Is American Apparel really trying to sell Yoga clothes?

I ran across the following animated ad for American Apparel’s  “YOGA” line today featuring a girl doing arguably pornographic poses rather than yoga.

I’m not going to go as far as to say it is disgusting or indecent (I’ll let others form those opinions). However, I think it is just stupid. You wouldn’t take this ad to be a source for yoga instruction, so why would you think it would be a good ad for yoga clothing? Also, I’d like to know how many people that shop at American Apparel and buy yoga gear are going actually do yoga and not just wear it to the club is some ironicy fashion statement… like those skinny dorks that wear GOLD’S GYM shirts.

I don’t normally get too upset over advertising anymore since there are probably more important things to get upset over. However, a part of me gets irate every time I read a story of some guy raping his wife because they are married or advertising that is just offensive (like the Peta ads). That said, I wouldn’t say I am “feminist”, but I do have a mom, and sister-in-laws, nieces, and aunts, and have done youth mentoring. So when I see advertising like this, I get irritated.

I’m not trying to sound like a prude. I’m ok with “sexy” advertising and erotic art, etc etc. However, this girl might as well be , naked, spread eagle, on a yoga mat and it would be about the same level of marketing. Sadly, yes, both are probably fairly effective in their target market.

As an aside, I checked out the source code for the blog this was being displayed on and saw that it was part of the the MediaPlex ad network. Their handle is “Intelligent Technology for Digital Marketing”. I’m sure they mean “intelligent” in the data-mining/machine-learning sense, but the irony is not lost on me. This ad, like most advertising in general, is not going to win any awards for “smart advertising”. I don’t know for a fact that these are not actual yoga moves but I don’t think you do yoga on a couch. Otherwise, this could pass as screen shots of a porn where the yoga instructor seduces one of her students.

End rant. The rest of the animation cells are below. Please comment and let me know your thoughts.

So, I called up my BFF Nicole and discussed logistics of using her super hip-crazy-cool printer. I scanned in a few of my more classic drawings and ran over to her house yesterday. After she demonstrated her excellent cooking skills making me breakfast, we printed off a couple proofs. I have to say WOW. The quality was amazing. Since I use india ink for my wash drawings, I always worry that duplicated versions wouldn’t have the crisp pen lines or the nice gradients of the washes. However, it was honestly hard to tell the difference between the originals and the proofs. On the contrary, the prints may look better because they are on better paper and are not as warped from the washes. Anywho, I am stoked.

I set up an Etsy store, and after a few more logistical bits, I hope to be selling prints in a week or two.
Interested in buying one?

I am pretty sure the HUDFORECLOSED.NET is that company advertised to death on 93x here in the Twin Cities where the girl is telling her friend how she bought a house for less than she pays per month in rent. AP9* is a scammy operation that apparently runs a whole network of sites  (The Bargain Network) that you are often tricked into signing up for after making a purchase at a legitimate site who has some devious partnerships. There are some complaints on these companies here, here, and here.

I got sucked in last May when I was looking at buying a house and was enticed by their “Free Trial” which turned into $40 per month charges each. I got busy with the house buying process and also forgot to cancel the accounts once I was aware of the charges. I did try to cancel in Sept when first discovering the charges, but got the run around. I decided to try again on lunch today.

I don’t know if they are the same company, but they had separate means of cancelling their accounts.

How to cancel  your HUDFORECLOSED.NET or HUDFORECLOSED.COM account :

• Go to HUDFORECLOSED.COM
  
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “Cancel Account”. This is a popup so make sure you can see it. Otherwise, you can try to directly go to http://www.hudforeclosed.com/cancel.do
• Enter the email address and telephone number you signed up with and click “Cancel Membership”
• You should receive a confirmation screen and a confirmation email at the email address on file.
• Awesome, no more bills for this site however, you will have access to the site until the end of the billing cycle.

I also found a phone number buried in their site : 1-800-422-6021 that might help if the web cancellation doesn’t work or you don’t even remember signing up.

How to cancel your AP9* Bargain Homes, AP9*ATHOMEREWARDS+, AP9*SAVINGSMART.COM account

I did this over the phone. You will need to call 1800-333-1915. However, in their site FAQs, they also list 1-800-788-5648 as the number for cancelling. All they needed was my phone number I signed up with and my name. I wasn’t even on hold for very long.

Anywho, I hope that helps some people who may have gotten sucked into these things and want to get out. While googling for this same info, it seemed like a lot of people were trying, but couldn’t figure out how, which is why I am posting this. I wish FF had a site review type plugin to show feedback on domains you are at. Civic Duty Man – up up and away.

