The weekend links

Sickness has descended upon me, engulfing my head in a throbbing sinus-y fugue. Here are the links for this weekend:

Why God, why??! Sao Paulo, a city without any out-of-home advertising. See the photoblog here.



HAHAHA - the funniest link in the list. Things I learned from Stock photos - the AD team is gonna love this! My favourite, "That one-handed, one-knee laptop bullshit is the preferred way to get real work done" - brilliant!


We explored the Chinese contemporary artist Lui Wei last week. Here is another avart-garde guy, Liu Bolin. I'm not sure how the censors feel about this, but to me his work speaks volumes about Chinese government policy and how with the many issues we hear about in China, everyday citizens can become invisible to outsider observers and even party leaders.


Every week I look for something bizarre. Here are macabre snowglobes. I want the one with the monster spider - it reminds me of a fun Christmas years back!



Our very own Sid Wahi, IT Director and Group Account Director has contributed his insights to the Insider about the recent financial market instability.


Hot off the presses, Interbrand's ranking of the Top 100 Global Brands.

1. Coke
2. IBM
3. Microsoft
4. GE
5. Nokia
6. Toyota
7. Intel
8. McDonald's
9. Disney
10. Google

B!G has risen from #87 on this list in 2007 to #11, right behind Google.

Hertzog and de Meuron, the architects of Beijing's Bird's Nest, unveiled plans this week for a new 57-storey condo tower in Tribeca, NYC. Gorgeous.


Uhh...BARF. Microsoft apparently always intended to pull the Gates-Seinfeld ads after only a week. Now we get to ensure Phase Two of the grand plan in which Microsoft uses such influential people as Eva Longoria (...why?) to promote the fact that Microsoft connects us and that we are all PCs.



I don't identify with anyone in that ad, and although I use a PC and I do not use a Mac, I AM NOT A PC. It's ridiculous that a company which has fostered so much negative press regarding its inhuman and unintuitive approach to usability would deign to assume that the public is happy to identify themselves with the product.

Missed. The. Mark. Grade: F

It's one of the last explored places in the Western Hemisphere, filled with dangerous guerrillas and drug-runners, impenetrable forests, and poison-filled sharp things. So why do I want to go visit the Darien Gap in Panama?


And finally, the third episode of my new favourite show, True Blood, is on tonight. It's about vampires, enough said. Oh, and the opening sequence is pretty awesome.



Have a great, health-filled week everyone!