Candy Crush

My dad and I sat down for our weekly Top Gear showing. The first set of commercials seemed normal until- bam!- a commercial that really confused us. Candy Crush Saga is a game on Facebook that's also available as an app that both my dad and I play. So it was surprising to us when a commercial for it popped up on the tv.

I never expected to see an ad for a Facebook app on tv- I figured they would stick to their own site for marketing. But they were advertising to the perfect group- we watched Top Gear and enjoyed Candy Crush Saga, so they must've had something right in the marketing room. Sadly, the commercial seemed pretty low budget, almost faded, and just plain weird. But hey, I still like the game.

FOTC

New Zealand's 4th most popular comedy folk duo, Flight of the Conchords, are amazing. Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement are two of the most comical and entertaining people I have ever seen. They are like a stand-up group, except that they do their comedy through song, making it all the more enjoyable and accessable. They can be super akward and make it totally work. They can take super serious subjects and make an entire room fall off their chairs in laughter. The world needs more comedians and artists like Bret and Jemaine, as they are some of the best ever. It is a complete travesty that their show was cancelled after only two seasons (curse you HBO!). They give off a perfect quirky vibe while they deal with day to day issues, like racist fruit stands and male prostitution. Please enjoy just this one of their many songs and it will hopefully have you hooked.

ALMOND MILK!!!

I was grocery shopping with my dad, just about to check out, when I glimpsed a product I automatically knew that I needed. I didn't know what it was, but the matte packaging with little bits of perfectly placed color and a pretty girl's face made me sure I needed it. I slammed the cart to a stop and literally ran across the aisle to check out what my new favorite drink was. "Oh... It's... Almond milk?" I was quite disappointed. I don't know what I was expecting- maybe juice,  but nothing that it could have been warranted how excited that packaging made me. But it just goes to show you what packaging can do. Bravo, Califia Farms. You got at least one sale off of your packaging alone.

P.S. The almond milk was quite sub-par. DISAPPOINTMENT!

Sparkle and Fade

My new favorite album is Sparkle and Fade by Everclear. Admittedly it isn't exactly new, as it came out two years before I was born. But the songs, especially the lyrics, are amazing. My favorite song on this album would have to be "Pale Green Stars."

This song is about divorce and its effect on children. Not only do I relate to this song because my parents got divorced when I was six and then eight years later my mom got divorced again, but also because of the name of the song- "Pale Green Stars." After my parent's divorce, I had the aforementioned pale green stars above my bed- the glow in the dark universe that accompanied me to sleep every restless night. Another one of my favorite songs on the album is "Strawberry."

While this song is about relapsing, I find it inspirational for whatever I'm doing. Whenever I feel down I just listen to "Strawberry" and realize that I can't fall down now, or else I may never get it. It really gets me back up from the ground whenever I'm feeling down.

The Glades and the KIA

I've been watching The Glades, a show about a homicide detective in Florida and his nurse girlfriend. This nurse, Callie, is a single mother who drives a KIA. I stopped watching the show after a certain scene involving the car. As she was driving her son to soccer, the camera panned around the outside and interior of the car and Callie then proceeded to plug the various features that the KIA has, such as a sunroof and an awesome entertainment system. The blatant product placement ruined the entire show for me, and I stopped watching it. I just saw another episode, and they had basically the exact same scene, just with a different model of the same car. I'm sure that the money that KIA paid them to make their show into an ad helped with the production, but it also ruined the integrity of the show. I get that product placement is a new and innovative way for advertisers to shove more products down our throats, but it's getting to the point where it's counterproductive and the companies just seem desperate. WE have TiVo for a reason- so we can watch shows without ads.

Gossip Girl

Doesn't every teenager love pissing off their parents by doing thing that they don't want us to do? Gossip Girl, a CW show about the lives of Manhattan's teenage elite, took that love of rebellion and put it into an ad campaign.

They took the reaction of the Parental Advocacy Group, which was horror over the rampant sexuality that it shows, and pasted it over some of said sexual scenes. Seems as though the group's best efforts to rid their homes of "bad influences" backfired, as the show went on for a long while afterwards, with a large and dedicated fanbase. This is one of the few ads that appeals to our need for sex and also our wish to rebel from the normal lives we lead.

Boston Marathon Bombing Coverage

The Boston Marathon Bombing shocked everyone in the country and the different ways that it was covered by different news stations was very interesting. I was watching Extra and they actually had a story about the different coverages of the event of the different stations, in particular The Today Show and Good Morning, America. Good Morning, America featured a bunch of photos of the bombing and had a very dramatic coverage that seemed like they were exploiting the terrible situation just to get more viewers with the shock factor. The Today Show, on the other hand, has been commended for their stellar coverage of this disaster. They kept it much more low-key, which I'm sure that the victims really appreciated. I've always felt that while the news keeps us informed of what's going on in the world, news stations overdo it and make their coverage slightly disrespectful of the victims. But I found The Today Show's coverage to be perfect, which I'm sure others will agree with and perhaps increase their viewership.