Viral Ad Network

Tim and I landed on Sunday afternoon, and as soon as we got to our flat (an awesome warehouse conversion in Greenpoint, Williamsburg) we headed out to explore the neighbourhood before the sun set (and we froze).

For those that don’t know Williamsburg, it’s a pretty hip part of town – a mix of warehouses, warehouse conversions and bars.  Geographically it’s located over the Hudson river East from Manhattan, so as the sun sets you get an amazing view of high-rise Manhattan glowing in the sun.

Apart from amazing views, Williamsburg has a great community thing going on, which we experienced when we randomly walked into a local chilli making (and eating) contest in a local bar (aptly) called the Brooklyn Ale House.

Run by the affable American-Irish Sean, the Brooklyn Ale House is a hugely run local place which serves an amazing array of beers on tap, and (as it so happens) runs a yearly Chilli Cooking contest.  Unlike in the UK, the US take Chilli very seriously and the various recipes I sampled were out-of -this-world tasty.  The winner (who’s photoed picking up his $100 beer prize below) had spent 2 days cooking his home-smoked chilli, which had unbelievable layers of taste.

For the last couple of days I’ve been hanging in Vancouver as part of my Delib tour, and was pretty stoked to discover that there’s a part of town known as *East Van* – which also happens to be a seriously cool area.

Even better news is that in East Van there’s a super awesome eponymous clothing brand which does a mean line in T-shirts, mugs and condoms (obviously).

Apart from partly sharing names with East Van I kinda felt that our VAN and East Van shared some creatively awesome values – each in our own way.  We obviously also have differences as rather than East Van selling condoms that stop viruses from spreading, VAN sell viral ads designed to promote viral spreading

In parts East Van is quite a dodgy part of time, so I particularly related to this mug . . .