Crash Blossoms Another Too Damn Funny Story from the New York Times

Another story you must read.  Unfortunately no hot women or chocolate this time. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31FOB-onlanguage-t.html

When Chocolate and Chakras Collide

This is a terrific article from today's New York Times about the intersection of food and yoga.  I wish I could directly post it here but instead you have to click HERE  Don't you just love this picture?  Two of my favorite things, a beautiful woman and chocolate cake!

That's Not What "Friends" Are For.

Last night a Facebook friend (in the real world the sister of a friend of a friend) had a major problem with her computer, somehow it had been infected with a virus and kept popping up porn sites, wouldn't allow her to type and prevented her from downloading antivirus software.  Not an uncommon problem.  So this being 2010 and all she decides to reach out to her Facebook friends (via her roommates computer) for help.
Instead of helping her this is some of the responses she got:

• "Get a Mac"
• "don't worry we'll teach it a lesson tomorrow."
• "Try hacking the pixels. If that doesn't work, jpeg your vectors until you have all of your internets cross-platforming. If all else fails, well you may have to force-boot your gigahertz."
• "i can think of a few witty and unappropriate answers, but in light of the fact that you are my friend's sister, I will just say "no" lol"  Isn't that nice he's laughing out loud at her problem!
• "well, it that 40yr old man knew about computers, all would be well!"
• "haha. speachless.
  I NEED AN ADULT"
• "what have you been doing young lady!"
• "Nicole you really gotta stop looking at that german fetish porn in your down time. It really isn't good for you and now it's affecting your livelihood."

If you were driving down the street and saw a friend (or at the very least the sister of a friend of a friend)standing beside her broken down Chevy and asking for help would you yell "You should have bought a Toyota"?  No you wouldn't, why is all right to berate and ridicule someone just because you're sitting at home in front of the computer in your boxers eating Doritos?

Sorry went a little nuts there with the links. Now I did make a joke about her brother but that was after suggesting she download some great free antivirus software AVG Free.  I use it works great, doesn't slow down your computer and did I mention it's free!

Now I can keep ranting and raving about what huge pricks people can be when they're hiding behind their computer screens. But why bother assholes are assholes right?  I also notice that most if not all of these nasty mean-spirited comments come from men.  Please some dude explain to me, even if it's a snarky comment, why you write such thing.  But I doubt they will because while these guys may be jerks what they truly are is cowards.
But let me add people were trying to be helpful especially Arthur Gadsby.  What's interesting about Arthur is that I didn't meet him through Nicole, I met him through my friend Thesy.  I guess it's true what they say LA is the worlds biggest small town.

While Everyone Has Been Concentrating on Jay and Conan...

David Letterman has had some wonderful music on his show.  I'm not the world's biggest music person, I love music but it it isn't as important to me as it is to most of the people I know.  I hadn't even heard of most of these musicians pre-Dave and now through the miracle of imbedtation here are some of the wonderful artists he's had on lately .  But before I do that let me too my own horn a bit.  I had complained on the "Late Show" comment page that I couldn't embed videos on my blog and now lo and behold all of a sudden you can now embed videos.  Not that I'm saying Dave changed his policy after reading my comment, no actually I will say that!  You have to watch a commercial first but hell that's how I make a living!  Now on to the music in no particular order:
Julian Casablancas







The Heavy  (make sure and check out the encore with Dave!)





Matt Morris



Findlay Brown

Upending The Avatar Zeitgeist

     So I finally saw "Avatar" on Wednesday in IMAX 3D Experience

 at the AMC Century City 15 theaters.  Well the first thing I'll tell you is boy this thing is still doing some boffo box office!  I went to a Wednesday afternoon show and still had to sit in the back and to the side, order tickets online first.  This my first time seeing one of the newer 3D movies.  Most of them before had been animated and I tend not to be a big fan of big screen cartoons with a few exceptions of course.  Science Fiction also doesn't tend to be my favorite genre as well but I really had to see what all the hubbub was about.  As you may have read in my last post if not go back and read it now, I'll wait. Okay great you're back.  I'm really trying to save money these days so instead of using the ticket kiosks I went to the box office and asked "Please don't laugh at me, but does my SAG card get me into the IMAX Avatar?".  SAG members can see some movies for free because we vote for the SAG Awards.  She didn't laugh but did say no.  So I payed $14.50 for my last row third from the corner seat, which actually was fine.  Wednesday is free popcorn day with your AMC MovieWatcher card; now I've written about movie popcorn before so I asked for a drink instead and they said yes.  I thanked the clerk for saving me all those calories and then noticed I had another free popcorn ticket I thought for about 5 seconds and then got a small popcorn.  Actually a movie, popcorn and a drink for $14.50 ain't too bad!

     An interesting thing about that scenario.  After blasting movie popcorn I said to the concession stand clerk that I would only eat the top part of the popcorn, which we all know is the best part anyway.  I went to the bathroom in the middle of the movie and announced to her that I put the rest of it under my seat.  What I need to realize is that people who I've never met before don't know I used to be a fat guy, she probably though to herself "What's this guy worrying about, he's not fat?".

     Anyway back to "Avatar".  Okay first off I do like the modern 3D systems and I really want to see "Alice in Wonderland" and the Hubble documentary.  I've always been a big fan of Tim Burton and NASA as well.  I've even liked some and I mean some of James Cameron's work ("Aliens" and "The Terminator" especially) but "Avatar" even in 3D left me flat.  Frankly you know what, I've seen this story before and done much better.  It looks like he just dusted off an old cowboys and Indians script and made every one blue.  I don't go to a movie for effects, I enjoy stories and performance.  Poor Sigourney Weaver how she must have cringed uttering such inane dialogue.  Jim Cameron can do better, in "Aliens" Sigourney's character Ripley had a back story, especially in the director's cut, you knew who she was, see it if you haven't already.

    So basically no I didn't like "Avatar" but it looked cool and I guess that's enough.  You would think the liberal union pinko in me would be happy that so many crew members made a living off this movie but most of the real work, the effects work, was done in New Zealand so I don't see how it helps your basic Hollywood working stiff like myself much at all. 

     At the end though when the evil colonel jumps out in his big old robot suit and goes after Navi I really, really wanted to yell "Get away from her you bitch!" which is from the end of "Aliens" the worlds first action chick flick.

Money's Too Tight to Mention

I've taken a HUGE hit financially in the past few years, who hasn't?  I'm making much less money than I used to and I lost both my SAG health insurance and ran out of COBRA and because I used to be fat and unhealthy I'm now on a obscenely expensive HIPPA plan, it's the only plan that will give me guaranteed coverage. 

So these days I'm trying to limit my purchases to food and basic household items (shampoo, detergent, toothpaste, that kind of stuff).  In "The Biz" we call this stuff expendables.  Basically nothing that is consumed.  I did have to buy clothes this year my best advice on where to buy clothing (men's at least) is Macy's.  You'll need to spend some time and dig around in the bargain racks but I found some incredible buys there this year.

If you want to save money on food it can be done but again it will take extra time and extra trips.  First place to check is your mail box on Tuesday.  Grab the supermarkets circulars, no don't throw them out, look at them!  Look for products you normally buy and see what's on sale and where.  I'm kinda of a snob when it comes to meat but otherwise I find the quality of produce about the same at all the big supermarket chains.  The only chains I think have better meat and produce are Gelson's, Whole Foods and Bristol Farms.  Trader Joes' meat is better but not necessarily their produce.

Next make a list of what you need and who has it at the best prices.  The iTunes store even has free shopping list apps, I use them all the time, they're real easy to use and you can't forget your list.  Your next step is to check your Sunday paper's coupons, yes you need to clip coupons!  If you don't want to buy a Sunday paper, you really should though, sometimes they'll throw coupons and flyers at your door on Sunday.  If you didn't get them steal your neighbors.

But Alex, paper newspaper coupons, that's so like 20th Century!  Well now you have a 21st Century choice, online coupons.  There are two kinds, the first kind you print yourself at home and take to the store.  The other kind loads automatically onto your shopper's cards.  There are different sites but Coupon Mom has all of them in one place, except for Red Plum.

But Alex, I'll look like a dork at the market carrying coupons, what if I see a pretty girl?!  Well any woman who looks down on you for using coupons is not the kind of person you want to be with.  Sorry my mother's spirit just took over the keyboard for a second.

