This Blog Rules

This Blog Rules

We Love Ramen! (Infographic)

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 09:52 PM PST

The student lifestyle site HackCollege.com has cooked up an infographic on the the origins and obsession with ramen in student culture. The graphic provides interesting ramen recipes, as well as interesting facts and statistics about the popular noodle dish.

According to the data on the graphic, Nissin founder Momofuku Ando invented instant ramen, calling his creation "Top Ramen", successfully impacting the way students eat to this day. Nissin now has 29 plants in 11 countries, putting 21,900 employees to work, with net earnings reported at a $3.2 billion annually. That's a lot of noodles!

With Top Ramen being a household (or dorm-hold) name, you can attribute the success of the squiggly lengths of noodles to super inexpensive pricing, and highly tolerable flavor. With different stocks of broth to choose from, you can take a normal noodle dish and supercharge it with your own ingredients of choice. The infographic below highlights some really creative, yet simple recipes to help you break out of your boring old ramen habits.

We Love Ramen Infographic
Created by: Hack College

5 Sexy Political Ads from Around the World

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 06:39 AM PST

by Will Conley

Sex sells. You knew that. But did you know sex sells political candidates? I bet you didn’t.

Wait, what am I saying? You’re a This Blog Rules reader. And as a horndawg or hussy, which you are, you are always thinking about sex and therefore have probably already had the thought that sex can sell anything. In fact, I do believe I once wrote an article or two in these esteemed annals about certain historical librarians of prodigiously sizable metaphorical nads; and the only words your eyes can physically see in this sentence are “annals” and “nads.”

But enough about your depravities, lets talk about sexy, sexual political ads from around the world. Sex and politics are like two peas in a pod, screwing.

Wait, who are you? No, don't tell us. We don't want to know. >:D

The link between sex appeal and politics started in the year 36,000 BCE, when Og Johnson flirted his way to the top of a Cro-Magnon clan using such underhanded power grab maneuvers as slathering himself with mud in front of the Council of Fertile Mothers. This eventually led to a long and boring debate about the role of mud in politics, resulting in the Campaign Mud Dance Reform bill of 35,890 BCE. A few other things happened, and then Barack Obama was the President of the United States.

One thing that contributed to Obama’s victory was a few thousand women with a crush. A sexy crush…

1. Crush on Obama

That video was produced in 2007 by ad man Ben Relles, who went on to found the political comedy website Barely Political. The girl in the video is the sexy model Amber Lee Ettinger, who is a sexy model. She didn’t actually sing on the video, though; she was lip synching. The actual singer was Leah Kauffman. When asked what he thought of the video, then-Senator Obama said, “It’s just one more example of the fertile imagination of the Internet. More stuff like this will be popping up all the time.”

See? Fertile. That’s Obama for you. Always speaking in sexual innuendos. Reproductive innuendos. Whatever.

If you thought that video was sexy, here is a bona fide political ad poster from the Netherlands, whose national slogan is “We Hate Blowjobs.”

2. NEE Political Ad Featuring Tania Derveaux

That’s Tania Derveaux stumping for the NEE party in 2007. In the Netherlands, where voting is compulsory, “NEE” means “no.” The party encourages voters to write “NEE” on their ballots as a protest against the system. The poster shown above was meant to parody other parties’ promises of job creation, pointing up the absurdity of such promises.

The NEE party won 0.18% of the electorate that year, which scored them zero seats in the Senate and proved that Belgium has no regard for hotness.

Neither, apparently, does Poland.

3. Katarzyna Lenart Strips for Poland

That’s political science major Katarzyna Lenart revealing her twin campaign platforms for the Democratic Left Alliance of Poland in October 2011. Lenart had previously run an ad that no one paid attention to, so she decided to do her best Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct impression — and do her one better — in the strip tease ad you see above.

The strip tease itself has nothing to do with anything. It is not a metaphor. It is a blatant attention grab.

Lenart didn’t win any elections, but she did garner the respect and admiration of thousands of Polish men. What’s more, she can re-purpose the video to sell anything she wants, from beef jerky to savings bonds, because sex.

4. Catalan Young Socialists Know Sexy Politics

Catalonia is a nation-within-a-nation, a semi-sovereign state within the country of Spain. Their young socialists are very concerned with such pressing issues as health care, unions, and getting off in public. As you can see, the latter-most point is illustrated in the above video promoting how wonderful it is to vote in local elections in 2010.

The video depicts an actress simulating an orgasm while voting. The ballot and the ballot box are seen in a compromising position, and the actress definitely enjoys it. The message there, of course, is that voting is for libertines and scoundrels, and you should never under any circumstances vote, lest you burn in hell.

5. The United Russia Party: More United Than You Think

That’s Vladimir Putin’s party right there, showing you how sexy it would be if you were to bring a friend with you to vote in the 2011 parliamentary elections. Yep. If you join Putin’s political party, you get a free escort when you vote. The interiors of their voting booths are presumably decorated with mirrored ceilings.

As with all of the political ads in this article, the public had a field day with how wrong and terrible it was to use sex to sell politics. And of course, getting it on in public is much worse than having ties to the former KGB. Duh.

Bonus: Constitutionally Mandated Yacht Sex

We decided to let you go with a slightly less steamy one, because Lord knows you have to get back to work. By the way, did we mention this article was not safe for work? Yeah, we probably should have mentioned that.

Anyway, the video you see above is intended to show what a great and sexy time the Republicans in California have with your tax dollars. Sex on a yacht, with your own personal champagne pourer, is what you get when you’re a Republican. If you don’t believe me and the ad (which was created by the Courage Campaign), look it up. It says so right there in black and white in the California constitution.

Moral of the Story

As you can see, there aren’t many politically conservative organizations that use sex to sell their candidates, at least not overtly. What does that mean? Nothing special. Just that liberals are all horny and conservatives are all prudes. It’s totally true. We know this because we saw it all on YouTube.

 

Will Conley is a hermaphrodite from Utah.

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