Work itself was rather uneventful, which was good. However, during work, I was listening to the Kevin Smith podcast and they were talking about their new M-Box recording device they used to do their show. I have been shopping around a bit myself for such a device since the start of Krapp’s Last ‘Cast. We run all of our mics into a mixer and then run the headphone out of the mixer into the mic in on my laptop. It all comes in as one channel and I usually have to compress the hell out of it to accodate people sitting too far back from the mic or those quiet talkers. In the end, it makes everyone fairly muddy sounding. A nice USB multi-track mixer would be ideal. So I looked up the M-box and decided to go score one from Guitar Center.

So, around 5pm I took off for Guitar Center in Roseville. While I was sitting at a light, a bicyclist grazed into my car (yes, i was stopped and the biker hit ME). I got out and inspected and the dude apologized. There was no damage, so I wasn’t too angry, but it was annoying.

The rest of the trip to Guitar Center was fine. One of the guys in Pro Audio helped me figure out which one I would need and didn’t try to sell me a bunch of crap. I was in and out in 10 minutes or so.

This is when things started to go downhill. I decided to go to the gym to work out quickly. As I was cruising down University AVE I noticed some funny wirring noise. Then when I pulled into the lot at the gym, I heard a metalic thud noise but was still moving fine. I pulled into my spot sort of half assed and put my truck in reverse to repark – nada. My reverse was out. Yuck. So, I immedately called my roommate Jon and left a message of my situaton. I was sure it was my transmission and I was moving forward fine (earlier at least) so I was hoping he could help me get turned around and I could drive to a transmission joint. Well, he didn’t pick up, so I sat and had a cigarette and pondered. I then decided that I might as well go work out since I was there and there was no point in sitting around worrying and waiting.

I changed, stretched, and did some situps. While I was stretching I figured I would call my brother Darren – I’m sure he owes me a favor or two. He was on his way home and was going to call me when he got there. So I started hitting the weights. A couple sets in, he calls and was googling transmission shops. All were on Lake street – probably not a safe distance to drive with a flaky transmission. He called a few and they we closed anyway. So I decided that I would just wait for Jon and try to drive home. Then my phone started beeping that it was dying. Uhg. I decided to stop working out and got changed again and hung out outside and had another smoke.

While milling around, I noticed a sign for an auto-repair shop just behind the gym. I decided to go check it out incase they were open. Unfortunatly, the entrance was on the far side of the block and ended up walking all over the place to try to get it. Once I got there, I just sorta walked up to one of the many garages that had its door open. Some guys were looking at the underside of car up on the lift.

I flagged one down and told him the skinny. He was nice enough of a guy and explained what was probably wrong. It honestly sounded like something I could fix myself, but I really wasn’t in the mood for this all. So, I told him I would wait for my friend to help me get turned around and I would drive it over.

I walked back to the truck at the gym lot and Jon finally called. He was going to come help. Yay, Jon. Beep beep – phone continues to die.

Meanwhile, I was supposed to get together with my friend Kevin from the band Minus Poseur that I did a bunch of design work for ages ago. We get together periodically.  I called him back up and asked if he could swing by and grab me at the gym instead of meeting me at the bar. I gave him directions, but my phone was nearly dead and I was really worried that he wouldn’t be able to get a hold of me if I were lost.

While waiting for both, I started cleaning my truck out. Finally, Kevin showed up and after nearly blowing a blood vessle, we pushed my truck back around so that I could pull out of the lot… stupid sloped parking lots. I drove over to the repair place and gave my info and such and left the keys. They said they probably wouldn’t be able to get to it until Friday at the earliest. poop. Good thing I telecommute.

I hope in Kevin’s car and we drive back to my place only to find out that Jon had showed up at the gym to help, couldn’t find me, and left. He wasn’t mad, but I did feel like a jerk. Oh well.

Next, I had to call Toni to tell her I wasn’t going to be able to swing by and pick up a movie she was going to loan me. I also called up Joe to ask about the podcast tomorrow only to find out that it probably won’t happen since he is ill. yarg. On top of this, I tried to call the lady friend again to hear that her phone has been “temporarily cut off”. She didn’t said any emails either all day, which she usually does. A warm fuzzy message from her would have made me forget all of the day.

So finally, Kevin and I hit up Tracy’s and have some burgers and beer and catch up. This was great except it was trivia night and we kept trying to talk over the announcer and douchebags.

Now I am at home. Still no word from lady friend, no truck until who knows when, lots of tasks ahead that need the truck, and probably a zillion dollar repair bill in my future.

But on the positive side, I got to see Kevin for the first time in quite a while, I have a new M-Box recorder, my tummy is full of burgers and beer, and well, none of the bad stuff seems to really be that bad concidering that it all could be worse. I mean, I could have gotten into an accident instead of just not having reverse. The truck could have been impounded (the gym lot is 2 hour parking). Lady friend could hate me instead of probably just having her phone off and being busy. Yup.

