The Brilliance!

HTTP://WWW.THEBRILLIANCE.COM

We’re really internet and we’re really back. A website about things Benjamin , Chuck , Virgil , and various friends & guests think are interesting. Little-to-no specific focus, a bit odd, speling errors, and incredibly culturally relevant.

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Random thoughts with ½ THE BRILLIANCE!

This just in: THE BRILLIANCE posts anything they want to about anything they feel like! Since there is close to nothing interesting going on today, I’ll just do a random thoughts post and maybe one of my now infamous real-estate posts. Yesssuurr.

  • It’s officially chilly weather now, which means: Illegally parking my truck out front of Starbucks while I order a Godiva hot chocolate, hoodies are the new t-shirt, no more bugs hitting my wind-shield ruining my fresh detail job, when you step out of the club after dancing to ‘Gold Digger’ you actually steam, time to figure out what shoes should replace my Stan Smiths when it snows, and finally – you can ‘just chill and rent a movie’ with that girl you’re trying to get at.

  • Is Google getting too big? They hire an average of 10 people a day now. And college isn’t always a requirement. Come on, you’re trying to tell me you can’t get a job!?

  • Chuck gets back from Mississippi pretty soon. He took a lot of pictures…it’s going to be wild. I wish I could have went.

  • I bought that Supreme shirt that says ‘someone talked!’ I think the design is so fresh. It’s the only thing from Supreme I own.

  • I sold my 1GB Shuffle on eBay for $99 and bought the Nano…it’s too nice.

  • Fiona Apple is gangster, I like quite a bit of her music.

  • I can’t decide what car to get next, but it’s narrowed down to two. No more SUV’s!! This British upkeep is terrible. I thought they were made for the jungle and the desert and all that?

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That new Volvo C70!

This is a very good look for Volvo. It seems like no one ever knew what the Volvo C70 was all about. They had no idea Volvo made a convertible that was crazy fast, and in my opinion, very well designed minus the interior. Had a very muscular stance, great wheels, it even sounded nice…and the automatic did 0-60 in like 4.5-5 seconds I believe. When I took it out for a test drive I was quite impressed, but never actually bought one. This new 2006 C70 is just nuts. It’s the coupe x convertible setup…so damn nice. I would say the design lines are ‘heavier’ in this new model which is a good look, I really like the Volvo design as of late, just good stuff. The interior is okay, it does have the cool new ‘floating’ part of the dash that was introduced in the new S40s. Crazy sound system comes stock in it as well, 910 watts!? I guess my only concern with this car, as with other drop-tops, is it too much of a girl car? Who cares…it’s fresh.

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URB’s Loose Tooth Charity Auction!

This Thursday, tomorrow, URB Magazine will be hosting a silent auction with all proceeds going to the American Red Cross for victims of both Rita and Katrina. Up for grabs are a pair of the first series Roc-a-fella Air Ones as well as (and more interesting) the first published copy of Martha Cooper’s ‘Hip-Hop Files: 1979 -1984’ a beautiful pictorial of hip-hop’s first few years. Back when they thought it was just a fad. The Air Ones along with another rare pair of shoes were donated by the NYC Flight Club (very gracious of them) and the book is signed by Martha Cooper herself…very cool. What else…Shepard Fairy is DJing the night, there are tons of give-aways from Obey, New Balance, and Royal Elastics just to name a few… More importantly, this event is helping people who really need it right now. Throw it down in Hollywood, check the link below for more info. The Cobra Snake will be there as well, and if you haven’t figured out why that is good yet, then…you’re missing something. Shout out to Joey The Intern!

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Goyard Picnic!

Goyard is doing things. Good, wild and interesting things. The latest issue of Surface magazine has a short little feature about a ‘project’ Goyard did taking all-things low-brow and making them posh. It’s all about the jux, and I’ve been saying this! Skateboards, a George Foreman Grill, a mini-bike, those parade fold out chairs, etc…all in their brilliant 3d monogram pattern. It’s pretty humors. All the makings of a picnic in the south of France…or for a corny video shoot as soon as Trina finds out Goyard is ‘for them rich people.’ Zing. I can’t say I would purchase any of this…in fact, I don’t know if it is even up for purchase. Either way, interesting and cool to look at…I wonder who the designer is behind the latest Goyard stuff? Thanks to Vinz on this one.

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Vans & Supreme!

Few things…I don’t like ‘stealing’ news, the whole something x another-thing is really old, I have massive respect for Supreme - but only own one piece from them (someone talked!)… With all that said, these are so fresh. First of all I love Vans, they are the definition of classic. I used to skate the ‘boat shoe’ ones until the ollie area was blown out and I was scraping skin on every ollie…since they were canvas it only took like 3 days to blow them out. I had the mid-top Mike Carroll’s too! But either way, this collaboration right here is so fresh. It’s also really varied, quite a few models. The stars are fresh out…the royal blue and orange ones are bananas! So check Beinghunted.com for the exclusive first-look. Much respect to Beinghunted, Vans, and Supreme. I mean…I might even switch out the Stan Smiths for a moment.

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Cocoa Island!

