Feb 13
I don’t know if I’d call this Craigslist ad for cinder blocks the best one ever — assuming it was real — but it ranks right up there with the “Serve the Monster” ad I blogged about a couple of years ago. (via Daring Fireball)
Dec 09
This Phone is Tapped by FredoAlvarez/flickr)
Recently, AT&T began airing and displaying ads touting the international reach of their mobile phone service. The ad pictured above, on the train platform of the White Flint Metro station in Rockville, got an addition. The corporate slogan “Your World. Delivered.” was covered up with a decal that says,
THIS PHONE IS TAPPED. Your conversation is being monitored by the U.S. goverment courtesy of the US Patriot Act of 2001, Sec. 216 of which permits all phone calls to be recorded without a warrant or notification.
The decals are produced by an organization called CrimethInc. By the looks of it, that particular decal once had a home on a public telephone’s receiver.
It rather reminded me of a case the Electronic Frontier Foundation worked on last year against AT&T. The company’s slogan was parodied as “Your World. Delivered. To the NSA.“
Sep 26
Metro: ‘Never Try To Run’: A public service announcement on a Metro bus in Washington, DC, discourages people from running after buses. (FredoAlvarez/flickr)
Jul 20
From Oddee: 15 Unfortunately Placed Ads, because sometimes, juxtaposition is key. (via MetaFilter)
Jun 17
Be a vegetarian …: A makeshift PSA advocating vegetarianism is displayed among other ads on a route D6 Metrobus bound for the Stadium-Armory Metro station in Washington, DC. (FredoAlvarez/flickr)
Feb 12
I saw this graphic in my email this morning, and was immediately amused. It’s part of an email ad for Free411.com (and it’s respective telephone number: 1-800-FREE-411), an ad-sponsored alternative to the traditional telephone directory service, but given the recent hoopla about a certain chat site, I thought it pretty funny.
Dec 07
Blue Jersey has created a parody of Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads. Their series of ads, Think Equal, compares marriages and civil unions. The first ad in the series is below.
[via Urban Bohemian]
Sep 19
Grapefeed
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No on Prop 8
I take the bus to work every morning. On a good day, the bus itself is a few minutes behind schedule (despite my stop’s proximity to the start of the westbound route) and the ride takes about 30 minutes.
Realistically, good days on that route are few and far between. My bus is often more than a few minutes late (Sometimes two busses come at once, with one being very late and the other being right on time or early.) and traffic extends the commute by 10 to 30 minutes. It doesn’t help that my route comes in close proximity to the Capitol and Union Station, two landmarks so thick with traffic they merge into each other. So help you if there’s an emergency at either location, or worse both.
Given the route’s reputation — which hasn’t improved much in my nearly six years of using it — many riders will chase after the bus or run to the stop when they see it approaching. (I’ve been known to do this myself, I imagine to the great amusement of my fellow passengers: “Lookit the fat boy run!”)
I spotted a public service ad inside the bus today which quoted a bus driver who supposedly logged over 3 million miles. He said,
Better off in what way? We’ll be less sweaty? We won’t be mocked by the less mature passengers on the bus? We’ll have a valid-but-difficult-to-prove excuse for being late(r) to work?
If the route had a better on-time record, I might be willing to overlook this PSA. With the Metro bus route’s notorious track record of tardiness — including wait times of up to 25 minutes during rush hour, when busses are supposed to be more frequent — this PSA is nothing more than a printed slap in the face.
For the record, I didn’t have to run this morning; my bus was only 7 minutes late and the ride was about 30 minutes. Today’s was a good commute.
But I was still late to work — I overslept.