So yeah, it wasn’t a bad day. I just needed to vent. Off to sleeeeeeeeep. Boom.

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.

I am not totally sure when we are going to record, but I am hoping we can talk about St. Patty’s day and SXSW while it is still fresh. Perhaps Sunday? Word.
Word.

I started off the morning having coffee with Alexia Prichard, one of Propellers video personnel. Alexia and I have spoken quite a bit over AIM since the LA trip in November 2006. We spent some time catching up and talking about my new found interest in film. It was a great little chat. It really helped get my day going as I was pretty exhausted, dehydrated, and hung over from last night.

Shortly after, the rest of the dev and anchor team came down for breakfast and Tom decided to take us on a boat trip on the Lady Bird Lake. While we were waiting for the boat to arrive, we saw Stiffler running around again. Also, the 70s porno guy from last night came back over and chilled for a bit with us. While out smoking, that guy hopped into a cab with some girls and rolled out. I asked the valet if he know who it was and he had no idea, but thought that one of the girls was Josh Brolin’s wife. The Frag Dolls came stumbling out of the hotel too to catch a cab and I chatted it up a bit with them. They had some good stories from last night’s adventures that I won’t post for the sake of not being some paparazzi type dude. I’m glossing over most of my adventures too… which mostly involve stupid shit I say and copious amounts of booze.

Anywho, we finally got on our boat trip around 12:30. The guy running the boat was a local kid around my age and totally hilarious. He sorta half narrated. He forgot what landmarks and buildings were called and was very relaxed about the presentation of the details. He told us where to go swimming should we want to do so illegally. It was pretty damn funny, but then again we didn’t go for the historical side of things. Lady Bird Lake is pretty interesting. Look it up on wikipedia.

Once we got back, we all hoofed it over to the convention center for the panels. Mike, Budke, Tom, and I went into the Screen Burn deal and right away we ran into the Frag Dolls. They were playing Rainbow 6 against a bunch of little dorky kids and shouting out all these military commands and such. It was pretty funny. I think the kids just wanted to see the girls shake their boobles when they flinched when their character got shot. As an aside, there was a teen girl standing behind the frag dolls looking in aww. I think she knows what she wants to be when she grows up. To each their own.

Mike and I then went up to one of the interactive ballrooms and checked out a bunch of vendors. I’m going to be reviewing some of sites of card I grabbed later. I don’t want to give any undue publicity for shitty products or services. hint.

I was somewhat appreciative of having twitter today actually.  After Mike and I got out of the interactive rooms, I used twitter to ask where people where and caught up with the group for the trail end of the “20 ways to wow a crowd panel”.

On the way to that panel I ran into Leah Culver. It was very awkward. Granted, I had long hair back then and people otherwise claim I am a chameleon, but she barely remembered who I was. We had classes together and worked together at CSOM. We even both got invited to lunch with the DRM speaker and started giving him shit about how traditional channels of marketing in the techworld were ignoring social media. Ironically, her and I both went into social media. Also ironically, we ran into each other at SXSW, which is very social media focused this year. Either way, even after she remembered who I was, she seemed indifferent – so whatever.

After the “20 ways” panel, most everyone on the team went to the LOL Cats panel and learned how stupid ideas can generate a lot of money. Honestly, I think the whole meme is stupid, but once you look past the surface, you see a sort of self evolving success story in the Web 2.0 world. They gave out free hamburgers too.

We then went to Iron Cactus in downtown for food. Nothing too crazy went down save for the fact it started raining on us, the waiter was a douche bag, and some cat on stilts painted like a mime put a flyer under my hat for circ de sole. George told me about his classmate from school that works for the orchestra in St. Paul that he apparently is trying to fix me up with and who reads my blog apparently? So, hey, if you are reading this, I am taken, BUT, I’ll buy you coffee since you know George and he saves my butt on a daily basis at work

Anywho, I am about to head down now to see what everyone else is up to. We skipped the awards deal since we were at Iron Cactus too long. I wasn’t looking forward to that much anywho. Tonite might be another night of smelling up the hotel lounge area or I might venture off and hit some of the bars on this side of the lake. The hot tub is calling too. We’ll see. Word.

Now if photosynth were more publicly available, I could work some magic!

I was listening to Podcaust, Sarah’s friend Rob’s Podcast about dork shit. I love it. Anyway, the last episode, they mentioned whysoserious.com and the viral marketing for the new Batman movie. I have heard Heath Ledger is to play The Joker. The pictures on the site and some from google images make me really excited to see this movie.

I really liked the Batman Begins movie, and I think this is going to be rad. In other news I am excited for the Wolverine movie!!