If you can avoid dying ironically, then you can live forever. I mean, it’s on every newspaper headline. Olympic swimmer drowns in bathtub. Poor man dies by falling bag of money. Child star dies of old age. Time-traveling assassin kills inventor of time machine by impaling him on sundial. Can’t get back home.

BOOM! Ironic.

The J. Peterman Company was founded in 1987 by John Peterman. It took up the travel and safari theme originated by Banana Republic that was abandoned by them soon after their acquisition by The Gap in 1983.
…
The company grew by offering distinctive lifestyle merchandise within catalogs that differed from other direct marketing at the time. The catalogs use long copy to explain the products, and illustrate these products with artwork as opposed to photographs.

From 1995 to 1998, one of the most popular television series at the time, Seinfeld, parodied the owner and the company with a catalog-company businessman named J. Peterman, played by John O’Hurley.
…
Despite $75 million in sales at its peak, the company was forced into bankruptcy in 1999.

The company was purchased by Paul Harris Stores in 1999, without the future participation of Peterman. Paul Harris Stores went bankrupt in 2000. In 2001, Peterman repurchased the name and restarted The J. Peterman Company, with O’Hurley as an investor.
link

Let’s review:

1. J. Peterman was a real clothing company
2. Seinfeld made fun of said company, with Elaine working for Mr. Peterman
3. The company was sold, then went out of business
4. Mr. Peterman bought back the rights to use his own name
5. Mr. Peterman brought on as an investor in his rebooted company the actor who played him on Seinfeld.

You can’t make this stuff up. Or, I guess you can, as long as I’m too lazy to check the copious references and the edit history on Wikipedia.

Greatest. Music. Video. Ever. By the ultimate hair band, Europe.

Gotta love the:

• Guys that look WAAAY too much like girls, even by 80s standards
• Big hair (see previous point)
• Headbanging (see previous point)
• Lighter tribute
• Massive potential for later use by magicians as a theme song
• Helicopter footage in the video
• Way the video-editing geeks featured themselves prominently in the video, along with timecodes (1337!)
• Shortshort shortshorts worn by the drummer
• Lead singer’s bowstaff skills with the mic stand
• “Europe ’86″ logo painted in huge letters on the roof

In other words, you’re done finding awesome things on the internet, because this is the awesomest. You can go to bed now.

Via an old Seth Godin post

Music is Santogold‘s “Unstoppable”