve not only revolutionized video games (Half-Life 2 = Best game ever - I'll fight you if you disagree), but the way people get them. They launched their digital distribution network, Steam, allowing people to download any of Valve's games.

Other developers caught on quickly. Valve's Steam now acts as a digital distributor for nearly every major video game released on PC. With bonuses like lower prices (publishers don't have to pay manufacturing costs), and instant access to games (pre-downloads allow users to download a game before it is released and activate it on the official release day), Steam has made video game retailers a thing of the past.

While criminal organizations like Gamestop will still be able to profit for a few more years by selling used games, the fact that all major video game consoles are now following Steam's lead and having digital distribution as a viable alternative to retail discs means Gamestop's days are numbered.

Which actually makes me quite happy. I loathe Gamestop and it's company wide mandate of flooding every retail outlet with a gaseous grease. Seriously. Step inside ANY Gamestop. It's disgusting.

Video game retailers continue to close down left and right, and video rental stores like Blockbuster are not far behind.

Oh, and a quick hint to movie studios: Including a "digital copy" of a movie in a DVD package may be the most horrifically bad marketing strategy ever devised. Just bite the bullet and open a Steam-like distribution network.

The age of digital distribution is upon us, so just sit back and wait for a couple of T-800s to come get you.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR....


So, in a roundabout way, the video game industry has convinced its consumers to consume less. The film industry could choose to ignore its historical opposition to even the slightest modicum of change and follow suit, saving a whole hell of a lot of packaging (as well as actual discs) from being:

1. Created
2. Lightly used
3. Forced into obsolescence
4. Discarded

While this can't work for any product, (There's no way to digitally distribute alcohol - yet) it is a viable option for any entertainment medium, be it book, magazine, movie or game. And similar steps can be taken by other products; encasing electronics in carbonite is not a necessary packaging step.

Triple Ocho

National Geographic's The Green Guide is a perplexing thing.

The homepage still sports a "green gift guide" for the holidays, and the most recent highlighted stories appear to indicate semiannual updating. On top of that, most of the site's cautionary material falls nicely into the category of: "No shit."

Obviously carbon offsets are a scam. This seems like pretty basic knowledge. But the site does get propers for equating them to modern day indulgences. Remember when the Catholic Church did that? Ah. Those were the days.

It was one of those things where I'm reading the article where they quote some gentleman of science as he points out the carbon offset-indulgence dynamic, and I get quite infuriated that it was not I who came up with the analogy. I mean, what is 13 years of Catholic education worth if I can't make a simple correlation between carbon offsets and the systematic fleecing of 16th century Catholics?

Nothing. That's what.

Long story short: Good analogy, Mr. Roger Pielke Jr.

So what prevents The Green Guide from being fed into the the maw of the ever-feasting hound known as thought-leader scorn?

Sheer effort. Like the kid sitting in the front of class every day, taking exhaustive notes and feverishly committing every lecture to memory that is still going to fail because math just isn't his thing, The Green Guide tries so damn hard.

It has buying guides for every product and service imaginable (because I know you're wondering, right now, whether or not your mattress could be greener), green traveling tips, and a whole slew of FAQs, which actually contain a a rather unexpected quantum of useful factoids.

Some more useful than others.

"How does harvesting rainwater work?"

-By harnessing the power of gravity and the natural phenomenon known as the impermeability of parabolic hemispherically shaped objects (commonly referred to as "bowls"), one is able to effectively "trap" water in a single location where it may be used for various means.

Illuminating!

In all seriousness though, The Green Guide is a fairly useful tool, but the thrust of its aim should be primarily focused on those uninitiated with the wondrous world of green brands.

It also gets a pass because it's put out by National Geographic, an organization with something of a stake in the state of the natural world.

Let's just say that National Ergonomic doesn't sound like an interesting magazine.

Jordan!

After that Russian novel of a review of The Hurt Locker (bottom line: it was really, really bad) I figure I have all my negativity demons exorcised, and can now focus on something less worthy, but not completely spared, of my wrath.

Let's talk LEED certification! Specifically of the Rose Garden.

So if you follow my blog religiously (and who doesn't, really? It's kind of the thing to do.) You saw a post about the Rose Garden being LEED certified. Pretty cool stuff, as it was the first major sports arena to have that honor.

