Start with an affluent, handsome white man, add in a complicated female love interest and a special-needs brother, find an addictive catchphrase destined to be repeated on Facebook, and you’ve got what it takes to make an Academy Award-winning film.

Mandatory plot points, thematic imagery, character conflicts, and musical cues are detailed in “Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer“  — a Cracked.com video produced by the comedy duo Britanick. Watch it, and you’ll recognize great moments from many fabulous films, though probably not in the way you’re expecting…

Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher are two NYU students who decided decided that they didn’t want to use the knowledge and experience they garnered in college for anything but creating short stupid videos that would make people laugh.  The duo from Atlanta majored in film and drama, and have been working together since collaborating on a freshman year film project in 2004.

They’ve produced nearly two-dozen short films. Most recently, their short film ‘Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses’ was screened at this month’s 2010 South By Southwest Film Festival. “Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer” is their latest, and most successful, endeavor. Since it was originally posted on YouTube on March 7, 2010, the film has garnered more than 1.288 million pageviews.

Want to see more videos by these funny guys? Check out their entire collection at http://www.britanick.com/videos.php Read more about the video here at Time.com

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Here’s another way you can be a winner:
Recycle your used printer cartridges & cell phones too!
Your inkjets, toners, and cell phones are worth more than you think.
Why not recycle them at eCycleGroup.com?

The Story of Bottled Water was released by the “Story of Stuff” organization, on World Water Day March 22, 2010 to tell the story of manufactured demand for bottled water. Why do Americans buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when we can get it practically free from the tap? Refilling a reusable bottle is cheaper and much more environmentally friendly, especially when you consider the following shocking facts:

Bottled water costs ten to 500 times more than tap water. According to OregonLive.com,  if priced by the gallon Dasani costs $5.76 a gallon (at 4.5 cents per fluid ounce); Fiji costs $7.55 per gallon. Celebrity-endorsed, electrolyte-enhanced Smartwater is $6.14. Meanwhile, Arrowhead, in an “Eco-Shape” bottle, is a relative bargain, at $4.48 per gallon. Remember the outrage when gas reached over $4 a gallon a couple of years ago?  The amount of petroleum used to manufacture water bottles each year is enough to power a million cars. Of all those water bottles created, only 20% is actually recycled into other products. The rest – some 4 billion PET bottles — is sent to landfills or incinerators. More facts can be found at the storyofbottledwater.org via their downloadable pdf.

This eight-minute video uses the Story of Stuff style to explore the bottled water industry’s attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. Please click the “More” link to see the rest of the story and watch the video. » Read more

According to the U.S. Green Building Council,   “LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.”

LEED is flexible enough to apply to all building types – commercial as well as residential. Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED provides building owners, operator, and builders a definable framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations, and maintenance solutions. Leed-certified projects are healthy, productive places to work and live while also being less costly to operate and maintain; with a reduced environmental footprint.

Being LEED certified means the contractor/owner has taken a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in the following key areas:

Sustainable Sites: The Sustainable Sites category discourages development on previously undeveloped land; minimizes a building’s impact on ecosystems and waterways; encourages regionally appropriate landscaping; rewards smart transportation choices; controls stormwater runoff; and reduces erosion, light pollution, heat island effect and construction-related pollution.

Water Efficiency: Builders are encouraged to use water smarter, inside and out, with more efficient appliances, fixtures and fittings, and to water-wise landscaping.

Energy & Atmosphere: LEED certified structures use a wide variety of energy-conserving strategies: commissioning; energy use monitoring; efficient design and construction; efficient appliances, systems and lighting; the use of renewable and clean sources of energy, generated on-site or off-site; and other innovative strategies. » Read more

So, how much did you love those Super Bowl ads? For some of us the advertising is more entertaining than the game. Well, according to this website,  Drive-In Music Company is in a tizzy, about one Super Bowl ad in particular, and is hurling lawsuits at Kia Motor Company, CBS, the NFL, and anyone else they can reach. Apparently, Drive-In feels the backing track used in Kia’s Super Bowl commercial for the 2010 Kia Sorento, is a rip-off of a tune by 60s funk band Dyke and the Blazers. Quite honestly, I think the commercial sounds more like James Brown on a good day.

