Month: October 2013

Sure, this probably wasn’t intentional, but the movie theatre should leave the poster this way.

Posted just in case you needed to know the difference.

It’s the second Monday in October, which means in Canada, it’s Thanksgiving! Unlike the American Thanksgiving, which takes place at the end of November, Canada’s Thanksgiving is based more on the old harvest festivals in Europe. However, like the American tradition, a family gathering with turkey, cranberry sauce/jelly, and pumpkin pie is how we celebrate.

For those of you who celebrate it — and seriously, do it instead of Columbus Day — Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! In its honour, here’s a song with a “thankful” theme: Gratitude by the Beastie Boys:

If you’ve seen Burger King’s ads with their mascot and that creepy “King” mask, you know that they’re no stranger to weirdness. Combine that with Japan — the world’s leading exporter of pure, unadulterated WTF — and true weirdness is the result.

Burger chains with international reach often create local versions of their sandwiches. Burger King’s latest version is the Kuro Ninja burger — kuro is Japanese for black — which features a black bun created by mixing bamboo charcoal with the flour and “black ketchup”, a concoction of regular ketchup, garlic and squid ink. The burger also features a big hunk of bacon.

If the bacon in the promo photo above reminds you of someone sticking out their tongue, that’s intentional. The mascot for the burger is a ninja — the feared shadow warriors of legend and a lot of painfully bad Sho Kosugi movies from the ’80s — sticking out his tongue.

The marketing equation that Burger King seems to be following for the Kuro Ninja is as follows:

If any readers have tried a Kuro Ninja burger, let us know in the comments!

Many engagement photos are overly saccharine, and the better ones require waaaay too much prep, makeup, costuming, and choreography. Perhaps that’s why I rather like the picture below, which I presume is one announcing the engagement of two people who don’t take themselves too seriously:

My congrats to the happy couple.

I’ll miss Tampa — and I’ll miss the girlfriend even more. I’ll see you folks in Toronto soon.

I’ve got a friend in the Toronto area who’s looking to sell his Lenovo X201 tablet-style laptop with the following features:

• Core i7 processor
• 4GB RAM
• 128 GB SSD drive (fast!)
• Touchscreen w/ stylus
• The 64-bit version of Windows 7 Pro

It’s yours if you want it for $450. Contact me at joey@joeydevilla.com and I’ll arrange an email intro.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.