Category: General

Former TV child star Dustin Diamond (AKA: Screech) was widely reported to be in a financial issue; resorting to selling t-shirts on his website to raise up to $250,000.

Dustin Diamond recently appeared on the Howard Stern Show, with a direct plea to Stern’s audience to help him save his house. Diamond explained that during his 10-year run on “Saved by the Bell,” he made about $2 million. However, Diamond suggested that his parents took around 75% of his earnings, which he said ruined his credit and placed him in a position today, where he’s in danger of losing his home.

Artie Lange, feeling charitable, invited Diamond the chance to open two of Artie Lange’s stand up comedy gigs in Pittsburgh. Considering the fact that Lange doesn’t know Diamond it seemed like a generous offer, an offer that would pay Diamond $2,000 for just 10 minutes work…

But, Diamond never showed! Despite the fact he’s in financial ruin, forced to pimp T-shirts on radio shows he never showed up for the stand up comedy gig.

“When Artie gave him an opportunity, what does he do, he doesn’t show up? Artie really doesnt even know this guy, he was just doing something very, very kind, and in turn this douchebag doesnt even show up.” said a disgusted Sal the Stockbroker.

Worse still, questions have been raised about the whole campaign. Diamond mentions that he has 30 days to pay off his creditors, yet; his website has been running for over 30 days last Friday — did he pay off his debt? Is he now homeless? Or, is it – as many have argued, a desperate and cynical publicity stunt?

Additionally, many posters have argued that what Screech is basically asking for, is that his fans pay off his debts, and his mortgage… People have even pointed out, he’s been trying to escape the “Screech” character for well over 10 years through blue humor – but the second he needs money, he jumps on the “yes, I’m screech” bandwagon…

I mean, couldn’t he just declare himself bankrupt? Or get a better job? The least he could do is turn up for the stand up gigs…

We’ll probably never know the truth though.

Link:
Artie’s stand up stood up by ‘Screech’

I think virals are important are because virals are integral to the way the Internet works, you find and share funny e-mail’s, or videos, but companies too can and are using them to their advantage. Virals can be used for small companies, but it requires a keen mind, and a great idea.

Virals and the internet are interlinked; first we had the Star Wars kid, then that Mortal Kombat kid… now we have that Frosties Kid (no, despite reports, rumors and innendo – he isn’t dead). I remember that fake Ford advert with the cat (or something), and the other campaigns that weren’t as successful.

Sure, virals may not lead to sales, nor has it been proven that virals increase brand power (whatever that means); but they do increase word of mouth, and make us laugh.

Virals are important for three main reasons;

1) Viral’s (if done right) are funny, intelligent and go around the world.
2) They involve, and are a great stepping stone for budding directors, producers and film-makers.
3) They can be cheaper to make then traditional advertising.

I hope to explore more about the subject in the future.

When you mention parody pop video’s, Weird Al Yakovic’s name suddenly comes to mind. Here’s three of his best parody videos.

• 
  Eat it! — The most well known parody video, a shot-for-shot remake of Micheal Jackson’s “Beat it”.
• 
  Fat — Weird Al redoes Jackson’s “Bad”
• 
  Smells Like Nirvana — It might have been the theme tune for every teenager during the very early 90’s and when grunge hit the mainstream; but it was perfect for Weird Al to satirise.

Dustin Diamond, who played the character of “Screech Powers” on hit teen show “Saved by the Bell” has been widely reported to be going through a huge financial problem, and he’s asking his many fans and the general public to go out and buy a line of T-shirts from his website getdshirts.com.

As he says himself, he’s at risk of losing his Wisconson home — it has something to do with his “shitty credit” and his inability to get a mortgage or, one might sumaize, a job… In short, Screech recieved a letter stating that I had 30 days to pay $250,000.00 or get out.

Diamond complains that his family “stole his money” and that the money he made from a reality TV show where he boxed “Horshack” (Ron Palillo) has all but disappeared.

Dustin, who describes himself as a “stand-up comedian” has met quite a lot of derision and skepticism from people who describe Dustin’s antics as cynical. They point to the fact for many years he’s been using blue humor to get away from the Screech character, to distance himself from what many teens consider to be the person they grew up with; and perhaps could relate to — but Dustin is well known on some comedy circuits to take himself way too seriousily and get easily frustrated with audience members who try to goude him into the Screech voice.

Further, reviews of Dustin’s comedy scene indicate that he is over-relying on blue humor and that his skits have little else to go except to denegrate the other actors on the hit TV show, Saved by the Bell.

On June 15, 2006, he conducted a phone interview with the Toucher and Rich radio show on WBCN in Boston. Despite repeatedly attempting to promote the sale of his T-shirts to save his home, the hosts ridiculed him and would only refer to him as his Screech character. Diamond ultimately hung up in apparent disgust after making his frusturation apparent, and the ridicule continued after the hangup.

In short, some claim that Dustin has spent a lot of time distancing himself from the Screech character; and when he’s on his knees – he wants to milk it for all it’s worth; what’s worse Screech, sorry I mean Dustin, mis-spells “Screech” with an extra ‘e’ to, quote, “get around copyright issues”… me-thinks he didn’t think it through. Adding an extra “e” to the name of Screech won’t get him around the copyright issues any more than he can win over those people who want to take him down to the gutter.