Well, Drive-In, get over it: as this video by Axis of Awesome demonstrates, pretty much all popular songs are created using the same four chords. Apologies in advance: they do drop a couple f-bombs in the intro, but once you get past that, the music mix will keep you grinning all weekend long.

Creative commons guitar photo by Taliesin at morguefile.com

“Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” are the three most popular chords in our eco-friendly theme song

If you already recycle empty cartridges and used cell phones, you’re among a growing number of people who understand the benefits to the environment. What you may not realize is that your inkjets, toners, and cell phones are worth more than you think. They can be reused again and, that way, they definitely reduce waste. Why not recycle them at eCycleGroup.com?

It’s well known that exercising your body will help keep you healthier longer. In fact, an article at MayoClinic.com says regular physical activity can help prevent chronic health conditions, promote weight loss and better sleep, and improve your mood and energy level.

Now, think about how much better your brain would function if you applied the same theory to mental exercises! Just as we exercise our bodies to keep physically fit, we can exercise our minds to stay mentally fit, or so say the specialists at Posit Science.

Posit Science strives to help people flourish throughout their lives by providing effective, non-invasive tools that engage the brain’s natural plasticity to improve brain health. They’ve got a large and growing global team of more than 50 leading university-based researchers, staff scientists, and other specialists who collaborate on programs that improve the cognitive performance–and change the lives–of everyday people.

Based in San Francisco, Posit Science grew out of the pioneering work of neuroscientist Dr. Michael Merzenich. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and Francis A. Sooy Professor of the Keck Center at the University of California at San Francisco, Dr. Merzenich has a track record of turning neuroscience into practical tools that help people. His discoveries continue to change how scientists and the medical profession look at the brain.

Under the leadership of Dr. Merzenich and CEO Steven Aldrich, a team of scientists, researchers, programmers, and other experts are designing, testing, and refining drug-free programs to address cognitive issues related to healthy aging, as well as a broad range of other conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment, and schizophrenia.

Essentially, Posit Science states, our eyes, ears, and other sensory organs are constantly sending information to our brain. Our brain then uses this information to construct experiences and memories, from the magnificent (a loved one’s face, a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, or a wedding proposal) to the mundane (an acquaintance’s name, a grocery list, or a routine drive to a nearby store). » Read more

Pi — the ratio of circumference to the diameter of a circle — has captivated imaginations for thousands of years. Pi is generally rounded to 3.14 though it was calculated out to 2.7 trillion places in December by French computer scientist Fabrice Bellard.

Mathematicians know that pi is not algebraic, and it cannot be represented as one number divided by another. Theoretically, its digits will continue on randomly and indefinitely without ending in repetition.  It’s so random, that there are no occurrences of the sequence ‘123456′ in the first million digits of pi.

Well, the mysterious number has its own holiday today: March 14 (3/14, get the pun?) the same date as Albert Einstein’s birthday. It was only last March that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution supporting Pi Day and encouraging schools to teach students about the magical number.

An article at CNN.com pays homage to Marc Umile, a math geek who holds 10th place in the world for pi memorization; in 2007, he typed out 15,314 digits from memory. (The world record for memorizaton was set by Chao Ly in 2005: he memorized 67,890 digits.) According to the article “any string of numbers you can imagine is somewhere in pi — for instance, look for your birthday. Coincidentally, ‘360,’ the number of degrees in a circle, occurs at digits 358 to 360.”

Dozens of memorization enthusiasts (like Umile, here at 1,000 digits)  have posted videos of themselves reciting or typing out digits on YouTube; there are also plenty of poems and songs online dedicated to pi. One of my favorites is the video below of Folk Singer Lucy Kaplansky singing her own ode to Pi. And don’t miss this parody of the hit song “American Pie“   written by CNN SciTech blogger, Elizabeth Landau.

