Mad Men

Mad Men is one of my all time favorites, its much more than just a TV show.

Things I love about Mad Men*  :

• I hate bullies and I always root for the peppy underdog - Mad Men wasn't picked up by any major networks because they thought that nobody would be interested in an advertising drama set in the '60s  which involved a lot of on screen smoking and drinking. Come on man! Grow some balls will you? What would happen if the Louvre or Tate rejected art because they were nude? Keeping aside the extremely top-notch writing and production values, this was a bloody good story about advertising in the 1960s, and was looking at recent American history through that prism. It still amazes me how far we have come in some aspects since then and how we never learned many lessons and still keep repeating the same mistakes even in the 21st century. I never knew or heard about AMC before this show and hats off to them for swimming against the tide and making something truly beautiful which nobody else had the balls to do. Let those big networks keep making 'Two and a half men' and 'Everybody loves Raymond'.

• Subtle Messaging -  I hate being told what to do. Some might consider it arrogance but it's just that I strongly believe that nobody gets any benefit from a lot of advice. I am more a man of action. I love learning things by observing others, judging whats right or not by myself and then implementing it, I don't want anybody shoving things down my throat even if it's with a silver spoon. Even though smoking and drinking is shown in almost every other frame in Mad Men, its shown with a high dose of reality. Recently I saw a path-breaking Malayalam movie called 'Spirit' which broached the topic of alcohol abuse and involved a lot of on-screen tobacco use. Like Mad Men in every other scene there was a lot of smoking and drinking, but there also was a subtitled health warning in all those scenes and huge warnings before and after the movie. What could be the reason for this? It could be because of  regulations, but on more research it seems that there needs to be only one health warning right before the movie began. Then what could be the reason for flooding us with these warnings? Maybe the director Ranjith was trying to be a self-righteous messiah. The worst possible reason could be that the film-maker believed that the audience are retarded and despite the fact that the entire movie graphically depicts the harm caused by alcoholism (a man vomiting his internal organs bathed in blood is graphic enough for me!) Ranjith still believed the audience wouldn't get the 'subtle' message and so wanted to be sure by adding a bazillion health warnings all over the movie. When I watch Mad Men, it's literally like watching another person's life in detail. Right from the very first episode and throughout its entire 5 year run, Matthew Weiner has masterfully incorporated the gory side effects of substance abuse but its never in your face. We can see the lives of characters we adore disintegrating right before us, the lessons to be learned are right there in front of us. That's the tasteful way of doing it.

(*this is a list in progress)

Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable. Agnosticism can be defined in various ways, and is sometimes used to indicate doubt or a skeptical approach to questions. In some senses, agnosticism is a stance about the difference between belief and knowledge, rather than about any specific claim or belief. In the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a deity or deities, whereas a theist and an atheist believe and disbelieve, respectively. In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is the view that humanity does not currently possess the requisite knowledge and/or reason to provide sufficient rational grounds to justify the belief that deities either do or do not exist.

Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist, coined the word agnostic in 1869. However, earlier thinkers and written works have promoted agnostic points of view. They include Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher, and the Nasadiya Sukta creation myth in the Rig Veda, an ancient Sanskrit text. Since Huxley coined the term, many other thinkers have written extensively about agnosticism.

Personally I'm torn between atheism and agnosticism and guess what, Brad Pitt says he is too, well that's a relief. 

Have you seen 'Senna'? Its a must-watch for all human beings with an IQ above 0. Ayrton Senna has always been considered as the greatest racing driver of all time, especially by other racing drivers including his predecessors, contemporaries and kids who grew up watching him like Sebastian Vettel. I love this guy. Everything about him is almost superhuman. So when I heard him talk about god with the crazy passion that he has, I almost wanted to be religious myself. I have always been at cross-roads with regards to god, mainly because I try to apply scientific rules to the whole concept. The one major question that has always troubled me from childhood is if god made everything then who made him? This question used to make a lot of sense to me but lately I have my doubts. Everybody thought twice about life after seeing 'The Matrix', I know for sure at least I did. Something I read around that time put this question into my head : Can the human brain really understand itself?

In the words of Leonard Mlodinow : "The brain is a decent scientist but an absolutely outstanding lawyer.” In other words, we’re experts at spinning out elaborate stories for why we believe what we believe—or about why we’re special. It’s no wonder that every psychological study that asks a large group to self-report about a given skill always elicits the same result: everyone considers himself or herself above average. It’s an important self-defense mechanism, argues Mlodinow, since happy people simply do better than unhappy people on just about every metric. “Our internal computations, which we believe to be objective, are not really the computations that a detached computer would make but, rather, are implicitly colored by who we are and what we are after.” 

“Evolution created the human brain not so it could accurately understand itself but to help us survive.”

So maybe the whole concept of god is not meant to be understood at all. How many of us drink? Do we all know exactly how that Bacardi is made? Hell, we do not even know what goes into making it. Thanks to popular culture, some of us know that potatoes are used for making Vodka, rice is used for Sake and somewhere in the distillation process there are worms and fermentation involved. But that's just about as far as our knowledge into the finer aspects of booze production goes, but does that stop us from enjoying the alcohol high?

Five arguments for and against the concept of god, as seen on listverse.com :

5. Ontological Argument
 

First formulated by St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, then taken up by Alvin Plantinga. “God exists, provided that it is logically possible for him to exist.”

This argument is quite brazen in its simplicity, requiring not only a belief in God, but a belief in the necessity of God. If you believe he is necessary, then you must believe he exists.

The Counterargument: Criticism typically deals with the Ontological Argument committing a “bare assertion fallacy,” which means it asserts qualities inherent solely to an unproven statement, without any support for those qualities. It is also criticized as a circular argument, revolving from a premise to a conclusion which relies on the premise, which relies on the conclusion.

4. Moral Argument

This argument is very old, and states that God must exist for the following reason: 1. An aspect of morality is observed. 2. Belief in God is a better explanation for this morality than any alternative. 3. Belief in God is thus preferable to disbelief in God.

The Counterargument: This argument is technically valid, provided that the three constituents are accepted, and most critics refuse to accept the first. Morality, they argue, is not universal. Murder was perfectly fine for the soldiers of the First Crusade, who slaughtered every man, woman, and child in Jerusalem in 1099. Thomas Hobbes argued that morality is based on the society around it, and is thus not objective.

3. Argument from Degree

This is one of St. Thomas Aquinas’s “Five Proofs of God,” and still causes debate among the two sides. Here is Aquinas’s statement of it, which I have translated from Latin, for a sense of thoroughness:

The fourth proof originates from the degrees discovered in things. For there is discovered greater and lesser degrees of goodness, truth, nobility, and others. But “more” or “less” are terms spoken concerning various things that approach in diverse manners toward something that is the “greatest,” just as in the case of “hotter” approaching nearer the “greatest” heat. There exists, therefore, something “truest,” and “best,” and “noblest,” which, in consequence, is the “greatest” being. For those things which are the greatest truths are the greatest beings, as is stated in Metaphysics Bk. II. 2. Furthermore, that which is the greatest in its way, is, in another way, the cause of all things belonging to it; thus fire, which is the greatest heat, is the cause of all heat, as is said in the same book (cf. Plato and Aristotle). Therefore, there exists something that is the cause of the existence of all things, and of goodness, and of every perfection whatever. We call this “God.”

The Counterargument: The most prevalent criticism of this argument considers that we do not have to believe in an object of a greater degree in order to believe in an object of a lesser degree. Richard Dawkins, the most famous, or infamous, Atheist around these days, argues that just because we come across a “smelly” object, does not require that we believe that we believe in a “preeminently peerless stinker,” in his words.

2. Argument from Reason

One of my favorites, with very intricate abstraction. C. S. Lewis (who wrote “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”) came up with this. It begins as an argument from design, and then continues into something new. Very basically, it argues that God must exist, because, in Lewis’s words:

“Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.”

The Counterargument: It sounds powerful, and the final judgment on it is still out there. But its primary weak point is that, in the strictest sense, it is not a proof of God’s existence because it requires the assumption that human minds can assess the truth or falsehood of a claim, and it requires that human minds can be convinced by argumentation. But in order to reject the assumption that human minds can assess the truth or falsehood of a claim, a human mind must assume that this claim is true or false, which immediately proves that human minds can assess the truth or falsehood of a claim. But none of this has anything to do with God’s existence. Thus, the argument is better treated as a disproof of naturalistic materialism. However, given that most Atheists use naturalistic materialism as the foundation of Atheism, is is a very viable argument.

