February 14, 2010

  • My recent Status Updates, Texts, and General Thoughts

    - Re-watched "(500) Days Of Summer." Still holds up as one of my most favorite films of 2009. Love it's take on relationships.

    - http://twitpic.com/1342e7 - hehe, not planning to see this movie, but hehe...

    - Came back from Vet. My brown dog's ear infection is officially gone. Yay!

    - My dogs, looking for the squirrel - http://tinyurl.com/ycvwn6g - ......There He Is! - http://tinyurl.com/ycy8p46 -

    - Warner retreats from free music streaming - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8507885.stm - That's Bull$#!^ Warner Music!

    - Final Fantasy XIII themed XBOX360 that comes with FFXIII, a 250GB HDD, and 2 controllers for $399? Sweet deal - http://tinyurl.com/yhxuute

    - NPD: U.S. January Retail Video Game Sales Sink 13 Percent - http://bit.ly/aPm69Q - (via @gamasutra)

    - I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm actually really loving Susan Boyle's album "I Dreamed A Dream." Fantastic vocals!

    - I think it's simply hot and sexy when a girl is able to play the guitar. Rocking out on Rock Band / Guitar Hero is fine too. =)

    - Kevin Smith & Scott Mosier have an entertainingly hilarious discussion about "Avatar" - http://www.smodcast.com/smodcast/smodcast105.php

    - What did I just see in the sky over Orange County? A falling meteorite? A crashing UFO? Dunno.

    - If you are familiar with the movie "Flashdance," you should find the humor in this video - http://tinyurl.com/ygce2qz - luv it

February 12, 2010

February 11, 2010

  • When social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter made "status updates" a regular thing on the internet, there was a fear that this will decrease the general need to blog. The thinking behind that is "why bother writing a full blog, when you can just micro-blog?" The obvious response to that is that you can say and do a lot more on a regular blog, than with 140 characters on Twitter. However there is a certain convenience to just saying a little bit of what you want to say, than spending the time to elaborate on your thoughts. The idea behind status updates is to just spread out what you are thinking, but not necessarily have to explain it right away. "Micro-blogging" indeed.

    I'm afraid I'm kinda falling under that trap. I seem to have embraced status updates, as I've been been blogging considerably less than I used to, despite my weekly "random links" and "blogthings / what I'm listening to" posts. I've even started posting a blog, listing my status updates from twitter/facebook, which feels ironic to do. I've blamed time being a factor that's been eating at me, with all the things I do (or want to do) on my regular day to day life, and spending the time on my blog has suffered. It's just been too tempting to take advantage of the alternative option of spending less time by just micro-blogging my thoughts on Twitter/Facebook. However I'd like to say that I'm still completely on board with this blog, but the frequency of my entrees are probably going to be a little bit irregular.

February 10, 2010

  • Marketing is a huge deal for movies, and a good chunk of that goes to showing the trailer for it. Seeing a movie trailer is the primary marketing tool that helps movie goers decide on whether they want to see a movie or not. What if the trailer fails to get people to want to see the movie? Can a movie rely on just actor / director guest appearances on talk shows, or promotional tie-ins to increase support?

    One thing I've noticed recently is that when a movie is Rated-R, the marketing team just goes back to the trailer once again, and re-release it as a red band trailer and see how that goes. Although red band trailers have always been around, usually I would have to hunt it down somewhere on the internet just to see it. Nowadays though, it seems that marketing is now a little more open in releasing these trailers online. I suppose it makes sense to show a trailer with an increase in sex or violence, if the movie in question takes advantage of sex or violence. May as well show what you are really marketing right? The worst thing that could happen is that they get the same results with the red band trailer that they got with the green band trailer, nobody still wants to see the movie.

    There are three upcoming movies that are perfect examples of what I'm talking about. "Kick-Ass," "Cop Out," and "She's Out Of My League." They released green band trailers first, but only seemed to have gotten a mild response from the audience, but later was able to increase anticipation for the movies via the red band trailers. In my case, I wanted to see "Kick Ass" because of what they showed at Comic-Con, and I'm seeing "Cop Out" because of Kevin Smith, so the green band trailers never really mattered to me (although it apparently did for others). The initial green band trailers for those two movies however really weren't that great, so I was glad that the red band trailers fixed it's problem. In the case of "She's Out Of My League," I wasn't going to see that movie at all, but I am now after seeing the red band trailer.

