websites getting their drunk on

Ever wonder what your website might look like if you put it together drunk? Before you decide to start blogging at midnight tonight, you might just want to check this out.

The Alcowebizer takes any website and updates the copy, the content and whatever else it might need to reflect the number of drinks the person building it might have had.

Total fun.

(And play it safe tonight, and give someone else the keys to the website, ok?)

answers to your questions

You have questions, and you need answers. And you have difficult questions that require expert background, opinion or insight that you're not going to get from a simple Google search or 140 charater answers from your Twitter friends.

Enter Quora. Quora is a relativelynew social network getting a lot of buzz (yes, I know...you needed another social network like you needed a new copy of Microsoft Word, but hear me out), and probably getting buzz for the right reasons.

Quora lets you ask the community questions. And the community answers. Only this isn't some forum of smart allecky internet brats who will tease you and write snarky responses to your questions. This is a community of like minded internet nerds, some even prominent web 2.0 pioneers, getting together and sharing.

Imagine Wikipedia that's conversational. Or Twitter with depth. Or Google with only responses from smart people. Quora. A place you can go to get answers.

nerds from the past

You're an internet nerd. And someday forty years from now, someone is going to dig up your Facebook photos and put them together in a collection to show the world just how geeky cool you were.

That's exactly what happened to this group of computer scientists from the 60's. Oddly, some of them look exactly like hipsters in Brooklyn today. Just sayin'.

this may ruin the muppets for you

How do you take the cute away from a bunch of harmless, cheery puppets? Give them human eyes.

Here's an entire Tumblr blog devoted to exposing the human eye side of some of your favorite (previously cute) Muppet characters. Yeesh. From @stuartfoster.

coffee worthy of risking your life for

Forgive the fact that the sign maker here needs a lesson in the difference between your and you're...

And then enjoy the cuteness of how a local Dunkin Donuts staffer came up with a fun way to greet customers who braved the horribly plowed and snow covered roads of Snowpacolypse 2010.

a new tool for your location based photo sharing

If you're a FourSquare user, you know by now that they've added the ability to shoot photos of the places that you check into. What if you also want to collect your stellar shots of food, drinks and other sightings into one place?

Flicksquare hooks your FourSquare account to your Flickr account, so that all the photos you shoot and post in FourSquare automatically get posted to your Flickr account.

Now you can turn your FourSquare checkins into a photo blog. The possibilities are pretty awesome here.

(If you're not a social media nerd, then this entire post will mean nothing to you. Move along.)

snowpocalypse, in time lapse

If you live anywhere in the northeast, you're probably sick of blizzardspeak, blizzardhype and blizzardtweets. But regardless of where you live, you'll totally appreciate this time lapse of the snowpocalypse 2010.

(For those of you in the south, west, and warmer climates: this is what it looks like when rain gets cold.)

a mini that tweets

If you've dreamed about tweeting, checking in and searching from your car's dashboard, you're totally going to dig the new MINI. It's all built in.

It's cool to see that manufacturers are shortening the r&d timelines to accommodate new technology, and internet tools that are important to the mix.

Will the future of auto-internet be in the dashboard? Or your phone? Or both? Whatever the answer, you know you want to be tweeting from a brand new MINI next year.

who's pooping on twitter?

Admit it. You're curious. You'd really like to know who's pooping now. There's a tool for that.

Who's Pooping on Twitter collects all the tweets from around the world about people pooping. And people really are pooping, and tweeting about. Now you know, and you're a better person because of it.

nyc's greatest street art

We don't typicaly enjoy the top ___ lists of everything that clutter up the internet this time of year, but the Gothamist as assembled a pretty awesome collection of the best street art from the year in NYC. Cool.

think your commute sucks?

As many of you head back to work this morning, some of you even in the middle of snowpocalypse 2010, remember: your commute may suck, but these commutes suck worse. Waaaay worse.

seeing is believing

If you do nothing else tonight, make your way through your community and find the person who's pushed their house beyond the point of Christmas magic.

The team at Tight Salad Productions did just that, and found some Christmas magic creepiness in the heart of Kansas.

how to get a santa endorsement

Another digital holiday card, this time from a publication. But at least they got Santa to endorse their magazine.

