“City life is millions of people being lonesome together.”
Henry David Thoreau
[Oh, Snap!] The Holiday Spirit
I don’t know if you can tell from my posts over the past month but I’m a sucker for bright lights and any excuse to gather my family and friends together with a ton of alcohol; okay, so maybe not a ton but you get the picture – the holidays are the perfect reason to don your seasons best and spread the joy with the people you covet and love. My mother was raised Methodist and my father had the first Bar Mitzvah in Corvallis, Oregon. But, being the fact-checking, science-loving, algorithm-solving people they are – I was more or less raised non-denominational which makes it slightly ironic that I love the holidays so much. In fact, I was raised on Native American and African folktalkes – but within the Venn diagram of religion and culture are beautiful morals and values you can pick and choose to take with you; and I’d like to think I took a lot of them.
For me, the holidays are a few things: firstly, they’re a time of travel – typically either to San Francisco or Portland, and with travel comes retrospection and introspection; secondly, they’re that time of the year where everyone smiles at strangers, holds the door for each other and just flat our exchanges pleasantries; and last but not least, they’re the perfect excuse to dress yourself, your house, your pets and your trees to the 9’s with festive flair and lavish lighting.
These are some of my favorite pictures I’ve been snapping around Los Angeles and Hollywood while I get into the holiday groove; hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
Holiday nails and a holiday drink!
Decorations at the Disney Studio Lot
Hollywood & Highland getting into the Holiday Spirit
Lights at the Farmer’s Market
More decorations on the Disney Lot
The Disney Tree
Hanukkah Nails
The Grove in Black and White thanks to the new Willow Filter
Santa getting some air above The Grove
Wednesday Watercooler: The End of The World (As We Know It)
It’s been a while since I’ve done a Weds Watercooler and not gonna lie, I’ve been missing it! Between traveling to Arkansas, going back to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving and my birthday celebrations over the past week I realized that I’ve kind of been slacking and basically sleeping on the blog. Well, no more! I’m back in action and excited for the things that 2013 will bring but first – let’s end 2012 the right way and go out with some pizzaz!
What’s Your Number?
For numerologists, and just regular number freaks like myself, today marks an incredibly monumental day: it’s 12-12-12. The number 12 is an important recurring number in human history –
12 months in the Roman calendar year, 12*2 hours in a day, 12*5 minutes in an hour and seconds in a minute; the Zodiac had 12 signs, there were 12 Gods of Olympus and the Chinese hold a 12-year time cycle called Earthly Branches. There are 12 Gods of Olympus, 12 apostles, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 Jyotirlingas in Hindu Shaivism, 12 days of Christmas, 12 cranial nerves in the human body, 12 pitch classes in an octave, 12 hues on the color wheel, etc, etc, etc….
To numerologists and the Chinese, the day represents good luck, fortune, love and fulfillment; but to me, this represents the last repeating date for several generations – in fact, the next repeating date will be on January 1st, 2101, 89 years from now. Dubbed ‘National Sound Check’ day by some and the ‘End of the World’ by others – today’s a fairly auspicious day that everyone will recognize. If you’re looking for a way to celebrate (and let’s get real, any excuse is a good excuse to celebrate), the folk’s over at Mashable have you covered.
Tweet Goes the Pope
Along with today being 12/12/12, today is also the day that Pope Benedict XVI, aka @Pontifex on Twitter, sent his first official tweet. Now, his tweets aren’t exactly the most interesting things in my opinion, but the reaction to the Pope is kind of priceless…
Kim Jong-un: The Rocket Man
North Korea says it successfully launched satellite into orbit
If all the world’s countries got together to play house, I’m fairly certain that North Korea would be one of the red headed step-children. Not to sell everyone’s “End of the World” prophecies short, North Korea decided earlier to launch a long range rocket and place a satellite in orbit. Their closest ally in the region, China, lamented about the poor decision, citing concerns in the international community – specifically from Great Britain, South Korea, the United States – and groups like the UN Security Council. The cost of the rocket launch cost are estimated around $1.3 billion dollars, however it could be even greater if the United States decides to apply sanctions to both financial institutions as well as members of the North Korean government.
Not So Misérables
Anne Hathaway inadvertently pulled a Britney at the premiere of Les Misérables the other night; after deciding that underwear just wasn’t supposed to be part of her nightly ensemble, Anne picked an awkward angle to exit her ride and oops, there goes the neighborhood.
Wish Upon a Star
First things first, us Earthlings dodged a huge bullet yesterday and I didn’t even realize it! A pair of asteroids, one three miles in diameter, were headed towards us – narrowly, and thankfully, missing. Certainly brings this whole idea of the ‘End of the World’ a little closer to home. But secondly, the Geminid Meteor Shower is going to touch down in our atmosphere on this Thursday and Friday. According to the folks over at AccuWeather, the East Coast will have the best view as some clouds and rain are set to fall on the West coast over the next few days.
