It tastes just like Cherry Cola

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Well placed

Well, haven't we come a long way from the Kinks being forced to change the lyrics in Lola from Coca Cola to Cherry Cola.

McDonalds have just made an offer of $5 to any Rap performers who have a reference to the Big Mac in their lyrics and it is played on the radio. That's $5 each time it's played! It makes you feel dirty doesn't it?

Product placements are starting to become more prominent on television as the powers that be try to combat people with TiVO's and the like who are now able to skip their commercials completely. You can't fast forward commercials if they are part of the show, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is a beautiful example of an entertaining hour of worship at the consumerist altar.

Anyway, if we see a future where ads are replaced by product placements, I think it will be good, product placements are so cynical that for me, it removes any slim amount of credibility from the product completely. Somehow, I don't think it will happen that easily.

One day hopefully, they'll pay me for referencing their shit in my Blog!

Star Wars Trilogy - Tweaked Again!

Star Wars Trilogy - 2004 DVD Changes

Now before I start, don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those obsessive Star Wars fans.

It has been pointed out on the above link that further changes have been made to the Star Wars trilogy (the real films) on the latest release on DVD. What I want to know is when will George Lucas stop messing with these and how many more times can he bleed the fans of their hard earned cash with these movies.

The question of messing with a completed piece art that has already been placed into the public sphere also has to be raised. What would happen if they decided that the special effects in the Wizard of Oz would look cooler if they were redone with CGI? It's only a slither off the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

If nothing else, these changes appear to have been made to add credibility to Lucas' poorly executed prequel trilogy. Let's just hope the final one is good.

Paris for President

This was the slogan I saw on a girls tank top today as I was walking back to my office from lunch. I guess the scary thing was I know who Paris is. Oh how I wish I lived under a rock and found this slogan nonsensical. "Paris for President? How can a place have a job? Next they'll have t-shirts saying Addis Ababa for Governor General."

But alas, I know who Paris is and my reaction was "Sure why not president, she got everything else by doing nothing." It got me thinking about the whole Paris Hilton phenomenon, apart from how a total skank got to be a role model for millions of teenage girls, I think it reveals a lot about what captures the imaginations of the collective public. This girl has become famous for being famous. She was born with all the money she will ever need and yet she feels the need for fame too.

We currently live in a world where most people would like to be rich and famous without having to do any work for it and we idolize those people who have managed to achieve it.