Edit : Further reason to watch this video. 1 in 4 texas residents polled believes Obama is a muslim. REALLLY?!?! ….. No, wait…. REALLY?! Sad. Sad. Sad. 45% (yes, less than half) correctly identifed him as protestant.

This video is worth a gander. It is 27 minutes long though so be ready for it. This is the Barack “infomercial” you may have heard about. Really unprecedented media buying that went on to get this on the air. Prime-Time tv on CBS, NBC and Fox for about $1 million per network. It also ran on about 5 or 6 other smaller networks at a different time from the 8p/et time slot he bought up on those main 3.

Not like that really cuts into his overall money lead (700 million dollars which is Bush & Kerry 04 combined). I’m gonna go ahead and call the election, McCain is grasping at straws and Palin is aiming for 2012. Now, if someone could give me my $700 billion back already I would be happy.

It’s a pretty good video… 

I saw this at last week’s game but was too far away to pick it out… I thought it was just a normal Come and Take It flag, but no.

I had to explain half a college course’s worth of Texas history to Erik to make him understand because apparently he’s never heard of this phrase, seen the flag, or known anything about Texas because he is a retard. He’s also never ridden a horse but calls himself a Texan. Roots for the Astros and Spurs but also the cowboys (WTF?) and is a ginger… So all around, just a complete special-ed head case.

If you are like Erik and uneducated on the Texas Revolution this is one of the famous flags flown during it… specifically the Battle of Gonzales where a small squad of Texans held off a much larger force of Mexicans coming to take the cannon.

There are good advertising campaigns… and then there is “What Starts Here Changes The World.”

Everyone who has watched a football game in the last couple of years or has heard of the University of Texas probably knows what I am talking about. Simple, to the point narratives stretched over different imagery of Austin and the campus, the ads ‘give you the chills’ if your a UT student / alumni and pretty much tell everyone else what they are missing out on.

First off the tagline is great. It is carried over in all the literature and campaigns that go on around a university and has become commonplace on campus, but when voiced over by David Carradine (the whataburger commercials) evokes a completely different emotion. It has its roots in the new plan of the University to not just be a world class institution of higher learning but to spread its emphasis in research and a few other areas; but has coincided with a spreading of UT’s image for a couple of different reasons.

This is not the sole reason, but UT Athletics in the past few years has an absolutely unprecedented string of notable achievements. There is still no greater advertisement than a winning football team. (Applicants to the university shot up 50% after the national championship team and continue to destroy records every year since then) The university was already headed in a very positive direction pre-Vince Young, but the ability to showcase that on a national scale can’t be matched. Then UT came along and got serious playtime for this bunch of ads during that time.

Everytime this commercial comes on (they play them during the football games on the godzilla-tron) it gets the same kind of cheering you would expect from a winning touchdown. Every arm is raised with the ‘horns up and eye turned toward the screen. What kind of ad evokes that reaction? It really is powerful not only to the 100,000 in the stadium on gamedays but every time it is played on TV.

The ads are simple but the images are powerful . Watch ‘ em.

Put Your Horns Up During game :

Quicktime Links
(favorite) : Horns Up
(same vid, different message, hook’em horns)Rallying Cry

Breakfast Tacos

Soul

Nothing is worse than buying a new piece of technology for it to be obsolete the next week. If you stay up on your gadget-gossip then normally you know what is and what isn’t going to becoming out soon, but sometimes its hard to track it all. With Apple it is easy, they normally release their products on one of their big days each year so predicting when new stuff will come out isn’t impossible… but mac rumors makes it even easier.

Their buyer’s guide analyzes each product line, when the last update was, the life cycle for a normal product and then tells you a recommendation on if you should buy or not . So if you are going after a new mac pro or sexy 30 inch cinema why don’t you sit back a little bit and wait it out. (Personal tip : as soon as these new products come out the old stuff doesn’t disappear, its either in clearance or the refurb section at what could be a heavily marked down price… if you are ok with slightly-less-than-cutting-edge technology.)

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

Working on a new site for work, will take reviews if you have them. This site is only running right now in FF or chrome, so don’t report IE errors, I know they are there.

As you can see I’m taking a pretty big departure from http://www.youraddressmagazine.com with this, and I’m moving from drupal to wordpress. While drupal is sort of nice, I found it to be too unfinished for anyone besides me to use. I tried to train a couple people on it and it just wasn’t working. Wordpress is simple, I can get a site up and running in ten minutes, have it skinned in a day and there is practically no training required. Unlike the other tips and techniques you have to teach to work drupal’s system I’m hoping to just drop people in and let them run with it. 

That was the original point of the site, to be updated by more than just me so maybe I can take webmaster out of my title after this . 

Known issues : - IE (stated above) - Navigation is terrible (the hierarchy makes no sense) - the calendar is broke

Thanks!