But Alex I don't want a shoppers card, I don't want the government to know what I'm buying! Boy you sure complain a lot and take off that foil hat, nobody cares how many Oreos you buy, that's between you and your waistline.

Now only clip coupons for things you normally buy and are on sale, this is no time to get your guard down.  Companies give you coupons to make you spend more, not less.  If something you use a lot is on sale and it's not perishable, stock up.  Stick to your list and do your best to get out of the door fast.  I find the longer I'm in the market I'm more likely to let me guard down.

Yes this is a lot of work and you may not have the time but if you can, you can save a huge amount of money and beat them at their own game!

JUST REMEMBER BUY WHAT YOU NEED, NOT WHAT YOU WANT.  STOCK UP IF IT'S ON SALE AND DON'T PAY FULL PRICE, IF YOU CAN.

Sorry I went a little crazy with the links, who knew there was this much Oreo stuff on Amazon

Can’t We All Just Get Along…For Free???!!!

As a matter of fact yes we can.  I know I said it was far too boring to write anything more about my iPhone but there is one feature I don’t hear people talking about, I only stumbled on it myself. Three of the biggest companies on the web, Apple, Google & yes even Microsoft working together have made my life much much easier.

“Alex, how do they do that?” you might say.  What they have done for me is my personal computer Holy Grail.  One problem I’ve had ever since owning more than one high tech communications device is been how to keep them all in sync.  I would find myself checking one devices address book to see if I had the same contacts for the same person, delete an email on one thing but need it later on another, hooking that thing with this cable to another thing that doesn’t work with the first things codec or transistors of whatever and it was all a major pain in the ass.  Yes you can buy sync programs or subscribe to service like mobileme from Apple but there are a couple of big problems with those services.  First sometimes they don’t work and oh yeah before I forget THEY COST MONEY!!!  I’m an American gosh darn it and I don’t want to pay for nothing!!!

But low and behold I have found a system that works almost perfectly and is 100% no buts about it, free of charge.  “How do I get this Alex?” again you might ask.  Well first off you need to sign up with Gmail and download the Google Pack of software.  If you already use a Gmail email address you’re just about done, if not or you have many different addresses like myself import your other emails into Gmail, it’s really quite easy these days.  Then import your contacts as well if they’re not already there.  Here’s a good hint when exporting and importing contacts.  After exporting open a new spread in Google Docs and open the .CSV file.  Make sure everything looks right and the top row where it says stuff like last name, first name, etc. looks right, sometimes I’ve seen it come out as gobbledygook, just retype so it looks right.  It’s all easier then it sounds.  The go here and do all that stuff and that’s it!  When you open an email on your phone, it shows open on your computer, when you update a contact; it updates the contact on the phone.  All without hooking up nothing to nothing, all done automatically, almost instantly and absolutely undoubtedly free of charge.  The only thing you should do is every so often go to all mail on your iPhone when in a WiFi area and let it download all your messages.  Probably more than anything this is definitely “Cool Stuff Alex Likes”!!!

AT&T or is it at&t, they spell it both ways

Yes I said it, I'm very happy with my AT&T service.  It works great in my home, I even dumped my landline, see my previous blog post.  Along with the cult of Apple, there also seems to be the cult of Verizon Wireless.  I really have no idea why.  I had Verizon Wireless for about a week last year (I'd explain why but I'd be breaking my New Year's resolution). I was very unhappy with their service, it worked quite poorly in my home and I hated that I had to punch in a code every time I wanted to get my voice mail.  There's more information I could give, but it's kinda boring, anyway, I'm standing up for AT&T!  There I said it!