Note to American friends: apparently Canada has Santa, hostage. Time to retailiate. From @satisfeye, and @skypulsemedia

making holiday decorations topical

Sacramento's Citizen Hotel has started a new holiday tradition: a naughty or nice list that gets posted on the hotel's front window.

On the naughty list: Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, Jesse James, and plenty more. Nice this year: Kate Middleton, Conan O’Brien, George Clooney and Sean Penn.

They've taken a simple staple of the holidays and turned it into a beautiful window display, blog post and press event.

How can you make something we all take for granted into something spectacular?

do we need all that extra stuff?

What if we reduced a bunch of the crap that typically clutters our product packaging? What if we removed it all?

Design firm Antrepo took a handful of products and realized simplified versions of the packaging. The results will have you wondering if many products might be better, simplified. Thanks, Eliza!

nothing says winter like a dancy gap spot

Remember that holiday Gap ad that you loved so much last season?

Since they didn't bring it back this year, a handful of poorly dressed guys made their own version for you.

capturing an audience of commuters

So simple, it's awesome. Alan Wolk points us to this great train ad for an accounting firm that entirely takes into account the audience, the medium, and a call to action:

+ A long copy ad that's great for reading while stuck on a commute
+ A math puzzle that entertains a captive audience
+ The answer to the puzzle only available on the firm's website.

Sometimes old fashioned cleverness is the best approach of all.

holiday cards get personal

It used to be that the agency holiday card was the one and only self promotional piece that most agencies did all year. And for some, it still is. (AdFreak has a short round up of the best and worst this year.)

And as agencies look to outdo each other with production levels, cleverness or creativity, many have lost touch with the purpose of the holiday greeting card.

A greeting card. Leave it to media strategy juggernaut agency Mediassociates to teach us a lesson. No intense Flash production. Nothing that will leave you on the floor laughing. But a personal greeting from the person that you know inside the agency.

This was my favorite card this year, because they took the time to make it personal, and target me as an individual. And that's exactly what media strategists do best - reach their audiences.

We spoke to Ben Kunz, who told us they split up their list, and each employee recorded greetings for the people they knew.

Thanks Ben, for bringing us all back to reality and showing us how it's done!

how to produce a better video

Video sharing service Vimeo wants you to share videos with your friends and family. They also want your videos to rock the world. So they've launched the Vimeo Video School - a round up of literally everything you need to know about producing video.

Video can be a fantastic learning tool, and there's no better way to show the power of Vimeo than to help your audience grow intellectually while using your product. Time to get out there, and make some stuff happen!

toys that won't be under the tree this year

Toy commercials provide a fun look at pop culture, history and society, and there's no time like Christmastime to thoroughly enjoy them.

BoingBoing has assembled a fun collection of odd and uncomfortable toy commercials that haven't exactly held up to the test of time.

star wars snowflakes

Star Wars snowflakes. And a template to make them. Deck the halls. From @caff

how to track where you've been, and where you're going

We just started using TripTrace about five minutes ago (we're far too busy eating Christmas cookies to explore every new internet tool), but so far it looks to be an awesome interactive travel log.

Pull your FourSquare, Facebook and other social location-based log-ins, along with your travel history and desires, and put together an internet picture of who you are and where you're headed.

Looks like fun. Let's go to Morocco, ok?

brand guidelines for santa

Let's say that you want to include Santa in your ad, and you'd like to make sure that he's properly represented. The trouble is, the North Pole has never issued official brand and identity guidelines for the jolly one.

That's where London agency Quietroom steps in, by creating a fun but useful standards guide for Santa's brand. Glorious.

the difference between facebook and twitter

What's the difference between Facebook and Twitter users? This handy info graphic spells it out in beautious detail.

The interesting things for brands:
+ More than half of both Facebook and Twitter users are likely to buy a brand they follow
+ A third or more users are logging in every day
+ A third of all users are accessing both networks via a mobile device

There's a lot of other great numbers, and the chart will make you look really on top of it, when you include it in that deck you're preparing for your boss.

best advent calendar ever.

Now in its last days, the Art of Dancing has produced an advent calendar that serves up a new and different dance treat for us, each and every day. Until Christmas.