The release from the Trail Blazers (the arena's primary team), is chock full of token "check our green-steez" flexing and what not. But it does detail some of the practices that helped it garner the certification.

The Rose Garden has a sorting program that ensures that 60% of waste is recycled, which, combined with "extensive" recycling stations for attendees, prevents 800 tons of waste from going into landfills each year.

You've got to love a word like extensive. So vague. So versatile.

The arena also purchases energy from 100% renewable sources, courtesy of Pacific Power and NW Natural, as well as only serving locally made food. Which might explain why a hot dog is seventeen dollars.

Perhaps the biggest reason behind the LEED certification is the transportation programs enacted by the Rose Garden. Situated next to a light rail stop, 30% of attendees use public transportation or bikes to reach the arena. I can personally vouch for that, as elbow room is not plentiful on MAX rides to Blazers games, and the bike racks outside the arena truly are extensive. The Trail Blazers also subsidize transit passes for all staff.

No word on players being encouraged to carpool in their comically oversized SUVs.

Twenty Two 2's

Apologies in advance, because this post is going to have very little to do with Green Brands. it is just something that is festering in my brain, and I need to get it out, to say something about it. (And what better place than in a blog? Because EVERYONE wants to know what I think about things.)

I just saw The Hurt Locker.

Wow.

This movie is fucking awful. I am both bamboozled and appalled that it is receiving such praise from critics.

Now, I have never been in, nor do I have any desire to ever be in any branch of the military, so I'm not going to pretend that the idiotically unrealistic portrayal of both military behavior and tactics bothers me. (After all, I have played hours of Military-themed video games where I'm Rambo-ing the shit out of entire legions of terrorists in a supposedly "realistic" game without complaint.) All I will say on the subject is that the military community is extremely upset with this movie, and for good reason (scroll down to the user reviews on metacritic for proof of that.)

So besides the fact that the entire movie is a shameful glamorization of military life, and that the whole theme of the movie is that "War is a fuggin' adrenaline rush, man!" the movie is an utter failure on about every other level. Even the most basic cinematography and editing techniques are completely ignored, to ill effect.

But before I get to that, I'll start where every movie starts, with the script.

It is laughable.

Mark Boal's screenplay is the most cliche-ridden, contradictory, and horrifically written story I have ever bared witness to from a film receiving such critical plaudits. It almost, ALMOST, knocks Crash off the pedestal as the worst written film to receive an Oscar nomination. And that is saying something. Because Crash is freaking terrible.

The characters and their decisions are positively moronic. Ignoring the thousands of breaches of military protocol, their actions simply make no sense. Why would a group of trained soldiers, when being fired at from enemy snipers SEVERAL HUNDRED YARDS AWAY stand out in the open and blindly return fire at nothing? It just makes no sense. It's like that seen in Predator.

This actually happens in The Hurt Locker. Except in the desert. And the movie ISN'T supposed to be an overblown 80s action movie.

The characters themselves are the stuff of every war movie you've ever seen. You've got the take-no-bullshit guy, the renegade, death-wish-having guy, and the whiny, sentimental guy. These are literally the same characters you've seen in every terrible war movie. Ever. There are multiple times in the movie where take-no-bullshit guy goes up to death-wish guy, jabs a finger in his chest, and says something to the effect of "You're fuckin' reckless, man!" and whiny guy chimes in with, "You're gonna get us all killed, man!"

People get punched in the face for turning their radios off, soldiers spend their down time getting drunk and having stomach-punching competitions (that, naturally, turn into knife fights), and people get bemoaned for getting a teammate hurt "Just to get their fuckin' adrenaline rush, man!" Nope. Scratch that last one. They don't get their teammates hurt. THEY ACTUALLY SHOOT THEM. Which, from my understanding, is generally a punishable offense. Not in The Hurt Locker (or if you're the vice-president. HEYO!).

Oh, I forgot to mention the guy that asks to come out on his first mission with the main characters. Guess what happens to him.

The Hurt Locker is the type of movie that likes to add words like, "Dick," "Bitch," and "Fuckin" into sentences of dialogue to achieve that "gritty, military-feel." The result just makes the characters come off like fourth graders trying to sound cool.

