The Brilliance!

First off man…I had a crazy weekend. Yowzers. Shout to smashed bottles, silly-snaps, and trying to get kicked out of spots. So this perfect hat…if you read this site you know we don’t get real wild over a lot of the street/niche culture products. But I saw this hat on Heron Preston’s site a while back…and had to have one. I just got mine form the UPS dude today. The whole design is so wild, unbelievably well-executed, story-telling, and intricate…el perfecto. I, not being from SF, didn’t know what the whole ‘Tenderloin’ district was…but now that I do…its that much more thorough.. Huge shout to Huf and Hanni (talent!) on this one. And how could I forget Cherrie on this one?! Snap…big shout to SF Cherrie for the hook-up on this…dinner on me, it’s nothing! That’s enough shout outs…

This video is KILLING me. So funny, the ending…ha…I didn’t know what ESPO looked like (he looks a lot like Christopher Reid from House Party. haha…) but I know I love his work so if you are in NYC you should get to his book signing - December 22nd from 5:30-7PM (that is, if you can make it there without the help of the NYC public transportation…). Start applying your feet to the concrete and head on over to Hester street. ESPO’s book is only 15 dollas and 2 popped collars. Nothing more to admit, nothing counterfeit, all legit. Ha…We love A-Ron and aNYthing and ESPO. Wish I was in NYC for this. Get to it. ‘That’s not fair! I try to do my part here and you’re yelling at me like that!” YEAH!

What a year. What. A. Year. For me personally, 2005 was the best year of my life. Work came in steadily, I made my first public speaking appearance in September at Semi-Permanent in NYC which went really well, I met a lot of the people I’ve worked with and previously only knew via phone and email, and of course, Ben and I started The Trill Brill. The Brilliance. It’s been about 8 or 9 months since The Brilliance started back in March and it’s been a hell of a lot of fun. Unfortuately, we have to say goodbye to The Brilliance now - me and Ben are just too busy to continue it. I’m just kidding of course. We got a lot of free stuff in the mail this past year, met a lot of great people as a result of this site, took an incredible trip to Seattle to meet Alex Calderwood from Neverstop, interviewed some of the most innovative and incredible people in fashion, art, and design…I don’t know what else to say - it’s been a great year and we hope 2006 will be even better. We’ll have more interviews, more posts, more talking about cell phones and white shoes and awesome bathroom fixtures and NYC real estate and money and hurricanes and maybe we’ll poke fun at Bape a little more. Anyways, this was just a random thoughts post from me because I’m too busy at the moment to look around for something more specific to post. So on behalf of both me and Benjamin, Merry Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukah, X-Mas, New Years, Sweetest Day, Haloween, my birthday, teacher appreciation day, MLK day, take your daughter to work day, and black history month. Yessur!!!

This is the second post I have made that has a jelly-fish as the picture. So my man Curtis sends over this link for me to check, you know, just to drop me something new…I’ll be honest, he was right, just the website alone is pretty impressive for a hotel. And as you can see by our site design, I’m not really into Flash-based design. So the hotel: Rates from $335, in South Beach, said to be a ‘nod’ to the beauty/decadence of the 30’s with Parisian flavor, an on-site spa, a jelly-fish tank, and a bunch of other crazy hotel stuff… My one thing, a lot of these hotels take old spaces and focus so much on the lobby, bar, roof-top, etc…basically all the ‘common’ areas. Which is a great thing, but I think focus on the actual rooms would be money better spent. See the Mercer or Sofitel Chicago. The Hudson, for example…I mean, great hotel, really it is…but did they want a hotel or a club/bar/restaurant more than a place where people actually stay? Whatever though…Hotel Victor looks beautiful, I wouldn’t mind staying there for a weekend next time I’m in Miami. Thanks to Curtis for the link on this…

Man…Chuck said it. What. A. Year. First of all…I love to see my friends/family do their thing and come-up. Big shout to my main man Chuck Anderson and all the projects he’s involved in. I’ve known dude for a while, and he had one hell of a year…it was well deserved. Congrats homie, take some time to enjoy it. All right…enough of that! So yeah…for myself, its been a wild year… Crazy new business experiences, lots of travel (Maui!), all my friends, this whole website right here that was the base of so many good things, the whole real-estate hustle, so many good things this year…it was truly a good year man. I want to thank all the people that emailed us here with support, hate, links, and all that. All the people that sent us gear. All the people who were down for interviews with us: Alex, A-ron, Jest, Mark Hunter, Gensler, Kareem, Futura, etc…for real, you guys helped make the site happen. Special thanks, of course, to Alex from Neverstop/Ace for being so generous. Thanks to all the other blogs, magazines, sites, etc that showed us love…shout to Nat @ ASF. THE BRILLIANCE…what more can I say? Good stuff. And yeah, we plan to keep-on-keeping-on in 2006. Interviews, posts, features…all that and maybe even a few parties of some sort. Who knows?! Hmmmph!!! That’s what’s up…I’m out for a bit, no post till next week or whatever… Merry Christmas! Relax and enjoy… Frankincense and Mirrhh and all that!!! Shout out to spelling and grammar errors!!!