Link : http://new.tylerjameslee.com/wp/

Quote from Mack Brown this month’s issue of Texas Monthly : 

More than anything else, I am at a point in my life when I want this place packed. I want the fans having fun. I want them wearing orange. An I don’t want it to be just a football game. I want it to be something you do if you are in the state of Texas on Saturday. You make time in your schedule for it, you plan weddings and anniversaries around it. Because this is Texas football. 

Put. Your. Horns. Up.

Hilarious episode

Sometimes… you just gotta step out of the box and do something special… I don’t think today was my day.

I don’t really use an online photo organizer but every once in a while I mess around with Google’s Picasa and throw a couple images up. Today I logged in and got a notice that there was a new tool there. It’s one of those add-ons google just gives you non-chalantly but then you look at it and wonder what kind of magic fairy dust the Google Team has access to.

It was a little thing called ‘name tags.’ I went to it, clicked it, and it told me to wait a few minutes while my images were scanned. What it proposed to do was automatically build a list of all the people in the photo. Much like Facebook’s tag tool (or Flickr’s) that lets you tag a person to a spot on the photo. However, after the scanning was done I was presented with this page : 

Google has built a tool that will automatically recognize faces and group them for you. Then you simply go through and add names to the applicable faces (e-mails as well to build a contact list if you so desire). As you can see there are a couple different photos on this screenshot, 2 different people it had trouble differentiating so you can do the heavy lifting there, but these instances were few and far between. I loaded up all of my images, from different events, with different lighting effects, and even showing different ages… and it was able from the start to group 90% of my images correctly. Pretty astounding.

The guys at Google are just smart. Really, really smart.

Oh its another wonderful football weekend coming up in Austin, Texas. #1 TEXAS vs. #7 Oklahoma State University. You may remember them from Vince Young’s epic 27 point come back during the championship season…. or from being beaten alot by us. Anyways, this year they are better, and after the last 2 weeks of playing ridiculously high ranked teams why not throw in a third.

I plan on having a wonderful time tailgating and here is my personal guide from 3 years of experience.

1. Print your ticket, twice, and put one in your wallet and one in your pocket, boot or wherever else you won’t lose it during the hours pre-game. I will not return to the house for a man without a ticket.

2. Texas Exes Member Card. This is the most important part (and a very new addition to the list). If you are not a texas ex, grab a student texas ex membership, its worth it, OR find a friend who has graduated and is really old (like Erik Stark). We will touch on this later.

3. Find a good parking spot. Tailgating takes place everywhere… so this is going to take a little work on your part, but plan your exit well. If you live south of the stadium you want to park south of the stadium even if you tailgate north of it… walk ten minutes and save yourself an hour of drive time on the way out. I park to the north of the stadium in a good little neighborhood where there are always a few good spots, it just goes overlooked, don’t give in to the $20 per spot places too quickly… but sometimes they are worth it.

4. Wear boots, and wranglers, and orange. Don’t wear white. I don’t care how hot it is outside… you wear orange. If you don’t wear the boots or wranglers we will lose. Ask Erik, he wears boots FINALLY, and we score  35 in the first half.

5. Mooch. At any point in time have multiple tailgates lined up. Sure bring your own case of cheap beer if you want, but its better to just tailgate-hop. Due to the sheer quantity of tailgates on Martin Luther King, I normally aim my time to that location…

6. Use the MLK creek. There is a wondurous creek in the middle of the MLK tailgates. Don’t use the hopelessly outnumbered port-a-potty system…. Follow the line of guys down the dangerously steep slope to take a pee in the creek. Saves time.  Good commradory. Makes you feel like a man. Not entirely essential to be a guy… but just preferred.

7. Go to the game. Take those 3 shotguns seconds before leaving… walk the distance to the stadium and whatever you do … go through Gate 1 if you are a student. Gate 25 is stupid. Don’t bring a bag… they slow everyone down (that was a note to the chicks).

8. Halftime - This is where I am going to drop some knowledge on you kids. It is a new addition to my weekly tailgating schedule. A lot of the time your at the game… your there for a while … the drinks start to lose their effect and then you have a semi-headache and no enthusiasm for the rest of the game. How can the longhorns win with a hungover crowd barely cheering them on? They can’t. Therefore… it is your DUTY… to leave a few minutes before halftime (as long as no one is in scoring position) run to the Texas Ex center… use that pass I told you to remember earlier… and spend money on ridiculously overpriced beer. Well, not ridiculously, but still, alot more overpriced than that 50cent Natty you drank earlier. Anyways, you down two of those, eat a hamburger and get back to the game before the 2nd half kicks off.

You can watch the other ongoing games in the sweet setup of the Ex center… with its tv’s and projector screens etc…. and get a break from sitting behind that fat chick who keeps falling off her stadium seating into you.

It is the key to the enjoyment of the game. Then you walk home after Texas wins and go to sleep. The nap is also important. So you can go back downtown to celebrate with the other Texas folk and make fun of the losing team’s fans.

Note to girls : Do whatever you like… just keep doing what your doing.