Looks like an angel; strong as the devil . . .
Hey, it's the Friday after Thanksgiving, a classically slow news day. So let's have some fun. For months I've been fascinated by the TV commercial for DirectTV. The focus is a man we instantly understand to be a Russian billionaire businessman/mobster. "Opulence: I has it. I like the best" he explains, as the commercial opens. And sure enough, he's surrounded by the flashiest things—and women—that money can buy.
With no Morning Joe to bust today, I was catching up on some House episodes I'd DVR'ed, and during an October number, up popped the commercial. Just for fun, I decided to play it in slow motion, to see if there were interesting details I might have missed. Right away, I noticed for the first time that in the background of the opening shot, you see live dogs playing poker, in a re-creation of the famous poster.
But it was an image toward the end that really caught my attention. One of the two women seated on the sofa with our mobster passes him a jewel-encrusted TV remote on a tray. But the remote is sitting on a pyramid of . . . six gold bars. Wait a second, I thought. Aren't gold bars very heavy? View video and stills after the jump.
A quick Googling reveals that standard gold bars, which these appear to be, weigh 27.5 pounds each. So our svelte blonde damsel was effortlessly lifting, in what amounted to a curl, 165 pounds--plus the weight of the tray and remote. Not bad! I couldn't do half that at the gym. Then again, I don't have the benefit of a diet of caviar and Stolichnaya ;-)
PS: The image of our boy kissing his live, hyper-miniature giraffe is also priceless.