how do they make those bendy poles and such?
like a bended lamp?
How about curve deform? Add a curve/path. Select your mesh, then your path, Ctrl P, curve deform? Just make sure your mesh have enough edge loops available to deform properly. Then deforming the path in edit mode will deform your mesh accordingly…
PS. I noticed that the dreaded z flipping also occurs with path deform. At certain positions, the mesh will do a sudden twist… Will this path behavior ever be resolved?
Can it? I thought it was a product of the geometry and maths.
Not sure, since I’m not a coder and my math sucks, big time. But other softwares have workarounds to prevent this from occurring, I think… Anyway, it is a big obstacle which limits the usefulness of things parented to paths, since it’s bound to happen if the path is going to be deformed a lot. Maybe the maths for curves would have to be reworked from the ground up… sudden twisting is no good at all… 
thanks for the help. 
i tried the curve tool but it sorta confuses me.
am i supposed to attach it to the mesh and edit it?
From the Blender site:
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Curve_Deform.392.0.html
A more detailed tutorial:
http://download.blender.org/documentation/htmlI/ch09s06.html
That’s never happened to me before. Did you make sure the path wasn’t twisted? Do you have a sample animation that does it?
It is also written in the link to Blender3D.org.
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Curve_Deform.392.0.html
Look at the bottom of the page, on the 3D on/off section:
“It has the same limitations as for ‘curve follow’, where you have to avoid a straight line up in the Z direction to prevent flipping.”
Do other 3d apps with similar features as curve deform or curve follow exhibit this behavior? I only know Wings and Blender, so I am not sure of this, but I never heard of people complaining about similar things in other software’s 3d forums…