Many people reading this haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing what I’m about to share. Our overseas visitors most likely have, and I sure have. Being Canadian, I’ve always considered myself an arm’s length away from the US. We’re virtually the same in all aspects of business, life, and entertainment.

But for some reason, the American media, specifically online media, has something against Canada. For the past few years as multimedia has grown and video has become standard practice, I’ve come across many big media sites that reject me like a stuck-up supermodel.

I have a few examples of these sites, which when trying to view a video tell me that I can’t see it because its only available in the US. Frustrating? Very. Especially when I have to sit there through a 30 second or 1 minute pre-roll ad only to be hit with an availability message. I’m good enough for you to charge advertisers for, but not show content to? We’re on the same continent damnit!

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I came across a pretty cool idea on Advertising for Peanuts. They plugged a blog called Donate Your Coke Rewards. The idea behind it is that anyone can e-mail the codes they get in their Coke bottle caps to Stu Thompson, the person behind this website. He then combines all the points he receives, cashes them in for a Coke prize, and donates it to a needy child at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

If you were to try to do the same just with your own points, you’d develop a serious addiction to caffeine with all the Coke you’d have to drink. But with hundreds or thousands of people sending in a couple of codes every now and then, it can add up pretty quickly. Most of the time we just toss the cap out if it doesn’t win an instant prize, so simply typing the code into an e-mail in benefit of the hospital sounds like a pretty damn good idea to me.

This idea could be huge if a simple website was created that allowed you to enter a code for all of the latest promotions from the big junk food companies. It has a good story to help get some media attention and could really generate tons of gifts for numerous hospitals and charities.

I don’t see Stu’s contact information on his blog, but if you were to post a comment on any of his entries I’m sure he’d get back to you. If anyone would like to expand on the idea post a comment here and I can try to get in touch with Stu myself.

During the airing of an episode of the Iron Chef, a YouTuber was keen enough to TiVo the show. What he caught was a very sneaky play by McDonald’s. Many call it a miscue of an ad by the Food Network. Nah, this wasn’t a mistake. This was some good ‘ol subliminal advertising. Sneaky? Yes. Effective? Of course not.

If the corporate identity and tagline of McDonald’s trigger Pavlov’s salivation, your taste buds are dead and you need to get out more.

Here’s the sleaze in action:

This 1) makes me hate McDonald’s even more, 2) helps me understand why everyone thinks adfolk are the scum of the Earth.

Check out this clip of Paula Abdul completely schnocked doing a Seattle Fox New interview. It’s actually painful to watch as she obliterates her already obnoxious public image.

Back in 1997 an article written by Mary Schmich was published in the Chicago Tribune. It was an instant cult classic. Two years later, a musical version of this essay was recorded by Baz Lhurmann.

You may have stumbled across this video/song, literally, as I have seen it a few times on Stumble Upon’s video site and thought you guys might enjoy it.

The essay itself is quite powerful, but set to a music track accompanied by video, many consider it brilliant.

Here is the video version:

You can read the original essay, “Everybody’s Free (to wear sunscreen)�?, here. I’d love to hear what you think.