1. Cosmological Argument

Thomas Aquinas’s most famous proof of God refuses to go away. You’ve probably already heard of it in some form. It was around before Aquinas, at least as early as Plato and Aristotle, and in basic terms, it goes like this:

1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. Nothing finite and contingent can cause itself.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

This is especially impressive in that it was theorized by the Ancient Greeks, at a time when the Universe was not known to have had an origin. Today, we call this “the Big Bang,” and the argument has changed to this form:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

The Counterargument: Sequentially speaking, these three points are true. But the second point requires the Universe to have had a cause, and we still aren’t sure it did. “The Big Bang” is the most prevalent astrophysical theory today, but it has its detractors, most arguing that because the mathematics that leads back to a big bang do not function at the point immediately prior to the big bang, those mathematics were invalid to begin with. Better than this, however, is the argument that this proof of God commits the logical fallacy called “infinite regression.” If the Universe had a first cause, what caused that first cause? Criticism declares that it is unfair to argue for every thing’s cause, and then argue for the sole exception of a “First Cause,” which did not have a cause.

Great Name Pops!!

Why oh why?

I love Julian Assange, he is one of my inspirations to get into coding and his outlook on life and the world is something truly worth emulating. But he should have played things slightly smarter I feel. When you are in a position where you are going to be pissing off a lot of seriously powerful people & institutions, you need to make sure that those very same people don't get to you so easily. Dominic Strauss-Kahn (DSK from henceforth) once famously predicted that he feared he was going to be tarnished in some kind of legal dispute very soon because he was trampling on the feet of the king-makers of France & worldwide. You don't believe me? Go google it or look up his article on wikipedia, I'll be damned if I am goin to post a link here for that, you lazy asses. DSK was a well respected politician in France and internationally. Being the chief of IMF his thoughts & words had considerable value for everyone affected by the global economic crisis, his opinions were featured in the Academy Award winning documentary the 'Inside Job' and if you have seen it you know that he isnt one to mince his words with diplomacy or ass-wiping for the higher ups, he says it like he sees it. And see where it got him? Not very powerful or respected now is he? He got it coming to him just as he himself predicted would happen, and the end results being that someone who was viciously hated throughout France (read Nicholas Sarkozy) almost won a second term in office, someone draped in medicority and whom nobody knew about till very recently (read Francois Hollande) became the French president and what about DSK? Oh well he just got embroiled in a fake sexual assault case in the United Fuckin-States of America and pretty much lost everything he had, reputation and political ambitions included. So whats the lesson to be learned? Pretty boy there isn't such a thing as 'Truth shall win no matter what" or "Good always defeats evil" or "the do-gooders will get free entry to heaven". If you are gonna play against the villains of this world, know that they outnumber you by at least a ratio of a million is to one, they have very very very powerful friends, they will go to any extent to fuck you in the ass while they are sipping champagne in their personal jets landing on their private islands while being blown by virgins. So inspite of all this if you are going to play with fire, then at least be fuckin careful. It wouldn't hurt to take a couple of lessons from the internationally (in)famous Banksy. Probably he should be your PR advisor. So Mr. Assange, despite repeated warnings from your own buddies (read Daniel Domscheit-Berg aka Daniel Schmitt) you decided to hog all the limelight while you screwed the ultra-secretive governements of the most powerful & rich countries and corporates, so now pay for it with a few sexual assault cases and some quality me-time courtesy of the US or Swedish Penitentiary systems.

Take a few lessons from him on how remain anonymous & cool at the same time

Borderline

I have been avoiding all kinds of distractions since I woke up at 11. Had to give in to the temptation and have a cola sometime back though. Still on it.

Update : Once again drifted into wrong philosophy, the one that includes denial and discipline. Its just not for me. I need to remember that I always need to be myself, thats the easiest philosophy to my happiness. Somehow my instincts know exactly what I want and has all the resources required to ensure my success and happiness. Sounds crazy but it might have something to do with sub-conscious, unconscious or whatever. All I need to do is listen to myself and do accordingly, no more fuckin highly detailed plans, milestones or goals for me. All I need to know is the general direction in which I am sailing. Keeping it simple, listen to all my own needs - short, medium and long-term ones and take the next action based on gut feeling. All my life I have been trying to connect the dots looking forwards, it doesnt happen like that, at least not for me.

Carlos Ghosn

Business rockstar. Amazing guy. Must watch video. It's long, 55 mins.

