Stu's take…

Okay, so I’m probably the final person who owns a blog to post this clip from DollarShaveClub.com – pretty much every humour blog I’ve come across has brought this one to their reader’s attention over the course of the week. Well, I’m from Pretoria, so we’re a bit slower than the rest of the pack, aight?

Anyway, check out how marketing should be done. That’s right, these guys are for real – it’s not just a piss-take video:

Pure class.

Their site: Dollar Shave Club.

Here we go once again with a post about animals. I guess I may have slight hippie tendencies… but, but lookit! It’s a bird! Feeding a dog!

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Other animal-related posts on this site:

• Friendly bear waving at tourists…
• Orangutan and dog become friends…
• The hippopotamus and the tortoise…
• Bear Rescue…

So this one has been playing non-stop on every single radio station (except RSG of course, want pop musiek is die duiwel se musiek!) and every single music channel for the last few weeks. Which means that you’re probably past the stage of thinking “not a bad tune”, have moved onto “kinda dig it”, and am mere days away from “okay, getting a little tired of it by now”.

To help you along your way then, here’s one more listen for you lot. You’re welcome.

Kimbra’s not too shabby, huh?

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Lookit – I found a pretty good live version of the tune too, this one performed at KCRW:

Second feel good story of the day:

A shopper reacts after learning that her layaway bill was paid by an anonymous stranger.

There are still plenty of kind-hearted folks out there. A recent article on Jezebel.com described a number of instances of anonymous shoppers paying off the layaway accounts of people who were paying off their childrens’ Christmas presents on layaway at KMart in the US.

Syracuse.com reported that “Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers’ layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn’t afford, especially toys and children’s clothes set aside by impoverished parents.”

According to Yahoo! Finance, ”The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn’t be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

“She told him, ‘No, I’m paying for it,’” recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. “He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn’t, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears.”

A second case of anonymous charity panned out as follows:

Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.

“I was speechless,” Bremser said. “It made me believe in Christmas again.”

Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana.

The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store’s system.”

A KMart staffer explained further, “The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store’s assistant manager.

“She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn’t have the money for it,” Graff said.

He called a woman who had been helped, “and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren’t going to have anything for Christmas.”

“You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people,” Graff said.

Graff’s store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last 10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.”

See? There are still some saints amongst the sinners after all.

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Sources: Jezebel.com, Yahoo! Finance, Syracuse.com

Years after the massive success of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and after a fair amount of delay due to all sorts of production issues, comes the highly-anticipated prequel – “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”.

To be released as a two-part epic, it’s in the same big-budget style and manner we’ve come to expect from His Royal Peter Jacksonness. With a year to go till it’s released in theatres, Warner Bros have released one of the official trailers to whet your appetite.

For those who haven’t read the book, here’s a brief description from the film’s IMDB page:

Bilbo Baggins is swept into a quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever … Gollum. Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities.

The second part of the franchise, due out at the end of 2013, will be titled “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” (again according to IMDB).

Take a look:

Gonna be good: looks like a winner, Precious.