Mandarin Oriental in Miami
Melinda and I spent last weekend in Miami for our one year anniversary. Stayed at the Mandarin Oriental, on Briskell Key near downtown. In retrospect, definitely should have stayed on South Beach. The MO was an awesome place just not close enough to the beach or shopping or restaurants, etc.
The hotel did have this video playing on its internal channel. On the first night upon arriving back to the room, the housekeeping staff had this playing on the flat screen and over the Bose stereo. It not only sounded terrific but it looks amazing. I guess it’s supposed to be some kind of dream sequence.
Whatever, they did a fabulous job of shooting and editing this.
Record video views in July
NY Times on Sunday had this article:
New Record: US Internet Users Watched 21.4 Billion Videos in July
July turned out to be the biggest month for watching Internet video yet. According to comScore, Internet users in the US watched 21.4 billion videos in July, up 88% from last year. Google’s YouTube streamed 9 billion of these videos, followed by video sites from Viacom and Microsoft. In terms of unique users, YouTube only gets twice as many visitors as Microsoft’s video sites. On YouTube, however, people watched an average of 74 videos in July, while they only watched around 10 videos on Microsoft’s sites and 19 on Viacom’s online video properties.
Carrie Underwood donates to Checotah schools
Carrie Underwood announced over $100,000 in donated musical instruments to Checotah schools this morning. It’s a partnership between her C.A.T.S. foundation and the Academy of Country Music’s Lifting LIves campaign.
The organization is known as Checotah Animal, Town, and School Foundation, or C.A.T.S. Foundation. Established this year, the C.A.T.S. Foundation will help with general causes, needs, and services in the area of Checotah to directly impact the community. Private resources will fund the assistance.
And she granted interviews afterwards, see above.
While in town, Underwood belted out a tune with one of the youngsters from Checotah. And this is hardly breaking news – she can really, really sing. Impressive that she didn’t hold back on a Friday morning at Checotah High Schoo, she belted out the song full force.
Graham Colton comes home
He’s toured with Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer. He’s had a hit song. Done the network nightshow tour with Letterman.
Graham Colton sat down recently to talk about creativity and what that means to him. Colton admits he had the Friday Night Lights experience at Heritage Hall. And learned a lot while on tour with some of today’s biggest acts. But now he’s home, has released a new EP and is ready for what comes next.
We taped this segment at Blackwater Studios in Norman. Great guys there, great studio. The segment is the first in our Open Dialogue series in partnership with Creative Oklahoma, Inc. Learn more about the series at stateofcreativity.com
Taking away people’s smiles
The Oklahoman’s Aaron Crespo, who does an outstanding job covering the cop beat and other assignments within the newsroom, recently spent a week with medical missionaries – and his dad – in Guatemala.
Crespo posted daily updates to his blog. He included great quotes, from working with a dentist who would remove kids’ front teeth, to uploading photos of the locals and scenery. Crespo also shot video.
We included that video with my interview with Crespo.
Is it me or does Crespo also look a bit like Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock?
Anyway, read Crespo’s blog. It’s a completely different perspective on life and how rough some people have it. And watch the video as Crespo describes what he remembers from his summer journey.
Hendrix set from 40 years ago
It’s been 40 years since Woodstock, back in the summer of ‘69. Google Video has Jimi Hendrix’ classic performance, nearly the entire set.
The Oklahoman’s Gene Triplett has a local angle for this weekend, talking to Oklahomans who remember the concert or were there.
We captured comments in the OPUBCO Studios this week from two people who were there.
District 9, the trailer
District 9 opens this week. It’s getting great buzz and reviews. The above District 9 trailer can be found, like all of your movie trailers, on Wimgo.com.
Here’s The Oklahoman’s George Lang’s review. More from Lang at his StaticBlog.
After reading more about this movie, I discovered it’s based on “Alive in Joburg.” Here’s more from newteevee.tv:
But if you still aren’t sure if it’s for you, skip watching the trailer — instead, check out the 2005 short film it’s based on: Alive in Joburg, directed by District 9 helmer Neill Blomkamp (who also directed Tempbot, and was going to direct the now-on-hold Halo feature film). Alive is District 9 writ small, a documentary-style look at what would have happened if, in 1990, Johannesburg, South Africa’s apartheid system was complicated by the arrival of some truly illegal aliens.
See the six minute documentary below, from Google Video.
Do You Know OU?
I taped three segments with OU women’s basketball star Whitney Hand this morning. The Oklahoman and NewsOK are sponsoring the segments that will play on the big screen during football games at Gaylord Memorial Stadium.
The “Do You Know OU?” segments will be about 60 seconds in running time and feature facts about OU that you may or may not know.
I met the Learfield Sports/Sooner Sports Properties crew at the Sam Noble Museum early this morning. Whitney and I first taped a segment in front of the Pentaceratops (glad Whitney got that line and not me). First taping took only 15 minutes so I only saw the dino portion of the museum. Looked pretty cool. They had to turn off the dino roars in the background for our taping.
From there we went to the stadium and the training room, which is below the stadium. After a wardrobe change, the crew had me in the Hydroworx, an oversized, fancy hot tub with a treadmill in the bottom. Whitney explained the benefits of this machine and how it helps athletes recover from injuries.
And then we marched onto the field to tape a segment on the Pride of Oklahoma. I wore a too-small jacket from the band, Whitney had on a hat.
Big props to the Learfield/Sooner Sports crew. They had their act together and were great to work with. All three tapings were wrapped up in about 90 minutes. Whitney did an amazing job of nailing her lines every time. She should think about broadcasting as a future after hoops. She’d be a natural.
Rick Bayless advances to Top Chef Masters finals
I’ve watched Top Chef since season two. Not afraid to admit that. The production quality is quick and entertaining. The chefs themselves are usually interesting. I like that Top Chef keeps the focus on the food and the dramas between the chefs in the kitchen – instead of the bedroom like a lot of reality shows.
Top Chef Masters to me isn’t quite as entertaining, but Rick Bayless has been fun to watch. Bayless is an OKC native who specializes in Mexican cooking and is a big dog with two restaurants in Chicago.
Wednesday night, Bayless advanced to the Top Chef Masters finals which will be August 19 on Bravo at 9:15 pm.
I did a debrief with The Oklahoman’s Food Editor Dave Cathey, aka The Food Dude, aka @thefooddood. Cathey says the “Vegas favorite” would be Hubert Keller, a French chef.
Our friend Ryan Parrott, owner and chef at Iguana Grill in downtown OKC, will host a watch party on Wednesday. We are planning some live coverage and video from the scene. Cathey says Bayless has agreed to call in after the show.
Now on YouTube, Local News
Interesting read in today’s NY Times.
With its ability to collect articles and sell advertisements against them, Google has already become a huge force in the news business — and the scourge of many newspapers. Now its subsidiary YouTube wants to do the same thing to local television.