Morning Jog

Today morning I kinda woke up real early and so went out for a walk almost at the crack of dawn. There's this park near my place where we get to see a lot of people of all ages and from all walks of life, all walking or jogging at a brisk pace, a few uncles have reserved a prime spot for their noisy but fun to watch badminton games and the fitter kids would usually be busy doing push ups and flexing their muscles on a stage like structure in the middle. Like a breeze of fresh air, a pretty decent looking chick ( compared to the other females that come for a walk at that time, you could probably call the chick a hot babe ;) ) walked past the park presumably on the way to her house from god knows where. I saw her, admired god's handiwork and continued with my leisurely stroll, but I couldn't help smiling when I saw that at least 2 dozen men all around me were literally gaping at this girl with open mouths. It was a sight to be seen, the 2 dozen men included all kinds of people : from young hormonally charged teenagers to married pot-bellied uncles to tar coated road workers to macho union guys. I guess all Indian men consider themselves alpha males! Literally! This can be seen in all walks of life in India, from a mentally challenged pan handler to politicians holding the highest state offices, all males and some of the females in govt. positions, a majority of the population are alpha males out here, maybe that's a good thing, but it certainly takes some getting used to ;)

Driven : Compacts & a few others

Kia Rio(2010) , Cerato(2011) & Optima(2010)
Till a few years ago when you heard the word 'Kia' an image similar to the one below would have popped into your mind :

A collage of some not so memorable, ugly and poorly built Kias of yesteryear

Kia is actually a pretty old company, it was founded in 1944 and its core business was bicycle parts!! After about a decade of building cycle parts they gradually expanded into motorcycles, trucks and finally by 1974 they started manufacturing cars. They partnered with Ford for the technical know-how and produced several re-branded Mazda models (Ford has maintained a stake in Mazda from the '60s and even now has a small piece of the company) and in a few years entered the then biggest automotive market, the holy grail for car manufacturers - the US of A. Their models were downright ugly, pathetically built, poorly marketed and not at all fun to own. But all that changed because in a few years Kia was declaring bankruptcy!! The present global economic recession has everybody fearing the worst but if you actually look closely there have been major setbacks to the economies of some parts of the world for quite some time now. During the 1997 Asian Economic crisis, Kia just could not keep itself afloat. Even though they blame the crisis for their failure I personally think it was a blessing in disguise, because not only were their ugly models out of the showrooms and roads, but they also got a new  investor, none other than their major competitior - the Hyundai Motor Company. From then on Kia and Hyundai have been sharing platforms and other resources and at one point of time it was very evident because their models looked so very similar to one another's which can be seen to some extent even now, check out the 2011 Kia models (on the left) and their similar platform-shared Hyundai models (on the right) :

The similarities are quite evident. The main difference between both the model line-ups is the design philosophy and this where Kia managed quite a coup. They managed to get the legendary Peter Schreyer on board as the Chief Design Officer. Peter Schreyer is the design maverick behind many of Audi's and Volkswagen's most beautiful models including the Audi TT and the Volkswagen New Beetle.

Some of Peter Schreyer's work with his previous employer

While Hyundai adopted a curvaceous approach, Peter Schreyer's aggressive sleek design lines for the Kia made it stand out. Kia got an easily identifiable 'Tiger Nose' grill and people began appreciating and even admiring Kias for their bold designs and vastly improved quality. The best part of Kia is still its price and now with such other amazing traits, choosing a Kia is really a no-brainer and fleet owners are flocking to the nearest distributors. The very fact that the one of the most recognized distributors of Toyota in Oman and worldwide, Saud Bahwan Autmotive, grabbed Kia from another smaller distributor, built a massive dedicated showroom for Kia and made the Kia buying and servicing experience as good as their other marques which include Lexus, Toyota, Mercury and Ford amongst many others. Some readers may seem skeptical when I said that Saud Bahwan is a globally recognized Toyota distributor, but believe me, in India, every employee of a Toyota distributor learns the Saud Bahwan story as a case study during their training!! So while working in Oman I got the opportunity to drive many Kias and for long durations of thousands of kilometers. First the Kia Rio 2010.

This is a nimble fuel efficient car, best suited for the city but can handle long drives quite well. Well I got loads to tell you about this car and a lot more but will have to be continued later, gotta run now. 

What a GP!!!

The Valecia MotoGP was simply spectacular!!! What an exciting race!!! Crashes, splendid overtaking maneuvers and a photo finish victory for Casey Stoner, you really cannot ask for any more action. The top 5 really fought for their positions and and the battle for the podium places were pure drama.

