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If you were a geek, or a budding geek, back in the 80s, then you knew about Max Headroom. He not only hawked C-c-c-coke in commercials, but in 1987, for one short year, he had his own dystopian television show that felt like a cyberpunk rendition of Brazil.

Channel 4 in the UK has brought Maximum Headroom back, sort of. He’s a rambling geriatric, being wheeled around in an old television set by a large, British caregiver. Max continuously babbles in stuttered samples as he is bathed, taken on slow-moving tours, and wheeled to the beach to stare at the sea.

The premise: Max Headroom was ready for all things digital 20 years ago, and now Channel 4 is going the same route. The ad is a bit jarring and abrasive, but then again, wasn’t Max Headroom always that way?

Popularity: 15% [?]

Yo Gabba Gabba, described by Nick Jr. as “life lessons with a beat”, could more accurately be described as H.R. Pufnstuf, Sesame Street animations, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and The Friendly Giant put through a psychedelic-indie-techno-retro-west-coast blender.

Here’s a song to help kids eat their veggies.

It only makes sense that Kidrobot, purvayers of all things quirky and vinyl, would provide geek parents with another excuse to buy more toys. Come November 21st of 2007, look for Kidrobot [hearts] Yo Gabba Gabba figures, as well as some kiddie hoodies. Just in time for your (or your kids’) Christmas list.

Popularity: 21% [?]

From the good folks at commoncraft.com who brought you convenient and simple explanations like Social Bookmarking in Plain English, Wikis in Plain English, and RSS in Plain English comes the soon-to-be Halloween paper-presentation classic Zombies in Plain English.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Ffff**k! What a simple and beautiful idea to capture and display images you come across in various internet wanderings. I tend to pull images off of sites and place them into my ‘wallpaper’ folder, which then becomes a designy screensaver. My biggest complaint about my own system is the lack of metadata in the image: I don’t know where it came from once I have copied it onto my drive. Ffffound fixes this problem, creating a social medium for bookmarking images. The EXTRA bonus is the recommendations and associated images that come with every picture. You can easily spend hours meandering through hundreds (soon to be thousands and then millions) of images. I will be first in line when this comes out of private beta.

Ffffound (with 4 F’s) describes itself thusly:

FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user’s tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!

Look for a new wave of sites to be named with four consonants now, instead of missing vowels. I’m serious!

Link via Daniel Burka on Pownce.

Popularity: 53% [?]

Urban Outfitters is now stocking collectible “blindbox” Hello Kitty vinyl figures.

When you thought she just couldn’t get any cuter. Limited edition Sanrio series of collectible Hello Kitty vinyl figures come in 12 designs, including a woodgrain Kitty and an ice cream cone Kitty. Collect them all!

Popularity: 18% [?]

Toyota teams up with World of Warcraft to advertise the Tocoma truck. The results are unexpectedly good. The viral is short, funny, with memorable (and quotable) dialogue.

UPDATE: Duncan’s TV Ad Land has a great article about the creators of this unlikely collaboration.

Player One
I’ve gone ahead and equipped my Epic Axe.

Player Two
Uuuuuh, switching to explosive arrows.

Player Three
Yeah, I’m gonna equip myself with a little, uh… FOUR WHEELS OF FURY!

Player Two (in discust)
Uuuuuh!

Player Three drives Toyota Tacoma towards Dragon.

Player One
No way. (sigh)

Player Two
There’s no trucks in World of Warcraft!

Player Three
Let’s do this!

Player Three and Toyota Tacoma are eaten by Dragon in one gulp. Dragon breaths fire at Player Two.

Player Two (as Toyota Tacoma is eaten)
Uuuuuh.

Dragon grasps chest in pain. There is a terrific explosion as Player Three and the Toyota Tacoma burst out of Dragon’s chest.

Player Three
Did you see me lay down the law? I am the Law Giver!

Popularity: 21% [?]

Adam Tickle, Alistair Webb, and Matt Michaluk share a very special cake to celebrate Helvetica’s silver anniversary as one of the planet’s most ubiquitous sans serif faces.

Popularity: 4% [?]

via Brand Infection

Robert Scoble says Microsoft should be freaked out.

Popularity: 12% [?]

This might explain why Toronto had Mayer Mel Lastman for so many years…

Popularity: 27% [?]

Polyvore is a ever-growing user-generated data base of fashion items, including accessories and furniture, that you can upload, mix and match. The interface allows you to re-size items and layer them, creating your own unique ‘looks’ that you can save as sets. The items are poached from other sites, but each one is carefully labeled, and the source identified (just in case you want to recreate your wardrobe ideas IRL).

I am interested in how they plan to make money. Affiliation is an obvious route, but not so obvious in practice, since the users are finding and creating the images. A partnership would make sense, where a 3rd party would supply pre-masked images and links and populate the database with their latest fashions, and pay Polyvore for the privilege of exposing their wares to fashion mavens.

It makes perfect sense that Polyvore also has a Facebook application.

Popularity: 4% [?]