Err.....yeah

After a few consecutive posts about my resolution fulfilling antics, I figured it was time for something topical. Unfortunately, skin lotion only has so much comedic potential. So instead I came across another piece of research from the "Common sense, innit?" files.

According to a study dug out by the Telegraph, people who score higher on intelligence tests tend to live longer. It cites factors such as better diet, lower incidence of smoking or alcohol abuse and even a reduced suicide rate in the higher-scoring portion of the populace. I figure it has more to do with the intelligentsia being a bit less likely to do stuff like this:

So yet again, a large amount of time and effort has gone into conducting surveys and poring over death certificates, when all the evidence they needed was right there in the Darwin Awards.

Now, there are some potential applications of this research - it might help convince politicians that education would help solve some of the drink and obesity problems we face as a nation.

However, my faith in the academic community was immediately dashed when I saw the related link: Healthy Life Can Give You Another 14 Years

An unhealthy person is more likely to die than a healthy person. Isn't that just a definition of unhealthy? Granted, they put a number on it, but that takes all the mystery out of life. Clean living people would know that as soon as their couch potato friends started dying, they themselves would have less than a decade and a half to live. And nobody wants detailed knowledge of their own life expectancy looming over them, especially when taking the edge off with a beer and a fag would shorten their remaining days even further. 

But its ok, all our health problems can be solved by making the unhealthy stuff cost more. It must be the solution, it came from a Scottish GP, and who would know more about moderation than a nation who batter pizzas?

After seeing Jon Stewart's valiant attempt to give himself a heart attack in a single mouthful, I was intrigued by this strange and hitherto unknown to me product called Baconnaise. I expected to find a product that mixed bacon fat and mayonnaise in a single entity that would be unthinkable outside of Texas (or possibly Scotland), but what I found was a story of two men's dream. A dream to make everything taste like bacon.

Justin and Dave run J & D's, producing Bacon Salt, and the aforementioned Baconnaise. These porcine condiments were born from a love of bacon that surpasses even Cali Lewis'. Their website includes a retelling of their epic rise to be the Ben & Jerry of Bacon, along with recipes, competitions and surprising nutritional information (Baconnaise is actually better for you than mayonnaise, whoda thunk it!).

And we can all be reassured that not only are their Bacon products suitable for vegetarians, they've also been approved as kosher...Waaait a minute!

Normally I don't find it too creepy if someone has auto follow turned on for Twitter. In this case, however, I felt somewhat uneasy:

My plans for political dissidence are now thwarted! The government will now be aware of my every move provided I Tweet about it. My plans for world domination will fall flat on their face as my attempts to raise a secret army through the medium of short form internet messaging draw the attention of whatever the British equivalent of the Secret Service is.

Civil servants across the world will soon pore over the thoughts of an angry nation, noting every unpatriotic sentiment, every badly-spelled howl of protest and every sentence ending in a preposition! And once I have won the battle with myself, I will love Big Brother (but not going so far as to enjoy the Celebrity edition).

Apparently, Pepsi have changed their logo - although the redesign hasn't filtered to their UK concern, seeing as pepsi.co.uk seems focused soley on Pepsi Max (suppose it goes to show that the British are more "extreme" than other nationalities...quite).

But how do you go from this:

to this:

The most sensible answer would be "bend the logo a little". But that's not the Pepsi way, no, they shelled out millions of dollars in fees to the Arnell Group, who combined pretense, pseudo-science, and an art A-level to produce an explanation for their cursory modification of a curve.

Their report, entitled "Breathtaking" (which I imagine is a reference to the hyperinflated invoice), proceeds through a study of the Pepsi brand over time, likening the new logo to the Golden Ratio, but with a twist (the twist being that it uses circles instead of squares). It then dives totally off the deep end, comparing the design to Earth's magnetic field, and implying that a 2D vector image can manipulate gravitational fields (or maybe that was some kind of psychology thing).

Just when you think they've reached the heights of pretention and bull, the Arnell bods manage to outdo themselves, designing the "Pepsi Universe", which seemed like the manner of hallucination you might experience after drinking 100 cans in a one hour sitting.

Download the pdf report [here]. 

A new billboard has appeared recently on Southwark Street (note I avoided the obvious pun). As I trudged reluctantly to work on Monday, I couldn't help noticing it, not just because it uses an advertising gimmick little younger than the oldest profession, but primarily due to its somewhat garish colour scheme:

My initial shock - and intense desire to "mark this message as spam" - was quickly replaced by confusion as to how "nasal insertion" could possibly make sex last longer...perhaps the screams of pain would make it difficult to concentrate. There's probably someone kinky enough out there to have tried it. Don't be shy! Anyone? No?

Needless to say, I had to take out my camera and capture this bizarre advert for posterity. Of course I quickly realised that everyone else on the street was assuming I was in need of their services...and didn't have a pen.

...they start leaving notes.

I was at ICU the other day, helping out with some odds and ends (somehow having graduated two years ago isn't keeping me away), and I couldn't help but chuckle when I came across this:

I, and indeed everyone else, was left wondering: If you're that drunk, are you really going to read the notice, stop, clamp your hand over your mouth and calmly redirect yourself into a stall?

On the other hand, most drunks love a challenge.