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.

321 small

Ikea PS?

Shout out to Peter Williams for the info on this one. First off, I am quite a fan of Ikea. No, the quality is not very good…just how it is. But if the veneer on your black Lack table gets faded…just buy another one. It was only like $15.50 or whatever. So Ikea launches this new line/project called Ikea PS. They took 28 designers and gave them the question of ‘What if?’ and then let them run with it. I’ll be honest, some of the products are a bit confusion. Some, like the Duvhult bamboo coat/hat rack, are quite nice. So are the ‘sock pillows.’ I could see myself falling asleep on the sofa with those on then trying to jump up to answer my phone or something…like somebody tied your laces together or something. So yeah…lots of interesting materials, interesting design, interesting applications. Ikea continues to innovate and move things forward while making their product beautifully accessible to everyone. Honestly though…the website design/layout/navigation is pretty bad.

320 small

God Bless The South.com

I just finished setting this up. As some of you may know, I recently took a trip to Biloxi, Mississippi with a group of people from my church. 16 of us total went. I brought my camera along and after the first day, everyone put theirs away because I was taking so many pictures. I really wanted to document my time there because I felt it would be so important to share it all with as many people as I could, since I have a pretty good outlet through both The Brilliance and NoPattern. I just finished setting up GodBlessTheSouth.com and would love for people to check it out and see the images and descriptions. There are only 40 pictures up at the moment but there will be more to come. Please keep my church in your prayers as another group of us are headed to New Orleans next week to continue helping with hurricane relief. More pictures will follow after that trip. Please spread this link around and any other sites that might be acting as help to the damage caused by the hurricanes. It is so important to do whatever you can for the victims of these terrible tragedies. If donating $5 is all you can do, do it. If you can’t do that, keep the situation in your prayers. Thanks. Sorry for the ‘downer’...read the “Ben’s email to me” post below and get a laugh…

319 small

Fortune and Jay!

They spent ‘several weeks’ with the dude. Kind of wild. Yeah, if you’re looking for a time killer this is it, long and very in-depth article about Jay-Z as a corporate 9 to 5er. They follow him in London, NYC, Vegas and every little boardroom idiosyncrasy in-between. I post about Jay often. It’s simply because he is unbelievably on-point. Just the idea that he is at the office on a daily basis is quite mind-blowing. Here is a dude that doesn’t have to work another day in his life, doesn’t owe anybody anything, and was raised in an environment shunned by the corporate world he now controls…something to be said for all this. Good article, very articulate and non-biased towards the whole ‘he was a rapper/crack dealer before this’…which is getting old. Business is business. It makes his line ‘…Fortune 5, top 5 in the Forbes, you’ll see…’ so crazy to listen to again. And we’re still ‘only customers.’

318 small

Man…video iPod?

I just bought my Nano, come on. At least give me a couple weeks. I know this is probably on tons of forums all over the web. Whatever, Engadget has the latest as always. Looks like the 12th of this month is going to be the drop date for the new video iPod. The photo’s leaked earlier today I believe…most people thought they were fakes or whatever, but then BBC London accidentally posted something on their website like: ‘…Apple is set to unveil a new video iPod at the BBC Television Centre in London on October the 12th…’ Whoops, their bad. I wonder if they’ll get sued? If all of this nerd-hype is true a few things may happen: Videos/DVDs will never be the same, Tivo will probably go out of business (ha), my Nano will be on eBay, Steve Jobs will get even richer, Microsoft will be even saltier, Louis Vuitton will make a dope case for it, etc. Or…the whole thing will flop because no company can have a run of success like this forever. Or can they? Whatever. Check out Engadget for the latest.

316 small

Spell ‘Radar’ backwards!

Radar Magazine. I like what these guys are doing. They are no Page Six yet…but they are on their way. Few reasons why I posted this. One, I love the branding of both their magazine and their site, the white on red text. Very tabloid, but the whole vibe they have is ‘smart’ and new. Second reason why…I like insisde-scoop type stuff. I read Page Six everyday. Not for ‘juicy bits’ of gossip, more for the insight on the personal dealings of very successful (or supposedly) people. Trust me, it’s very insightful. Just the real estate dealings they talk about are worth a read. Last reason… Radar Online updates all the time! Almost like a blog format. Check their ‘Fresh Intelligence’ as well as their ‘The Wire’ section. I have only checked their magazine a few times but I don’t think they have many issues out as it is. That famous Tom Cruise cover was wild. Get familiar.