This is how awesome is done.

the history of awesome

Over the weekend Google Labs launched their Books Ngram Viewer which lets you search for any word you can dream up within thousands of books dating back to the 1500's, and puts it into a fancy graph so you can see when the word was first used and when it was most popular.

So, of course, we did a search of some of our favorite words to see what we'd find. Enjoy!

Awesome (chart above) was first mentioned as early as 1710 and peaked in the 80's, but Google has text for as early as 1825 in the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language revealing that it started out meaning something not so awesome:

AWSOME, Awesome, adj. 1. Appalling, awful, causing terror, S. " A sight of his cross is more aw some than the weight of it ... Expressive of terror. And of course, Humongo (above) does not appear at all from 1700 - 2008, therefore proving our supreme originality. Searching for slang, swear words, and lame marketing buzzwords provides hours of entertainment, so go at it!

countless children hurt by Wikileaks

Wikileaks has screwed so many people at this point, but none quite as adorable and innocent as the ones affected by the recent leaking of Santa's naughty list in this video created by Rooster Teeth. It's a sad, sad day for cute little brats everywhere.

balloons, rockets and parachutes.

Three things that you wouldn't expect to see in one place have been brought together for a live-action stunt filmed for Breitling Watches. Don't try this at home.

tron on ice

BrandFlakes BFF @dabitch got to visit the Ice Hotel in Sweden last week, and discovered a Tron themed room!

Curious how they made it? There's a video. Thankfully, there were no ice dancers in Tron outfits.

Happy xmas. We're hiring.

Here's some news from the awesome department: we're looking for an interactive designer to join team Humongo!

If you're feeling Humongo, or know someone who is, send them our way. Here's the facts:

You are:
A super talented interactive designer. You are not a douche bag, difficult person or evil. You love design and have demonstrated success with multiple builds and interactive projects that rock the Internet. You get, use and have made social media a part of your life.

We are:
Humongo. Makers of the world famous HumongoNation tour, brandflakesforbreakfast blog, and social media super heroes. We're outsiders to the ad industry, with strong opinions on how we can change the world.

We're a small agency owned by a larger agency who's owned by MDC Partners. It's the best of all worlds: small agency vibe with big agency backing in the greatest network of creatives in the world.

We're slightly geeky, fun people who prefer text instead of phones, meetings instead of decks, and fun instead of evil. We don't take ourselves very seriously, and will probably tease you about something on your first day.

Our workplace:
Our Danbury, CT headquarters is on the top floor of a retired theater building, transformed into an open office environment that's like no other. Completely collaborative workspace, with lots of music and more hang out space than desk space. An open organization, in every sense of the word. And maybe a little messier than it should be.

How to make this happen:
Send us your credentials, links to your work, your portfolio and your social media self. We'll take it from there. Send to: info (AT) humongoagency (DOT) com.

happy holidays from your best friends at humongo

Before you skate out for two weeks of drinking, resting, and general holiday merriment, a few of us at Humongo wanted to say that we appreciate you.

So we recorded and produced a holiday classic that we think you'll enjoy.

a presentation that doesn't suck

Ok, so I know we've declared our hatred for slide presentations many times before, but today we found an exception. Behold 450 pages of pure awesomeness created and animated entirely in Google Docs as an entry into the Google Demo Slam. Holy wow.

a spoiled brat xmas

It's agency holiday card season. Load up your browser, your inbox can wait until later.

This card from the Sutter Group will definitely appeal to Angry Bird fans. Brats + destruction + Christmas = holiday magic. We love the fact that they thought to ask the spoiled brat to tweet, too.

ummm, the cat's in the nativity scene again.

It's Friday, and you're looking for an excuse to put some work off until Monday, right?

Here you go: cats and nativity scenes. Because it had to happen. This is why the internet is great. Thanks, David!

how to make amazon better

Maurice lives in Australia, and like many of us, he buys everything online.

After a couple of unsatisfactory purchase attempts with Amazon, he decided to tackle their usability problems, and rethink the user experience. His post details screen by screen suggestions on how he'd improve their offering from a usability perspective. And it's pretty good.

how google says thank you

Google has made just a bit of money from the people who have purchased Google AdWord advertising. So they wanted to send a massively huge thank you to all of the advertisers that made it possible for Google AdWords to celebrate their ten year anniversary.

