Liftingfaces

I thought I’d take a moment to celebrate the achievements of one of my favorite athletes of all time, Manny Pacquiao. He was a small Phillipino fighter who entered the ring  weighting 104 lbs., won a belt at Flyweight (112 lbs.) and moved up the ranks until most recently, when he dismantled a bigger, stronger, ferocious opponent at Welterweight (145 lbs.).

Along the way he has collected belts in seven different weight classes. That is an all-time boxing record, for those keeping score. He is one of the fastest, most accurate punchers of all time, and every time he steps into the ring, you are guaranteed a high-intensity fight.

More than all of this, Manny is an extremely humble guy. He leaves the fate of his fights to his God, and says his job is to train hard and fight hard, and that’s it. This humility translates out of the ring as well. He carries the weight of his country on his shoulders, and does everything he can to help his people, many of whom are impoverished and sick.

This spirit is in stark contrast to his next most likely opponent, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who is nothing if not delusional about his status in the boxing world. As one of the most technically sound boxer in history, Mayweather tends to confuse dominance with victory. Mayweather wins fights, Pacquiao dominates them.

To celebrate his seventh world title, I figured I would share a collection of the seven most notable opponents who have tried and failed to dethrone boxing’s true king.

Here are 100 reasons why The Wire is arguably the best show ever put on television …

“Plenty should be enough.” – Barbara Kruger

The Barkley ad agency’s campaign for Sonic Drive-In is of my favorites of all time. I see the ads all the time, even though the places I’ve lived haven’t even had them. No matter, there’s something addictive about these commercials. Borne mostly of loose scripts and choice improv, you can’t help but remember these, love ‘em or hate ‘em.

Each commercial opens on a shot of a Sonic, then cuts inside a car where we listen to the ramblings of two passengers at the drive-in. As far as I know, there have thus far been three pairs of characters (I do remember a one-off with the wife and her friend, however).

The first (original?) pair are played by T.J. Jagodowski (as the wily dufus) and Peter Grosz (as the wisdom-imparting driver).

The second casting pair are a married couple played by Molly Erdman and Brian Huskey. Finally, there are a few spots involving a pair of female best friends, though I’ve always considered them to be a female incarnation of the two guys who started it off.

Anyway, I’ve included a fairly extensive set of the campaign, though it is not entirely comprehensive. If you make it through them all and really want to find more, I salute you and good luck!

P.S. If for some reason you load the page, and one of the flash movies isn’t embedding properly, you may need to reload the page. It seems I’m pushing Flash to its limits here!

Pete & T.J.

“Cheap Date”

“Alphabet”

“Spicy?”

“Boys & Men”

(more…)

The art of Clark Little.

Am I the only one who finds this campaign funny? My friend does not, and I have a feeling he might not be alone. Some help, please?

The art of Jeroen Hofman.

Several weeks ago, NASA crashed a satellite into the moon. In the process, they found water, several white buckets full. I think we can all sleep easier now knowing that once we completely deplete our own planet of water (any year now according to Al Gore), us resource gluttons can simply hop into Richard Branson’s White Knight Two and get some cherry sno-cones on the moon.

The art of Kleber Menezes.