Tag: awesome

Five things on Friday #82

Things of note for the week ending July 25th, 2014.

Things of note for the week ending July 25th, 2014.

WEEEEEEEEEEEE

— Above image via this AMAZING photo set 

1. Shatner on Facebook Mentions
If you’re a celebrity (hi!) then you’re probably interested in this new app from Facebook, ‘Facebook Mentions‘. If you’re not a celebrity, don’t worry because William Shatner (yes, that one) has written a handy guide.

Facebook Mentions - shatner

You can read said guide over on the former Captain Kirk’s super awesome Tumblr page.

2. Destiny
If you’ve been paying attention recently, you might’ve spotted that there’s a beta of a new game out at the moment and its name is Destiny.

DESTINY

Seriously, download it now.

To celebrate this game being amazing, here are some key facts about Destiny:

  • Activision, the game’s publisher, is apparently investing around $500 million on the development and marketing of this game (that’s an insane amount of money ).
  • Bungie, the game’s creator, is the team that developed the multi-award-winning Halo series for Microsoft’s Xbox.
  • The game itself doesn’t actually hit the shelves until September 9th. All of the press so far has been about the limited time Alpha (one weekend!) and the Beta (two weeks!). See the official timeline for details.
  • Oh, and it is awesome. SO AWESOME. Order it now.

3. A guy walks into a bar
This is wonderful.

4. Moto X Tattoos
This is now a joke: Motorola have launched a new range of temporary DIGITAL TATTOOS that you can stick to your skin and then use to UNLOCK YOUR PHONE.

Wooo fancy

There’s a fancy video too (it’s only 90 seconds long – give it a watch).

Personally, I think this is awesome. Like, really really awesome. Admittedly the ‘tattoos’ themselves only last for a week (and I think about ten dollars for a pack of ten) BUT it’s a yet another item to add into the wearable tech of the future category that hopefully we might see more of over the coming years.

Hurrah for innovative thinking.

5. The best Philippines fact you’ll read today

Vulcan Point

Did you know that Vulcan Point (the small island pictured above) is the world’s largest island within a lake on an island within a lake on an island? Well, you do now.

Nature is awesome.

— — —
I’m off Twitter for a little while (long story, check my feed for clues as to why) so if you’re reading this, please share it as far and wide as you can.

Cheers,

Whatley out.

rain

 

Five things on Friday #61

Things of note for the week ending February 28th, 2014.

Peter Sellers

1. Peter Sellers in a moving red car trying to take a picture of his wife, Britt Eckland, riding on the scooter near the Colosseum in Rome.
This needs no explanation.

Via

2. Funk is not dead

Jungle – Platoon from Jungle on Vimeo.

3. Awesome 60s Batman Art is Awesome

Batman is AWESOME

Via

4. Triple City Exposures

Marcus Yam

Created completely ‘in-camera’, by photographer Marcus Yam, the above image is one of a larger set put  together for a Seattle Times photo essay. They’re all gorgeous, so go take a look.

5. The Secret Life of Heroes
I know I’ve featured a lot of imagery this week, but this stuff – by artist Gregoire Guillemin – is just great. The easy way forward was Batman but he’s already had a go this week so I figured Supes was the next best thing. Plus – THIS IS AWESOME.

Superman - Secret Life of Heroes

via My Modern Met.

Bonus things –

  • This set of tiny Lego photographer photos are really, really well done.
  • Like writing letters but never have time to buy the materials? Look at Gramr.
  • Seth Rogan spoke at a senate committee to help raise awareness for Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s funny, moving, and only six minutes long. You should watch it.

That’s me done this week. Technically that’s eight cool things you’ve just had. Aren’t I nice to you? Tell you what, if you liked this post this week, why not tell your friends about it. There’s buttons just down there for you to do that so go on – click one. I dare ya.  

 

Five things on Friday #53

Don’t call it a come back…

whatleydude says HI

After a year long break (and a few false starts with my Tumblr), I’m bringing Five Things on Friday back for 2014. The good news is, last year I managed to last FIVE WHOLE MONTHS before the itch finally got the better of me. That’s right, five, not twelve. Today’s date (the date of writing, not publishing) is May 1st 2013, and I’m writing this a whole seven months in advance. Mental, I know, but I’m finding a fire truck load of stuff at the moment and I need to bank it somewhere.

So here it is. The first Five Things of 2014. Pre-written, sometime in May 2013. From now on I figure I’d make this project a bi-annual thing. One year on, one year off. Yeah. That.

