breakfastinbates.com

if you’re the teensiest bit interested in the internetz and harnessing its power for the better good (but mostly for worse in this country) of communication, then you obviously know of the latest cutting-edge marketing tool - twitter.

say what? hasn’t twitter been around for ages?

well, judging the light speed at which the local industry paces, we’re glad anyone is taking web seriously. so, be nice.

skittles made digg frontpage by doing away with the typical corporate site, choosing instead (wowee junior juice) to create a mashup of skittles identities on other popular social sites: twitter, flickr, wikipedia, facebook and youtube.

the bibgang has to hand it to them, they have balls. with absolutely no control over displayed content (their landing page pulls all results from public tweets with the word “skittles”), skittles ain’t sweatin’ because, hey, exactly what kind of PR and media coverage are they getting here?

more than likely this hype will serve to excite and delight our stone age advertising brethren, who will in all probability clap their hands at the prospect of “going viral” (another overused, much-hated term of ours). like we said before, having one solitary and inactive facebook group does not a new media campaign make.

so before you start prancing around in your social media tights and tutu, do read up what other brands have been doing first.

apparently some team/s are under investigation observation for allegedly having too much fun working. yes, you read that right. err, why did ppl sell their souls to the advertising industry again?

the world we live in is a scary place.

but the world wide web is just downright freaky.

few individuals have experience the true destrucitve power of the digital mob, and they’re still recovering from the shockwave of the “human flesh search engine”.

despite its name, it isn’t some cannibalistic online retish ritual, rather a transliteration of “human-powered search engine”.

in 2007, a beijing woman leapt to her death after discovering her husband’s extramarital affair. the mob chinese netizens who were following her saga sprang into action to expose the villian who drove her to suicide and to mete out justice.

with pitchforks and torches in hand, they tracked down her husband - a saatchi & saatchi executive - uncovered and posted his personal details online, protested outside his office and smote him with the furious anger of thousand angry cyber vigilantes. he ended up losing his job.

this hive of digital intelligence has also dealt with Gao Qianhui for her rantings on the Sichuan earthquake, the kitten killer of hangzhou and grace wang the “free tibet” traitor just to name a few.

the phenomenon is one belonging uniquely to china. news spreads like wildfire (sometimes within mere hours), gathering speed and numbers as it goes along, recruiting slueths and experts (the hangzhou case was solved largely thanks tourism experts who identified the location where the video was filmed) and infecting everyone with similar moral outrage. many sources credit this to their giant online population which stands at over 250 million and confucius teachings to take matters into their own hands.

think of the “human flesh search engine” as a swarm of fire ants that devours everything in its path, stripping away anonymity in your online haven where you used to be able to say and do anything you liked.

so if you’re planning to arouse anti-chinese sentiment on the web, don’t. just don’t.

while dancing inmates may not be the latest hot thing, we still think they’ve get a much better grasp of what’s “in” than many. humane rehabilitation might not catch on too quick (’specially not with the bush regime) but we think they might change their minds after seeing how many people they can pluck out of criminal society and throw into the professional dance industry.

lapsap and twilight action girl. self-proclaimed brother and sister (in tag’s case, we’re not too sure of its gender. trannie, perhaps?)from different mothers it was bound to happen. and hooo boy, have we been waiting for it.

as they patiently wait for bar sonic (their new residence) grand opening, the boys/girls have not been idly growing moss. tag and the regular indie cindy’s partied hard at cloth&clef last friday and on the 10th are going head-to-head at the beloved palate palett.

we’d say “see you there” but not just anyone is invited. as usual, limited to the first 300 kiasu people to rsvp. mail your grovelings to lapsaplapsap@gmail.com

from the superheroes themselves:

Mr Lapsap - originally referred to as Lapsap, is a fictional comic book superhero co-created by artist mr HAMSAP The character first appeared on a lapsap’s t shirt that caused a stir in a local urbanscape. Mr LapSap’s secret identity is that of brothers 5ft and Mr Puah, one short, one tall. Both of them train themselves to sonic and hearing perfection and don a human-themed costume in order to fight crime. Mr Lapsap operates in the non-fictional KL city, assisted by various supporting characters including his sibling Twilight Action Girl and his captain Adam M, and fights an assortment of villains influenced by the characters’ roots in the ever loving industry. Unlike most superheroes, he does not possess any superpowers; he makes use of detective skills, science and technology, physical prowess, and intimidation in his war on crime.

