"Kelly Ripa on the Other Hand Could Use Some Discipline."

You know, I always thought that. Out last-minute voting and not sure what to give that undecided friend in your life? LOGO can help with a Rick and Steve video digisode about Sarah Palin, featuring those lovable characters Kirsten and Dana. (Not Steve 'Adrants' Steve by the way but another Steve.)

ad:tech: Riding Johnny Utah's Beast, and Other Unfortunate Events

There are plenty of reasons why Sunday night's XY7.com party made us all want to kill ourselves, but probably the most potent one was the mechanical-bull-riding-bikini-contest.

This battle of bronzy bumps was allegedly open to volunteers, but it grew pretty clear that none of the entrants actually came from the industry. "Not the ad industry, anyway," smirked UnSubCentral's John Engler, who effectively exhausted his double-entendre quota for the night.

But don't take my word for it. Watch three contestants ride the bull like eager extras in a softcore tribute to Urban Cowboy:

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Vote Early, Vote Often in the Adrants Last Annual Pre-Election Eve Poll

Catchy! What with the perfect storm of ad:tech and the election this week, place your bets on what will likely happen at either event. In keeping with possible future election irregularities, and because Adrants is equal opportunity like that, feel free to vote for as many scenarios as you want.

Oh, is There an Election Tomorrow?

Maybe it's not the candidates who you're on the fence about, but their people. Straight outta Brooklyn, creatives Lindsay Ballant and Ian Boyle have put together a site called Behind the Candidates which looks at the differences between the staff of Obama and McCain. It gives a quick glimpse of the players who will likely find new homes in their respective employer's administration. While the site boasts no affiliation with any particular party, it's kind of obvious stories were cherry-picked to make McCain's people seem less than desirable. I mean, there had to be something nice said about McCain's staff, no? (*waits patiently for answer*)

Gears of War 2: Cue Angst-Ridden Track and Epic Visuals.

While HALO 3 still feels like the gold standard for video game trailers, Gears of War 2 doesn't hurt the cause here with the trailer for Last Day. Just take one part contemplative hero, one part hip track (How It Ends by Devotchka) and mix with YouTube for a week. Result? Well, the internetz don't lie. Just ask captawesome014 in the comments there:

"im a hardcore gears fan, this trailer is epic, i mean how would u feel if u thought u were going to surly die underground and it is ur last day above ground?"

Sounds like a hit to me.

What if Roadies Ran the World?

Flight attendants would be really fugly. Killer spot called Roadies for Sprint's Nextel Direct Connect continues the theme of real workers of the world uniting to show us how it's done. I may never use Sprint because of the evil grip AT&T has me in, but I do like this campaign, especially the end sequence. Rock on, rock star traveling in first class. (If, there are any airlines left who still have first class.)

Chevy Traverses Greek Mythology.

As one YouTube denizen noted about this latest commercial for the Chevy Traverse,

"Baphomet and Minotaurs are two different things. Baphomet has wings and the head of a goat. A Minotaur is a bullheaded man."

I knew that. Of course, that was in response to the commenter before them that thought Baphomet was real. The What the...? factor x 10 is in full effect here. So is the push to convince you how great on gas it is. Timeout. Sure gas prices have dropped lately, but 24 mpg ain't that great. More importantly, is that really all you wish for in an SUV? Let's try a plasma TV, Slash riding shotgun on the way to his private party and never having to stop for gas along the way because it gets 110 mpg. Now we're done.

Renamed WiFi Networks Guilt Freeloaders Into Buying Coffee

This is truly brilliant. With free WiFi popping up at cafes the world over, the number of people impolitely "stealing" it without so much as buying a simple coffee has increased as well. To both reprimand and capitalize on this trend, Holland-based CoffeeCompany, with help from THEY, has started promoting menu items through people's WiFi menus.

By continuously changing the names of their store networks to such things as OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready, BuyCoffeeForCuteGirlOverThere?, HaveYouTriedCoffeeCake?, BuyAnotherCupYouCheapskate, TodaysSpecialExpresso1.60Euro and BuyaLargeLatterGetBrownieForFree, the chain is able to both promote items as well as guilt patrons into realizing free WiFi really isn't totally free.

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Adrants Shuts Down, Makes the Logo Bigger

This week, Angela and I will dive headfirst into that massive online marketing conference known as ad:tech. We will be having so much fun...uh...working so hard, we won't be able to properly provide you with the editorial goodness you've come to know and love. So, we're shutting down for a week. Turning things off. In place of our editorial goodness, we'll probably post an image of Donny Deutsch in his Speedo or a giant Enfatico logo on the homepage just to remind you of the oddities the advertising business is so apt at serving up.

Oh come on. Seriously! That'd be like Advertising Age announcing they'd go dark because Bob Garfield threw a temper tantrum and sent everyone home for the week. Of course we're going to publish. Every day. Like we always do. There will just be less Angela and Steve and more Make the Logo Bigger's Bill Green, who will be guest writing for the week. If you've read Bill, you know he's got the same disdainful love for the business as we do and he'll be twisting the knife into advertising's under belly all week long.

Please welcome Bill. We're excited to have him. You'll see Angela and me from time to time throughout the week, bringing you updates from ad:tech, as well as a few things I'm sure each of us won't be able to leave alone.