Whether this whole thing is a publicity stunt, or is a genuine attempt to solve money problems I don’t know — but surely he can solve his money problems by selling an autobiography, going on another MTV reality TV show; or perhaps even getting the old Saved by the Bell crew together one more time… but I don’t that’ll ever happen.

It’ll be interesting if Screech, I mean Diamond follows up on his threats to sue the people involved, and if he can raise the money he needs to save his 250K home in WI.

Related links

• Interview with Dustin Diamond
• getdshirts.com
• Radio interview with Diamond from KROQ 106.7

Here’s the famous Triumph the Insult Dog skit where he interviews “Star Wars” nerds on the premire of “Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones” that was originally on the Conan O’Brien Show.

Link: Triumph the Insult Dog vs Star Wars Nerds

EDIT: I’ve updated the link to Dailymotion, rather than Youtube.

SUNDERLAND ECHO PORTFOLIO BUSINESS AWARDS.

The awards dinner takes place at Sunderland Football Club on 26th October.

All businesses operating within the Sunderland Echo circulation area will be eligible to enter regardless the size, type of business etc.

The awards presented on the night will include:

• Business Idea of The Year
• Young Business Person of The Year (under 25)
• Entrepreneur of The Year
• Small Business of The Year
• Special Community Award
• Technology Award
• Training Award
• Employer of the Year
• Employee of The Year
• Overall Portfolio Business of The Year

For more information you visit
Sunderland Echo Portfolio Business Awards

What is the worst advert on TV at the moment? Many will remember that irrating Crazy Frog advert, but the thread on digitalspy has a lot of really crappy adverts….

BOGOF, Ocean Finance and the rage against Carol Vorderman’s “first loan” advert are just some of the adverts causing people to pull out hair. Some think that advertiser’s purposely create “awful” adverts so that they will be remembered… one only has to look at the current Frostie’s advert to know what I mean.

I’m currently reading some of the more crappy adverts on badadverts.co.uk; although the reviews seem to be highly cynical; I can’t help but laugh at some of the reviews. My favorite has to be the editor’s review of the Hugo Boss advert where he writes;

“[he] seems to think that the whole … world revolves around him and he can do whatever the hell he wants. “I’m not going to wear a suit!”, he inwardly screams in his faux non-conformist demeanour, “I’m far too up my own ass for that. Yup – I think I’ll go wearing whatever I damn well want – and stick two fingers up to authority and conformitism. I have utterly selfish ideals of a libertarian world where there are no rules and screw those who think otherwise ‘cos I’m wearing a specific brand of perfume, even though I’m too thick to see that by buying Huge Boss because others do I’m actually conforming to the very system I’m trying to rebel against”.

• Worst advert of the moment thread on digitalspy
• badadverts.co.uk

Oh no, the summer dance craze of the year is here.

Watch “The Crouch” Dance

A grumpy man on a bus has become the latest star on the Internet, thanks to a six-minute viral youtube film.

The video shows the man scolding a fellow bus passenger in Hong Kong for interrupting his phone call and has been viewed nearly 1.7 million times, becoming the second most viewed video on youtube for May. The movie has spawned countless spoofs, and introduced new slang based upon the ranting’s of the old man.

The film starts with the middle-aged protagonist reacting strongly when a young man sitting behind him taps his shoulder to ask him to keep his voice down while talking on the phone.

“I don’t know you. You don’t know me. Why do you do this?” the infuriated man says, punctuating the sentence by jabbing his right hand downward in the air. When the young man, who rarely talks back during the argument, expresses an unwillingness to continue the conversation, the middle-aged man explodes, “This is not resolved! This is not resolved!” – now a catchphrase in Hong Kong.

Just when the dispute seems to have ended after the young man apologises and the two shake hands, the young man takes issue with profanity used by the middle-aged man, who then launches into another round of swearwords.

It is not clear who shot the film or if the film was staged or not. The middle-aged man has not been identified but a man claiming to be the victim of the verbal abuse has been interviewed on Hong Kong’s Commercial Radio.

Link:
Bus Uncle on youtube.com

In my previous bloggings (if that’s a word) I’ve been a bit sceptical about web2.0, and especally the AJAX technologies. Having done some basic examples and seen it first hand I think AJAX does have a place in web development, but I think it must be measured. In other words, using AJAX if it solves a problem, not to be cool.

But it appears that web2.0 may itself be a registered trademark or copyrighted. As recently highlighted on a thread on sitepoint, a poster summarizes an article that proposes that the web2.0 concept has been trademarked by a company.

But I wouldn’t get too worried. The web2.0 has only been registered for a particular event, and in any case I believe chasing after everybody who talks, writes or contests the ligitimacy of web2.0 for web technologies won’t get sued — I mean, there’s already tons of books out there on the subject, and indeed other web technology subjects why suddenly cash in on this one?

Maybe, as the original article suggests, web2.0 was a term dreamt up by marketing professionals to sell more websites?

Link:

• web2.0 does not exist, or does it?