On top of that, the things they're saying are just dumb. People speak in phrases; half-baked metaphors that end up sounding like spoken intros to rap-songs. "It's life or death out here, man. Every time we go out there we roll the dice."

Roll the dice? REALLY? That's the best you've got?

Luckily, the film is saved from utter oblivion by fantastic performances in the leading roles, Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie in particular. They do everything they possibly can with the script they have, so much so that you don't notice the idiotic nature of the things they say until a couple of seconds after they say it.

You get one of those... "Wait. Did he really just say 'I'm down to get in some trouble'? Oh god." moments.

Director Kathryn Bigelow deserves some of the praise for the overall quality of the performances. That said, she deserves just as much blame for the puzzling cinematography and editing decisions.

The film goes for Paul Greengrass's, shaky-camera, ultra-realistic look, even going so far as to use the same director of photography as Greengrass's United 93, Barry Ackroyd. Unfortunately, Ackroyd is not able to capture the same magic he had working with Greengrass. The shaking camera is so frequently overdone, that it becomes hard to focus on the screen and more headache-inducing than looking at the out of focus areas in a 3d movie.

But that is not my biggest complaint. That honor goes to the camera blocking, which is so horrendous that it is next to impossible to determine where characters are in relation to each other, what they may be looking at, completely ruining any illusion of tension. I was spending these supposedly tense scenes with an internal monologue something like this:

"OH FUCK! That is a huge bomb in that car! So what's the plan? Okay, no-bullshit-taking guy is going to cover death-wish guy from the roof. Sentimental guy is going to kind of stand out in the open for some reason. Death-wish guy is going in to defuse the bomb. Wait. Where the hell is take-no-bullshit guy? Yes, I can see that he is on a roof. What roof though? How can he clearly see the entire scene, but not the anonymous Arab dude with a camera that sentimental guy is freaking out about? Wait. How the hell can sentimental guy even see camera-dude? He appears to be several blocks away. Oh. What? Now take-no-bullshit guy has spotted three suspicious looking guys in a tower approximately a mile and a half away. Okay. These guys must have Elf Eyes."

On top of mind-boggling-bad camera-work, the editing is unforgivable. I'm sorry. Is this Operation Condor? Is this Ong-Bak: the Thai Warrior?

No?

Then why the HELL are you showing slo-mo replays of explosions? Oh wait. You're not. You are simply over-lapping action when cutting between angles. What is wrong with you? Have you never edited a movie before? That is probably the worst decision you could make when trying to make an "ultra-realistic" atmosphere.

And quick note to the director, cinematographer and editor: You cannot cut from a low angle of a character looking down to a down angle of that same character walking through a door. What this does is make it appear as though the character were looking down at a miniature version of themselves walking through that door. It disorients the audience, and reminds them that they are watching a movie.

Woo. In the first draft, that last paragraph was in all caps. I cut it down, because it seemed a little much. I just can't stand stuff like that. Especially not when a steadycam shot tracking the character through the door would have been a much better way to reveal what was behind that door. So frustrating.

I could go on and on and on about things this movies utterly fails at. But I won't. I think my feelings on it are quite clear. I fully appreciate that I came off like a complete film-snob-douche. But I couldn't resist. If you want to prove me wrong, get at me.

Mostly I was so upset because I was looking forward to seeing this so much. I had heard nothing but great things about it, and was really excited to see two of my favorite, under-appreciated actors, Mackie and Renner, get the praise they deserve. Mostly though, I was pumped for Kathryn Bigelow to make an amazing movie. I love underdog stories, and I truly believe that every director out there is extremely talented (I would love to see Michael Bay make a stellar, Oscar-worthy effort), so I couldn't wait to see this masterpiece that the director of the surfer/bank robber classic Point Break had molded.

I was monumentally disappointed.

21

Damn, Sixteen Candles would've been a good title for my 16th post. Oh well.

On to more obvious business:



Yeah, that was bound to happen.

You know what else was bound to happen? This.

Oh ho! That was certainly fast. But what did you really expect, Audi? That people would fall head over heels for this? Yeah. That's what Doritos thought with this number.

Turns out, they did. WHICH I totally called. As soon as I saw that, I was like, "Oh god. The whole "Charlie bit my finger" crowd is going to go apeshit for that." Sho 'nuff, it's the most popular video on hulu at the moment.

I can't lie though. The kid is pretty precious. And not like the super-depressing movie Precious, like adorable precious.

SIDENOTE: Hulu turned into a intrusive marketing tool so fast that I don't think anyone noticed.

Geez, I get sidetracked fast. Back to the point. What does "Green Car of the Year 2010" even mean? Let's feel it out.

So on December 3, 2009, good ol' Green Car Journal dubbed Audi's A3 TDI the "Green Car of the Year." Unfortunately, it didn't sweep the Greenies, as the "Vision Award" (wtf?) went to the Nissan Leaf. The "Vision Award" is of course, goes to the car that actually should have been the green car of the year, but is not considered profitable enough to deserve such plaudits.

To get one thing out of the way, Audi's A3, as you may or may not know, is made by Audi, which means two things. One: It is really just a Volkswagon, and two: It is inexplicably and infinitely cooler than a Volkswagon. Seriously. Audi's are just so damn cool.

A6. Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....

On top of that, the A3, gets a pretty good 42 miles per gallon. Which, of course, is green as fuck. (kinda)

But that isn't even what the ad is touting. It's on about the "clean diesel" as the big selling point. Which is a bit faulty. While diesel engines are more efficient that gasoline engines, they emit a higher number of greenhouse gasses per liter than their gasoline counter parts.

While this may be offset by the inherent efficiency of diesel fuel, diesel still has dangerous levels of Nitrous Oxide emissions, making choosing between diesel and gasoline choosing taking a charge from LeBron James or getting dunked on by Dwayne Wade. Either way, you're getting punched on. (And you'll probably be called for a foul too.)

One more thing: Turns out diesel emits nanoparticles that can cause cardiovascular disorders. Cool.

And PS: Am I seriously the only one who got the dystopian overtones from that Audi ad? Or have I just been listening to a little too much Dead Prez?

20

Ah... That's better. We are halfway through with this series of blogs.

On a completely different note, Fox has been showing these quick, 15 second spots with the tagline, "Green it, Mean it." (I would have loved to be in the room when they thought that one up: "Umm... Green Yourself, Clean yourself? No... How about, Be Green, Be Mean! We're getting there! Who wants puppy liver?)



The ads consist of people you've never heard of giving you advice about "Greening your life." I would venture a guess that "your life" is the "it" referred to in the tagline, but I've been wrong about FOX's taglines before.

Nothing overtly wrong about this, it just reeks of bandwagon jumping. (with a tinge of hypocrisy for good measure)

But this one is my personal favorite:



Yeah! That's how to get people to do something! Be super condescending! Talk to them like they're idiots.

19

Neill Blomkamp directed District 9, which is up for a Best Picture Oscar. Here is his TED talk. I wish I had the level of intelligence required to comment on this in any way.

I will say this, while it starts about aliens (SWEET!), it probes some of the issues of this class. Most notably, it puts the current state of our civilization into a universal civilization framework. Blomkamp mentions two subjects that have utterly fascinated me for some time, the Kardashev Scale of Civilization Classification and the Singularity (both of which coincidentally involve upward-sloping graphs) WATCH IT.

18

The EU dropped an Eco-bomb today, enacting new laws that require stores that sell a certain amount of disposable batteries to provide in store battery-recycling bins.

Reports of people rejoicing in the streets are coming through now.

Vince Armitage, the immaculately named Divisional Vice President of battery manufacturer Varta (wow there are some great pictures on that homepage), is quoted as saying he is dubious of the initiative's success,

"However, a lack of promotion means that awareness of the directive among these key groups is low. This gives us great concern that, as a nation, we are setting ourselves up to fail before we even begin."

Gee. It's too bad we don't live in a world where advertising is prevalent and bordering on all-intrusive. That's really a shame. No one will ever know about these great policies. They are doomed to slowly decompose in the eternal boiling cesspool known as legislative failure.

It sounds like ol' Varta is a teensy bit incensed that they are being forced to recycle their products. If it's any consolation to Mr. Armitage, people are way too lazy to actually bring their double-A's back to the store.

Regulations designed to force firearm retailers to provide accidental gunshot wound aid stations is thought to follow in a string of what has been dubbed Kind-of-Trying-but-not-really legislation.