EDIT: this ^ is slightly untrue. I’m now updating  #5things each week and swapping stuff around (eg: the post from Zoe in at number 4).

Wait, where we? Oh yes, here –

Things of note for the week ending January 3rd, 2014.

1. Dioramas of Death
These are proper gruesome.

DIE O RAMA

These miniature death scenes remind me a lot of one of my favourite werewolf films, Ginger Snaps. In it , the two main protagonists have an obsession with recreating death scenes as art (and it’s kinda awesome). The artist behind this work, Abigail Goldman, covers everything from crime scenes through decapitation and death by lawnmower. I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by them, but they’re just really cool and, should I ever have a place suitable, they’d be on display in my house in a flash.

2. IRON MAN!!! YEAH!!!! IRON MAAAAAAAAN!

ZOMG IRON MAN!

At the time of writing, Iron Man 3 has just been released and the above photo was taken at a special screening of the film put on by Disney to say thank you to the teenagers of the Police Athletic League who volunteered to clean up the Hurricane Sandy-ravaged areas of New York.

Why is the kid freaking out so much? Robert Downey Jr. had just turned up, unannounced, to say thank you in person. Amazing.

Via.

3. Abe
This 8min short film about a human-obsessed android is dark, but beautiful; I loved it. Be warned: it is not an easy watch.

*Shiver*

4. ‘Ten’
I haven’t seen Zoe Margolis for too long now, but I stay on top of how things are with her via the wonders of social media and, of course, her blog ‘Girl with a one-track mind‘. Zoe’s latest post, published Jan 1st, 2014, marks ten years of blogging and is full of insight, life lessons, and love. This is one small excerpt –

Back then, it felt like I was shouting about sex into a vacuum where there were two extreme, opposing perspectives: one, in women’s magazines, where women were portrayed as basically ‘innocent’ non-sexual beings who ‘give’ away their virginity to men and whose objective is to a) find a man and b) please him; and two, the other end of the media spectrum, where women were seen as ‘sluts’, and sexual ‘liberation’ meant the ‘freedom’ to be objectified for men’s titillation and gratification. I related to neither position.

Take some time out of your day and read it. And Zoe, if you’re reading this, you still continue to inspire me and I remember our stroll around Soho fondly. Big love.

5. Because Bruce Lee

Because Bruce Lee

Guess I’ll see y’all back here next week…

COME ON 2014! WHATCHOO GOT?!

 

Happy Halloween!

Mwahahahahaha…

Onwards #halloween

Sorry to scare you but I genuinely want to help you guys out!

This year, I went as a hipster werewolf victim post-attack and mid-transformation.

Let's do this. #halloween

Why? WHY NOT!

How? Ok, that’s a better question.

RAAAARGH

First off, I had an old white jacket and an old pair of white trousers that aren’t part of a suit but do go together. Collectively I’ve worn them about three times over the course of six years. So I hacked those up with a pair of scissors. Next up, the feet and the hands were left over from THIS COSTUME (amazing, I know) from last year.

And then I sought out these additional items:

Contact lenses: £10
Moulded werewolf teeth: £7
Make up set from Charles H. Fox* in Covent Garden: £24
Everyone’s reaction at the party: PRICELESS.

(Sorry, had to)

As many of my friends will tell you, I take my fancy dress pretty darn seriously. Planning is everything. But that aside, whatever you’re getting up to this Halloween**, have an awesome time.

RAAARGH!!!

IMAG0091

*Does not include the three months of theatrical make up training I completed in my youth.

**Amazingly, I’m not actually out on the 31st this year. My party was at the weekened. Instead I’m off to see THOR: THE DARK WORLD with some friends. Expect a review shortly after…

BONUS TIPS: Go check out YouTube user ‘Kickine‘, I follow her on Instagram (same name) and the stuff she’s been doing all week is AWESOME (and of course there’s how to videos on her  channel)

Team Ogilvy London vs Tough Mudder UK

“We came. We saw. We kicked its ass.”

Tough-Mudder

Saturday, October 5th – my Ogilvy colleagues and I completed the Tough Mudder North West challenge. 12 miles. 25 obstacles. One amazing feat.

Back in May, I started working with Ogilvy & Mather London Advertising on the Expedia UK account. The team were awesome and welcomed me with open arms. However, as an official member, I was told that I would have to join them in their Tough Mudder.

30mins later (after much heckling and also the clincher comment ‘James, it isn’t a race – it’s about TEAM BUILDING’ – I’m such a sucker for that stuff), this happened –

Turns out the best date we could all do it wasn’t in September after all. It was today. And guess what? We nailed it.

WINNERS

— Briony, me, Amelia, Harriet, Stephen and Joey —

There was blood. There was mud. There was euphoria. We climbed 12ft walls, we ran through electric cables, and we plunged ourselves into ice – and that is very much not even the half of it.

So far, we’ve raised just over £800 £1000(!) for Action on Bladder Cancer, the charity of choice of the Expedia UK marketing team, and there’s also (perhaps somewhat delirious) talk of making TM an annual Ogilvy event too – amazing.

If you’d like to sponsor me, or anyone else on my team, then you can do that on our dedicated sponsorship page (please do, even if it’s only a couple of quid it’d be appreciated).

I think I have a longer, more meandering post about how much of a personal achievement I feel this is (given that I only started running back in January), but that can wait for another day.

In the meantime, I’m headed home for a very long bath and while I do that, you’re going to sponsor me, right?

 

UPDATE: Photos now up on Flickr.

Five things on Friday #41

Things of note for the week ending October 12th, 2012

Untitled

1. Awesome birdhouses
From the stylish to the down right scary, these incredible birdhouses have been made specifically to raise money for charity (which is doubly awesome). The whole set is quite fantastic and the one I’ve used above does nothing to illustrate how artistic the creators get…  it just really makes me laugh.

via

2. Blogger Engagement
A good piece of blogger engagement goes a long way. This is not news admittedly and there’s probably enough in this to warrant another blog post for another day (note to self: start this draft). But for now, let’s talk about some great pieces that have happened lately.

First, from the lovely chaps looking after social media for Tsingtao Beer. I’m not a huge Tsingtao drinker but, after some great banter with the aforementioned digital team – I know I’m going to order it next time I’m out for Chinese, certainly. I’m also going to vote* in the Tsingtao Beer ‘Legacy of Taste‘ competition, which is the search to find Britain’s favourite Chinese restaurant. You should vote too.

Second, Motorola announced their brand new Motorola RAZR i the other week and, in all fairness, I rarely take notice of anything Motorola do as I’ve never used any of their devices and it’s not a brand that’s ever interested me. However, after a delightful email from their representatives here in Europe, not only have I LIKED THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE but I’ve also mentioned the phone a couple of times on the podcast AND I’m also looking forward to actually getting my hands on one and having a play.

That’s all down to decent blogger engagement.

Look, I know this all sounds incredibly pompous but I collect blogger engagement. When I was engagement director at the ‘heads I made it my job to constantly review with the way we engaged with different communities; I have given entire presentations (internally, of course) based around bad engagement copy. It’s a habit I’ve kept since leaving and well, blogger engagement done well should be applauded more often.

So, Christine at Edelman and Tom/Robbie at McCann, if you’re reading this – good work.

3. BMX Boy
This is four year old Malcolm, out BMX-ing/Mountain-biking with his dad. It’s nine minutes of smiling from ear to ear.

My dad and I used to go scrambling around tracks like that. I miss it.

4. The Mayor of Mars
The Mars Curiosity Rover is using Foursquare to track its progress across that reddest of planets and, just last week, it became the Mayor of the Gale Crater.

I love love love the way that the team at NASA are using social media tor drive interest around this most awesome of human exploratory missions. And big up to the Foursquare team who are helping them do just that. Well done.

5. Stupid stuff
My girlfriend sent me this during the week and for some reason it makes me crack up just looking at it/him –

I’m laughing right now. Hahahaha… the artist behind this masterpiece is one Natalie Dee.

Go seek her out.

—

Bonuses this week: a 15min speech from the Australian Prime Minister labelling the leader of the opposition a hyprocritcal misogynist is absolutely fantastic (seriously, watch it); a blog post entitled ‘the most interesting underpants in London‘ really does live up to its name; and finally, this is probably the best volcano video you’ve ever seen – hit HD, make it full screen and ENJOY.

 

*If you’re interested, Royal China got my vote. 

Panda Style!

So, this happened –

The chaps at work are looking after the Cheng Du Pambassador programme and well, when you leave a panda outfit laying around the office, mad things are bound to happen.

Love. Love. Love.

Moreso because I both know a fair few peeps in the video as well I know exactly what bits were left on the cutting room floor (perhaps they’ll get leaked a tt later date) .

For now, go Tweet and Share the hell out of this video – the WORLD needs to see it!

—

Yeah yeah, two panda posts in one week. It’s not like I’m influenced by anyone who loves pandas or anything…