    I admit that reactions to red band trailers may vary among people, and I'm basing it mostly on the comments I'm reading from other people on the internet. It's still a limited audience who gets to see the red band trailers, despite the easy availability of them on the web. In the end, the first weekend box office numbers will determine whether this strategy was in any way successful, and it's going to be hard to say whether the red band trailers made any influence at all as it's still vague at how influential internet marketing can be.

    - links for the trailers below -

    "Kick Ass" trailer : Green Band / Red Band
    "Cop Out" trailer : Green Band / Red Band
    "She's Out Of My League" trailer : Green Band / Red Band

    Other Red Band trailers can be seen at http://www.trailerspy.com/categories/19/Red-Band

February 9, 2010

February 8, 2010

February 7, 2010

February 6, 2010

  • My recent Status Updates, Texts, and General Thoughts

    - The Kevin & Bean show talk about Sports Superstitions. Just in time for the Super Bowl - http://tinyurl.com/yk2ulvw - (audio)

    - "The Swell Season" just played "Low Rising" on The Late Show with David Letterman. It was excellent. Makes me smile.

    - Another reason for me to not be too happy about the rain. Apparently it gave my brown dog an ear infection in both ears.

    - Cop Out - Red Band Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPkykvSWwX8 - MUCH better trailer

    - From Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, to Ke$ha, dance heavy pop music is going strong. It's like the '90s pop sound all over again.

    - Die Antwoord - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q77YBmtd2Rw#t=0m36s - As hypnotizing to watch as that is... WTF?!

    - OH Hell YES! Megadeth's "Rust In Peace" album hits Rock Band DLC store - http://tinyurl.com/ybzauap

    - Sonic The Hedgehog finally gets back to it's 2D roots - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6tgj6Zxp3w - I did like Sonic Adventure though

    - About movie theater seat-saving, and what makes a classic film - http://slashfilm.com/filmcast/?p=219 - excellent discussion

    - saw the Red Band trailer for "She's Out of My League," and I think I actually want to watch this movie now - http://bit.ly/b7GzLp

    - Congrats to James Cameron's Avatar! Now No. 1 on both the all-time domestic and international box-office charts - http://tinyurl.com/ygavsa9

    - Came home from work 3 hours ago. Watched 3 hours of LOST. Now it's 156 hours away from the next episode. BEST FRIGGIN SHOW ON TV!

    - quite a list of best picture Oscar nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards - http://oscar.go.com/ - Avatar is likely to win though

    - http://twitpic.com/10ri4f - Is that a real or fake cake?

    - First time at the "Hsi Lai Temple." Kinda like being in those Kung Fu Shaolin temple movies. ^_^ no offense... Oh look, "Dharma."

    - "Avatar" fans, check this video out if you haven't already - http://movies.apple.com/movies/fox/avatar/avatar-fte1_720p.mov

February 5, 2010

February 4, 2010

  • So for some reason, my personal e-mail address got put on some spam list. I have another e-mail account that I use specifically for online related stuff (spam e-mail), so can't say how this happened. Although it looks like I'm getting this spam from multiple e-mail addresses that look like regular users, I'm pretty sure it's all from one single source. This isn't even a spam that has an "unsubscribe" option either, but then those things only give you even more spam anyway. I marked the messages as spam on my yahoo account, however I also added e-mail filters to the source addresses. In fact, it's becoming a small collectible thing for me now, where I keep adding addresses to the filter. So if you have any e-mail addresses that includes one of these listed below... sorry, but I'm not going to be receiving your mail anymore...

    @hotmail.com
    @live.ru
    @windowslive.com
    @preservela.com
    @live.com
    @hey-lisa.com

    yes, hotmail.com is a pretty significant address to get filtered, but who really uses that e-mail client nowadays?