VS

Twilight action Girl - a member of a fictional, all-female tribe of Indies who are sent to “man’s world” as an ambassador. Among the people she is known as “RIBUTCHASEYBUNGAXU”. in “man’s world” she takes the secret identity of “INDIE KING.” Her powers includes drinking whisky neat, shifting from indie to rock with a flick of a finger, and sometimes (during the 1980s and 1990s) flying. She also makes use of her talent versatility to write for the newspaper at times, takes mental photographs, plans in an ad agency and also once in a while, mucks around peoples’ hair and makes a quick buck.

look who dropped by for a quick stint (to plug the gaping chee wee-sized hole).

shown here circa “wayyy before your time” we thought to let the picture do the talking while we do the laughing.

any industry person worth their salt will immediately recognise old-timer scenester, skateboarder extraordinaire and all-round creative guy also known in some circles as raksasa mahluk asing despite his NKOTB hairdo (though they might be before your time as well, you foetus).

after many moons of shuffling feet, shifty glances and red faces, management has decided to *drumrollllllll* reinstate the toilet rolls, my preciousssssssssssssssss.

we cannot contain our excitement we feel about the little joys in life. not having to count our sheets. not having to wait for the oportune time to take a… breather. not having to run out of paper on the royal throne.

and the best bit? luxurious 2-ply. no more sandpapering our nether regions.

we’re living the good life, baybeh!

so great britain has decided to scare its smokers into sensibility with oh-so scary graphic images on ciggie packs. the usual ’smoking will kill you, rot your teeth, clog your arteries, kill your babies’ approach has been long adopted in thailand, australia, brazil, canada, india, new zealand, singapore, venezuela, and uruguay.

cigarette prices in malaysia have more than doubled in the past decade, the little increments spread over time desensitised these nicotine addicts and bred a new ambivalence to price hikes to complement the indifference to health risks.

will a similar approach here deter smokers and first-time adopters? are consumers unaware of the dangers and long-term complications? what would prompt smokers to go cold turkey or at least cut back?

maybe we’ll find the answer, hopefully in this chain smoker’s lifetime.

we’ve grown up amidst dire warnings of doomsday, war cries to save the ozone layer and petitions to end animal cruelty. can anyone say blind spot?

so, we deduced that perhaps holier-than-thou attitudes of self proclaimed eco-friendly saints in hemp robes just turn us off. because, heck, we were pretty intrigued by this passive (but no-nonsense) display of environmental awareness.

meet sustainable dave, the man who never takes out the trash.

at first glance, we imagined an obsessive compulsive hoarder/hobo (who eventually gets dug out of 20 tonnes of junk, half-eaten by his family of starving cats), but it was in fact a documentation of one american’s experiment to not throw out any trash for the whole year.

“I’m a pretty normal guy — I just keep my garbage in my basement.” is pretty much how he sums himself up.

amazingly enough, dave has scrounged up a mere 159lbs as we head into the final quarter of 2008. for a rough gauge, the average slob sends approximately 1,700 lbs of trash a year to incinerators and landfills.

bib hates preachers as much as the next guy, so we’ll just leave you to your own takeout without any resounding moral.

p/s: we’re weighing the feasability of a worm composter for the office. job reqs anyone?

after quietly observing facebook interactions in the wildly popular fighters club, we’ve noticed that they really know how to paaaarty. the malaysian chapter (led by an inebriated chunson of reservoirlabs) - a motley crew of  various factions - found yet another thing they had in common (apart from the painfully obvious net/facebook addiction) was the love of alcohol. and so they formed The Whales, a party-all-night-drink-till-you-drop group which takes its name from a familiar fishy cliché (remember the adage “drink like a fish?” well, theys are the bigger, meaner, more alcoholic siblings).

it’s been nothing but fun and good times since its conception and good fun loves a good mention. more specifically a mention in this month’s juice.

Whales Premium 100 Party @ Bambo9

C-1-5/6 TTDI Plaza, Jalan Wan Kadir, Taman Tun Dr. Ismail, 60 000 Kuala Lumpur, KL. 03 7727 9511
Whales United is having a party and tis’ the place to amp up your life with more friends. Celebrating it’s 100 member passing mark, it’s an online group turned offline real-life friends that gathers to hang. It’s gonna be one helluva party with more than 100 attending. Better dress up in your school kicks or get kicked out from the party. 9pm. For details, call 012 207 8285.