I was reading through the latest MediaBistro newsletter when I saw this odd headline.

"Oyster Launches New Online Literary Journal"

And my first question was - what the hecking heck is the Oyster?

After a bit of poking around, I discovered that Oyster is a smartphone app that lets you download books.
With over half a million titles and new books ( Read more... )

Growing up in St. Petersburg, Петербуржское метро (the St. Petersburg subway) was a huge part of my life. It's hard to travel long distances without it. And, back in the 90s, whenever you went down the escalator to the station, you'd hear all of the St. Petersburg subway rules of conduct read out loud. Because of St. Petersburg topography, the ( Read more... )

Over the past few months, I've seen something interesting happening on Livejournal ( Read more... )

Newspaper commercials kind of fascinate me. Using video to advertise a medium that predates video... There's something crossing-streamy about it.  Sometimes, it actually works pretty well. Sometimes... Not so much.

First, we have the commercial for The Gambit, an alternative weekly newspaper that covers New Orleans

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I quite like this one, actually ( Read more... )

Over at Chicago Union Station's Great Hall, McDonalds get creative with advertising free coffee.

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Honestly, I liked Chicago's Magical Piano better (mostly because it wasn't a commercial), but this is still entertaining.

During the weekday, when I don't have to go on assignments, I usually work from the Evanston Barnes & Noble. They have decent wi-fi, it's easy to reach from my house by 'L', and they have a pretty nice selection of magazines (some of which I even buy - there is stuff you legitimately can't find in any other bookstore or newsstand in Chicagoland ( Read more... )

Around a month of so ago moj_oduvan4ik asked me to translate a novella of hers. She already put up a short story collection up on Kindle, but it has all been in Russian. In exchange, she offered to translate published bits of Urbis Arcana into English - and share profits from my translation.

So, as you can imagine, I have a bit of a vested self-interest in ( Read more... )

Lately, the Internets have been abuzz over something that's being called "the most sexist commercial of all time."

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But while it is sexist, that is not the most sexist commercial ever. I would nominate this as the most sexist commercial of all time.

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If this ad had any more condescension it would be in a rain forest.

This ad cleverly uses the unique vantage point that only Chicago's 'L' system can provide. It's really too bad it's advertising an alcoholic beverage.

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