Not everything went to plan. (The production is from San Francisco agency AKQA, and production superstars PostPanic, who created a film that Google could later customize with advertiser's names.)

Cute. In a Googleicious kind of way.

ruining other people's stuff for fun

This will totally make you laugh. In the most juvenile, you know it's wrong but it's funny kind of way.

An entire blog devoted to documenting people ruining other people's stuff. Because it's funny. Sorry.

foursquare as the keys to your world

Forget about unlocking badges. What if FourSquare could unlock doors for you? In the real world?

Using the FourSquare API and their apartment building's electronic lock system, Erin Sparling and Nicholas Hall did exactly that. Check into their apartment on FourSquare, and it opens the door.

Right now they have it set so that only they can unlock it, but you're totally invited to their New Years Eve party this year, where they're opening the door to anyone who checks in. For real. Sounds like fun.

This opens up a world of possibilities...

blogger outreach done really well

To promote their upcoming Global Drive event for the Ford Focus, the Ford Motor Company needed to do some blogger outreach. Many marketers faced with the same challenge might just send an email to a few hundred bloggers, asking for their participation.

Ford knew they could do better, and they've knocked it out of the park. They've produced a series of videos that reach out to individual bloggers, inviting them to the event. Think a video addressed to one individual doesn't have a larger audience? Think again. People are tweeting about it, writing about it, and watching the videos, some garnering thousands of views.

(Our buddy @scottmonty even included Humongo's old friend Office Buddy in some of the videos!)

What have they accomplished?
+ They turned blogger outreach into a public event
+ They've created significant advance buzz about a promotion
+ They've virtually guaranteed that these bloggers will pay attention to them.

Bookmark this as a beautiful case study on how to do it right. Well done.

Disclosure: Ford is a sponsor of our Humongo Nation tour, but that doesn't change our opinion, or the fact that this is pretty damn awesome.

this mug's for you

There are probably a ton of things that go through a person's head after being mugged. Anger, fear, PAIN... advertising opportunities.

Ok, that last one is ridiculous, but that's exactly what Formula 1 CEO, Bernie Ecclestone, thought after he was mugged for his oh-so-expensive Hublot watch.

Bernie sent in this post-mugging photo to Hublot and suggested he use it their ads to show what people would do for a Hublot.

What a bold and brilliant way for a fancy watch brand to stand out from typically boring and safe fancy watch ads... assuming it doesn't scare the crap out of potential buyers.

i'll wish you happy holidays on twitter & facebook

Stop looking in your physical mailbox for an onslaught of paper holiday cards. It's just not going to happen.

According to the Chicago Tribune, research shows that holiday greeting card usage grew continuously until 2009, but now it's on the decline. While the decline is only .4%, it's a decline. So you can save postage, a lot of handwriting and a bunch of trees by just using Twitter and Facebook.

If you find this depressing, rejoice in the fact that your friends can't fill their email envelopes or Facebook messages with a bunch of glitter. From @benkunz

the first christmas, with the internet

Even if you don't celebrate the traditional Christmas holiday, you'll totally appreciate the story of the nativity told using today's digital tools.

Sooo smart. From @msherr.

the best video you'll see this year

You won't be able to watch this video in Explorer (or even Firefox), but it's totally worthy of stopping everything and spending a few minutes getting the experience.

So stop what you're doing, open up Safari or Chrome, and check out the Sour Mirror video. This is integration of social media content and multiple window production that's better than ever been done before.

Let it integrate with your Twitter account, your Facebook account and your webcam, and then sit back and enjoy the most bitchin' video experience that's graced your computer screen this year.

the yogi movie that will make you cry

Rhode Island School of Design student Edmund Earle saw that there was an animated version of Yogi Bear coming out, and wanted to create his own, darker version.

So he animated a super dark ending to the film. Without any footage from the actual movie.

The result is a piece of work that will leave you praying it doesn't end the way you know it ends, and realizing that this kid will soon be working for George Lucas or Steven Spielberg or any animation studio that he wants to, anywhere in the world.

bmw is controlling your mind right now

Wow. Back in the olden days before Photoshop, there was a lot of hoopla about ad agencies creating subliminal messages that you couldn't see. And controlling our minds. And aliens were probably among us.

