As far as I’m concerned, this video is absolute genius. Of course, I might be a bit partial due to the fact that I’m totally in love with the new Girl Talk album — but that’s really beside the point.
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Vern Fonk
I find that one word sums these commercials up better than anything else: Shipoopi!
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Planning A Jailbreak
Now that it’s a given that I’m buying a 3G iPhone, I need to figure out how to use a jailbroken first gen iPhone to pull traffic data for my TomTom One. It might take a little work tho as Google’s not turning up any solid results.
Anyone on the LazyWeb have any ideas?
P.S. It might be a wise idea to buy .Mac at Amazon (for $69.99) in the next few days if you don’t already have it. That way, when MobileMe replaces .Mac you’ll have saved $30 on your first year of service.
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Bad Gas
It’s gas prices like these (spotted last night on the corner of Cahuenga and Franklin in Hollywood) that make me really glad that I take the Red Line to work.
It should be noted that I filled up on Monday in northernmost Orange County for $4.13 for regular — so this station is likely gouging a bit due to its proximity to the freeway and tourist spots — but that doesn’t really matter. This sign feels like a fairly decent indicator of what’s to come.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it looks like it’s time to go price out a bicycle…
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Embrace The Dork Side
Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know.
Sarah Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot -
Rebel Without A Pause
Dear iTunes,
Just because I have a habit of deleting podcasts from my library before I sync my phone doesn’t mean that I’m not listening to them anymore. So please don’t go and stop updating their feeds for me. I hate having to manually tell you that I want to keep listening to the shows that I love. I understand that you’re trying to be helpful and everything, but it’d be best if you’d just cut it the fuck out.
Love,
Jason -
Four Square
BarCamp + Four Square = EPIC WIN!Seriously, watching everyone revert to 4th grade was totally awesome. People dove for the ball to keep from getting out and were actually ignoring the Xbox 360 to wait in line and play.It was so much fun that I’m thinking we ought to have a pick up game soon. Possibly next weekend. Were that the case, would anyone be up for that? -
It’s Oh So Quiet
There’s somebody who I care about and love a lot — and I haven’t been giving her the attention she deserves both on this blog and in other aspects of my life.
That person’s name is Sarah.
See? When was the last time I brought her up? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
Shame on me.
You know, when a relationship is fresh and new and you’re just crazy happy to even be in love? You want to sing that shit from the rooftops because it feels so good. That feeling of happiness doesn’t go away — but it does end up becoming something comfortable. It becomes so comfortable in fact, that you start taking the fact that you even have it at all for granted. The frequency of fawning blog posts drops and cameo appearances in your Flickr feed gradually slow to a near standstill as well.
Well, maybe not your Flicrk feed or blog. But that’s what’s happened with mine.
So why did that happen? It’s not like she’s gone somewhere. Hell, save for a few really rough patches where I’ve been a complete jackass, she’s been in my life all this time. And I haven’t stopped loving her or caring about her. In fact, my love for her grows every day. She’s a massive influence on my life and the decisions I make. This is something she’s aware of, but most of you have no idea about what’s going on at all.
As public a person as I am, I’ve been finding that I’m growing this tendency to want to keep parts of my life private. Mostly because the relationship I have with Sarah is just that — a private one. Then again, I could just be making excuses.
Still, I started out talking about her every chance I could get with glowing bits of praise and adoration. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I never should have stopped doing that. She still lights up my insides with an intensity that is unrivaled — and the world deserves to know that.
So everyone, say hi to Sarah again. You’ll be seeing a lot more of her around these parts.
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The Importance of Being Earnest
A few days ago Michael Arrington dropped a piece of his Silicon Valley into my LA by throwing an absolutely massive party down here. And after talking things over with friends and spending some time thinking about the events of the evening I’ve realized that they are two great tastes that don’t really taste all that great together.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It was great to get some recognition from TechCrunch‘s ringleader that LA is a viable technology player by having him throw a 1500 person event with an open bar and Perry Farrell DJ’ing. As far as I’m concerned, that was totally welcome and downright awesome. Seriously, thank you for that.
But I have a modest request to send your way, Mr. Arrington. If you ever plan on throwing one of these gigantic tech mixers here again, please go ahead and leave the drama at home. Because I don’t know how the folks up your way do things — but your actions on Thursday don’t give me a very encouraging idea of how you handle your business and personal relations. One of the things I love about Los Angeles is the fact that the events that get thrown by the locals are — for the most part, anyway — pretty unpretentious and (to borrow a line from Andrew Warner) more about community than conflict.
A little over a year back, we had an issue with some BarCampLA attendees being problematic. And we’re talking far worse than just being annoying to the event organizers. Excessive and open alcohol and drug abuse, making female attendees feel uncomfortable and badgering speakers to the point where talks turned into one way shouting matches made some attendees leery of coming again. We had a few people who were ruining the community because they couldn’t behave like adults.
Instead of banning the people outright from our events and making a scene tho, we issued a code of conduct. If you couldn’t follow it, you were asked to leave and that was that. Yeah, it’s sort of a hippie thing to do — but it worked. The rules kept a tight enough rein on the people causing problems to the point where they either stopped coming or calmed down considerably. Sure, there were folks who didn’t want the people to have the opportunity to show up at all, but excluding people is not in the spirit of BarCamp.
Of course one could argue that the TechCrunch/PopSugar party was a ticketed, private event. Still, you would think that a quick search over the Excel spreadsheet before it was printed and a few emails to let people know they’re not welcome could have spared everyone involved a bunch of unnecessary bullshit.
Anyhow, if you need any tips for throwing an event down here Mike, just let me know. Even if you don’t want to deal with the likes of me, I can put you in contact with people who can help you save a bit more face and perhaps make you come off better than you managed to the other night.
I’m not a total curmudgeon about the evening by the way. The pre-event dinner at Palms Thai (props to Mike Prasad for putting that together), the people I hung out with at the party and the two afterparties that organized themselves via Twitter were fun as hell. What’s more, they boiled themselves down to the people that make this community great. So while the main event left me a bit drunk, cranky and in need of a shower, the rest of the night left me wonderfully full of hope and optimism for what we’re cooking up here. Our potential is limitless — and we’re just getting started.
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Motivation
“Everybody keeps on talking about it, nobody’s getting it done.”
LCD Soundsystem, “Yeah (Crass Version)“*sigh* I hate being one of those new age douchebags that talk about personal mantras — but I still feel compelled to share this.
I have to confess that every time I find myself hitting a brick wall mentally or I start lacking any sort of motivation, the line above manages to find its way into my head — and always at the right time.
And as cheesy as this might end up sounding, whipping out my iPod and giving the track a quick listen actually ends up pushing me forward. At that very second I want to be the person who stops letting the talk and bullshit cloud my mind and instead be the one who starts doing.
So that’s what I do. Well, for the most part anyway. I mean, it can never really be that simple, can it?
Still, I’ve realized the strength of this song. “Yeah” is my auditory can of spinach. It works really well at giving me short bursts of awesome, and that’s totally fine by me.
So what kicks your ass into high gear? Enquiring minds want to know.