In honor of Canada Day, I’d like to bring back an old favorite.
Enjoy the Canadian Border Patrol:
Also in the news, poisonous spiders are biting humans, and doctor’s don’t give a crap. That’s why I’ve decided to switch to a new health care plan:
I am an internet junkie. Most of you know this. Very rarely does somebody (with the exception of a small handful of people on my Google RSS Feed Reader) show me a video on Youtube, a cool website, or revolutionary blog post without my having already read it… sometimes months earlier.
One of my most recent discoveries absolutely blew me away. Pogo is a breakout electronic artist from Perth, Australia. In the video below, he has taken sound bits and sweet beats from the movie Disney’s Mary Poppins and mixed them into a soothing yet very catchy tune. His talent isn’t limited to audio editing, however. If you watch the video, you will note that nearly every image is in complete harmony with the steady thump of the electro-bass. The dancing, the singing, everything is in sync.
The time that was put into the editing of the video and audio of this production has to be unimaginable, but it’s worth every delicious second.
The ability to take something ordinary, or even extraordinary and turn it into something that is yours, something that is unique is something I admire greatly. There is an entire world of plain, average, mediocre, vanilla things out there. We are surrounded by the bland and common. Every so often, someone takes a piece of the average and creates something unbelievable out of it. When will that person be you?
If you like the Mary Poppins video, he has a few others based on Disney and Harry Potter movies that are just as phenomenal as this one. His music is also up for free download (by the artist, so it’s legal) here.
Also, if you want to keep up to date on all the cool stuff I see and read. You can subscribe to my Google Reader Feed here. You’ll get 10 times the cool stuff there than you will here… although the occasional nugget of goodness will always turn up on TheBigBags.com
It has been a big week for American icons.
We started off the week with the devastating news regarding sweepstakes giver-awayer and old partner of Jonny Carson, Ed McMahon’s death. I guess it was about time, seeing as he was old enough to remember when Moses was a guest on the Tonight Show. This news was quickly overshadowed by the death of another celebrity.
As many of you know, international sex symbol of the 70’s, Farrah Fawcett died of cancer this week. Fourty-year-old men the world over are mourning the loss of the locker room legend of their youth. Although we would have loved to commemorate the death of this sex icon in a manner befitting her beautiful life saga, it was not meant to be.
A few hours later Michael Jackson’s heart stopped beating which, in turn, broke the entire internet. The earth stopped to remember the moonwalk, Thriller, and the little black boy who grew up into the little white (mostly plastic) man. He did, after all, revolutionize music as we know it. You may not like him as a person, but no human on the planet has ever had chart-topping songs 5 decades in a row.
Then, the really mind blowing happened. Our worldwas rocked once again as we learned (via Twitter) that Shaq got traded to Cleavland.
WTF NBA draft?! Haven’t we had enough to deal with this week? Now we have to wait in eager anticipation for another attempt at a Lebron vs. Kobe NBA Final? I’m on pins and needles, and I don’t think my system can go through any more shock… unless the USA beats Brazil tomorrow. Then I might just poop my pants.
A few years ago, Honda made a two minute commercial that broke the boundaries of cool. They created a Rube Goldberg machine entirely out of the parts of the car they were advertising.
Apparently this commercial required over 600 takes before they got it right, and it involves absolutely no computer graphics.
This giant chain reaction is amazing to watch. My favorite parts are the weighted tires that roll uphill, and the walking windshield wipers. Super creative stuff here. It’s creativity like this that makes me obsess over solid, creative marketing.
Have you ever heard of the Boone Oakley advertising agency? Yeah,I hadn’t either… until yesterday. These guys have to have the absolute coolest company profile I’ve ever seen in my life… and it’s all on the Youtube.
