Heinz Ketchup packets designed by students (link roundup)

Clever advertising - - Heinz gets schools to encourage kids to design ketchup packets, in return for a shot at fame and prize money. (The super hero is by Julia Kilroy.) Via.

And a few more links:

1. You can go here to see video of women in India being beaten and subject to other humiliations after being branded as witches. Supposedly it's a common occurrence in India. (I didn't watch the video, the description is sad enough.)

2. Adventure Time goes to Japan. Via.

3. Cleverly placed Polaroid turns Clark Kent into Superman.

*Previously: School abandons witch logo in light of the town's history.

*Buy Polaroids at Amazon.

Heinz Ketchup packets designed by students (link roundup)

Clever advertising - - Heinz gets schools to encourage kids to design ketchup packets, in return for a shot at fame and prize money. (The super hero is by Julia Kilroy.) Via.

And a few more links:

1. You can go here to see video of women in India being beaten and subject to other humiliations after being branded as witches. Supposedly it's a common occurrence in India. (I didn't watch the video, the description is sad enough.)

2. Adventure Time goes to Japan. Via.

3. Cleverly placed Polaroid turns Clark Kent into Superman.

*Previously: School abandons witch logo in light of the town's history.

*Buy Polaroids at Amazon.

Trash can with built in hair-removing comb (link roundup)

Hye-Min Jung designed a trash can with built in hair-removing comb to make it easy to get hair off a brush. More photos here.

And a few more links:

1. There's apparently a campaign to discredit toy customizer John "Jin-Saotome" Mallamas.

2. Article explores how the Village Voice games Digg. Via.

3. A blogger points out that the whistleblower who tried to convince the SEC to investigate Madoff could have saved everyone the trouble simply by posting his concerns online. Via.

4. Last year, "four of Japan's top 10 best-sellers were about how blood type determines personality." Although it's illegal, many employers ask blood types at job interviews.

*Previously: Girl spontaneously changes blood type after organ transplant.

*Buy blood type home test kits at Amazon.

Order a personalized Garbage Pail Kid card (link roundup)

Brent Engstrom is selling custom Garbage Pail Kid cards.

And a few more links:

1. Albinos that have the misfortune of being born in Tanzania are often slaughtered, hacked to pieces, and sold to witch doctors, who use the body parts to make potions. Read more at The Economist. Via Tucker Stone, whose weekly summary of The Economist is one of my favorite things on the web.

2. 30% of books sold for Amazon's Kindle now cost more than $10. Makes sense. If someone's dumb enough to buy one of those things...

3. There's a corruption investigation going on England, concerning the House of Lords. Specifically, someone actually named Lord Snape. Via.

4. 14-year-old boy was arrested for impersonating a police officer. After he managed to spend a day on patrol with another officer. Via.

*Previously: Sarah Palin as a Garbage Pail Kid.

*Buy "Wacky Packages" the book at Amazon.

Chili's Good Luck Rituals commercial

I saw this commercial for the first time the other day and it's perfect - - funny, interesting, and most importantly the funny interesting part directly ties into to a key message about the product - - when you order takeout from Chili's they'll get the order right and give you an accurate estimate for when the food will be ready. (Too bad Chili's is way overpriced for the quality of food they serve.)

*Previously: Timesculpture commercial promotes the ad agency, not the product.

*Buy "The Erotic History of Advertising" at Amazon.

Marijuana growers believe Ganesha is their patron saint

The New Yorker has a long, fascinating article about the entrepreneurs who grow medical marijuana in California. This detail stood out:

While Blue napped, I wandered around his apartment, and counted nearly a dozen images and carvings of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha. The proliferation of Ganesha dates back to a well-publicized federal bust in January, 2007, when the D.E.A. seized the medicine and cash of eleven pot dispensaries in Los Angeles. The only major dispensary that wasn’t busted had a Ganesha in its window. Now it is hard to find a karmically inclined ganja dealer in Los Angeles who doesn’t own a herd of lucky figurines.

Read the whole article by David Samuels here.

(Marble Ganesha idol found at Flickr.)

*Previously: Ganesha plush.

*Find Ganesha statues at eBay.