Music Tuesdays feat. Small Hands, Big Ideas (again)

This week's offering once again comes from our friend Grace of the great blog Small Hands, Big Ideas. Non-music plug for Small Hands - I like her latest blog on being "down" with new stuff because we all know exactly what she's talking about and how true it is. Plus it involves the word "beeker" multiple times.

As you will recall, last week Grace passed along the group N.A.S.A.. This week it's a very different vibe with the song "Elephants" by Warpaint:



I also want to give an honorable mention to the song "Sweet Disposition" by The Temper Trap, even though everyone knows it, because I just saw 500 Days of Summer and this is the star of the soundtrack:



Have we not had a Garden State and 500 Days of Summer soundtrack discussion on FIWK yet?

Winter Olympics: Why Do We Watch?

Aaron wrote this up but hasn't had occasion to post it:

A while back, we discussed a Malcolm Gladwell article, where he compares football to dog fighting. We now know that football players are hurting themselves long term and we continue to like and support the support and kind of look the other way.

NASCAR is one of the most watched sports in the world. But why? Every lap looks the same on TV with an occasional pit stop.

In terms of watching the Winter Olympics on TV, I argue that we can classify every event into one of two categories: Exciting competition or crashable.


Worldwide Wes - Who?

Worldwide Wes is considered by many to be the most powerful man in basketball. Wait, who? My thoughts exactly. Allow me to elaborate: while reading the 2nd part of Royce's favorite column of the year (the Sports Guy's Annual Trade Value column), Simmons tells us a story about Worldwide Wes, a man who "...carries more weight within the league than basically anybody." The story is interesting, and the quote that comes out of the story is a classic, yet I found myself asking "why haven't I even heard of this guy?

So, I did a little bit of searching, and came across this insightful GQ piece. Now, after reading, my only question is this: "Is this guy so sleazy that he comes off as a good guy, or is he genuinely a good guy?"


PS. The picture accompanying this article is from the (in)famous "Malice at the Palace" (which, I might add, Cedric the Entertainer speaks to in this entertaining bit).

Gearing up for the NFL Draft

Aaron Kiper Jr., I demand that you comment on the NFL Draft Projections currently up on ESPN Insider. Have you spent much time considering the draft? Do you have opinions?

Other transactions are rumored as well. For instance, the rumor was circulated recently that the Chargers are shopping CB Antonio Cromartie for a RB, though you don't seem to like it or believe it.

Music Tuesdays feat. Small Hands, Big Ideas

Since Grace passed this group along to me, I give her all credit. The group is called N.A.S.A. and this song is called A Volta (their album is called The Spirit of Apollo), and it rocks:



The video for the song is pretty cool too. The group apparently consists of two producers, and then each song has a bunch of features. Check out some of their other songs; Way Down is pretty good.

What music do you recommend this week?

Buffett Buys Dinner for Fund Manager Based on Letter

I love this story. Warren Buffett recently flew a 29 year-old fund manager to Omaha and paid for her meal because he liked the research she submitted to him so much. The linked story has all the details so I won't repeat. Dinners with Buffett have sold for over $2 million at charity auctions, so to be flown in by Buffett for a meal, all based on your letter to him, is amazing.

She put the picture with Buffett, whose wallet she's holding, as her Facebook profile pic:



The crazy part to me is learning about Cara Goldenberg, who is like a wunderkind 29 year-old managing partner of Permian Investment Partners, which she co-founded 18 months ago. She must be smart as hell to be in that position that young, and have some good ideas to submit as research to Buffett that would impress him so much.

PS, I found this story on the Everything Warren Buffett blog feed which I once linked to in our Content DJ post.

California - State of Crisis?

I came across this Forbes article in which the CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley called for a constitutional convention for the state of California. This was also mentioned on CNBC the other day in a segment in which they compared the current troubles surrounding Greece to those of California.


And here you thought the term constitutional convention belonged to our "four fathers"...

Music Tuesdays with Smile Like You Mean It - Mattafix and Wiley

Big City Life by Mattafix:


Wouldn't let me embed the video, but it's here. This song was playing in Europe a few years ago, I'm not sure if it ever came over here?

C-Mac at Smile Like You Mean It has presented this song by Wiley feat. Emelie Sande which she titles I Love the 90s!

Once again, her choice totally rocks mine.

Did the Pro Bowl make you forget about the other football game?


I wanted to have an interesting thing to talk about regarding the Super Bowl. I really did. I mean, I love football and gambling and our collective love of commercials is well documented. So basically my strategy is to ramble a little and hope I come up with a not-horrible idea. Bear with me, I can feel some ideas percolating.

LA's Food Trucks

It has come to my attention that the gourmet food truck craze does not exist in all parts of our nation. For shame.

Here in the sprawl of Los Angeles, getting lunch near your office can sometimes be a pain. I've eaten at Subway so often I'm sick of it. Instead, I keep my meals delicious by frequenting the gourmet catering trucks.

Have you heard of a 'roach coach' cruising to construction sites to serve up lunches to the workers? Well, here in Los Angeles they took that concept and made it high-end and delicious. The Kogi BBQ truck, with its Korean bbq tacos, was the first that it hit it big. There are now many others and they're all delicious.


simpsoncrazy.com - Simpsons News Headlines

While looking for the below headline (my all-time favorite), I stumbled upon the site Simpson Crazy and their list of all the newspaper headlines throughout the show's history. How cool is that?

Commercial Throwdown: Small Hands, Smile, FIWK

With a list of featured bloggers longer than the featured rappers list on Lil Jon's Grand Finale, I present to you yet another commercial throwdown. Contributing their finds are our friends Grace from Small Hands, Big Ideas and Lijit and Caitlin aka C-Mac from Smile Like You Mean It.

First, here's what Grace said about her choice:

"This time I chose Evian-Roller Babies Live Young


"This commercial is not only viral in nature (spread like wild fire) but it's simple, invokes humor and is back dropped with Rappers Delight (classic!) Seeing dancing, roller babies jamming out to Rappers Delight is unique, made me laugh, pass it along to all my friends, and sub-consciously I was definitely thinking about Evian water. Mmm. I appreciate viral videos such as this and think that Evian did a great job executing this new "Live Young" campaign, while getting everyone to "talk" about the Dancing Roller Babies."

Aaron submits the following Bud Light commercial:



C-Mac has posted this Wal-Mart commercial as her submission.

And finally, I choose this Geico fiddle commercial from Geico's 'rhetorical questions' commercial series.

So there you have it, the gauntlents have been thrown - now tell us what you like.

PR for the Layman

Last Monday, our friend Nicole Antoinette from More is Better made the following statement in her latest Unetmplater post:
Maybe what social media teaches us is how to be a creative secret keeper, how to put exactly what we want in front of the eyes of the world, and how to hold everything else behind the curtain.

 

So, are we approaching an age in which the layman needs a PR-type to control his/her image?

LOST Season Finale Recap and Season 6 Theories

LOST starts its final season tonight and I couldn't be more excited. I re-watched the season 5 finale on ABC.com to remember what happened. I highly recommend getting a refresher.



Music Tuesdays feat. Smile Like You Mean It (remix)

I didn't find any of today's songs myself. The first I found on our friend Grace's blog:

It's Over by Milosh


The second is a mash up series that our friend Caitlin aka C-Mac - who runs the cool blog Smile Like You Mean It - sent to me. The series is titled Jaydiohead. Here are two examples:

Dirt Off Your Android


No Karma