2 minutes by 10 mintues. They measure the island in the amount of time it takes to walk across it. Whoa. This hotel doesn’t even have a name, simply because it’s the only thing on the island. There is nothing else. No nightclubs, no shopping, no ‘bad section’, no Burger King or corner store to get 2 for $1 bag candy at…nothing. Located in the Maldives and accessible only by boat, and maybe chopper, it is one of the more secluded spots I can imagine. I’m all about islands, perfect white sand, fake-colored water, palm trees, bungalows…all that, just a perfect tiny island. I think Cocoa is a perfect example of this. The hotel itself looks quite incredible with the over-water huts you see in Fiji, well designed, and all that. $435 a night with a minimum of 7 nights making it relatively expensive, but not terrible if split between a few people…what makes these trips really expensive is the flights….long. I want to go here.

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Steve Jobs is Willy Wonka!

I love brands. I mean, whatever, there are plenty of interviews with this guy…but man, I can’t quite get enough. This man defines business. Just so you know, real quick, I don’t use Macs. Doesn’t really work for me. But I did just buy a Nano. Anyway, Steve Jobs is Willy Wonka. I said it. He is one of the worlds most creative hustlers. He has people salivating over an image…over a feeling. And that feeling is for sale at various price points. Just wild. This post wasn’t really intended to state anything new or ground breaking…I just want to give the man the shine he deserves. But who cares about shine when you’re worth $3.3 billion, you move 6 million iPods in 3 months, and have other CEOs ‘catching feelings’ over your product releases…so classic. Did you hear the Motorola CEO say something like ‘screw the iPod Nano!’ Apparently he is mad because his ROKR phone (worst name ever) is super corny and no one is buying it?! I don’t know. Steve Jobs is Willy Wonka…and shout out to the cute girls working at my local Apple Store. Check this interview. ***I mean, how was I supposed to follow-up Chuck’s last post? I wish I was there with you, for real homie.

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Steve Jobs is Willy Wonka!

I’m leaving for Mississippi in about 1 hour. Biloxi to be exact. I’m going there with a group of 16 other people from my church to help with hurricane relief and we’ll be gone for about a week. I don’t want to talk too much about this but I need to post it because I really want to ask everyone reading this to keep my group in your thoughts and prayers, along with everybody else still involved in recovery, evacuating, and general involvement with the whole mess. The organization we are working with is Samaritan’s Purse. Anyways…you won’t be seeing anything from me in the next week, you’ll have to put up with more hip-hop posts from Ben and listen to him talk about cell phones…but, shouldn’t be too bad…Ha. Kidding Benz0rtron. Going to be an intense trip..to say the least. Have a good week…enjoy Ben’s posts…

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Google BlogSearch!!

I won’t lie. I like to read things about myself. After I spoke in New York a few weeks ago at SemiPermanent, I came home and spent a lot of time looking for reviews of the event and the speakers, hoping to find good writeups on my own. Especially since it was my first time public speaking. I don’t think you can blame me for that though, you know? I just wanted to see what people thought. I found some things here and there, mostly on the news sites, but what I really wanted was to know what people who attended it thought. The crowd. My fans…Ha…kidding. But I didn’t know how to really find that. All the blogs have weak search tools if you ask me, and a few days later I found this Google BlogSearch. I think it’s pretty new but if it’s not, so what. It’s fresh…Google is good. And great. Good and great. So anyways, this is a really powerful search that lets you search, specifically, people’s personal blogs. Want to see if someone is whining about how big of an ass you are because you dumped their friend and now it’s on their Livejournal? Google makes that possible. Need to know if somebody thinks your portfolio website is good or if it looks like absolute steaming hot garbage? Google BlogSearch. Yes, these are the best reasons I can think of for Google BlogSearch. But whatever. Check it out.

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Jay-Z: Fade To Black, old news!!

On some messageboard, some bonehead was making fun of how and what we post, and said something about how we post old news. Well you know what? I thought, so? THE BRILLIANCE loves old news! It’s our new tagline. Not really, but still. Everyone wants the newest news but I say, it’s OK to review or talk about something that happened or was news a while ago. This isn’t even that old, but if I didn’t put this disclaimer in, fools would say “That dude is NOT up on the freshest news.” So anyways, now that I’ve taken up half the post with my rant…I just watched the Jay-Z “Fade to Black” DVD for the first time the other night. And I really ‘got it’. I really understood after watching it why Jay is the powerhouse artist and executive that he is. The people there had the same passion for him and his music that people back in the 60’s had for the Beatles. Screaming and obsessing, happy and honored to be there…It was the same thing, only for the hip-hop world. I just found it really inspiring and wanted to post about it. If you haven’t seen it, at least go rent it and check it out. It’s so cool to see behind-the-scenes stuff, ESPECIALLY stuff like Timbaland, Pharrell, and Kanye showing Jay their beats for the first time. I told Ben it’s like these producers show up with a big bag of tricks and go through them one by one until Jay was like ‘that’s it man. That’s it.’ The inspiration though is what got through to me. The time, consistency, determination, effort, and passion it took to get from Marcy to Madison Square should be influential to anybody who is trying to be successful and get their name out there - not just in music and rap, but anything creative. THE BRILLIANCE. We love old news.