lauren de long

Remember Lauren, the perky redhead who prowled for an affordable laptop computer in a 2009 Microsoft commercial designed to rebut Apple's juggernaut "Get a Mac" ad campaign? Of course you do. Even hardened Mac loyalists who grumbled at the ad's anti-Apple sentiments -- "I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person," chirped Lauren at one point -- had to admit the girl-next-door-type's gleeful jig upon learning that an HP Pavilion costs less than $700 made for quality television. The bipartisan Lauren lovefest was short-lived, though. Internet sleuths quickly uncovered a shocking truth behind the ad: Lauren wasn't some random hometown hottie who seemed perfectly fine with being filmed during ...