Man of Steel + Gillette = Brilliant Product Tie-In

What do you get when you combine a highly anticipated superhero movie, the combined nerdiness of famous self-proclaimed comic book lovers, and one of the most pedestrian toiletries on the planet?

You get a brilliant viral marketing campaign, that's what.

Seemingly incongruous Gillette has hitched its wagon to the Man of Steel movie with a simple question: How does the Man of Steel shave?

Apparently this is subject of countless discussions among Superman fans the world over. At once Gillette has reached reached a huge demographic that 1) shaves, 2) enjoys superhero movies, and 3) probably reveres the personalities who provide their own theories in answer to the question.

This just goes to show that even the most apparently unrelated concepts can be combined to create super-traction for a brand. More marketing departments should be thinking along these lines.

Peregrine falcons are raising a family where I used to work

In 2010 I worked at Campbell Ewald in Warren, Michigan. That year it was discovered that our 10-story building housed not only several hundred employees, but also a pair of peregrine falcons . In the weeks and months following, it wasn't uncommon to see bird watchers and naturalists observing the birds from the parking lot far below. I even took a photo through one of their telescopes.



Well, in the time since I left CE, the birds decided to make their house a home by laying some eggs on the roof. Right in front of a security camera.

CE has set up a Tumblr page to document the events. It will be fun to watch the feed and wait for the chicks to hatch.

High Stress, High Enjoyment: Welcome to Utah.

I've just learned something new about my recently adopted home state: it's among the most stressful in the nation.

According to Gallup, Utah is the country's #4 most stressed-out state.



Which is interesting—because the same report lists Utah as the country's #3 most enjoyable state.



So stress...is enjoyable? I think this goes to show that there's positive stress and negative stress. Apparently, Utah has an abundance of the former.

And why not? It's becomes pretty clear when you see videos like these.

Firing up the old word forge...

I've decided it's time to bring this blog back to life. I write for a living, but it's time to add some variety back into the mix. Insightful/insipid thoughts incoming...

I've recently been reading articles about biocentrism - a radical cosmological theory that supposes that it's so statistically improbable for the universe to develop in such a way to support life, that the only other reasonable scientific explanation is that life, or consciousness itself, is what shaped the universe. Rather than the other way around. And that concepts like "time" and "space" are simply constructs of our minds to help us comprehend what we perceive. In other words, "time" and "space" don't really exist beyond our own limited perception.

In the words of this article, by Rosemary Bachelor,

Biocentrism redefines our concepts of space and time. They aren’t as definite as we think. Everything we see and experience comes from activity in our mind. Space and time are merely tools mankind invented for putting everything together.

In a timeless, spaceless world, death doesn’t exist. Lanza tells how the great Einstein admitted this when speaking of an old friend: “Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us…know the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

There are all kinds of cool facets to this hypothesis. One idea builds on the proven theory that energy can be neither be created nor destroyed--and that includes the energy which powers our consciousness.

To Dr. Lanza, individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, but something important is left after they do. He calls it the alive feeling, the “Who Am I?” This, he says, is a 20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain and it doesn’t go away at death.

Is this immortality? Yes and no. A proven axiom of science is that energy never dies. It can neither be created nor destroyed. Okay, but does this energy transcend more than one world or universe? Where does it go when the body dies? Is this what religion calls our soul?

I find this particularly interesting as a Mormon. Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, taught the same principle of energy conservation. He also taught that God doesn't abide by our mortal concepts of time and space. Rather, He supersedes them. to Him, time is "one eternal round."

Check out a good summary of Biocentrism on Wikipedia. Who knows? That dude Lanza (who developed the theory) could be onto something.

The Digital Youth of Jeff Bridges

I just saw the awesome latest trailer for Tron Legacy. Aside from the movie looking mind-blowingly spectacular, it was neat to see the young and old versions of Jeff Bridges.

I wonder if youthification through the use of CGI will become so cheap and easy that age will mean little when it comes to casting. When will we have a movie starring a digitally youthful actor for no other reason than billing that actor's big name? Time will tell.

Mormons the Most Bible-Literate? Who'd-a-thunk?

Being a Mormon, I get all the fun feeds about my religion. Today I learned from the Pew Research Center that Mormons, on average, possess a stronger knowledge of the Holy Bible than any other faith group. Says the report,

On questions about Christianity – including a battery of questions about the Bible – Mormons (7.9 out of 12 right on average) and white evangelical Protestants (7.3 correct on average) show the highest levels of knowledge.

It goes on to say that Mormons have the greatest overall religious knowledge, along with Atheists/Agnostics and Jews.

This is due in large part to the four-year seminary program that most Mormon youth attend during high school, along with the missionary program to which many young men and women devote two years of their life.

Mormon blogger Kevin Barney offers this additional insight:

Mormons discuss religion openly, both among themselves and with others. Religious discussion is not the taboo among Mormons that it might be for some.

Another possible consideration is that any time you are a minority (or other underdog type group) you are forced to be more aware of things than if you are in the majority. You just run across more resistance, more sticking points, little things it is easy to breeze by if you are in the majority. See also: race, being a woman, having grown up poor, etc. So the dynamic of being a somewhat exotic religious minority group may have something to do with the results.

What does it all mean? Nothing, really. I just found it interesting.