317 small

Ben’s emails to me

From: Benjamin@benjaminedgar.com
To: Nopattern@nopattern.com

Message: This guy has 137 jets, 416 houses, 16 platinum cards, 800 gold cards, 3 black cards, 2 uranium cards, 8000+ cars, he has 23 trained snipers following him wherever he is at all times - some have silent jet packs, 253 yachts, 400 jet skis, 2 space rockets that go 40,000 mph, he owns over 6000 cell phones, he changes clothes 27 times a day to stay fresh, he had bionic eyes implanted giving him the ability to see in 4 dimensions, he owns over half of the atlantic ocean which he explores using one of his 60 maybach brand submarines, he had an entire bubble city built under the ocean for vacations, he has 700 pet lemurs that each have their own driven range rover, he has a special ultra-premium gas mixed for his cars that allow them to all go over 1000 mph and sometimes fly depending on weather, steve jobs is his best friend so he has over 2 billion songs on a custom-made 400 teraflopagigabit ipod that is completely see-thru because its made out of a solid diamond, he is building a mansion on one of the rings of saturn that will have a 300 screen movie theatre in it, he has over 6000 meetings everyday managed by his 500 assistants.

315 small

Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine

Fiona Apple is gangster. I really like her music…80% of it. She is refreshing right now, truly a different artist with a talent for conveying emotion with her voice like no other artist I have listened to in a while…but then again I have 3-6 Mafia on my iPod. So yeah, her new album ‘Extraordinary Machine’ dropped today. I haven’t listened to all of it yet. I’d go with ‘O Sailor’ as my favorite right now, man, I love her voice. Weird thing, I know a bootleg of this album dropped a while back…what happened to the song ‘Red Red Red’?! The version I have is just nuts! Like some classic James Bond opening-theme song but with Fiona Apple. In fact, she’d be a great villain in a Bond movie. Anyway, get this album. Did anyone read the latest Interview Magazine where she interviewed Kanye? She was talking about College Dropout like it just came out…ha. What else, I think that’s it…oh yeah, the video for ‘Criminal’ is one of the best videos ever. THE BRILLIANCE! loves Fiona Apple.

314 small

THE BRILLIANCE gets hax0r3d!

Ring….Ring….“Ben! The site got hacked dude! It’s just this black page with some German writing on it or something weird.” That was me on the phone to Ben this afternoon after I discovered our site had been hacked, 1995
internet style. “It’s fine dude. It’s probably just your computer, it’s probably some adware thing…” “No Ben, it’s seriously got this h-,” “CHUCK. It’s working for me just fine.” Ha…So it went, and finally Ben refreshed his browser and cleared the cache and lo and behold, he saw it. Anyways, a big shout-out to the corny doofus-clan that hacked into THE BRILLIANCE today. It was pretty funny actually. One of the highlights of the life of THE BRILLIANCE to date. Just my opinion. Anyways, with Ben’s nerd skills, the site was back online within about 20 minutes and we are back on top of the internet doing our thing. Anyways, I’m back from Mississippi. It went really well, helping with hurricane stuff and all. I’m sure you’ll be seeing some more about it from me real soon. But this post is more about H@CK3R$ than anything else. Oh you mischevious hacker and your tomfoolery.

313 small

Alife Vancouver!

A really incredible brand. I have stated before how I love the ‘quietness’ of this brand. It’s difficult to be a ‘quiet’ brand and still bring in revenue enough to stay in business…Alife seems to be doing an excellent job at this. As well pushing the whole niche/street culture thing to new levels by smashing incredible design aesthetics in their retail spaces, their clothing, and the whole image they convey…very focused. I still can’t get over the Piranha tank thing in their NYC location. So yeah, new Vancouver location is open, it has a similar design to the NYC location and similar products as well. Let me say this…from like a high level, it’s like Alife is the Marc Jacobs of our niche scene/culture. I feel that way. Check the link below for some more pics, shout out to Kevin.

312 small

McLaughlin Anderson Villas!

Get ready to waste an obnoxious amount of time on this site. It’s so unbelievably well put-together. The pictures, the write-ups, the pricing thing, all of it. But besides that… Yo, am I in the wrong business?! These guys just buy beautiful houses in the most exotic settings and rent them for affordable but still very profitable rates. I’m assuming one week’s worth of renting covers the entire monthly business expenses of owning and administration. Blah, blah, blah…they are nuts and all I would do is put the extended version of ‘Big Pimpin’ on repeat, do sloppy flips into the pool wearing a terry-cloth robe with a half full bottle of Moet in my hand. Think I wouldn’t!? Hopefully there would be a big ‘party scene’ happening as well…it would be kind of weird doing all that by yourself. This post had very little information about the actual villas. So? Check the link and waste all sorts of time scrolling through. Did I post this before?