brass Blog

How often can one person watch the same movie in the theaters? I watched Ocean’s 12 three times in the theater, and I don’t regret a minute of it. Unfortunately, so far I have only watched Live Free or Die Hard twice in the theater (and loved it both times), and watched Transformers once.

Having been to the theater three times in one week for the last two movies, I was able to see a certain Diet Coke commercial three times. Titled The Morning Routine, and directed by Josh Greenbaum and Raul Fernandez (students in USC’s graduate film school program), the short won this year’s Coca-Cola’s Refreshing Filmmaker’s Award (click on the “2007 Winner” link to watch the commercial). I normally prefer Cherry or Vanilla Coke, but even I wanted to try some Diet Coke after seeing that short.

Additionally, Greenbaum won mtvU’s Best Filmmaker on Campus Award at the ‘07 MTV Movie Awards, and two of his shorts played at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. If you’ve got some time, go to his website and check more of his stuff; I got a real kick out of the commercials. But don’t take my word for it. Watch for yourself (you’ll have to use the link above because I couldn’t find any of his Coke stuff on YouTube).

I saw in the news the other day that the Spice Girls are talking about having a reunion tour. As soon as I finish following The Police around on their own reunion world tour, I’ll jump on the bandwagon for Spice Power–much like these guys have:

But that Spice Girls news got me thinking. The group was formed in the mid-nineties, broke up after the turn of the century, and are now hinting at a reunion. They are a product of our demographic (in marketing terms). Just how most in our parents’ generation go nuts for reunion tours from The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, or Bob Dylan, a music group from our lifetime is now able to enjoy the same response from us. Know what that means?

We have arrived. At least in a marketing sense. The entertainment industry is revamping the bestsellers of our youth for our consumption.

Seriously though, look at the movies that are made for us. The new craze is adapting comic books to film, which is great because I’ve loved many of them. Transformers, Superman Returns, and the X-Men and Spiderman trilogies –they’re all straight out of our childhood, and like I said, I love it.

I love it so much, in fact, that I’m going to go watch the new Fantastic Four flick in celebration. You buying?

I love online techno-gadgets. Google Earth definitely comes to mind as an all-time favorite. Once it came out, I promptly used it to see my house, where my roommate stayed in Ecuador, and the places I visited in New Zealand. (I included an aerial shot of Puzzling World in Wanaka.)

That was cool until something else came along to steal my attention: Google Street View. Check out the official Google Video on this new feature too:

Basically, vehicles equipped with cameras in Denver, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, and Miami drive around and take shots of the cities to upload to Google Maps.

While some are concerned about the invasiveness (registration req.) of the new feature on Google’s website, others are more frightened about the invasion of Earth by ET and his friends. (Look close at those photos. I’m not the only one convinced that those blurry blue shapes are ET. Some people claim it’s just a reflection of the camera flash, but I guess we’ll never know).

Google, however, says that anyone could see the images shown on Google Street View by simply walking around outside. That makes sense to me, but I also understand where the concerns come from. Either way, there are already some “Best of Google Street View” sites around that you can have fun with (many of the “best” are simply odd camera flash reflections), or you can find some of them yourself on the Google Map site. I know from experience that it is kind of addicting, so don’t forget to eat or sleep or whatever you need to do–which for me is going back to work. (Good thing Google hasn’t come up with a brass Editorial Department View…)

See ya.

I’ve heard a lot lately about MMORPGs. For those of you who don’t know what those are, the acronym stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. It’s like playing Hearts online, but with millions of other players and the game is totally different. Basically, you start with a character and progress through the game’s online world. As you go, you can collect your game’s currency to buy weapons, skills, or other items which help you in your quest.

What is amazing is the fact that selling World of Warcraft’s “gold coins” (or the currencies of similar MMORPGs) online has become a lucrative business for people wanting to make some cash. Check out this New York Times article to see how it works (registration required).

As popular as this may seem, from what I’ve read, many gamers feel that paying to win is basically cheating, and that gold farming and buying your character and equipment takes away from the hours and hours other players invest into their avatars. Apparently, the game developers are also concerned about this trend, mostly because some organizations are looking at these games as investment opportunities.

This could be an interesting development to watch, especially when you think about how many people use credit/debit cards now instead of actual currency. Are we one step closer to seeing paper money go away? Remember the rumors of the penny’s production being canceled? Luckily for you all, I have a gallon jug full of coins in my closet if anyone ever needs to use a parking meter.