Oscar Blues

Oscar and Me

What, its Oscar time again? Oscar, who’s Oscar? Isn’t it just Barack and Hilary and John that are running?

Oh, the Academy Awards is it? This year, the 80th year of the annual Hollywood glamour fest, seems like no one really cares. Sure, as a member of the elite few, the number of email with details of Media Coverage Plans, Pink Champagne for the Governor’s Ball and nominations for movies with strange titles like “Old Men” and “Blood” and “Sweeny Todd” and others have recently filled my email Inbox.

But with the Hollywood writers strike, the interesting US elections and questions about whether I am going to be able to afford a new X Box 360 because of an economy that sucks, all I can say, along with many other people, in good “Gone with the Wind” (Academy Award winner 1940, Best Picture, Screenplay, Director and a slew of others), style, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” (Rhett Butler).

And with the threat of rain on Sunday late afternoon in Los Angeles (who wants to see glamorous movie actresses with messy hair and rain soaked gowns), this year’s Academy Award show looks to be a bust.

Continue reading “Oscar Blues”

YouTube Partners

When news broke out earlier today about Google finally opening the Adsense for Video vault with partners such as Revver and Blip.tv, I was ecstatic! Finally there’s a possibility that I can earn more money off of my videos. Sure both Revver and Blip, had their own ad systems, but with Revver I’ve only made $1 for 22k viewers!

I also signed up for the YouTube Partners. With YouTube as my second largest viewership audience, with 147k views. Hopefully I’ll have a better chance making money with YouTube – BUT who knows if I’ll be accepted into the program.

Oddly enough Yahoo Video is in first place for my viewer ratings with over a quarter of a million views. It’s a shame that Yahoo currently doesn’t offer a publisher ad-revenue sharing program.

It is pretty pathetic and very frustrating as a video producer that there isn’t a clear way to earn money off of these views. I’ll keep you all informed on my progress. If you’ve had more luck or have any recommendations, please write a comment.

Gears of War 2 – November 2008

Gears of War 2

The 4.5 million game is now truly becoming a series to reckon with. Badass characters, tons of gore and violence, but where’s the movie? Although we may never get the Hollywood adaptation of Gears of War, we will be receiving a sequel to the Xbox 360 exclusive game. Gears of War 2 is slated for a November 2008 release.

Watch the trailer below:

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iPod shuffle: small music player, small price

iPod shuffle shuffles its price 

 Apple have decided to lower the price of the iPod shuffle.

You can now snatch a 1GB model for $49, or if you wish part with $69 for the incoming 2GB bite-sized music player.

Good news for music fans, not so good for those that purchased a shuffle yesterday.

HD-DVD bites the dust, Blu-Ray cleans up

Blu-Ray wins the format war

It had tech-fanatics going at each other, had two major games consoles squaring up and even had Hollywood studios scratching their heads, but now the hi-def format war is over with Blu-Ray coming out on top.

The Tosh announced today they were planning to halt production, but would still give technical support to those with HD-DVD players and discs.

The result is hardly a surprise given that Warner Bros and most recently Best Buy and Wal Mart had given up on HD-DVD.

This could affect the console war too. 

Sony’s Playstation 3 is now the most affordable Blu-Ray player around, and since Blu-Ray is now the sole high-definition format- this could increase PS3 sales.  

Roll on the next tech-war.