Geminid Meteor Shower
The Audiofiles: Happy Tune-sday
I’m coming off of the greatest birthday weekend ever only to realize that I have mountains of work that seem to be piling up by the millisecond; well thank goodness for sites like Hypem, Soundcloud and Mixcloud for keeping me company on this uber busy day.
These are some of my favorite songs and DJ sets at the moment; one of the things I love about my collection of music is that all the DJs I love are so different and so amazing at what they do – take a listen to some cross- genre selections featuring Trance, Progressive House, Electro House, Drum & Bass and some Moombahton from the master himself – Sir Dillon Francis.
Doing it Right: Making 28 Look Good
This past weekend I celebrated my 28th birthday out in Los Angeles and Hollywood with some of my closest friends and I honestly can’t stop smiling from ear to ear when reminiscing; it was one of the best weekends of my life and hands down the best birthday celebration I’ve ever had =) Here are some of the highlights…
Friday Night – Round 1, Thirsty Crow & Los Globos
My Ladies
Saturday Night, Round 2 – Cosmic Gate + W&W at the Hollywood Palladium
Cosmic Gate
W&W
3:45 in the morning and packed as all hell…
Tech Tuesday: Alpha Beta’s and the Wonderful World of Netflix
It’s been a while since I’ve done a ‘Tech Tuesday‘ segment – but that’s because there hasn’t been a whole new lot to report. From my perspective, ever since the big Apple unveiling all has been more or less quiet in the world of beeps and bit logic – but, this week I definitely see some moving and shaking on my radar.
Alpha Beta‘s
When you breathe, sleep and eat tech, there’s nothing quite as exciting as getting to preview and help debug early renditions of applications and web clients. Back when AOL Instant Messenger was still fairly relevant, they had a portion of the webpage for their chat client devoted to Beta testing – we would get the client first, sure – there’d be some bugs here and awkward application crashes over there, but overall it was pretty neat playing around with brand spankin’ new features.
When the Facebook timeline was introduced and everyone was bitching about converting their profile, I took the exact opposite approach. Because I knew I’d be forced to use it anyways I decided to become an early adapter. When Timeline was introduced, Facebook wanted any and all willing developers to get with it and start creating new applications and widgets for the Timeline – but for them to use the API, they first had to understand it. This meant that developers were given a first pass at the timeline. Am I a Facebook developer? Definitely not! But, that’s pretty inconsequential at this point: I told Facebook that I was and that I wanted to create a new application, but I was required to produce or release a public, or final, product. The next time I opened up my user profile – babam, I was Timelined.
The Old:
vs
The New:
Currently, Firefox has a web browser sitting in Beta testing – just waiting on people like me, and maybe even you, to come by and give it a whirl before it’s rolled out to the general public. Why is it worth testing? Firefox just added Facebook messenger to their Beta test. So now, instead of being forced to keep a Facebook tab open to facilitate chat – meaning you can roam the web as you please with your posse in tow and stop liking so many cat pictures. To boot, I can finally do away with the Facebook Toolbar add-in that I’ve been so loyal to over the past year.
Disney and Netflix: Streaming Sweetly
Huge huge huge news for Disney lovers, Netflix addicts and anyone paying attention to streaming media! This morning, the Walt Disney Studios and Netflix got together and kicked out a multiyear licensing agreement granting Netflix exclusive rights to Disney’s movie library which includes catalog titles, direct to video titles and New Releases.
Typically, this content is reserved for HBO, Showtime and Starz which make this a huge deal in the studio world; marking the first time a major Hollywood movie studio granted rights to a provider of streaming content over a premium TV network. Starting on Tuesday, members can start perusing the Disney catalog titles and by the time Spring of 2013 rolls around, Netflix users will be able to watch direct-to-video releases the same day they’re released in stores. Unfortunately, some movies distributed by the Walt Disney Company are still under contract with Starz and those won’t be rolling out until 2016. This deal comes approximately two years after Netflix began streaming Disney and ABC Family TV shows within weeks of the air date.
To me, this has super interesting implications – first of all, the Disney online store is saying goodbye to the world; meaning that Netflix will be the one and only place to go if you want to stream Disney content. Secondly, with a decreased presence on Network and Cable television, it should catapult amount of monthly streaming subscribers on Netflix – a path they’re willing to walk since they’re planning on phasing out their physical DVD services.
Secondly, since Disney has a hand in the ESPN cookie jar – would this pave the way for streaming live sports content? You could even have MLB, NFL or NBA streaming packages that you can subscribe to through the ESPN website or strictly through Netflix – the possibilities are basically endless!
Quotable: ‘Tis The Season
Christmas – that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance – a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. – Augusta E. Rundel
The Bouncy Kitty 
You must be logged in to post a comment.