iBored With Talking About my iPhone But Some Good Information

I was going to write about how I use my iPhone and all that stuff but that's just too darn boring and unoriginal.  But there's one thing I do want to share with my readers all over the world (hey a guy can dream, right?).  Times are tough, people I know are selling their homes who I would never think would ever have to do anything like that.  I've been hit quite hard but luckily my expenses are small.  I'm single, have a very small mortgage and Lean Cuisines are going for under two bucks these days.  So I knew if I was going to buy an iPhone and pay for the service I was going to have to cut back somewhere else.  I noticed with taxes and fees I was paying over $60.00 a month for landline phone service and $40.00 for cell service.  Not only that it was also a real pain in the butt dealing with two phone numbers, people calling me on my cell when I was upstairs, people trying to text me on my home phone, etc.  So I decided to ditch the landline.  Because of number portability I thought this might be an easy thing to do.  It wasn't but it was worth it for a good story.  I called AT&T and told them I wanted to switch my Verizon landline number to my AT&T cell phone.  The agent said this was not possible, I said "are you sure" and he said "I'm positive, but let me check".  First important lesson, never take no for an answer, because I was able to "port" my home number to my cell phone and it only took me one week and eleven phone calls to AT&T and Verizon to make it so. I'm now paying about $67.00 a month for both Iphone service and my calling plan.  Why so little?  Because as a member of SAG I'm eligible for the AFL-CIO discount. I also got a DVD of "Up In The Air" yesterday, is that cool or what? If you are a member of a AFL-CIO affiliated labor union, just go into an AT&T Company Store and ask to sign up for the discount.

But now here was my problem, what happens when my cell phone rings upstairs while I'm downstairs or vise-versa?  My aunt carries her phone around with her when she walks around her homes but I knew that wasn't going to work for me.  I had heard there were phone systems that used wireless handsets that could Bluetooth to your cell phone, systems like this:

But upon reading about systems like this on Amazon their customers gave me a better idea, this little contraption called an XLink:

Here's mine:

From Blog Pictures

I already have a wireless system like this one:

And I didn't want to have to buy a whole new phone system, so I figured why not!  I'm quite happy with it, it solved my entire home phone connectivity problem, it's not perfect, but these days more than good enough is good enough for me.  One important thing you must do when after an Xlink is you must hook it up to your computer, download the Xlink program and update the firmware, don't worry it's easier than it sounds!  After that you don't need to leave it hooked up to your computer, just connect it up every few months.  It cost me about $330.00 including tax for the phone and $80.00 for the XLink so it's gonna take take me a little over a year to even things out, but thing are much much easier now.

iCult

Oh no you aren't another one of them core devotees of Our Lady of Jobs aka The Apple Corporation, you say?  Actually no, I think the Macs are overpriced & really much more computer than most people need.  Most people use their computers to get email, social networking & browsing the internet.  More and more applications are in "the cloud", not even residing on your computer.  PC's cost about half as much as comparable Macs, even less if you get a Netbook and you almost never hear this statement "not supported for PC's".

There is however one big exception, if you're going to be doing heavy duty photo and video editing Mac's are the way to go especially a big honking fancy one like this:

Or even a little more affordable one like this:

While I'm not a huge fan of Mac's I am head over heels in love with my iPhone.

I went to my Aunt and Uncle's for the 4th this year (yes the same ones I went to for Christmas) and there were three generations of Warrens, Campbell's and St.Amours and various friends all clutching their iPhones with feverish intensity tap tapping away on it's little screen.  They ranged from my Aunt Joanne who is, well let's put it this way she has a 24 year old grandson, all the way down to little Trevor who I think is around nine.  At the time he only had an iPod Touch.

But since then he's graduated to a hand me down iPhone.   I watched them all with great envy and realized now is the time to act.  I always like to have a business reason for a large purchase like that and now technology has come to the point where I can no longer say "I have to go home to check my email".  So the day after I got home I headed over to The Apple Store in Century City to pick up my new phone.  Things didn't start off too well.  I registered at the iPhone website and was told to head to the store and find a red shirted employee (I'm not sure of the color), so I headed to the store, found the correct shirted iDrone and told him I was here to get my pre-ordered phone.  He then told me he find someone to help me and to wait off in this roped off area.  Well if the iDude couldn't help me why was iTold to see him?  After that though, my wait was short, it was working by the time I walked out of the store and all has been wonderful since.

iHave never owned anything this hi tech that was this easy to use.  I had no trouble setting it up and using it immediately, it didn't even come with a dead battery!  iWas able to download my address book very easily but iHad been collating my address book beforehand which helped.  iDownloaded  every crazy app. iCould find (ended up deleting a lot of them) and I'm just amazed that 90% of what I do on my computer iCan do on my iPhone.  Except things like write blogs, little too difficult with that tiny keyboard.  iCan't think of much more to say about the phone itself now, in my next posts I'm going to get into some technical stuff, but not too technical. Here's a picture of my baby:

