Pepsi Snow Globe… thing

This is supposed to be baseball player Ryan Howard, dressed in a Santa costume, clutching hold of the world’s smallest baseball bat, in a snow globe. Which happens to have a big Pepsi logo plastered on it. I don’t get it whatsoever. If I received this I would probably go through the five stages: denial that I had picked it up in the first place, anger at its complete uselessness, bargaining with someone to get rid of it for something better in return, depression when no-one does want to take it off my hands and finally acceptance. Actually, scrap that. I’d never accept it.

Microsoft Frontpage (any version)

OK, this would just make my blood boil. If I wanted to use a program which left me with less control over my website than if I had just let loose a dozen chimps in the server room then Frontpage would be great, but as I am quite sane and don’t wish my brain to commit suicide, it isn’t. Ever. Under any circumstances. Hell, a clay tablet with a stick would be more useful. If someone gave this to me, I would treat it as if they had given me herpes.

Fruit cases

How many times have you sat there thinking “my god, I think I need a protective casing for my fruit!”. Well, worry no more, because some marketing type will gladly foist all the fruit-related jacketry you could ever wish for. Take this for example – it looks like a football, but its actually an apple inside! Wonderful! What better way to protect an apple from bruising than to wrap it up to look like something which has no other purpose but to be kicked around by a group of people. Its thinking like this which will eventually herald the invention of the chocolate fireguard, I’m sure.

Apple t-shirts

Now, Apple have a reputation of style, design and just generally being cool – note all the posing ‘creatives’ in coffee shops on their MacBooks, listening to their iPods whilst flicking through the menus on their iPhones. Well, there was a time when they were geeky and crap, and this time was called the 1990s. Earlier than that though, Apple had its own merchandising going on, and no doubt if you showed up to one of their events you would probably get something like one of these t-shirts as a promo gift. Lets just hope you don’t catch whatever it is this ‘family’ has been infected with. The kids in particular look like they’re high as a kite.

That’s it for now, but feel free to send in any other weird promo gifts you find on the big wide webbernets.

Giant Lego man on the beach

This, bizarrely, is a giant Lego figurine that has been found on the beach in Brighton recently.

No-one knows how it got there or why, but it was found by a local who was out walking along the beach. Apparently an almost identical Lego man was found standing on a beach in Zandvoort in Holland last year, and both of them have ‘No real than you are’ written on their chests in huge letters.

Its all a bit weird – does this mean that the oncoming fall of man will at the hand (or claw-like appendage) of submarine Lego giants who will crush our civilisation underfoot before building theirs on top out of brightly coloured plastic bricks fashioned from our cars and houses? Only time will tell, but until then, every time you step on one of the bloody bricks that a kid has left lying around deliberately, remember to say sorry. It may mean your end is quick…

Bloodhound SSC

This is what they’ve come up with. Its called Bloodhound SSC, will be piloted/driven by the same guy who took Thrust SSC to its world record.

What is amazing about this one though? Well, the fact that this time they’re using the same EJ200 jet engines that feature in the Eurofighter Typhoon military jet. The engines are being donated by the British RAF from the prototype units they had ‘lying around’, jets which were used too much to be servicable for flight again but will be perfect for whacking in a great big rocket car.

The upshot of all that? Well, they’re aiming to utterly annihilate the old world record: they intend to try and reach 1,000mph – yes, thats right! Mach 1.4 in a car… Albeit one which you are unlikely to see at your local Ford dealership for quite some time. Or ever.

The run for the record is expected to be taking place some time around 2011, so we have a while to wait yet – they don’t even know where they’re going to do it neither is a car prototype built yet. When it does happen though, it will be a sight to behold…

copyright gelitin

This giant stuffed rabbit on display on a hillside in Artesina, Italy is the work of an art studio called Gelitin. It is actually stuffed like a regular toy, and as you can see from the photo it is pretty epic in scale. That speck in the middle of its belly is a person lying down on it, as a rough guide!

The best thing is about this is that it is visible from space too. Everyone can see the wonder that is a huge pink bunny on an Italian Alp through the medium of Google Maps (or Earth if you’re feeling posh).

However, if you’re too lazy, here is what it looks like:

Now THAT is something you don’t see every day. If you do, then you’re insane, get help.

US National Debt Clock (photo copyright: Jesper Rautell Balle)

With the financial crisis in the forefront of everyone’s minds now, what better than to ram the point of why its happening truly home? Well, here is an image depicting exactly why it is happening…

This is the US National Debt Clock in Manhatten, New York. It was created in 1989 to show how much money Americans were in debt by, and how much it was going up daily. At the moment, that is around $1.5 billion dollars a day.

Well, now it seems it has run out of space to show all this. You see, it has now rolled over to $10 trillion dollars, which means they have had to use the electronic dollar symbol’s space for the extra digit, and just stick on a non-electronic dollar symbol (a travesty, I think you’ll agree). And what is the ultimate solution to this dilemma? Well, of course, its to build a new sign. Costing a lot of money, I expect. They wonder why the debt keeps rising, eh…