Life Mein Ek Baar

Just saw the first episode of 'Life Mein Ek Baar', an awesome Indian travel show that follows the adventures of Purab Kohli and 3 others. Purab started off as a Channel [V] VJ and found stardom when he played the character 'KD' in 'Rock On!!'. He's also appeared in several other movies and shows, but this is the first time I am seeing him on the small screen. I gotta tell you this guy is really awesome!! He's got a good sense of humour, is damn gutsy and is a good chap at heart. This show 'Life mein ek baar' was originally supposed to be based on Purab and 3 of his friends but Purab chose instead to give the opportunity to 3 guys who otherwise would not have gotten to do all the stuff that they ended up doing in the show. There was a well publicized selection of candidates mainly through FB and Twitter.

Initially I thought that this would be regular travel show with bunch of youngsters mainly based in and around India but that is totally not the case. These guys really do everything that they always wanted to do, and most of these things are stuff that you and me also have always wanted to do : skydiving, bungee jumping, driving a ferrari, washing a car with bikini clad babes, biking up a moutain etc. etc. In the very first episode itself these guys bike up the Leh mountains to the Khardung La Pass, which is supposedly the highest motorable road in the world. 2 of them actually have no biking experience whatsoever, and they drive up on Bullets!!!! It might seem possible when you just read about it here, but you should see that road for yourself, my heart was in my mouth when I saw how narrow the road actually is. It is 18,380 feet high (which means approx 5.6 kms above sea level!!!), filled with potholes, a steep cliff and sure death on one side and an unforgiving snow clad mountain on the other. Imagine a first time biker driving up on a heavy Bullet on this narrow little superhigh road!!! I am really looking forward to more of this show!!

Open Letters and Political Correctness

I am sure that all of us have gone through the 'open letter to delhi boy' saga which was all the rage on FB sometime ago. For those of you who were lost in the wilderness or busy playing with themselves :

1. The mother of it all : The Original Open Letter

This blog may or may not have been very popular before, but it has virtually become a viral mega-success thanks to the famous open letter to a delhi boy. The post in question is basically a rant by a pissed off chick at her ex, both of whom are apparently from 2 diverse cultures co-existing in the same country. This post is definitely worth a read for the awesome humor quotient. But RaagShahana's blog is not only all about the open letter and dark humor, the other posts are also equally humorous and an enjoyable read.

2. The supposedly best response to the original open letter :  Mad Momma's Politically correct response

Of course there are many who would love to piggyback on the new found popularity of the open letters and would want to exhibit their ignorance, lack of sense of humor and the fact that they have a stick up their *** by blogging about it and trying to drive a little traffic their way (yes your honour, I guess in all honesty I am guilty of this charge too ;-)). But Mad Momma takes things to a different level altogether and that too in a very bitter way. She thrashes Shahana's post  from all directions and tries to portray herself as the politically correct messiah who might have the answer to all the hatred within humanity. But personally it's just sad that people have to get so worked up over a really funny blogpost. Shahana's views might not have been the most mature or wise, but who cares? It was fun to read, well written and most importantly worth a good laugh. Nobody started hating Delhi boys or South Indian men more/less after reading it. Mad Momma probably was probably high on ecstasy when blogging coz she keeps praising herself for having found a 'fayer' handsome Sawth Indian boy and even talks about kissing and making up between northies, southies and drags in the pakistanis as well to her orgy!!!! Well these are the kind of people who might have problems with strong opinions like those expressed by Jeremy Clarkson. But Mad Momma is really not all that mad, the rest of her blog is really awesome and definitely worth a read.

3. Another Delhi boy trying to dodge the bullets : "I am better than that other Delhi boy, OK!!!"

We all know that most of the time most of us are not at all that perfect. Everyone has their moments of shame alongwith their moments of glory and we think we balance our good side : the helpfulness, sweetness, respect for others and whatever, with our bad side : our lies, the perverted things we sometimes think, ego, hatred and whatever. We rationalise that this is all part of being human, but author of  'The Disgruntled Mob' is the extreme end of the spectrum. He is the kinda guy who forks out major dough to watch the first F1in India and is busy observing the butt cracks of people ahead of him! But nevertheless his blog is an enjoyable read and his reponse the open letter is a good one.

Whatever I feel about these blogs or bloggers really do not matter coz all these blogs are good reads and you must check 'em all out.

