http://www.heroestheseries.com/masi-oka-to-serve-as-one-laptop-per-child-ambassador/

In which Hiro Nakamura pimps the crank laptop. I beat out Hiro Nakamura by two days!

I completely agree with your larger point, as well. Ever since corporate American started bandying about the term “branding,” it’s all they do now, devoid of actual meaning.

When I was kid, “Official _foo_ of the _bar_” meant that there was some meaningful relationship between the product foo and the event bar. “Official sneaker of the NBA” would have meant that all the players wore that sneaker. But now you’ve got totally non sequiter endorsements like “Official SUV of the Olympics” and “Official chicken of the World Series.” Sheesh.

Fast food companies have realized that healthy food is perceived as being upper class, and that they can therefore charge more for it. Oh, and by the way, it’s not really healthy. It’s just branded that way.

And, back to your point, what the hell does NBC having a “green week” mean?? I wasn’t aware that cable transmissions were destroying the environment. Now if the actors and execs at NBC all stopped driving their Yukons and Escalades for a week…

ARGH. The worst part is that they do it *because it works*. Why do we buy it all, both figuratively and literally?

But then, I also live in Western Mass., where there are lots of crank-y type folks.

People come up with the damndest things. Somebody ought to hook up the crank laptop people with the steampunk people, who seem to have a lot of extra ingenuity floating around. Then the crank laptops would all be made of wood and brass…