I demand more nerd girls!

Packaging Girlhood is a great blog concerned with marketing aimed at girls. They just released their Best & Worst Marketing Campaigns of 2006 list, and it's a pretty good audit.

On the loser list, the disturbing Bratz Party Plane, which I'm sure all junior spoiled slutz enjoyed opening this holiday season. The whole Bratz line is particularly repulsive, not to mention their line of padded bras for six-year olds.


Accessories included: cup holders; nail polish applicator; smoothies; hair gel; crimper; make-up case; mascara.

Accessories they should have included: lapdance chair; tanning bed; wheel of appetite-suppressants; morning-after-pills; I'm an exotic dancer because daddy didn't love me t-shirt.

Grossest.

On to the winners list, my peeps at Nintendo get props for the game Super Princess Peach, which I enjoyed playing immensely this year, and which did have a fantastic commercial:


Go Pink Power!

Having said that, on a feminist level, I wasn't sure what to make of this game. Princess Peach's powers come from her emotions - anger turns her to fire, sadness makes her shoot tears, joy makes her fly etc. Isn't that reinforcing the stereotypes that girls are more emotional than logical, and that our uncontrollable feelings make us unreliable - one of the classic arguments against promoting women in the workplace?

Another winner, and a program I have been a big fan of for a while, is the Girl Scouts Girls Go Tech campaign. It's so critical to teach young girls that technology is cool, because, well, technology is hella cool! How great is this ad:


Baby's smarter than daddy!

Driving young girls less toward lame lip gloss crap, and more into awesome science and adventure crap, will make more Natalie Portmans, and less Tara Reids. And really, isn't that something we all want?


Seriously people. Think about the children.

There's also a great CBC Marketplace piece on this issue - Buying into Sexy.

Let's all make it a mission to make more nerd girls this millenium. Hear that pregnant moms-to-be? I'm looking at you, Willow and Nikki! Don't think Auntie Beckstar won't be popping in with her Lego Robotics kits!

Live Action Video Games!

Why is anything digital rendered in live action so so very awesome?


Live Pac Man is obviously the coolest thing ever. I love Japanese television. And beating video game characters with sticks, naturally.


And of course, we have the great Super Mario live action performance from Gordon College. These guys should make the Dean's List just for this one effort.

Remember the Acapella Nintendo? Same general family of fantastic.

Down Mexico Waaaaay...

So I'm back from an amazing trip South of the Border.

Check out these amazing photos I took in Mexico - each one leads to a gallery of images.

Blog of the Week: The art of judging strangers

So I've got to say I'm pretty impressed with He Looks Like - The Morbid Game of Psychoanalyzing Strangers in Pictures.

It raises judging strangers to a fine art. Check a small sample:

She looks like the mastermind behind the crystal meth epidemic sweeping the U.S.

Incidentally, her famous Coconut Brownie Surprise Bars came in 2nd in a Betty Crocker baking contest where one of the judges exclaimed, "I had 3 of them this morning and would have eaten the whole plate if I hadn't gotten distracted by an impulse to sprint across two state lines before running myself through the plate glass window of a Gap Kids store in Jersey."

He looks like a great example of the age-old Christian debate, what makes a child gay? Is it the immense enjoyment of a phallic oral applicator for his cough medicine, or wearing shirts made from his sister's recycled bedspread?

And so on.

Warning: don't be this guy.

Yes folks, I'm back.

I have a sweet post with all the photos of my amazing trip to Mexico, on the burner, but it's time to go to bed.

Still running a bit of a deficit from the INSANE (in truly the most literal sense of the word) New Year's party at the Biltmore. Details to follow.

In the meantime, enjoy this little spot from Europe. A good public warning, this one. You definitely don't want to be this guy.

Tony Danza, you hapless bitch

I hate this guy.

Partially because he plays characters named Tony so much it's become an obvious joke, and really, what is that?

Partially because he's just such an unbelievable douchebag*. I mean seriously - look at the guy.

Partially because he says stuff like this in interviews:

I think in a crazy way Eminem has got a sound. There’s something very different about what he does.

I mean I wish it wasn’t as vulgar as it is at times, but, there’s something about it that’s different, that I respond differently to, or the same way I used to respond to stuff when it was new. We may be in a little bit of slump.

In my act I do some songs from 1951, the year I was born. I say that’s the prevalent music of ’51 and now the prevalent music of today is rap-----and then I rap. I got an alter-ego. I don’t know if you know that. Italian Ice. (Laughs). I do some rap.

There is some rap put there that’s very good and different and not as vulgar, and uplifting. Even Tupac Shakur, if you ever heard his song “Dear Momma”, you say wow, this guy could’ve really been something as far as uplifting as opposed to the thug life that he chose.

* Douchebag is one of my 'Top Ten Socially-Acceptable Insults', coming soon!

Hasta de Luego!