Opera in Oman

Surprise of all surprises, Oman featured in a CNN story!!! The Royal Opera House is truly a landmark of the entire region itself and it is featured in the 'Inside Middle East' show on CNN which can be found here.

His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said is a big fan of music and symphony and the likes and this is one of his dream projects. The cultural scene is Oman is definitely going to get a shot in the arm with this latest addition.

Lloyd's Cars

Beuatiful isn't it??? The shiny new Merc CLS

The gay Lloyd ;-)

Entourage is really a superb show. If you haven't watched it already then you must, its supercool!!! For the ignorant, 'Entourage' is about the life of a successful movie star and his buddies who live with him, the series is loosely based on the life of Mark Wahlberg (he's an exec producer on the show BTW), and there are so many details that are simply amazing but let's start with cars, cause whoever is responsible for picking out the rides for the stars is doing an amazing job. While the main ensemble of Vincent Chase and his buddies are spoilt with exotic rides like the brand new Mercedes SLS, Hummers, Ferraris, Astons, Harleys and the celebrity favourite Cadillac Escalade, their agent Ari Gold gets to play with a new luxury ride every season, he's had it all, the Merc S-Class, BMW 7 Series, Lexus Hybrid and the stunning new Mercedes CLS.

But the most interesting choice of rides is for Lloyd, Ari's gay assistant. Only two times in the whole show we have been able to see Lloyd in his own car, the first time was long back in the first or second season when Lloyd drove around in an import tuner(looked like a Hyundai ;-)) and the recently Lloyd was spotted driving in a spanking new Chevrolet Volt. I guess the message is pretty clear : Cheap imports and Electric/Hybrids are for queers!!! ;-)  Japanese cars are almost like the gold standard now, so cheap imports very clearly means over modified Korean & Chinese shit, at least according to this blog ;-)

Lloyd's ride shown in the earlier seasons (not really but very close!)

Lloyd's latest baby

Hey before you bash me for not being green, I gotta tell you I love all kinds of cars, even electric, but these kind :

Tesla Model S

Tesla Roadster 2.5

Ad Backfire

Subaru is one of the most confused auto manufacturers in the world at least when it comes to design and marketing. They have some of the best technological know-how, thanks mainly to their amazing success in WRC and their motorsport partner responsible for their success, Prodrive. But their commercial cars have been mostly a joke for the last few years. They transformed a beautiful & capable Impreza into an ugly & gay  hatch, made a ridiculously useless & ugly 'SUV' called the Outback and have throughout their history re-badged models from other manufacturers to varying degrees of success. Most major auto brands have some kind of visual or non-visual recall feature that strikes a chord with auto enthusiasts : the famous 3-pointed hood ornament of Mercedes, the dual radiator grille of BMW, amazing engine refinement of Hondas, the clean design of Audis, the perfomance and styling of Porsches and so on. For Subaru, there is only one feature that is consistent throughout their model range for the last few years, they all are frickin UGLY!!!! Subaru is also known for their pathetic advertisements throughout the world, but their latest 'Mediocrity 2011' campaign takes the cake for being their most stupid, unimaginative, boring and just plain bullshit effort yet.

What the brilliant ad gurus at Subaru's trashy marketing agency have done is that they have taken a Kia Optima, tried to dress up the logos with their own 'Mediocrity' ones, and there you have it :  a very mediocre, run-of-the-mill, boring family sedan. I really have no clue what they are trying to imply here, because the car they have selceted is a 2005 Kia Optima which for some reason they have named as Mediocrity 2011. Now you might think that Subaru being a multiple times WRC champion might want to hint that their cars are way more sportier than the Kias and Medicoritys of this world. But take a look at their not-at-all mediocre attempt, the 2011 Subaru Legacy (the mediocrity campaign was designed for this model)  :

Looks familiar? Now take a look at the best selling mid-sizes :

The Toyota Camry :

and the Honda Accord :

So when you compare the 2011 Subaru Legacy with these other models, it almost looks as mediocre if not worse than the others! The Kia which the Subaru ad guys used was 2 generations old, so you want to know about the 2011 model of the Kia Optima? Check it out:

The brand new Optima looks like a stunner and is available in all kinds of options including Hybrid. 'Nuff Said. Go get your act together Subaru & way to go Kia!!!


Note : Many thanks to The Truth About Cars, a brilliant automotive website.