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Over the last few years, Coca-Cola has had some fun with the concept of what went on inside a Coke machine after someone dropped some coins into it to make a purchase. This past week, they’ve shared something a little different, focused on the concept of the “happiness machine.” It’s created a bit of buzz around the Web, and shows no signs of slowing down. Check it out.

Fan of Christmas (or Nike, for that matter) or not, you’ve gotta love the Christmas-themed spots featuring the MVPuppets that Nike’s currently running on TV right now. Check out the series, which kicks off with Blitzen (or Lupe Fiasco) throwing some beef Santa’s way, followed by Santa’s response (via the ever-awesome KRS-One), and finally Kobe and LeBron dunkin’ on some reindeer (dunk…dunk…dunkin’ on some reindeer).

Here’s the whole series:

Some awesome tidbits: “Santa lookin’ shook, Kobe lookin’ shook, LeBron lookin’ shook, I threw your ball on the roof.” Check for Santa’s “NP” jacket and LeBron’s “rap” around 1:30 in the third vid, too.

Previously, New York Lottery thought it would get your attention with cute little bunnies. Now, they’ve moved on to cute little everything, in “Sleepy Time.”

The New York Lottery is hoping that you like bunnies.

These are links. You should click them. Here are some reasons why.

• In this week’s edition of “What Exactly Is Gawker’s “beat” These Days” news, I point to their recap of last night’s “Mad Men” and turn my head like an RCA dog.
• How fast is Usain Bolt, really? Some ESPN staffers found out.
• In case you missed this one, check out some fun that the New Yorker had with a recent NYT review of The Beatles: Rock Band.
• Could the “Tribute in Light” that graces lower Manhattan every year around September go dark in 2010?
• Gruber points to William Safire’s favorite New Yorker cartoon.
• If you were a digital Robin Hood, apparently you’d start at Facebook and head back to MySpace with whatever you’ve got. Or something like that. Or maybe you’d just sit on MySpace all day and post updates to Twitter.
• The amusing thing about this computer tumor is that it’s probably totally representative of the RAM bloat that your applications are chomping on, and will give you a good idea when you need to reboot.
• Trash your coach on Twitter, no Twitter for you, says Texas Tech coach Mike Leach.
• No coverage, no problem, say the Los Angeles Kings.
• OMG “Star Wars” bathrobes! [via Gizmodo]
• Dabitch seems to feel the same way that I do about the latest Windows 7 commercial.

Have you seen the latest set of Microsoft ads for Windows 7, featuring the little girl, Kylie? I’m a huge fan of this particular spot, “Good News,” purely on the amusement factor, and Kylie’s use of word “responsive” to make it happen.

Today, I’m seeing buzz on Twitter about how there’s a new spot that’s been added to a campaign, and I’ve gotta say, this one takes it down a notch. or seven. Check out “Kylie’s Conversations” below.

“Good News” is a good spot, IMHO, because it’s quick, it briefly shows the origin of the text she uses, and most importantly, it’s fun. Kylie mispronounces “responsive” – as she should as a 4 1/2-year old (though maybe she’s five by now, considering this spot, “The Rookies,” is from February).

The second ad, “Kylie’s Conversations,” just “piles on” to what “Good News” brought to the table, seemingly hoping to garner the same respect its predecessor had. The reasonably random behavior of a young girl playing around on her dad’s computer is legit. I can suspend enough disbelief to think that she’d know how to throw a slide show (or get her photos together, like in “The Rookies” spot, and so forth, but to think that the little girl is going to continue to crank out slideshows of “happy words” is just silly, no? Isn’t there something else she could be doing on the computer?

To me, this is a PERFECT example of a “oh, THIS one worked like a charm, let’s make another one just like it.” Except that’s where it fails.

It isn’t just like “Good News” at all – it’s just another way to use Kylie as the medium to push the positive reviews about Windows 7 through. Oh, and while we’re at it, it’s nice that we broke down Microsoft PowerPoint to a point where we can have multiple popping bits of text on one screen. Gasp! Now I’m impressed.

Great execution on the the “Rookies” and “Good News” spots, but the “Conversations” ad completely missed the mark for me.