I’m not so good with numbers, myself. Remembering birthdays and phone numbers has always been a challenge, so for me, pi is best expressed as simply 3.14. I’ll have to enjoy its enormous majesty through the others who are saluting it on this day!

You don’t have to memorize and recite enormous strings of random numbers to show you can be eco-minded!
You can help the environment by recycling your used printer cartridges and cell phones. Your inkjets, toners, and cell phones are worth more than you think!
Why not recycle them at eCycleGroup.com?

With a simple swipe, Starbucks customers can join Conservation International to help protect forests and the life that exists within them – as well as fight climate change. Starting March 9 and through December 31, 2010, every time a customer pays with their new Conservation International Starbucks Card at participating stores in the United States Starbucks will donate five cents to Conservation International to help protect forests.

Conservation International (CI) applies innovations in science, economics, policy and community participation to protect the Earth’s richest regions of plant and animal diversity in the biodiversity hotspots, high-biodiversity wilderness areas and key marine ecosystems. The five cents donated by Starbucks with each purchase will provide contributions to support CI’s work to protect and restore forests, essential steps to addressing climate change. As a company that relies on coffee as an agricultural product, Starbucks knows firsthand the importance of protecting the environment. The company has worked with CI for more than 10 years to help support responsible coffee farming, protect biodiversity, and reduce coffee farming impacts on climate in an effort to sustain the supply of the world’s best coffee.

“The involvement of Starbucks and their customers provides a tremendous boost to global forest conservation and climate solutions,” said Justin Ward, Vice President of Business Practices at Conservation International. “We value our long-term relationship with Starbucks and we are pleased that support raised from the Preservation Card will benefit sustainable management of the world’s natural resources.” » Read more

Every March, we celebrate Women’s History Month, an annual declared month in the United States and worldwide that highlights contributions of women to events in history. Its origins are found in 1978 when the school district of Sonoma, California, participated in Women’s History Week, a weeklong celebration designed around International Women’s Day, which is now celebrated on March 8. In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration when March was declared Women’s History Month. Its official centennial will be celebrated in 2011. The theme for 2010 is “Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all.”

Last year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has even issued her own public statement on the celebration, in which she states “Every March, we take time to honor the many women whose courage and vision have helped build and sustain our nation. We honor those who fought for progress; we acknowledge those who lead the charge today; and we recommit ourselves to expanding opportunities for all.” She also promises “Congress will continue to work to put women and children first. That includes investments in early childhood education, ensuring military families have the benefits they have earned and deserved, and strengthening the equal pay act. And as we do, we will take forward the lesson of Women’s History Month: that by knowing their power, women can, and do, change the course of history for all Americans.”

International Women’s Day has been observed since in the early 1900’s, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.

It all began in 1908, a time of great unrest and active campaigning by women demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman’s Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on February 28, 1909. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913. » Read more

Watt Plaza, a twin 23-story office tower complex encompassing 900,000 square feet in the heart of Century City, has been awarded Gold LEED Existing Buildings Operations and Maintenance (EB O&M) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, making it the first office building in Los Angeles to achieve this distinction in this category.

Watt Plaza is one of five buildings in California and one of 12 buildings in the United States to be certified LEED EB O&M. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the U.S. Green Building Council’s primary rating system for designing and constructing the world’s greenest, most energy efficient, and high-performing buildings.

The U.S. Green Building Council LEED certification system — which has become the nation’s benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings — provides a measurement of performance for commercial buildings in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality. » Read more

After a Starbucks customer received her coffee from the Barista, she was so inspired by the employee who thanked her in sign language that she wrote a letter to the company suggesting that all employees should do the same.

Starbucks has posted a video response at MyStarbucksIdea.com and the reader commentary there is extremely supportive.

Should Starbucks Baristas be able to say Thank You in sign language? How should Starbucks best accommodate hearing- or speech-impaired customers?

Watch the video below, and share your vote at MyStarbucksIdea.com.

You don’t have to learn sign language to tell the world you’re eco-minded!
You can help the environment by recycling your used printer cartridges and cell phones. Your inkjets, toners, and cell phones are worth more than you think!
Why not recycle them at eCycleGroup.com?