Now BMW has created an actual subliminal ad experience, and then let their viewers in on the action. The result is pretty incredible.

the studio as the website

World famous designer Stefan Sagmeister's website is his studio, and his studio is his website.

The homepage for Sagmeister.com is made from live screen shots of the studio, from a camera fastened overhead. The site's primary navigation is painted onto the studio floor. Check in anytime day or night, and see what's happening. If someone's chair isn't in the way, you can navigate through and explore the site.

Imprint has some nice screen shots, if you're too lazy to check it out yourself. This is what awesomeness times ten looks like.

file > print > REJECTED

We all know "that" person--the obsessive printer that feels the need to print out everything, even their emails.

Instead of gently suggesting they change their evil ways by putting "please consider the environment before printing this" at the bottom, block their tree-killing asses from printing anything you send with WWF's new file type, .wwf.

Just as easy as you can save a doc as a PDF, you can save it as a WWF to ensure there is no way whatsoever to print it.

I can't wait to use this on a print-aholic and watch them freak out. Fun times.

the answer to life's biggest question

Should you friend your parents on Facebook? We've all struggled with this decision before, but thanks to this awesome flowchart by CoolMaterial, you can now find the answer and ultimately avoid years of embarrassment, harassment, interrogation, or all of the above. Yep, you can always count on us tackle life's toughest issues.

twitterverse: not just nerdy white guys

The Pew Research Center has released a report on Twitter users, and you might be surprised by the results.

According to Pew, Twitter users skew female, 18 - 29 and black and Hispanic. That's greatly different than any of the demographics that have been reported before. It will be interesting to see if the Twitter demo is evolving, or if Pew just has it wrong.

They also found that the majority of users check in multiple times during the day, and that 74% of American adults are now internet users.

Use all of these numbers at the company holiday party, and you're sure to impress that hot girl from accounting.

vegas does art, modern.

The new Cosmopolitan Hotel opens up in Vegas this week, and it's supposed to be a modern art lover's paradise. There are already hotels with classic art hanging in their gallery, so the Cosmopolitan is doing it differently. In a modern art way.

Starting with the parking garage. Drivers to the casino will take in pieces from famed street artists Shepard Fairey and Kenny Scharf. Another artist will be installing six Artomat machines, where in exchange for a $5 to $20 token, guests can walk away with a small piece of art.

The hotel even has artists in residence, like a working, breathing studio. Not to worry, we're sure there's plenty of slot machines, too.

even 8 bit sex should be safe sex

Here's a fun ad that reminds you to bring a condom if you plan on getting your game on in the 8 bit world.

secret santa goes social

This is how holiday magic gets sprinkled into the socialsphere. Twitter elves @jderoner, @theobservation and @reeegan have created a fun tool that lets you buy a present (and get a present) for and from one of your Twitter followers.

Twitter Secret Santa is just like secret Santa at the office, only this is with the people that will probably get you cooler gifts. Because nobody knows you as well as your Twitter buddies, right?

are you naughty or nice?

Sure, you've seen this kind of app before. But Honda's NaughtOrNice-a-tron is a nicely produced machine that scans your Facebook profile, and lets you know if you've been naughty or nice.

Well done only because it's not splattered with product references, doesn't feel like advertising, and was just in time for the holidays. (I'm nice, btw.)

internet killed the peepshow star

The internet has killed a lot of things, here are 15 of them according to Newsweek. We won't miss most of these; I mean concentration is soooo overrated. Now, what was I just doing?

planning on paper was never so cool

In the olden days before smart phones, people wrote their appointments down on paper calendars.

Now the cool kids are making paper awesome again. Moleskin has the ultimate planner, in awesome colors. Even better: the promotional video that tells you all about them.

because it had to be done

Grolsch would like to wish you a Merry Christmas (in the UK, it's acceptable to offer a "Christmas" greeting, instead of a "holiday" greeting) and they've done so by asking the Swingtop Philharmonic Orchestra to play "Oh Christmas Tree".

