When you drill down deep--real, real, deep--all you'll find is me clutching my weekly linklys.

Mind taking a look at all this stuff since you're already here? Will only take a minute.

CRUDE OIL

  • Clickhole.com. Infinitely clickable. Probably more interesting than any other clickbait site on the internet.

FOSSILS

What you'll be if you don't read this presentation by W+K's Martin Weigel. (via Sell! Sell!)


ROCKS AND MINERALS


Please use this song in a commercial. (via @Awoooooga)


Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin went to Russia. Shot a video for their song "Young Presidents."


Why is ketchup so hard to pour?


Smoking. Also hard.






This space intentionally left blank for that hamster eating a burrito video everyone has already seen. 

On the topic of books, buy "101 Contrarian Ideas" for less than a cup of coffee.

UPDATE: For the next 5 days "101 Contrarian Ideas" has been deeply discounted to $0.99! There is absolutely no reason you shouldn't buy it THIS INSTANT.

There are a few blogs I really love. I tend to post about them, or repost their thoughts, rather frequently. One of these blogs is Bob Hoffman's The Ad Contrarian.

The Ad Contrarian is a refreshing blog thanks to its honesty. It's aggressive because Bob wants people to wake up to the cold realities that exist in advertising, then overcome them. For years TAC has been available for people across the world. 100% for free. There was even a great free ebook produced for it a couple of years back.

That's not changing. The blog is staying free. That first ebook is staying free. However, TAC has recently released a new ebook called "101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising" which costs money.

Not much mind you. It's priced at $2.99 so there's a good chance it costs less than the coffee you had this morning. And you get it instantly, which means you don't have to wait to pore over its pixely pages. And, unlike your coffee, you own it for life and can use it over and over. You can't even wear out the spine because it doesn't have one!

The book is a collection of some of his best blog posts from the past 5 years. Brilliant posts, thought provoking posts, post that, again, make you remember why you got into advertising. You might think, "if it's only blog posts why don't I just read them on his blog?"

You could, but for less than three dollars that's not really worth the effort.

Not to mention you get to give back to someone who has provided so much for so many others—for free. Be a mensch and buy his book. You'll be happy you did. I know I am.

A Post You Might Consider Reading If You Actually Want To Work In Advertising.

It's The Ad Contrarian's "The Universal and The Transient in Advertising."

The basic gist of it is this: current and future advertisers should know the history of their field. But there's a lot more than that and it's really well written.

During my first internship I started to realize a lot of the problems we think of as new today are the same problems they faced decades ago. The platforms have changed and the field has gotten bigger but if you look at the rhetoric of the past you will see how closely it resembles the present.

It should stand that the most important thing we can do today is learn from the past. Don't obsess over it, wish that things "were the way they once were," decry all new technology. But learn from it. Even if it's learning about the names dropped in Mad Men that's a good place to start.

Pick up a book, or an e-book, and learn some history. It's a great investment in yourself.

Here's a comment I really liked from that post: