Admiral Ackbar Mask

IT'S A TRAP!!! Who didn't see that one coming? I still can't believe this thing is actually in one piece. It's quite a surprise considering it is just on of those really cheap Halloween masks that go on your head using a rubber band.
Believe it or not but this actually officially licensed by Lucasfilm Ltd themselves. Which means Lucasfilm Ltd actually decided to make very cheap Halloween masks based on many characters that weren't even major roles in the Star Wars franchise.

This thing went for $1.39 in 1983 when it was made. According to the Relative Value of Money by GDP this would cost about $5.68 and that is not including the overpricing of Star Wars merchandise and Admiral Ackbar's popularity today. As you can see it was made in Brooklyn for the Return of the Jedi. Apparently, it is also "Flame Proof" and "Comfortable". I'm not sure if you remember wearing that type of mask but the paper is not comfortable really and I doubt they are flame proof. Obviously, I haven't put this to the test and I'm not going to.
You may wonder how I've got this to begin with since it is older than me. Well, when I was little my Grandma had a bunch of Halloween masks and costumes in her guest room closet for us to play with. This included some really random masks and some unique ones like Admiral Ackbar and ET. I'll leave ET for another day though.

$5 Rebate for Chicken and Transformers

This is probably the most bizarre rebate deal I have ever seen. You get $5 back if you buy Perdue Breaded Chicken and a DVD of Transformers 2. What the hell do these two have in common? There's no Robot Chicken (at least not in this case) or anything like that involved in the movie. I have no clue why Perdue decided to have this deal or why Dreamworks and/or Paramount agree to it? I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just a really bizarre promotion that makes no sense at all.

Intel Russian Dolls

Intel started working on a new, tiny processor for computers on October 15, 2007[source: Wikipedia]. They released it in April 2008. So they had some time to also think of different marketing campaigns for their new product. Someone came up with this really cool idea to make Russian dolls to show how their processors are getting smaller. So they went to FanBase who specializes in making Russian dolls (also known as nesting dolls) and kept the last one hollow. Painted on the dolls are what I believe are clean room developers/scientists with Intel Chip logos on them. The large doll has the Core 2 Extreme logo, the medium size one is the Core 2 Duo logo, and finally the smallest has the Atom logo.

Inside the hollow Atom doll they put an actual Intel Atom chip. This thing is tiny! I took some shots of it next to a penny (flipped the chip over so you can see both sides). I think this was a really cool idea for a marketing campaign. I'm not too sure if it helped with the Atom's popularity, but it is now the processor for most Netbooks. Which makes sense considering its size.

Is it successful: Somewhat. Like I said, it's a really cool concept for a promo piece. The only problem is that not everyone knows what a processor looks like. So most people don't even realize that it's a processor chip inside the last doll since it doesn't even look like a typical one. If you're familiar with computers and electronics, you'll get it. If not, it might need some explanation that it's an actual processor chip inside.

Giant Jawbreaker

I love sweets, it's no secret. What I love more than sweets are giant versions of things. I have always loved jawbreakers and the bigger they are the better. Ed, Edd, and Eddy made me want to search for a giant jawbreaker, but I could never find one quite so large. I found this massive jawbreaker at the Tanger Outlets in Deer Park. This thing definitely made the trip worth my time. It's the largest jawbreaker I have ever came across and I've been searching since I was a kid. It has a circumference of 1 foot and weighs about 2.5 pounds. That's a normal sized baseball pictured with it for comparison. Obviously it's going to take me quite a while to finish this thing so I will update periodically with progress on this bad boy.