Thursday, October 8, 2009

One Year of My Unique Quad!

Last month celebrated a year of this blog. The old saying "Time Flies By" is true in this case as many things have happened over the year. Including a trip to the US for study which got me into some adventures. Hopefully some of my experiences can be used in this blog.

During the year I cancelled the blog UniqueNewsQuad because I felt it was not the right time for me to do it. Maybe it will come back in the future. Meanwhile my other blog MyUniqueEntreprenuer still exists if you are interested in some light entertainment.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Sex and Violence but no Corn Chips

My Advertisment gets banned for Sex and Violence

Click below to see the banned controversial Ad straight away. What do you think? See if you can figure out why it was banned. Keep reading the blog to find out the background story and see the elusive explanation from the company.



Doritos currently has a promotion that encourages people to develop a commercial for Doritos and the upload it to the Doritos website. The best ad wins $20000. Unfortunatly they can very picky when it comes to qualifying the video for entry into the competition. I found the this hardway.

My interest in $20000 combined with my desire to have a go at making a film drove me to make my own add. As I don't have a video camera and acting is not my strong point, I decided to use my computing skill to create an animation. I worked on the animation over a couple of weeks. When I was done I uploaded the video to the Doritos website 5 days before the closing date, thinking that was enough time for people to vote.

When I uploaded my video I did not expect to win Film of the Year but I thought it would get some votes. Unfortunatly it not did not get the chance. After trying to upload my Ad for 2 hours, I checked the site to see if it loaded correctly but it was not there. I contacted the company to ask them where my film is. They told me that they had recived it but the film needed to be "watched" to check if it "qualified" before putting it on the website. This was to take 3 days. This meant that I would only have 2 days for people to vote.

After 3 days I recieved an email from the company saying that my ad has been rejected. I can not figure out why. As far as I can tell, the explanation given by Doritos totally contradicts the ad. It claims about my add includes "swearing, obscenity, nudity, pornography, violence, etc". Them saying the ad "wasn't in English" would almost be laughable if it was not for the fact that my ad was rejected. Click the picture below to see the email.


I have no idea why my add was rejected. By not telling me the exact reason, and telling me so close to the deadline, I have been rejected the fair chance for people to vote. If you can figure out the reason, please let me know by leaving a comment on this blog.
Update: A quick search on the internet has revealed that when the competition was on in the USA, the winning commercial was played during the superbowl and showed someone getting hit in the nuts with a crystal ball. Another Doritos ad featured a woman who gets her clothes ripped off in the street by a man eating Doritos. Both these were obviously OK to show on TV despite mine not even deemed suitible for the internet.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Thank Your Mother for the Goat

What would you like for Christmas? A car, DVD or holiday to Bail? How about a goat? Well, that is not what would be expected by most people as a gift but it is what my mum gave to someone last Christmas, and the Christmas before that. Why?

In the past developing countries have helped through aid. It was thought that giving money would solve the problem. That has now changed. It is now believed that developed countries should help giving the tools and knowledge required for the developing country to take care of themselves. This is where the goats come in.

Throughout the year charities would send letters to my mum with the progress of their work and mum would send them money. Then two years ago it became different. A charity sent a letter for donations at Christmas time. They did not ask for money, instead they asked for mum to by something for a person in need. They had a list of items for sale. My mum chose the Goat.

A goat would sound like a weired Christmas present but it is a long term solution. By providing a goat to a person in need, they will be able run a business selling goat's milk or even breed goats to sell meat. The goat's owner would then no longer require charity and will be running a honest business.

After choosing a goat we got a Christmas card that said we bought a goat. It stands proudly on the fireplace with the other cards. We now buy a goat every year. It has become a Christmas tradition.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Bushfire Danger Close to Home

I had scare yesterday. I have never been affected by bushfire, it was always something that happened to someone else. I am now affected by bushfire in three ways.

In the past week in Victoria (and many other states) the temperature has been over 40 degrees everyday. The land had become very dry and on Saturday 7th of February 2009 the grass caught fire quite easily. Fires burning from the day before got bigger really quickly and new fires started in most of the state, some were done by arsonists. The map on the news showed that there were hundreds of fires in every part of the state. Entire towns have been destroyed and an estimated 40 people have died in the north of the state, about half were children.

All day the smoke covered my house. Visibility was only a few meters. It was hot but I could not have the evaporate cooler on because the open windows would have brought the smoke in. Instead I tried to use the old air conditioner with the closed vent.

The evening is when the real scare came. So many things happened at around the same time. I was watching the news and got a big surprise. Houses in my town were on fire. I had such a shock that I jumped up and cut my hand in the ceiling fan. The news continued the report and showed that the fire was heading towards my Grandmother's house.

Less then an hour later my Grandmother called really worried. I thought that she might calling about the fire near her house, but she was not. She had a call from my Aunty who said her house was on fire. Then the phone was cut. I told my Mother who then called the police station closest to my Aunty's house. They said they would check on her.

Later that evening my other Aunty called to say that my Aunty's farm had been totally destroyed. The house, car, cats and farm animals had perished. My Aunty still could not be contacted. We did not know what happened to her.

On Sunday morning we found out that my Aunty was hospital. My Mother contacted the hospital to talk to my Aunty briefly. Fortunately the animals were saved but the house and car was not.

Our focus was now on my Grandma. She was still surrounded by bushfire and wanted me and my Mother to come to her house. We started driving to her house but there was a road block. We had to go back home. I checked the Internet for information on the road blocks. There are so many road blocks that the state is split in half. People in the east of the state can not go to the west.

It is now Sunday afternoon and it has been raining. Hopefully the fires will stop burning soon and the roads will open once again.