And they did it with an orchestra of bottles.

coders are smelly zombies

While we know plenty of perfectly wonderful coders, according to a new study by two researchers at the Department of Studies in Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Mysore, most of them are severely sleep deprived, causing compromised hygiene and mental instability. Shall we re-coin the phrase, "gone postal" to "gone coder" instead?

Rudolph sells his body

Ok, so this is a cherished kids movie mashed up with a song about a prostitute, but all creepiness aside, this might be the best Christmas mash-up ever!

beats playing chicken

Usually the most you could potentially win from playing traffic games is a ticket or hospital visit, but not this one. This one is a result of the latest winning idea in "The Fun Theory" project by Volkswagen.

Drivers that obeyed the speed limit were entered into a lottery to win cash money, courtesy of those that were caught speeding, reducing the average speed over 22%.

Even at the most basic level, rewards always motivate more than punishment.

fast video on a fast train slowed down

What if you shot high speed video on a fast moving train going past a station?

This isn't some math puzzle from grade school, it's a really cool video experiment that creates Matrix style bullet time video, when played back at normal speed. Cool.

(So, what time does he get to his station?)

wrap your gifts in tweets

File this under "holiday awesomeness." Samsung has created a promotion where you can create (and have printed) your very own roll of wrapping paper made from your tweet steam.

Because nothing says that you care for someone more than wrapping your gift in paper that's all about you. ;) Love this.

augmented reality + magic = magic

Here's a holiday greeting that puts a magician at a table with a a handful of tricks and augmented reality animations. You'll have a hard time telling what's what, and that's what makes this...magic.

we hate you...

... ok, not really, but according to a new study done by Slovenian and British researchers, negative threads on the internet receive a LOT more interaction than positive ones. They proved it, scientifically even. The irony, however, is that all this hate actually fosters a strong sense of togetherness, causing people to bond over their mutual disgust:

"There is evidence that group cohesiveness may be related to negative feelings about others," agrees Tom Buchanan, a psychologist at the University of Westminster in London. "Members of an online community might unite around a perceived attack on them or some aspect of their identity."

With the exception of double rainbows and puppies (who doesn't love these things?!), this theory seems to hold up. But, no matter how much hate sells, we'll always be purveyors of all things awesome! Long live the unicorn.

the universal symbol for failure

Seems like Google Books has been having some serious technical issues, but at least they're having a little fun with it by adopting our favorite villain we love to hate, Twitter's Fail Whale. I guess it means you've made it to the big-time when you've reached official icon status... even if it is for all your "oops."

1:30. The magic number for viral success?

I had the pleasure of meeting London's Lee Washington last week, during his visit to NYC. Lee is the dude behind Viral Seeding, a firm that gets your crazy silly video the initial views that it requires to maybe eventually...go viral.

Lee's seeded super successful campaigns for brands like MTV, Motorola, Bacardi, the BBC and plenty more impressive names. He's also seeded campaigns that didn't take off - where he established plenty of initial views, but the productions didn't go viral. (Seeding can only get you started. Eventually, your production has to carry itself on its own merits.)

We chatted about his experience, what works, what doesn't and the industry in general. Here's a couple of fantastic pointers that Lee shared about timing, and achieving viral success:

+ You'll need to capture your audience's attention in the first 20 seconds of your video
+ Anything longer than one minute and thirty seconds is probably too long.
+ Don't patronize your audience. Entertain, wow, and inspire, but don't underestimate their intelligence.

Of course there are exceptions, of course this isn't a hard and fast rule. Just something that he's learned from campaigns that rocked it. (Time to remove a couple of scenes from that video of yours.)

Thanks, Lee!

easily distracted? you're more creative.

This is the best news of the month. Maybe the year.

A study at Harvard University has determined that easily distracted people are more creative. That is, if they are able to discern the distractions that distract them. Awesome.

Hey - there's a video of butterflies above, in case you wanted it. Where's my keys?

can you solve the mystery of the pointy s?

Caleb Neelon needs your help. He's trying to solve the mystery of the iconic "pointy s".

This is the letter that cool dudes learn to illustrate in middle school, and use it liberally in posters, notebook covers and other places where you might need to hand illustrate an "s".

