Billboard From "Funeral Home" Brilliantly Goes After People Who Text And Drive

This billboard from the "Wathan Funeral Home" in
Toronto is causing a stir.  

I guess the Wathan Funeral Home in the Toronto area needs to drum up business.

They have a giant billboard on a major highway there that says "Text And Drive."

Texting and driving is one of the best ways to get you, or somebody else killed, so there's that.

Actually, the Wathan Funeral Home doesn't really exist. The "Text and Drive" billboard is a clever, if dark PSA  to tell all those idiots out there to stop friggin texting and driving, dammit!

It's one of my pet peeves. Maybe my biggest. All the time, on the road, their heads are down, they're swerving all over the road, or not stopping at red lights, or not going at green lights, because of the all important texts they have to send.

In my darkest moments, I think people who text and drive deserve to die, as long as they don't hurt anybody else.

After all, if you text and drive, that means you don't give a crap about anybody else. "Who cares if somebody dies. This text to my girlfriend is more important than your life,"  seems to be the thought process of those who text and drive.

Maybe if texters and drivers were brought up on murder or attempted murder charges when they cause a crash, that would teach them a lesson.

Anyway, my hostile view of texters and drivers is the same one that inspired the "Text and Drive" billboard from the fictitious Wathan Funeral Home.

The funeral home, as noted, doesn't exist, but it does have a website. 

If you go to it, you get this message:

"If you're here, you've probably seen our "Text and Drive" billboard. And if you have, you probably came to this website to tell us what horrible people we are for running an ad like that. And you'd be right.

It's a horrible thing for a funeral home to do. But we're not a funeral home.

We're just trying to get Canadians to stop texting and driving, which is projected to kill more people in Ontario this year than drinking and driving. That's right. More. And while most people wouldn't even think about drinking and driving, over half of Ontario's drivers admit to reading texts behind the wheel.

That's more than half of the drivers on the road today risking their lives, their passengers' lives and the lives of fellow motorists and pedestrians.

Which should make you even madder than our billboard did."

It sure does!

The PSA is from the Montreal ad agency St. John St., in partnership with Cieslok Media, says AdWeek.  

Lady Gaga Gets Serious In Her Provocative New Song and Video

A still from the video for Lady Gaga's new
song, "Till It Happens To You."

I've always been a fan of Lady Gaga.

Yeah, people would snicker at me as I enjoyed the weirdness of her early hits with her outlandish outfits, even more outlandish videosand singing that was in part just sound effects.

Remember "Bad Romance"?  And these deep lyrics:

"Rah rah ah ah ah
Ro ma ro ma ma
Gaga oh la la 
Want your bad romance"

Sounds like a baby on acid.

But I loved the song, and all her music. Even in her weirdest stages, she has the goods, the pipes. She really can sing. And she could put on quite a show

Then Lady Gaga did a 180 and formed an unlikely but winning partnership with Tony Bennett. They made beautiful music together, definitely.

Now she's back, with something that is decidedly not beautiful, but is important and excellent and serious. No weirdness here. Just a raw, in your face message.

Lady Gaga's new song is  called "Till It Happens To You."

The song is the theme for the campus rape documentary "The Hunting Ground."

The video is really a PSA about rapes on college campuses. There's even a warning at the beginning of the video to say it's graphic. Some of the images are disturbing, but they do get their point across.

We understand a portion of the proceeds for this song will go to survivors of sexual assault.

Lady Gaga is one of those artists that change and grow and alter themselves at the drop of a hat, it seems. When she does that for good reasons, good causes, you can only admire her more.

Here's the video:

Organ Transplant Advocacy Ad Is The Ultimate In Hearttugging

This dog stars in a touching, very
effective ad advocating for organ
transplant donors.  

There's a public service ad circulating in Argentina touting the benefits of organ transplants.

Here's one of the most effective, touching ads I've seen on this kind of subject.

Like some of the best PSA's I've seen, there's not a word of dialogue in this ad. But the message comes through loud and clear. Wait until the visual "punch line" at the end.

There is a Kleenex alert with this video: You'll probably need tissues.

To watch this video, you'll see a black screen with a messatge to "Watch on YouTube." Click on that sentence to watch the video.

And consider becoming a potential organ donor.

Sorry, But This "Mean Tweets" Episode Isn't Funny Like The Others. But It's Important

A couple of the homeless people after
 reading mean tweets about the homeless
for a PSA to encourage looking looking at all
people as part of humanity.  

I'm a big fan of Jimmy Kimmel's "Mean Tweets" segments, in which  celebrities read the horrible things people say about them on Twitter.

The celebrities have a good sense of humor about it, and it's pretty funny. I've featured a few of them on this here blog thingy.

I don't mean to be Debbie Downer here, but there's another "Mean Tweets" episode circulating, and Jimmy Kimmel and his humor were not involved.