This is the kind of company I hope to work for one day. One with an incredibly outrageous personality and a group of collectively creative minds to match my own. Don’t forget to browse through a few of the links on their Youtube vids. I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did…
Sometimes I really wonder if Dads even like Father’s Day. I mean, it’s nice to get the family together and have a barbecue, and maybe play a game or two, but years of socks and ties and poorly drawn pictures can take a toll on a man…
P.S. I know this isn’t much of a triumphal return to the blog-o-sphere, but it will have to do for now. You will be seeing more regular posts in the future, most of which will have some sort of advertising or humorous theme. They will, of course, be peppered with the occasional absurd life experience from yours truley.
Thanks for reading, and may your camel always be humpy.
I am on the brink of finals. This time of year is always the most stressful for me. I am trying to get all of my late assignments turned in while watching the weather warm up and the earth turn green. I long to be outside while being trapped inside. The paper writing takes its toll, as do the tests. And, on top of the stresses of finals, the management at my apartment complex has set our move-out date to land right in the middle of finals week requiring all of the students (the vast majority of the tenants) to be packing, cleaning and moving while they should be studying.
This Tuesday I woke up and was informed by one of my roommates that (on top of everything else mentioned above) carpet cleaning day had arrived. Once every 6 months the management decides it’s time to clean our carpet. I like clean carpet, but in order to do a thorough cleaning, they require us to move everything off of the floors in every carpeted room in the house. This includes couches, chairs and everything in our closets. Since I haden’t set apart extra time to prepare for carpet cleaning, I had to put the pedal to the metal on my normal morning routine. I got everything done, and made it to class only to remember that I had a final group presentation later in the day that I was supposed to dress up for. The current jeans and t-shirt apparel would not be acceptable.
After that first class I ran to my second class, dropped my bag off with a friend and headed home to change my outfit to something more suiting a presentation. I made it back half way through class number two. As I opened the door to walk in, I realized that the only vacant seat in the entire classroom was right on the front row. I snuck up to the front as stealthily as I could and slipped into my seat putting my shoulderbag on my desk. As luck would have it, the lid to my water bottle had come loose and as my shoulderbag hit the desk, the contents of my water bottle spewed forth like a mighty geizer. The water saturated my crotch and created a puddle in my seat sufficient enough to soak my bottom along with it. One by one, as people began to notice what had happened, the classroom burst into laughter. I stood up to show off my soggy pants with a sigh, I shuffled out of the classroom.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have enough time to go home and change. My presentation was in less than an hour, and I was walking around campus looking like my bladder had exploded. I decided my best option would be venture out into the warm spring sun and sit spread eagle on a bench with my bits facing the sun.
Dozens of people passed me by, staring at my junk. I felt embarassed, violated and wet. It was hilarious. It was probably very similar to the feeling that the first girl junior high school to go through puberty girl gets. My face had been erased from existence. People only saw my wet crotch.
I know you’re curious to know what finally happened. My pants dried (mostly), and my presentation went well (mostly). The only damage done was to my ego… and my attitude.
The moral of the story? If you’re ugly, just pour water on your crotch. Your world will be turned upside down. You will be noticed, and people will look at you with a smile… and it’s not just because they think it’s funny that you don’t have any bladder control.
Dear internets,
A few weeks ago, I took my beautiful new girlfriend to the Hare Krishna Holi Festival (aka: Festival of Colors). To the rest of the world, the Holi Festival is a Hindu tradition celebrating the arrival of spring with the death of winter. (Seriously, they literally burn a straw person in effigy to symbolize winter’s death.) Here in Utah, however, the Holi Festival is not so much a Hindu celebration as it is a multicultural insurgence for thousands of ultra-conservative white college students. I mean, what better way to show that you’re not like everyone else than by joining your entire neighborhood in a religious celebration you know nothing about except that you get to throw colored chalk at each other while making synchronized hand motions and chanting in unison?
Needless to say, I was a little weirded out by the whole event. Now, I’m not saying that the celebration itself was weird, I appreciate diversity in all of its shapes and colors. What really shocked me was how incredibly open and willing the entire crowd was to do whatever the man with the mic told them to do. For a few minutes I felt like the mob could have easily turned into a Nazi army camp with all the “Krishna Krishna” hands in the air stuff, and nobody would have batted an eyelash. This did not happen (thankfully). Instead, the girlfriend and I just stood there in fascination watching people being overcome by the overwhelming power of being able to throw chalk. Now, I must admit it was kind of cool when the celebration chalk was thrown. The thousands of handfulls full of colored powder literally blotted out the sun. (Not the place to be if you are an asthmatic. Found that out the hard way.)
By the end of the celbration, everyone was covered from head to toe in colored dust. We looked like a mob made up of a blind kid’s color by number paintings brought to life. I inhaled so much blue powder that my boogers looked like smushed blueberries. And the worst part, I felt like I traveled for over an hour (both ways) just to get dirty.
What’s worse is that when I washed the chalk-covered clothes that I wore to the festival, I forgot to separate them from the normal dirty clothes. I now have a drawer full of pink underwear. (It used to be white, I promise.) Also, spring still hasn’t arrived… it’s still snowing, and it’s April. I think the Holi Festival is broken.
*The following post is written by Chris Hooley, entrepreneur, marketer and blogger extraordinaire. It is a story about poop. It is also a story about spring break (the real kind of spring break, not the Mormon kind where you go to family reunions and eat jell-o salad while playing charades with your second cousins). Knowing the audience of my blog, I felt it appropriate to give you fair warning in case either topic (or the combination of the two) does not appeal to you.
Being the consummate professional I am, there is no way I could tell this story on my Phoenix SEO company site, or on my personal blog. So when the BIG BAGS asked me to be a guest blogger, I knew exactly what had to be done. I had to tell the world about my story of pooping underwater. In front of tons of hot chicks. At Spring Break.
3 years ago, I somehow convinced my old employer (a student loan company) that my marketing team needed to attend Spring Break at Lake Havasu to see if we could drum up some student activity (if you know what I mean). So I got set my budget, had my assistant make the proper out of office replies, told my buddies, er, employees, SnoopBloggyBlog and Iambetterthanu it was time to get packing for Spring Break.
We ordered 500 tee shirts to give away, some shwag, a giant poster, and a double decker pontoon boat to put that giant poster on. You know, for business reasons.
So we roll up to Havasu, and the first thing we noticed is that hot college girls who go to Lake Havasu needed shirts. You know, because they often didn’t wear shirts. It might have been a mistake ordering the white ones (though the fellas from University of Wisconsin probably disagree) but I still felt chivalrous nonetheless. I was saving barely of age young women from the hot Arizona elements. Like being sprayed with malt liquor and schlitz. This made me feel good, like a Samaritan or something.
When we got the boat, first thing we realized is that this thing was HUGE. Two stories of :”WHOOOOO” on three tubular cylinders of pure party power. Next thing I noticed, it had a water slide. A frakkin water slide.
Something told me I’m going to have a tough time getting work done. Especially since SOMEBODY snuck a TON of beer into the coolers. I was like WTF this is against regulation! So I did not *choke* dink a drop of liquor, That would have been inappropriate.
Anyways, we get the boat onto the water, with visions of Girls Gone Wild DVD trailers playing through our heads. And that’s when it happened. I realized I needed to take a massive dump. This was not good.
So we got to the cove, and things start happening really fast. Since we had the double decker pontoon boat, random college kids all started to infiltrate our space. Dancing, jumping off the second story into the water, pounding beverages, and getting very friendly with each other. Everybody seemed so happy. And there’s me in the corner, grunting and groaning like I was being tortured. Pasties (we named her that for obvious reasons, she only sported a thong and pasties on her airy olahs) thought I needed some cheering up so she showed me her butt. But that just reminded me more of the trouble a brewin’.
