Nobody’s laughing at the clownfish spokesmodel for Dell’s fantastic new monitor
What better way to showcase your new monitor than with a clownfish or two?
Finding Nemo changed the world for better or worse. Can Dell? The Dell UltraSharp U2711 monitor is now shipping—sans fish. Will its color gamut be the ultimate desktop medium to paradise? Professionals awaiting something new (and not glossy) from Apple may be tempted to dive in.
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Posted on February 11, 2010
Filed Under Cultural Symbols, Fish, Medium to Paradise, Technology | Leave a Comment
Political coconut launching ~ hitting real people’s livelihoods instead
The Republicans and Democrats have long used escape and paradise to clobber one another, sometimes joining forces to lance a particularly malignant personality (think Gary Hart and the yacht named Monkey Business). Having a Democratic President from Hawaii has been both a blessing and a curse for those who want to use the state as a punching bag to swing at Obama. But what about the real people from Hawaii and other tropical places who find themselves mocked by these attacks?
John Oliver of the Daily Show proved once again just how easy it is to hit at politicians through satire, pointing out their supposed hypocrisy. No other clip better sums up the role that paradise can play in politics. The importance of Oliver’s piece is not that it lobs coconuts at Republicans, which I might be inclined to scold him for, but rather that it artfully ricochets the ones that they originally threw at the Democrats:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| RNC Meeting in Hawaii | ||||
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As accessibility to paradisiacal places went mainstream during that last two booms (most likely stimulated by the credit bubble), tropical places have become more and more common in politics. Beyond the RNC’s Waikiki meeting mentioned in the video above, there are the pol-celeb cruises.
One of the biggest worries about the presumably final collapse of Air America Radio was whether or not the Progressive Voices Cruise scheduled for March 2010 would go on. There was also the recent Tea Party cruise, which attracted “more than a hundred conservative and Tea Party activists” according to CNN.
No matter where your support lies, it’s clear to most that hosting conferences in Hawaii is a great way to get things done with a backdrop of sunshine. The IRS subtracts out Hawaiian business expenses in the same way that it does Minnesota expenses, so why not? In many cases, the cost to travel to and stay in Hawaii is not necessarily that much more than cities like New York and Boston. Yes, admittedly, the carbon footprint of some of the participants would be higher. However, the cultural insinuations, as pointedly documented by John Oliver, are the real reason to avoid such trips.
The only issue is that a place like Hawaii is hurting as much, if not more, from the recession than most of the rest of the United States. Its economy relies on the basic-sector output of much of the rest of the world. If ever there were a time for relatively prosperous people to go to Hawaii, it is now when stays are much cheaper and the people Hawaiians need the economic activity.
The paradisiacal din in politics proves one point: the vast majority of Americans really do see Hawaii as an ideal and exotic place that should not be accessible, and especially not populated, by ordinary people. But it is, and we should be careful about attacking a state just because the weather is so nice. We’re batting around people’s livelihoods, not beating up politicians, who have mastered this sport over decades-long careers.
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Posted on February 11, 2010
Filed Under Islands, Medium to Paradise, Politics | Leave a Comment
Chez Cher Sells with Sofas by the Seashore
Cher sold her Big-Island Hawaiian home at auction for $8.7 million according to CNN. The fourth image in the four-picture gallery is particularly amusing:
Notice the palms blowing in the wind? The description says that the “Trade winds cool the patio.” No wonder why she has never lived there. How could she keep her wigs on in that wind tunnel? Okay, maybe it was a particularly breezy day.
They also say that the house is a “contemporary take of traditional Balinese architecture.” Whether or not you agree with the success of the architects at achieving said archibabble, you have to wonder why they couldn’t find a contemporary Hawaiian vernacular to better suit the island on which the house sits. At the bottom of the first page of photos, CNN’s next button says, “This is no little grass shack,” as if to say that that’s what an island typology would be. I’ll take archibabble over CNN babble any day.
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Posted on February 9, 2010
Filed Under Architecture, Cultural Symbols, Hollywood, Islands | Leave a Comment
Apple iPad ~ Surfboard Dog
Following on the success of a skateboarding dog selling iPods, a surfing dog from YouTube has made its way into the Apple iPad marketing package:
“Buddy the Surfing Dog” (if that is indeed the dog pictured above) is admittedly cute, but is that poor little guy really enjoying the experience? It makes you think that there is a reason that the human nose points downward. Pushing that dog through the water that way, must be wreak havoc on his poor nostrils. Anyway, this image is further evidence from my previous post that the YouTube generation is going to keep us surrounded by surfing dogs for many years to come.
Apple has never been a company to steer away from using paradise to market its products, but they have usually done so in a way that visually makes the products stand out. Their strategy in the past seemed to be to make the products the star of the pictures by contrasting them with bright, pleasing, and inoffensive images of paradise, which have a flashy way of receding, such as this iBook webpage from 2001:
Apple has not changed that strategy much over the years, even as their products have jumped far ahead of most others. More recently, however, Apple has been adding more active lifestyle pictures that try to show images that people might actually take themselves, particularly with their iPhoto and iMovie products becoming so popular and easy to use. It seems to be paying off.
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Posted on February 9, 2010
Filed Under Animals and Pets, Surfing, Technology, Television | Leave a Comment
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