While we've all been drawing this bad ass S for years, no one seems to know where it originated. Do you? Caleb would like to get to the bottom of it, and settle this grand world mystery once and for all. From @elizaword

doodle the day in another city

Our friend Len Kendall has started a super fun exercise over at Good: Create a doodle about a day you've spent in another city.

It doesn't have to be a trip to Paris or Melbourne, just any city that you've been to recently that wasn't your own. What would you take notice of? How would you illustrate it? How would it stand out?

Submit to the contest, and you could even win a prize. What a fantastic creative exercise.

ho ho holy awesome

Brody S. (BrodyQat on Flickr) hit San Francisco's Santacon as "desaturated santa" again this year. Even grayer than last year (even her eyes are gray, wow), Brody has perfected her costume and make up to the point where it's pretty unbelievable that this photo has not been altered in any way whatsoever. Nice work Brody!

it's (not) in the bag

Great design takes into account the space in which it lives. Like this collection of cool shopping bags that are not so much about what's on the bag, but what's around the bag and how they work together to bring a little fun to an otherwise purely functional item.

what your lamps do when you leave the room

To call attention to World AIDS day, MTV UK ran this ad featuring lamp porn.

That's the only way to describe these lamps totally getting it on in the most explicit lamp sex scenes that you'll ever see. (Totally safe for work, as long as you're cool seeing naked lamps.)

Who knew lamps were so hot?

how to turn your office move into an internet event

When you move your office, you discover the piles of junk that have built up in your old office, and that you no longer need. And if you're combining a couple of regional offices, well then you also have some equipment and toys that are just no longer necessary.

The Switch agency took this situation and turned it into a glorious donation event for a local charity. The 12 Days of Switchmas puts stuff from their offices up for free, up for bid, and up for donation.

With "grab", "bid" and "give", each and every day they have cool stuff that they're just giving away to anyone on the internet that claims it. They're also selling some items (with the proceeds going to a local cause), and then asking visitors for donations too.

The site is perfectly designed in the holiday spirit - if the holiday spirit were celebrated with leftover office supplies. Awesomeness.

making wishes in new orleans

Designer Candy Chang has created a fun, inspiring and interactive project in New Orleans.

For I Wish This Was, she created a bunch of fill in the blank stickers and placed them on the windows and construction facades of empty storefronts and buildings. The community took it from there.

She's collected shots a bunch of completed stickers here, and there's a Flickr pool of shots, too.

Hopefully the collection will inspire ideas, community involvement and action that can bring a wish or two to fruition.

this guy is our hero

We hate powerpoint. Like, really hate it. It's not the most popular opinion in our business. But hey, we're renegades. Yep. Us, and this guy--Matt Blaze.

When Matt, crypto researcher and computer science professor, was asked to speak at a conference at the University of Pennsylvania, they told him he was required to send a powerpoint presentation over before his speech.

This was his submission. Matt rules.

tweets that suck

This fun, vintage-style ad created by Get Satisfaction makes even mindless tweeting kind of entertaining.

Introducing the social vacuum. It tweets what it eats with no filter (kind of like some people I know). It's existence is not far off. Soon our cars will tweet at us when they need a fill-up, our irons when we left them plugged in for too long... a whole world of our electronics telling us how they "feel."

Sounds pretty creepy, but if they're as snarky as this little vacuum guy, I might follow them.

the simpler things

Pixel Film:'_| from garth+ginny on Vimeo.

The latest super simple and incredibly cute 2D pixel animation by Garth+Ginny just makes us smile. More proof that simpler is better.

Here's more Friday fun time from Garth+Ginny:

Pixel Film Oo

Pixel Film !//

Pixel Film (?}

holiday shopping starts here

There's a lot of pressure on you this year. You're the cool person in your family and circle of friends. Your friends are expecting some super creative gifts. You can't just buy them socks, or an iTunes gift card. You're better than that, and you're friends deserve awesome stuff.

We've got your back. Now in it's third year, we've officially launched the Brand Flakes for Breakfast Gift Guide, and it's open for business. The awesome employees of Humongo are spending their valuable time scouring the internet looking for the coolest gifts on the planet. We don't sell anything, we just find it for you. And we do it all for you.

So put the lists away, cancel the trip to the mall - everything you need is on the Brand Flakes for Breakfast Holiday Gift Guide.

New hot stuff, every day!!