Susan's Weekly News Mashup: Friday 13 Jan 2012

Here is a mashup of news for this week – there’s a cry for old school technology, a list of tips for you to be better prepared for dailies, a couple of reports from CES, a fun commercial for Mini Coopers based on a fan suggestion, a great trailer from Blur, and a rendition of a Dr Seuss story as told by those who attended Burning Man last year.

What’d I miss?

Be Prepared for Dailies
From Vizyacky.com
Here are four things you should always be prepared to discuss during dailies.

Trumbull: Hollywood Should Go Back to Using Miniatures
From Forbes.com
Hollywood Special Effects wizard Douglas Trumble is interviewed in the latest issue of Creative Cow. (Not yet available online, it’s the second of a two-part series, the first of which can be read online here.)

The Spot: A Mini Masterpiece
From Adweek
An epic two-minute cinema ad springs from six words written by a fan of the auto brand
GENESIS: Mini's whole marketing goal is to get butts in seats for test drives, since people who drive one tend to buy one. As part of the Mini Coupe launch, Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners asked people online to describe the best test drive they could imagine—in just six words—and promised to use the winning entry as the plot for a two-minute ad, starring the winner. (The agency was inspired by, and partnered with, Larry Smith and his Six-Word Memoir project.) In the end, Mathew Foster won with his intriguing entry: "Stewardess. Salt flats. Sushi. Paratroopers. Falconer." Then, director Erich Joiner brought Foster's words to life in an epic spot that's wild, energetic, surreal and fun-loving—and has something of a twist ending.

Blur Studios presents: "The Goon" a David Fincher Production
From Blur.com
Producer David Fincher and Blur are teaming up to bring The Goon, the Dark Horse comic book created by Eric Powell, to the big screen! Actor Paul Giamatti will lend his voice as Franky, the Goon’s sidekick as they face off numerous evil zombie gangs. "Even the undead fear--THE GOON!"

The 12 Best, Quirkiest CES Gadgets We’ve Seen So Far
From Wired
We've scoured booths. We've muscled our way into meeting rooms. We've even peeked under a table or two, scouting for engineering samples and other hardware unmentionables. We've been looking for not only the best CES gear -- you know, the obvious stuff like phones and tablets -- but also the coolest, quirkiest, most curious gadgets the Las Vegas mega-show has to offer.

What it feels like to attend CES
From Boingboing
Normally, the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show marks the season when I stop reading gadget blogs. It's when sites that do 12 interesting posts a day turn into a sites that publish 120 barely rewritten press releases a day as the writers struggle to "cover" a bunch of product announcements for stuff that mostly represents banal recombinations of earlier devices and "major releases" that are really minuscule, incremental changes to existing products. But Gizmodo's Mat Honan has a stream-of-consciousness rant of the experience of being at CES really captures what it was like the years I attended -- and makes me glad I'm not there now.

Oh, The Places You'll Go at Burning Man
From Devor.com
Videographer Teddy Saunders captured a cast of Burners reciting Dr. Seuss' final book at Burning Man 2011.