Biking is a slippery slope. You start out getting one for exercise. All well and good. You use it for work. That's cool. Next thing you know, you're zipped up in blue and pink neon spandex, meeting the bros at 7 in the morning for an "insane" run through the city on a bike that costs a few month's rent, dodging trucks like a multi-colored beetle on wheels. Or worse, you're purchasing a fixie in those 1987 vintage Air Force 1's you bought from that dude in Tokyo because that particular year's swoosh matches your bike frame.

Pamela Geller, the outspoken blogger and Executive Director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, has managed to buy ad space in several New York subway stations again, but this time there's a 25% chunk of it dedicated to a MTA disclaimer tacked on to the billboard much like a surgeons general's warning has the last word on a tobacco ad.

"This is a paid advertisement sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative. The display of this advertisement does not imply MTA's endorsement of any views expressed."

The ad itself shows the twin towers burning, with the quote "Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers." from the Quran, and three different URL's at top for those who want to read more.

Boost Mobile thinks that one holiday isn't enough this December. So with the help of 180 LA they have created a way to honor the 30 more obscure holidays that happen that month. You know, the ones know one's ever heard of. And decided to tie it in to Boost's "Be heard," tagline by making them singing greeting cards-- you know-- carols.

Now it's harder than ever to send your cat/food/feet/selfie/airplane/old sign/cloud photos to Twitter via Instagram. Because Facebook owns Instagram. So they'd rather you not send your shit to a competitor's site. So boom. No more integration without third party apps.

Oh, whoa that sounds like competitiveness to me. I thought sharing was caring and the internet was a wide open freebie? Why are we surprised by this? Remember when the Like button started showing up on every last page on the web? It was Facebook's way of saying "Okay we know you have to visit other pages, but don't forget about us." Now Facebook is saying "Screw those other pages. All your eyeballs belong to us."

A couple of weeks ago, Instagram showed everyone their new profile pages, where you, me and everyone else could now see peoples Instagram collections in one go. Instagrid.me reportedly sulked by the phone all evening. Today Instagram pulls twitter integration. Why? Stats.

“Now that Facebook owns us we’re getting shit for not having a website we can use to pad our stats and monetize to keep investors from telling them to sell us off.”

Verizon just filed a patent for quite the big brother-ish DVR tech, reports Arstechnica. The Patent is for a DVR that can can watch and listen to the goings-on in your living room. Examples of how this can be used are suggested, sounds of arguing will prompt marriage counseling ads, while sounds of cuddling prompts ads for contraceptives. Big brother want you to stay together but don't want you breeding.

Damn, and here we just shaved off the Movember mustache and now it's National Cookie day?
Sounds like a made up holiday to me. Oh WAIT! It is. It's from Quiznos. And Kansas City based ad agency Barkley. For this effort they have some TV ads, some pop-up ads on Quiznos sites and on paid components on everybody's favorite aggregate and pretend its new site, Buzzfeed.

Oh, you didn't know shit on Buzzfeed was paid for? You thought 15 delicious cookie reaction GIFs was the result of regular people? HA! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

By now you probably heard, most likely on The Drudge Report, about the ten-year old girl in Finland, who had her laptop confiscated by mean old police because she downloaded some music illegally and her father, Aki Wequ Nylund, made a post about it how horrible the mean old people who support artists rights are because it's like a ten year old girl, man, and you're stealing her laptop and stop the insanity!

KesselsKramer (KK), the independent communications agency and original content studio with offices in Amsterdam and London, charges into a new era by opening an outpost in LA’s Chinatown. The newest iteration of KK will combine the strategic and creative know-how of its Head Creative David Bell and Managing Director Engin Celikbas with the digital and content expertise of new partners David Charles, Eric Barrett and Robert Fagan.

Posted over at Techrunch, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo says perhaps as soon as the end of year, we'll be able to download all of our tweets in a nifty archive that has engineers at the company freaking out at the amount of work it will take in order to make that happen.

Amnesty.nl are currently protesting the imprisonment of Nasrin Sotoudeh in Iran and Ales Bialiatski in Belarus. Their street guerilla action is to hang images of them, with hands, on all the bars they can find in Amsterdam. That is on gates around peoples houses, parks and train stations. Private property, city property, definitely not Amnesty or a media property. Yes, ad creep is a peeve of mine if it means the city has to clean it up. Inexpensive ingenuity when it comes to media is how Amnesty gets attention since their media budget isn't large.

Earlier this year, Red Tettemer + Partners launched a campaign for SEPTA or the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which purported to show SEPTA transportation as being clean and safe and easy and eco-friendly.

Now, they're back with an Instagram contest and a microsite aggregator called ISeptaphilly.com . If you get your photo picked, you can win everything from concert tickets, to 76'ers tickets to SEPTA passes, which I can only assume would be the runner up prize. It runs from now until December 21st so people in Philly, get out there on SEPTA start takin' pics and tag 'em with #iseptaphilly!

Strawberry Frog, the Cultural Movements agency has just opened a Mumbai office.

According to The Economic Times the shop, which prides itself on being as CEO Scott Goodson calls it, a quick and nimble alternative to "the dinosaur agencies," was a slow five years in the making before the opened their doors.

Goodson and his Frogs did some work for auto maker Mahindra's SUV called Scorpio for the U.S. market, back in 2008. Except the launch was postponed.

Hey Demi and Ashton: What's in a name?

Back in 2009 Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher started Demi and Ashton, or DNA, a foundation designed to create awareness and help prevent child pornography and sex trafficking.

The thing is, after six years the wonder couple separated.

When disaster strikes, a lot of ad agencies jump on the bandwagon with t-shirts, cards and blood drives. Problem is, if you work for a giant agency it often takes time to either align your good intentions with an appropriate client or even get internal approval. Next thing you know, it's a month later and what have you done?

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy though, a few industry peeps got together and said 'eff this, we're not waiting,' And thus Sandvertising was born.

So B-Reel and agency Eleven Inc is giving Union Bank fans a shot at thirty seconds of fame.

30 seconds? What happend to fifteen minutes? Sheesh.

The idea is, Because Union Bank allows customers to customize their plans, they might as well go ahead and customize the TV spot, too. Supposedly it's the first of its kind, with the interactivity and the chance to create over 40,000 different commercials.

So there have been a few books written about branding.

Martin Clunes, the british actor perhaps best known as the star of Men Behaving Badly , and Doc Martin also is the spokesman for Churchill Insurance.

Sorry. I meant "was."

According to The Daily Mail, he was dropped as car insurance
spokesman "after he informed the company he had reached 12 points on his licence for speeding offences and was banned by magistrates under totting up rules."

Spotted in L.A. this weekend, a Sprite Out Of Home "spectacular," as they call it, seems okay in this at first, if not very expected idea, and something Mountain Dew might have done in the mid to late 1990's.

However. The "extreme" idea when translated from film to static billboard, is a bit of a yawn. Also, the skateboarder dude is so freaking small it's a hard read without the instagram filter on it. By light of day with no retouching, the skater becomes a silhouette blob. I can't help but think if they had made him a wee bit bigger it would have been a quicker read. I mean we're already not dealing with reality here, so why keep it to actual person size?

The Drum reports that 'New international reports will name and shame brands which advertise on websites that feature pirated film and music content' and OMG that is GREAT. If it'll work.

It's called "The USC Annenberg Advertising Transparency report" and it is an attempt to damage the amount of advertising spend that goes to pirate movie and music sites around the world. No small feat that, since it seems these pirate movie and music sites are popping up and going down like a game of whack-a-mole. Usually all run by the same guy from some semi-exotic South American island.