Updated, and fresh. This is two posts in a row giving ‘props’ to Chucky Anderson. Old dude just launched his updated site…and its quite nice. Quite a bit of his new client work is up for your previewing pleasure. And yeah buddy, he’s got a sneaker with Reebok. Jay-Z, 50 Cent, and Charles Anderson…all so similar. And just like those guys, Chuck used to sell them rocks, now he sells them glows… In fact he is the self-proclaimed outer glow champion of 2006…but he never really sold rocks. So anyway…new work, new look and feel, same coherent style that has been bit by so many college kids. What else…his new print has also launched on NP&CO, which is super good. Buy it now. Check for Chuck on the international speaking and judging circuit in 2006. Nopattern, so hawt right now.

‘You might recognize this as a tyrna-saur-ous rex egg…each one of these bitches is 4 million years old a piece!!!’ There is a chance I am late with this…cause I don’t watch tv, but this little trailer/preview thing is absolutely hilarious. Just the MTV Cribs thing is enough right there. Forget having 100 pairs of crispy air-ones, dude has his own sweat-shop in his closet. Dave Chappelle is a wild genius. I honestly can’t think of much else to type here. He has a B-grade looking Alf in a skit. I mean…what else could I type?! Check the link. If I’m late on this…then, my bad. If I’m not…then why isn’t anyone else talking about this?! ***Oh…did anybody see this?!?!

If you thought having a Blackberry/Treo got in the way of vacations…it’s getting even worse. See, for me…being connected on vaca is a good thing. It’s good for my clients too. Whatever though…anyway. So my father and I got that new Sprint EV-DO broadband card for our laptops. Pretty unbelievable. Here’s whats good…it’s a little wifi-card looking device that uses Sprint’s network to give you broadband speeds anywhere you have a cell phone signal. Including the island I’m on right now, snap! In fact, I’m using it to post this right now. So yeah…since I’m a ‘nerd’ or whatever that can’t live without the internet, this thing is like…perfect. The setup took 2 minutes and you can swap it out of any other computer with no issues. I believe Sprint has some deal making the card free when you buy the $59.99 unlimited plan. Not bad man…I pay like $40-50 for my broadband at home. Check it out though…

Yeah… Like, whoa…So I’m sure you’ve heard about this by now - the Million Dollar Homepage thing…it’s by no means new news, but how can I not post about this? Absolutely unbelievable. Long story short, this kid in the UK started this thing where you could buy pixels for $1 a piece and he had a million of them available. At first it seemed so far-fetched that it could never work. What happens within a few weeks? It’s exploding - press about it everywhere. Local, national, and international news covering this kid’s idea. And all he wanted it for was to pay for school. Now he’s rich, bitch, and all it took was a bank account, a website, a little promotion, and a brilliant idea, the latter being what amazes me the most. It’s simple ideas like this that always come out on top. This dude is now loaded and made more money in a few months selling internet real estate than the good majority of people in the world will see in their lifetime. And he didn’t stop there - no way Jose - he is auctioning the last 1,000 pixels on eBay right here. At the time of writing this, the auction is at $145,100 with 216 bids. But that’s not all - this auction doesn’t have a few hours left…it has FIVE DAYS LEFT. That means he is going to make another killing and turn this into the Million Dollar-and-change Homepage…when is the last time you heard ‘and change’ eing referred to 6 figures? Wow. Anyways, I’m impressed as you should be, because you weren’t smart enough to do this first either. So give dude his props and watch how many copycats will follow.

Sorry for the lack of posts…or maybe I’m not sorry. Either way, Chuck and myself are busy as of late. I just got back from a week long vacation in the sun…so? So yeah, that’s whats up. All of that had nothing to do with this Emergen-C stuff. Which it an amazing product. Certainly not new or anything…in fact, I’ve been a heavy fizz user for about 2 years. They seem to have the formula right, cause I don’t really see anyone else messing with them. It’s the ultimate hang-over helper…but it’s good for whenever. Great for that dried-out-after-flying feeling too. They claim it’s an energy drink…but its more like a ‘balancer’ for me. Whatever…its good. Half a glass of water and the lemon-line flavor. That’s my post.