A lot can be said (and already has) for an ad that contains great music and the effect it has on potential customers for the advertiser, and in this case I find myself not only loving the song in the first place, but thinking it’s one of the better ad / music matchups I’ve seen in awhile. Check out this spot for the new Cadillac SRX, featuring Phoenix’s catchy “1901.”

Music supervision for the win.

Here’s today’s batch of Links You Need To Click…

• Gothamist points to some news in the NY Post about Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to “shoeprint” all footwear. Hello, CSI and L&O land!
• Congrats to Allison for finally getting to see Moby in NYC! It’s kinda nice to get to do things that you’ve wanted to for years and years.
• Plax goes to jail. Wonder if he’ll spike the ball on the field after not being touched when his knee was down on his first play in the prison yard.
• Hey look, it’s Microsoft’s Guru Bar!
• You see, I feel all cool as I’m coming to a close of Year 1 for the 365 Days Project on Flickr, and the damn stormtroopers have go to and one-up us all with Stormtroopers 365. [via Kottke]
• Look! Over there! It’s sponsored tweets from celebrities, courtesy of Ad.ly.
• Over at the Voce Nation blog, Chris Thilk asks what marketers would have to do if (shudder!) social media tools weren’t available for their programs, and he wants to hear from you.
• Speaking of Chris Thilk, wonder if he’s seen this juiced-up WALL-E.
• For those of you up for a challenge, Fred Wilson has one for you – as Tumblr.

On Thursday morning, the ever-thinking-about-cool-stuff David Pogue tweeted about those “You Will” television spots AT&T did in the early 1990’s, pointing out how “amazing” it was how many really came true. I guess we really shouldn’t be surprised by the seemingly brilliant future view that the company had, as surely they already had seen what would go into the products featured, which included everything from digital medical records, GPS, or the fact that one day, you’d have “borrowed a book…from thousands of miles away.”

And if you thought the voiceover sounded familiar, it was. Over at TV Squad, Bob Sassone reminds us that it was done by none other than Tom Selleck. Having lived the better part of my life in the neighborhood of the Holmdel, NJ location of Bell Labs, AT&T and the Baby Bells, etc. were always in the local news for one thing or another, and it was certainly a matter of local pride that a lot of cool stuff was created. Tens of thousands of patents and multiple Nobel Prize winners can’t be wrong.

Good show, AT&T.

Man, it sure is easy to batch up stuff and share it with everyone. If more people I knew used something like Google Reader, I’d use that, but this lets me throw some spin on stuff that’s of interest.

• Looking for a solution for people who park all douchey around you? This is probably it, and partially NSFW given its…title. Thanks to my West Coast pal Lauren for throwing me that a few weeks ago.
• Doers. You know, the people who aren’t out there all day talking about all the cool stuff that you COULD be doing, but are doing maybe 1/20th of that, and spending the rest of the time…doing. Seeing a lot more throws their way of late than we used to. Thank goodness.
• Some news showed up that reality show participant Ryan Jenkins had committed suicide, and it appears that there was a bit of a dilemma as to whether or not to “like” the news on Facebook. I “liked” it before I “unliked” it, I must admit.
• Leah Jones makes some good points about ethics in social media consultancy, and whether timing is key in at least one situation currently making the rounds. Interesting debate, to say the least.
• The sheer concept of the Dow Jones indices going up for sale is almost too hard to get my head around, but then I realize that we call something the “Dow Industrials” and I’m able to check out what “industrials” make it up, and feel better.
• Rework is probably my #1 business hate. Except when it’s the new book from the 37signals folks.
• I’ve been sitting on this one since March, and just couldn’t figure out what to do with it. What do you think about online ads having “icons” that when clicked, would tell you what they “knew” about you? Saul Hansell described that scenario in this Bits blog article.
• Given the issues that NFL players continue to get into, I’m not sure that the League’s efforts to sneakily check out what future players, currently in college, are up to on Facebook is going to matter, a few months after word came down that this was going on. Or maybe it’ll only get more intense.
• OMGzors. I totally want one of these cassette tape USB hubs. [via Gizmodo]

Some part of me sits on these until I have something interesting to say, another just feels like there’s SO much good stuff out there that I’m filtering so we can see what sticks or not, rather than that instant-gratification that you get from flagging items in an RSS reader. It’s free and all – too easy for me to just spam the heck out of all of you here. Hopefully these are enjoyable for those of you who actually read this.