After a few hours of this, I finally decided something had to be done. Plenty of people where jumping in the water to relive themselves, but not one person had to do a #2 from what I could tell. Not one except for me. But I could not sit in this torture any longer, so I decided to head for the jagged mountain about a quarter mile from the boat to do the deed in private. But I was gonna have to swim for it.
So I pretended I was like them. Those crazy kids having fun. I climbed up to the second story of our pontoon party pod, pounded my chest, and jumped in a fashion that screamed “I am not doing this just to take a dump, I’m doing it because it’s Spring Break and I am not really a 30 year old guy trying to capitalize on all you sexy bitches!”.
But once I hit the water, the coldness made me realize I was not going to be able to swim 1/4 of a mile and climb those jagged rocks before the sea turtle tried to make it’s escape.
And that’s when I saw it. It was there the whole time, my own private party right in the middle of all the action. The pontoons under the boat made a long, and perfectly safe and secure tunnel for me to have some alone time. It was like angels singing and calling me under the boat. So I swam joyfully, and my rectum began to loosen with the anticipation of the glory that was about to occur. I was about to drop the kids off at in the pool lake!
Now most of the people relieving themselves did so without even pulling down the trunks. They would just pee right in their swimsuits, and swim away. Kinda gross, but it was par for course. If anybody was pulling down their trunks, rest assured it was not to urinate. I quickly realized this would not work in my situation. So I pulled down my brand new Fox surf trunks, balanced them around my ankles while using my arms in a circular motion to stay afloat, and popped a virtual squat to insure I did not soil the aforementioned surfwear.
I had a brief moment of anxiety about the turtle wanting to float around with me… But when it happened, all those fears just floated away. It was like a muddy scud missile. No, a big brown torpedo. It felt like I was being evacuated of all foodstuffs I had consumed since grade 3. As the party raged over my head, I had a quiet moment of “God really does love me”. The stinkers were sinkers, my guts felt better than ever, my mood elevated immediately… that is, until I was so rudely interrupted.
One of my new Wisconsin buddies jumped off the boat and somehow caught a glimpse of me between two pontoons, with a look of pure ecstasy on my face. He decided it looked like fun, and swam over to join me in my private party.
Now, I would say I almost shit my pants, but my shorts were already around my ankles and the pure poop poundage was already flying out of me at an alarming rate. Even faster now that my nerves kicked in. So I frantically tried to wave him off with one arm, but I had no legs to keep me afloat. I was flipping out, bobbing in the water, waiving one arm, and crapping all at at once. He eventually got the hint when I screamed “Don’t swim over here I am shitting right now!” He swam away laughing his ass off at me.
But who cares. At least I had my privacy back.
Now here is a little known fact about pool pooping. That feeling you get with a dry dump, you know, when the potty hit’s the flo: it never happens underwater. What might have been a ghost poo (you wipe but the TP remains clean, wipe after wipe) felt like it never finished. I sat confused for a few moments wondering if I was really done, and trying to finish the job. Back to grunting.
Yep, I’m done.
So my final dilemma in all this: how does one wipe their butt underwater? Quite simple, one doesn’t. It’s impossible. But I did devise a method that I like to think is ingenious. I did this scooching motion with my legs and one arm so that I inched myself forward to clear myself of the poop path, and used my other hand to powerfully waft a jet stream of fresh water repeatedly at my pooper. It was a cold sensation that left me feeling cleaner than TP to be honest. It was in fact, glorious.
Fast forward after 30 seconds of grinning and gloatng… Now was the time for the swim of shame. I climb back on the boat fully expecting to be bombarded by my buddies. I was waiting to be picked on, pointed out, and laughed at.
But I instead, was shocked. I got a heroes solute! Every guy there was patting me on the back and giving me manly half hugs and noogies for my valiant discovery. This must be what babies feel like when their mommies congratulate them and give them ice cream for not soiling their shorts. Pure, acceptance, true happiness. I pooped and everybody approved. In fact, I am now a Lake Havasu Spring Break Legend, The man who invented The PONTOON PARTY POOP!
