I love a good makeover. Many a happy afternoon was spent watching What Not To Wear-and consequently fearing that Clinton and Stacy would one day jump out on me in my yoga pants and baggy sweater.
The big makeover talk right now is all about Ronald McDonald's new look. It's big news. Like when Michelle Obama got bangs.
The iconic clown representing the home of the Supersized Big Mac has apparently traded in his prison wear yellow jumpsuit for a more hipster friendly look featuring a bow tie and ankle cropped mustard trousers.
Looking at the before and after, like with any good makeover, you definitely see that Ronald looks like a slimmer clown now. Amazing what some good tailored pants over the hip area will do.
Ronald did get to keep his signature stripes on his shirt, but it is made more subdued with blazer, tastefully embroidered with his own likeness. I do however appreciate the clever M created by the two tone tails of the coat.
Ronald got to keep his big red shoes which I find surprising. While we all know big feet are......exciting, I would have expected this makeover to have put him in some more up to date kicks. Perhaps a pair of red chucks?
I also am surprised they didn't do something with his bouffant of red hair.
I actually would have found it really amazing if they had just gone full out hipster with this. Picture it: hipster glasses, an asymmetrical haircut, a red and white flannel, some skinny yellow jeans. But I'm not sure that look would really be reaching their target market. Though I'm not sure who their target market is with this new look which was in fact designed by Ann Hould-Ward, an accomplished Tony Award winning Broadway costume designer. I'm sure she was thrilled to add this to her resume. Everything seems to go to Broadway nowadays. Maybe this is the overture to a McMusical that is headed our way. I wouldn't hate to see a musical number featuring tap dancing Fry Kids.
McDonald's says that Ronald's new look is because the clown will now be playing a bigger role in the company's social media channels as part of their new campaigns so look forward to a side of instagram with your burger clown McTweets.
I wonder if the rest of the old gang will also be getting a reboot. What has Mayor McCheese been up to?
A new day, a new terror to obsessively worry about.
A man broke into a family's house in Denver. He didn't hurt anyone or steal anything, all he did was take a selfie with a haunting, mocking smirk using the woman's cell phone.
This is like the start of a Lifetime movie that at first seems like something you can sit and mock while enjoying a glass of wine, but quickly becomes filled with plot twists that will haunt your dreams.
So the cops are on the look out for a bold hipster with a penchant for ironic selfies. All of Brooklyn would be suspect if this hadn't thankfully happened miles away in Denver-where the subway and bicycles from Brooklyn don't go.
I can't help but think that this will be the continuation of the disturbing new trend of escalating selfies. First they were just innocent, but annoying "look at me" pictures in the bathroom or car, then they became braggy "look at what I'm doing" pictures of people in cool locations or doing better things with their Saturday afternoon than you were. But before we knew it, the selfie had gone to a new level with things like "Funeral Selfies." The more wrong of a place to snap a picture, the more right it felt.
People just can't help themselves. And it has all led to trouble, like the man last week who was arrested after taking a selfie of himself with the phone he had just stolen. Idiot.
Anyway, back to the Selfie Creeper in Denver....I just hope this isn't something that people start doing. I would like to think this is one isolated incident where this man was just involved in a drunken bar dare or something. Though since a neighbor who was interviewed by the cops said they were pretty sure they saw this man lurking around the neighborhood, that is seeming unlikely. Oh god. If I look at my phone when home alone and discover that some dude has just taken a freaky selfie-I don't know what I'd do! Certainly demand the police sit on my house with protective detail for weeks. I'd also then demand that I get to play myself in any Lifetime movies or Law and Order SVUs made.
So.....yes. Selfies are becoming terrifying. I probably won't sleep tonight.
But I also need to mention that there is a brilliant website doing their best to put a stop to this madness-or at least make us be held accountable. SelfiePolice.org is an effort by independent students in association with The Tyler Robinson Foundation . As they describe on their website, their goal is turn "vanity into charity" with "one-hundred percent of funds raised by the #selfiepolice will be
contributed to Vittana, an innovative organization dedicated to fighting
world poverty by providing student loans to college aged kids in third
world countries." You can fine yourself or charge your friends. I'm not saying I'm innocent and don't post selfies so I think this is something we should all get behind. It may be the only way to save humanity at this point.
I'm geeking out! This amazing new invention lets us unleash our inner Jedis to control our technology. I am finally beginning to feel that we are in that future promised to us by The Jetsons and Back to the Future Part 2!
The MYO from Thalmic Labs is an armband that detects motion and muscle movements to allow control of a Mac, PC, or other device using gestures. And at $149 pre-sale it's a real steal. As stated on their website, the device works "right out of the box" and "can control presentations, video, content, games, browse the web, create music, edit videos, and so much more." So cool! Just watch the video and think how proud Yoda will be of you when you rewind a video with the flick of your hand that says "these aren't the droids you are looking for."
I am so excited by the cool, futuristic technology of this that I almost didn't notice the major problem with it's promotional video. Almost. Did you catch it? Watch it again. It's not what is in the video that is disturbing, it's what is not in the video. What's not in this video is women! There is not one woman or girl using the MYO. They show 8 amazing and practical uses for this technology and it's all men using it. Does it not work for women? Can women not be technology Jedis? At the very sexist least they could have had a woman be the person chopping veggies and using this gadget to rewind the cooking tutorial.
While I'm still fascinated by this device, this is a problem. A video marketing new technology does something like this,
totally omitting anyone who doesn't have a penis, and I see exactly what
I am trying to prove when I constantly feel the need to assert myself
as smart and geeky. This absolutely perpetuates that stereotype that boys will buy tech toys because they are smarter and into science and technology. And girls will buy pretty pink lacy dishtowels-or some other archaic crap-because they are prettier and like pretty things and playing house. Ugh.
Here's the underlying issue.....
I know it's trendy to be a geek right now. (Though I just don't understand the Urkel nerd glasses trend.)
But I am not a geek to be chic. I am a full on technology/gadget loving guru who, thanks to my brother, saw the original Star Wars trilogy enough times we could recreate it verbatim with our hundreds of action figures. I also still love my Super Nintendo, playing along with Jeopardy, and obsessively reading the news from many sites including Science News.
So my problem with this current trend that embraces geekiness is that I think it's created "geek posers"-especially among girls/women.
Ok, I obviously bought the Darth Vader sweater at Forever 21.
These women who are now wearing their over-sized glasses, watching Big Bang Theory, buying sweaters with Darth Vader on them from Forever 21, and talking about how into technology they are because they synced their ipad and their iphone are the equivalent to me of a hipster dude with a moustache-total frauds.
It's not that I don't think it's wonderful that geek culture seems to make it cool to be smart, especially after girls have had a long suffering history of a world telling them it was ok to be pretty and dumb. Remember that talking Barbie in the early 90's that said "math class is tough?" But what's not wonderful about this geek culture is that it isn't encouraging girls to be any smarter, it's just encouraging them to look smarter. Technology is the future, and we need to make sure that it is not a boys club. And ladies, look at the cool technology skills that you could miss out on by not being a real (smart) geek. Now let's use this MYO device to perform Jedi mind control tricks on men.