Ah, my dear, dear blog readers. How will you satisfy your deep addiction to the Beckstar while I'm off in Mexico this week? How will you re-enter the new year without a tip of the hat from the only thing keeping you going from day to day?

I know, it's hard for me too. Let's all be brave together.

I'll be back on December 31st, may even slide in some posting before my newly-tanned hide rips Vancouver a new party hole (okay, that metaphor is kind of grossing me out) for New Years, and will be back in full force before you can say 'I wonder what Gabrielle Carteris has planned for 2007".

In the meantime - explore the archive. 2006 was a fun year on the Beckstar!

Word!

I am basically Corey Feldman.

Disagree? Then how do you explain the Metro's coverage of me at the Karyo party last week, where I share the page with not one, but two Coreys.


I estimate myself to be about eighteen months from international blogging fame.


Bottom-left: Beckstar. Top-right: Coreys. All this page needs is Corey Hart and it would be pretty much the greatest demonstration of human talent since the first Greek Olympics.

Huge big ups to Warren Frey, social eyes editor and himself a consummate blogger - freyburg.com is always worth a read.

Beckstar Reviews Animated Gif's of Cats!

I really really love this one. It's all 'broke down the fourth wall' conceptual metafiction, where the cat is all like 'meow! I'm in the computer!'.


I like the attention that the designer of this gif paid to the full cat face - movement in the ear hair in particular looks great. However, I can't say the same about the 'making it twitchy and kind of creepy' part of their vision.


I wish this animator had pushed herself a little further with the gestures. See No Evil Cat looks more like she's smelling her eye.


More awesomeness! Look carefully to see the movement in this animation. When you find it, try to get rid of the somehow dirty feeling it leaves you with. This is pretty much the exact visual going through people's heads when you hear them say "Yeah... I don't know what it is, I just find cats kind of creepy"


Seriously man, did you hear that? Oh shit, five-o is totally on our tails. No for real, did you hear that? Okay man, stay cool. Hold it together. Just play it cool. Aw shit, I know you heard it that time. Scrappy? Scrappy, you still here? I'm freaking out over here man!



I thought this one was weird-looking and kind of cool at first. Then I listened to it with Backyard Betty by Spank Rock, and I'm pretty much convinced it's the greatest thing ever. Check it out yourself by clicking the link!


Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. Tigers be some badass bizness boi!


Seriously people, be nice. The woman that made this is in the unfortunate metaphysical position of having a joyless, lonely life full of Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals.


Fluffy! Kiki! To your seperate corners. No cats need that much "grooming".


And my number one favourite cat gif of the all:

W. T. F.

It's my D**k in a Box

Reason to love Justin Timberlake #6210:


This is seriously one of the funniest vids I've seen in ages. Also, a great last-minute gift idea!

Reason to love Justin Timberlake #6211:



Reason to love Justin Timberlake #6212:

Beckstar Makes Holiday Party!

So Thursday was Karyo's client christmas party, where, in a nutshell, we serve fabulous food, torture our clients with some kind of public game, and watch [some of] them get drunk.

Personally, I thought this year's game ruled. Anytime you have a group of professional people sing

“Rudolph the stone-cold gangsta- Will you be my baby daddyyyyy?” you can pretty much guarantee ridiculous things are at foot.

We wrote eight of these ghetto christmas carols, so, read the full lyrics, and laugh your ass off. At least we did when we were writing them.

Some photos from the night, which continued for myself and friends, very drunk and soaking wet, at Chambar, where it was Amy's birthday.


Sometimes birthday girls wear tiaras...


...sometimes party girls wear tiaras.

Fear the nerd revolution...

I love, love, love nerdcore rap, and nerd culture in general. Who doesn't?

So how excited was I when I found this trailer for a documentary about nerdcore rappers?

Most of the people featured in this video are also on the Rhyme Torrents website, where of course they have their music available for free download, as diligent nerds would. Awwww!

On a side note, if you've got an hour and half to kill, be sure to watch one of the greatest films in the history of mankind - Revenge of the Nerds, here in full on Google Video.

Betty: Are all nerds as good as you?
Louis: Uh-huh.
Betty: How come?
Louis: Because all jocks think about is sports. All we think about is sex.

Classic!

We party long time! [Random December Saturday edition]

All I'm saying is, if you start the night off at a fun place drinking tequila, you get crunked at an Appleton Rum sponsored party, you dance for hours at an after party, and you end up with these photos on your camera, which unfortunately tell but a fraction of the story... it was most likely a fun Saturday night.


Here you can see me reckoning Joni to be 80% pirate.


Omigod! I was totally sexy dancing with Egyptian sun god ra ⊙!


I have no memory of making a phone call. Good sign!


Wow, this phone booth is pretty awesome! Let's see if we can fit all our new friends in here!


And here we see Randy expressing what we all felt for this starry delight of a girl. Mika and I are kind of trying to hunt her down, so if you know her, holla!