I do not usually appreciate covers of songs. Particularly of songs that have been released within the last six months. But oh good golly gosh, Pomplamoose music just makes it so much fun. Covering Lady GaGa’s “Telephone” Pomplamoose is a boy/girl team that has been making a recent splash on the YouTube scene with a series of cover songs such as Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and Earth Wind and Fire’s “September.” This video, if not seizure inducing, is a clever, collage style video with a firm grasp of Windows Movie Maker. The video itself is mostly shots of the duo recording the song, and cuts to shots of a guy smashing the drums, rocking a bass, and dancing shamelessly along to their production. I’m definitely an all around fan of Pomplamoose’s quirky, pseudo-electonica approach to Lady GaGa, but what makes the video for me is the clear, unabashed joy the two of them have in producing it, and not a frame goes by without a fast-flying shot of the pair smirking with amusement.

Remember those posters that used to hang at the back of your seventh grade science room? You know, with the picture of some guy hang-gliding within an all black frame, with an empty phrase beneath it like “achieve”? There’s finally a public arena to take mocking these posters to the next level. Very Demotivational Demotivational Posters allows you to create your own posters to demotivate yourself, and mock hated motivational office knick-knacks in the process. You upload your own picture, chose your own captions, or you can upload a poster you’ve already found. There are also ways to rate existing pictures, or you can be as de-motivated as you chose, and just look at all the funny posters that people with gumption have uploaded to the site already. The posters range from laugh out loud hilarity to an angry realization that the twelve-year-old you babysit probably constructed it, but on the whole, you get a few good laughs out of it, and I’m giving it a smear of approval. See if this suites your humor tastes; one poster shows a picture of the long-past youthful looking Donatella Versace in a bikini, wrinkled skin a plenty. The caption beneath it reads “UV Rays, Looks like those scientists were right.” Another one shows a security guard in a presumably spanish speaking country (it says securidad on the back of his vest) with the words “real security” also on the back of his vest. The accompanying caption reads “Mexican Security, this one is real.” Viewers be warned, this site isn’t one that limits itself to political correctness, and a few of these posters edge on the side of raunchy, but if you feel that your talent for poster creation should be globally acknowledged, then create good readers, get motivated!

300 Reviews was brought to my attention in a creative writing class as a tangible example of thinking “outside of the box” and all that other English major yib-yab. Fortunately, I like that stuff, and I love the idea that someone created a blog to rate and review real life experiences. This website is actually a simple wordpress blog, but invites writers, journalists, film critics, and creatives of all sorts to review everyday objects and occurrences in three-hundred word increments. The project is a newer creation, and began posting in November of 2009, and will stop posting (allegedly) once they have posted three-hundred blog entries. As 300 Words describes itself, “think Barthes on sweaty Romans in cinema.” It gets better. Such reviews have included topics like “Your Conduct and Aspect on Public Transporation,” “The Annual Christmas Crossing Reenactment,” “Graffiti” and “Watching Your Train Leave You Behind.” Stylistically, every writer (or at least most) writes a different excerpt, so it’s difficult to convey an overarching tone of the site, but in my efforts, I can tell you that all of it is witty and mostly satirical. Many of the posts begin with a general concept, like “Cats” and begin to broaden into a story, though each post makes an effort to keep the concept general enough, and each has colorful details and one-liners to boot. Here’s an excerpt from “Watching Your Train Leave You Behind,” so you can grab a taste. “And as that sight dwindles, what magnifies is the knowledge that, had you set your alarm for the appropriate time, had you the foresight to pack your bag the previous night despite the spinning room, had the traffic lights been any color but red as your friend sped toward the station in his white pickup truck, you might have made it. Don’t think of this scene—of your abandonment, of your inability to keep yourself together—as metaphor. It would be too poignant.” And all in 300 words or less, take that, Twitter.