  

From Blog Pictures

Booze

Anyone who knows me will be shocked by this blog post title. Drinking is not a pursuit that would normally fall under the heading “Cool Stuff Alex Likes”. But now as the triad of holidays is over, all three holidays consisted of me being a bit of a tippler. Luckily Christmas Eve was the only night I over-imbibed, but my trusty soon to be nephew in law drove me back to the beach cottage where I spent the nativity. I am a bit worried though; I don’t need any more bad habits. Luckily I can’t think of any drinking holidays for a while (MLK Day?). I guess the next is Valentine’s Day but I usually spend it with my head in the oven, Sylvia Plath style, and it’s hard to tip back a glass in there. I do have to careful of my brother; he pushes hooch like a suspended frat brother trying to get a freshman coed to drop her pink thong. But I think any “adult beverages” I like must be pretty good so here’s my holiday bar tab:

1. Thanksgiving started out at my brother & sister in law’s but I didn’t drink there because I knew I was heading to Malibu after their early dinner, late lunch (linner?). After that first meal I soberly drove to Malibu to a beautiful house of a man whose name I don’t remember. His parents are French so not only was the food wonderful, there was wonderful wine as well. I’m no oenophilist, but every so often I find a wine I quite like. I don’t remember the producer but I do seem to prefer a Pinot Noir. I probably first heard of this variety in the movie “Sideways”. I think that’s how my aversion to Merlot started. BTW that woman I keep talking about, she loved Merlot, maybe that’s what went wrong. Oh right I keep forgetting she didn’t love me! Okay first New Year’s resolution, stop thinking about her! Whoops already broke it! All right enough of the whine back to the wine. I can’t explain why I liked it I just did. Luckily by the time I got to Malibu there wasn’t too much left. I had two glasses and that was plenty because it was a long way back to LA & the LA County Sheriff’s Department patrols PCH like a paparazzo hunting Broad Beach. Just Ask Mel!

Here’s a shot of me and my friend Leslie Bega that night:

2. Christmas Eve a bunch of my family went a very nice restaurant in Del Mar California called “Pamplemousse Grille”. My aunt and uncle eat there a lot & use them for catering & there was a good size group of us so that sat us in a private room next to the wine cellar or overflow room. As we were sitting down I went in the cellar room to look around, pulling out bottles and looking at the labels like I had any idea what they meant. After I left the waiter locked the door. I guess we weren’t that good customers. Anyway my aunt orders a Cabernet Sauvignon which is also not one of my favorites. Everyone else (over 21) starts ordering Margaritas so I figure what the hell, I aint driving. Well after two of those and the glass of Chianti I had with my uncle back at the house I was pretty well snookered (I know, I’m a major league lightweight). However dinner was wonderful, I didn’t drive, embarrass myself and I felt great Christmas morning (little tired though). Coke Zero was my beverage of choice that night though.

3. New Year’s Eve I think I may have discovered the most wonderful alcoholic beverage ever and now I’m afraid, very afraid. There’s a very funny story about George Clooney getting Danny DeVito drunk the night before Danny had a whole day of television interviews. Here let’s let Danny explain.   Last night someone brought a bottle of this evil elixir and placed on top of my friend Thesy’s stove. Now you might think that’s a dangerous place to leave a flammable liquid but I don’t think its ever actually been used so it was probably the safest place in the house. I did bake macaroni and cheese there election night. Oh no I just broke my resolution again. Anyway one sip of Limoncello and I was hooked, I don't care if it's a summer drink, I'm from LA it's always summer here! I could have easily drank the whole bottle. The only thing stopping me was the thought of trying to drive home early New Year’s morning through Hollywood without ending up in the Wilcox Arms Hotel. Around 11:50 I found myself quite pissed (that’s in honour of you Thesy!) and knew I had had quite enough and I had to have something at midnight, so I invented a new drink, Limoncello with Diet Coke. Don’t knock it, it was damn tasty. I made it home, I plead the fifth on the details, all I’ll say is always use your navigation system in the hills and today I feel great, but tired. Here’s a picture of Thesy, Jared and I:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Think about it this way, it can’t be any worse than 2009!