The organization, Raising The Roof Canada,  has homeless people read mean Tweets about themselves.

It turns out, Surprise! lots of idiots on Twitter say idiotic, mean things. Among the awful things they say are insults about homeless people, how they are supposedly subhuman, not something we shold see, and it's all their fault, blah, blah, blah.

The Canadian broadcaster CBC has the deets:

"The goal? To get people to see that these people who have nowhere to live are human beings, too.

'Only when this happens will people stop saying nasty things, stop assuming the stereotypes are true,' said Carolann Barr, executive director of Raisiing the Roof. 'Then we can work together to prevent and end homelessness.

Barr and Raising the Roof wanted to create a campaign that would help people look past stereotypes about homelessness and see the real folks who live their lives without a place to cal home."

I'm sure the heartbreaking PSA you'll see in the video below won't change the behavior of the Twitter twits who make sport of skewing homeless people. (And in the process making themselves far less dignified than said homeless people.)

Homelessness is often a product of bad luck. Sometimes it's a product of a bad decision, but we're all guilty of bad decisions. Usually we recover quickly, but occasionally, the recovery is hard to come by.

Maybe the mean Twitterers should become homeless for awhile. Just to see what it's like.  I'd also like to see the idiot people who Tweeted such nonsense to say it face to face to the people featured in the video.

How would they react to the fact they made some of these people cry, and many of us viewers cry?

I'd like to think there's some humanity hidden somewhere inside the mean Tweeters, but I have mh doubts.

For the rest of us, the video you'll see below is a useful reminder that everybody, including the homeless, are humans with hopes and feelings and worthiness.

Budweiser's Anti-Drunk Driving PSA Enough To Make Dog Owners Cry

A cute scene from Budweiser's anti-drunken driving
public service announcement  

Budweiser, the giant maker of beer, feels compelled from time to time to release a public service announcement noting that their beer is GREAT! (to some people anyway), but you don't want to have too much of it at once.

You know, drunken driving. You don't want to   go out on the road schnockered and then hurt or kill somebody. Or yourself. Think of the people waiting for you at home.

Or, your doggie companion waiting for you at home.

At the end of this post, you will find the tug-at-your-heartstrings Budweiser Don't Drive Drunk, Dog Loving PSA, called "Friends Are Waiting."

It comes complete with cuteness, a wimpering worrying dog, a good message, and, in the end, relief and happiness.

It's totally worth the watch. And definitely worth remembering next time you buy a six pack of Budweiser, or your favorite microbrew:

Brilliant PSA On Texting And Driving Tricks Moviegoers Awesomely

We've heard over and over again that simultaneously texting and driving is dangerous.  

This woman sitting in a Hong Kong movie theater
just got a text message. And she's in for a big
surprise in just a moment.  

Everybody should know that by now, but people are still getting killed and hurt on the road because some idiots insist that texting "OMG!!! I Love Bieber!" while blasting down the highway is worth killing other motorists over.

To drive the danger home, Volkswagen, made a video which shows a crowd settling into a movie theater to watch a film.

As people munch popcorn and settle into their seats, the film they're watching starts with a driver's eye view of a trip in a car down a nice road, lined with big tall trees.

But the theater, and the makers of the ad are equipped with a location based broadcaster. They hit a button, which makes the mobile phones of everyone in the the theater start ringing, signaling they all got a text message. Many movie goers drag out their phones and start to look at the tiny little screens on their mobile devices.

As they look at their phones, something happens on the movie screen. You'll have to watch it the video, below, to see what happens next (don't want to spoil it!)

You'll see the point is driven (pun intended) home: Don't text and drive. That text message to your friend about that hottie that was on "America's Got Talent" last night can wait.

Here's the awesome video:

Kleenex Alert! Wonderful, Touching Video By People With Down Syndrome To Soon-To-Be Mom

World Down Syndrome Day is tomorrow, March 21, and the people at Down Syndrome International put out this very sweet video that is one of the better advocacy PSA's I've seen.

A still from the World Down Syndrome Day video.  

In the video, the organizers say they got an email from  young woman who is pregnant and learned her baby has Down Syndrome.

The woman wrote: "I'm scared. What kind of life will my child have?"

Then the video goes on to have people with Down Syndrome from all over the world answer the young mother's question. Spoiler alert:  The answers are very reassuring.

I don't like to generalize about any particular group, but the people I've met in my life who have Down Syndrome tend to be the most interesting and fun individuals I've come across.  So the PSA definitely seems to meet Truth In Advertising standards.

Here's the video:  (Like I said, Kleenex alert!)

The Drunk Guy and Your Car

I found an interesting video of people reacting to a very drunk valet. Watch the video to the end because you get a very effective message.  They should run videos like this in the United States, too.

Watch: