It seems like Youtube is not only the domain of the average kid with a camcorder anymore, now celebrities are getting in on it big time with their own brand of viral videos.
And why not? It’s free and takes on a life of its own, word of mouth advertising is the best form.
Case in point is todays Hump Day Video demonstrating the ACDC’s (Adam/Chu Dance Crew) self-proclaimed Biggest Online Dance Battle against Miley Cyrus and Mandy Jiroux (M&M Cru).
This video features a lot of celebrity cameos, most notably Adam Sandler and Lindsay Lohan, as well as some of the USA’s best dancers.
Here’s a little bit of the history from their site:
April 10, 2008
Jon M. Chu and Adam Sevani challenge Miley and Mandy to “The Biggest Online Dance Battle in YouTube history”. The rules are…there are NO rules. both crews are allowed to do whatever they want, however they want. Jon and Adam name their crew the ACDC (Adam/Chu Dance Crew). They release their first battle video.
April 15 2008
Miley and Mandy respond with a giant video to Madonna and Justin Timberlake’s song, “4 Minutes”. In 24 hours their video gets OVER A MILLION hits and become an instant YouTube classic. It gets posted on Perez, Access Hollywood, Yahoo News, Ellen etc. They even recruit one of Step Up’s own to be in their video (Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan).
April 28, 2008
Adam and Chu release a teaser for their response to the Miley and Mandy video. It sets a date and time for the release of their next installment, “April 30th 9pm PST.” Buzz grows.
April 30, 2008
There is an ONLINE frenzy on the ChuPictures youtube page where the fans have gathered for the live release of the battle video. Chu’s youtube triples it’s views in twenty minutes before the video has even been uploaded. Technical difficulties lead to the delay of the video release for 1 hour. Frenzy only gets bigger.
April 30, 2008 10pm
This video is released…now who knows where this story goes from here….
Here’s the latest video, let’s see what M&M Cru come up with in response.
Actually I’ve known the identity of the fifth and final Cylon for a couple of weeks now and it still seems like a surprising choice to me. Being a big fan of BSG myself I’m caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to spoilers. On one hand I really want to know the inside scoop of what’s happening and yet, on the other hand, I want things to be a surprise.
Season 4 has been so hush-hush that they’ve done a great job of keeping the mystery alive for even those of us who work on the show. I only get glimpses of things to come. Pieces of the puzzle, so-to-speak.
Now that the mid-season finale has aired we know that they have found Earth, or at least what they believe is Earth. We know that the Earth is a barren wasteland. Beyond that I don’t have a clue as to what is happening. Even if I did I wouldn’t give it away anyways
What I do know is that apparently they’ve added an hour to the final episode. I half expected BSG to end with a movie-like finale. The online rumor mill is also strongly indicating that after the end of the television series at least one BSG film (most likely a TV movie) is in the works. I can’t confirm that info but it is exciting news, both as a big BSG fan and a performer on the show.
After taking some time off to work on a new ABC television series called “Samurai Girl” I’m looking forward to working again on BSG this coming Monday. It looks like they’ve got some very big action-filled episodes in the coming weeks as well as a few days on location in Kamloops. In fact, they are looking for local extras.
Let’s hope BSG continues to throw us curve balls to keep us speculators on our toes.
And I can’t wait to see the look on peoples faces when they find out who IS the final Cylon.
Ugh. I really detest these UFC events held in London. It’s just doesn’t seem civilized to be watching fights at noon.
It also means the drinking started at noon and after polishing a bottle of wine and a jug of some vodka/fruit concoction, we were all spread eagled around the entertainment room of my friend’s place. After a feast of perogies, pakoras, spinach dip and apple cobbler it didn’t get any prettier.
The plans of going dirt biking and quading after watching the fights faded quickly as we could barely lift ourselves of the couches.
In a sad turn, Canadian Jason Day simply turtled up during Michael Bisping’s torrent of blows. To be fair, Day stepped up to fight Bisping on short notice after the original opponent was out due to an injury.
Ouch. Two in a row for Matt Hughes. Thiago Alves didn’t give Hughes any room to breath with an impressive knock-out after an endless flurry of strikes.
After the fights, I headed out to the 40th birthday party of stuntman and MMA fighter Paul Lazenby at The New Bohemian. All you fight enthusiasts may recognize Paul as the colour commentator for many MMA events, he’s known as the Joe Rogan of the now-defunct Bodog Fight.
Apparently Paul raided Steven Segal’s closet prior to arriving at the party. Nevermind the pink bag
My gift to Paul was a Xtreme Couture, Georges St. Pierre t-shirt. Gotta support our fellow Canadian fighters!
The strangest part of the night was getting pulled over in an apparent roadside drinking driving road block. Wisely, I had stopped drinking about an hour before leaving, but after consuming nine vodka/red bulls, I assumed there would be some alcohol in my system. I blew a zero. Weird. Then they took a cotton swab of my saliva as a sample for study and asked me to fill out a survey. As a reward I received a $10 gas coupon. Like I said, strange.
Captain Kelly was lucky and breezed by as I was pulled over, he owes me now. Once free from the road block we met up at the Blarneystone in Vancouver’s Gastown district. We re-enacted some scenes from the ship’s rec room with some green alcoholic beverages. And well, the rest is The End
I meant to get this post out a lot sooner but the UFC/housewarming party didn’t end until quite late and I had to be up early for work the next day. Also, had to pick up my father from the airport after work and I’m STILL cleaning the mess at my place.
I’m also on the new television series “Samurai Girl” as Yakuza boss Tasuke’s bodyguard and Sato’s henchman. I’m working on the show all this week and into next week. Busy times
We broke in my new condo by watching UFC 84 in high definition on my 50 inch widescreen. This was my first time watching UFC in hi-def and it will be hard to go back. The picture was extremely clear, which makes the blood, sweat and tears all the more real.
Machida beat Ortiz, who may be retiring from the UFC.
Jardine got whooped by Silva. Jardine was out of it for a while even after the ref stopped the fight.
And my man BJ Penn took out Sherk, who is significantly smaller now that he’s off the roids.
Great fight card with essentially three main events. All viewed in crystal clear high definition!
With the booze flowing, the stupidity increased and some silliness ensued. I only hope my new neighbors don’t hate me already.
Here’s a little video that gives you a quick tour of my new condo and some highlights of the night’s festivities. I’ll make another video showing the exterior of the building and the amenities in another post.
It appears I may have found a new hang out. Okay, so I didn’t really find it since The New Bohemian is the creation of Ivo Staiano and Paul Gibbons whom I had the pleasure of knowing from the Balthazar’s days.
When Paul and Ivo invited me to attend their grand opening I could not in good conscience decline
The New Bohemian is located in the hip and young Kitsilano area of Vancouver, better known for its beaches that are populated by yoga practicing fitness enthusiasts than its fine dining. This restaurant and lounge manages to capture the spirit of Kitsilano’s inhabitants by offering only oceanwise seafood and organic meats.
The decor is lush, with unique wall murals enhanced by warm mood lighting. The New Bohemian features a live DJ performing every Thursday to Sunday evening. Mondays and Tuesdays offer wine connoisseurs a treat with 25% off each bottle and a select food menu to pair with the the red or white of your choice.
I sampled the Organic Beef Burger with Yam Fries ($13) and the Grilled Wild Salmon Sandwich ($14). Both selections were fresh, delicious and moist, the yam fries were a tasty alternative to the average spud variety. For the grand opening, the servers were also floating around with platters containing various complimentary h’ors douerves and a chocolate fondue fountain was set up for the party.
The highlight of the evening was the live entertaining, which consisted of a bongo drummer, fire swallower and a belly dancer, performed by the stunning Arzu. Here’s a video of the main performance that took place outside the patio, the drunk, white chick that can’t dance was not part of the show. As is apparent by our heckling, we were trying to get her out of the way so that we could enjoy Arzu perform.
I’m not a fan of Apple. I am a solid supporter of all things PC. However, after this party my conviction is waning.
Microsoft decided to make their Canadian launch of the iPod beater by holding a series of parties, advertised as Six Cities, Six Bands, with their tour starting in Vancouver.
It sounded like a great concept and I was eager to participate, especially when I was told there would be free booze.
I was invited by Highroad Communications to attend the Microsoft Zune launch at a indoor skate park called The Sweatshop. As you may recall, Highroad are the good folks who invited Stephen and I up for the LG Chocolate flip phone launch, which was an Epic Success.
We all got there around 9pm, as per the invitation, but to our surprise we were the only ones there. Apparently the staff were still inside setting up. At 9:30pm, the doorman finally let us inside to . . . an empty room. Seriously. Nobody was inside except us and some of the staff. After a little searching we found the DJ and the two promo girls standing by their little Zune display stand. From first looks, the Zune seems impressive, it looks like a modified iPod. It was far too dark in there to get a clear look and the music was way too loud to properly hear the sound quality.
After Downing a couple beers (Red Stripe from Jamaica), we got bored so we headed across the street for some Chinese food. This was easily the highlight of the night and the food wasn’t even very good. Marina got a great fortune from her fortune cookie. We added “in bed” to all of our fortunes. Yes, we were that bored
After filling our tummies we headed back to a very packed Sweatshop. The crowd was very much a rockabilly-type crew and did not fit into the demographic of a Zune user. I think the marketing boys and girls at Microsoft made a boo-boo. As it turns out, only about 12 media were invited (including us) and the rest were friends of the band and the skate park who were there to get free beer.
I felt truly out of place as flannel-plaid shirts were the going style and I found out what happened to all my sister’s old jeans from the 80s . . . these dudes were wearing them. I have not seen so much moose knuckle in one room in my entire life. I hope it NEVER happens again! Check out this dude!
Overall, I can’t really blame Microsoft for throwing a crappy party. They obviously lost control of the location. Microsoft should have had at least a location manager to retain control of the party and limit the number of moochers who were there to do nothing but drink the free booze. Even companies with lots of money should be aware of how they are spending it. The Sweatshop was clearly very happy to take the money and hold their own party. There were no giveaways for any Zunes. Maybe the Sweatshop owners used them to pay for the volunteer staff?
When I went back for more booze, the two female bartenders literally were demanding tips from everybody. Very classy. I had already left them a $5 tip from my last trip and they still wanted more. It turns out the girls weren’t getting paid for their services, I left them another $5 tip in pity, but who volunteered in the first place!? Dumbasses.
Although it hasn’t been particularly busy in the film industry it is amazing how fast the time passes and you feel like there’s still so much to do.
I’ve only been working on set one or two days a week but I’ve also bought a new condo so I’m in the process of settling in and still moving over some of my belongings. I also have to get the old place repainted and carpet cleaned before I sell it.
My new condo is phenomenal, it is a large two bedroom, two bath with two patios. It has overheight ceilings and doors, stainless steel appliances, granite counters in the kitchen and marble in the washrooms. I’ve converted the second bedroom into my home office. The view from my living room is a two and a half acre manicured French garden with a large fountain. Until I sell my old place, I’m in financial limbo.
It’s also tax time in Canada, so getting all my receipts and tallying up my expenses is a task I never look forward to.
Looks like May will start to be very busy as several films and television series are starting to go to camera, rumor is many more productions are fast-tracking their shoot schedule to get as much done before the June 30th negotiating deadline in case the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) decides to strike. After suffering the three and half long Writer’s Strike, I hope another strike doesn’t happen.
Redemption. That pretty much sums up the Matt Serra versus Georges St. Pierre fight. If there was any doubt at all that GSP isn’t one of the best fighters in the UFC today, this match effectively dispelled it.
GSP came out and made an aggressive take-down in the opening seconds of round 1, he was determined to use his superior jiu-jitsu against Serra to avoid a repeat of the the stand-up disaster that led to GSP losing his title. GSP remained on top and dominated the entire match.
GSP continued the punishment on Serra with a series of devastating knees to the ribs, forcing the referee to end the fight in a TKO at 4:45 in the second round. GSP regains his UFC Welterweight Championship belt in front of his hometown Montreal crowd. This is the most successful UFC on paper ever and tickets to the event sold-out within two hours of the ticket boxes opening. Proving that Canada is truly a MMA haven.
Another exciting bout on the fight card was Rich Franklin versus Travis Lutter. Franklin was still haunted by his two definitive losses to Anderson Silva. Lutter also makes his return behind the shadow of his previous loss to Silva and his embarrassing failure to make the weight for that fight.
Franklin redeemed himself as a world-class fighter by showing his superior technical prowess. Lutter managed to engage in some impressive arm bars but Franklin showed impressive skill by turning all efforts around in his favour. Lutter soon became gassed through his earlier efforts and was finally defeated in a TKO 3:01 in the second round.
Here are the rest of the results on the fight card:
It was also my friend Justin’s birthday so we celebrated post-UFC style
Being the first ever UFC to be held on Canadian soil, I had to break out my old UFC championship belt. It’s been sitting in my storage for years. Of course I bought it but it is an authentic licensed reproduction of the real belt
How the hell does one guy make such a big mess? Oh well, the drunken birthday boy deserves to get a way with it. Happy birthday Justin!
Our final day up at Whistler for the Telus World Ski & Snowboard Festival involved us getting up far too early for our own good. the hotel would not let us have a late check out so the five of us staying in the two bedroom chalet had to scramble to pack and get ready with only one shower available.
I never got that layout, it has a full kitchen and living room, two patios, three full bathroom sinks and two toilets but the place only had one stand-up shower.
At any rate, it was nice to wake up early for once and have time to grab breakfast instead of lunch. It was also our last opportunity to take some photos before we headed back down to Vancouver. You can check out some more videos and photos over at Stephen’s, Ed’s, Michael’s and Brice’s sites. We checked out the Brave Art exhibit, that featured a lot of local and independent artists.
And who doesn’t like hot chicks playing with fire? There was also an unexpected fireworks display at the end of the Big Air competition.
