I had a better day. My four-(at least)-year-old iPod "classic" is frozen and not doing anything... won't play, won't turn off, won't switch menus, won't light up. So I've called it: time of death, 3:22pm PT. And at approximately 6:30pm I became the owner of an brand new 32GB iPod Touch! It's "the funnest iPod EVER!" In reality, it's just like my work iPhone, minus the phone and the work emails. Yay! Now I can take my iPod wherever I go and use that to feed my Facebook and Twitter addictions without being tempted to check work email when I'm not working.

June 26, 2009
I'm 98% sure I had my first celebrity (that I care about) sighting at Runyon Canyon today... Maksim Chmerkovskiy, hottie bad boy from Dancing with the Stars. Assuming it was him, he was hiking up the path as we were hiking down, was wearing all white and sunglasses, and went by too fast for me to be 100% sure it was him. But since it's been almost two months and the only "famous people" I've seen have been comedian Jeffrey Ross (also from DWTS... the one that Edyta poked in the eye) and Famke Janssen's dog, I'm going to believe it was him. :P

Oh, and in my continuing food adventures, I ate clams for the first time tonight. Tasted kinda like chicken...

June 25, 2009
What a sad and surreal day.

It started by hearing that '70s icon and original Charlie's Angel Farrah Fawcett had lost her long battle with cancer. May she rest in peace.

Then while I was sitting in an ad tactics meeting at work from 2-3, I watched Michael Jackson go from being "rushed to L.A. hospital in cardiac arrest" to being pronounced dead by TMZ.com, all on my iPhone, via Twitter feeds from CNN, People Magazine, E! Online and my friends and co-workers sitting at their desks or in front of TVs. It was totally surreal... watching news happen from official and unofficial sources via a tiny electronic device in my hand while I should have been thinking about how to help make a Back-to-School site more fun. The afternoon kind of came to a standstill after that. Some people started playing his music loudly from their cubes. Others watched live news feeds (me.. thanks CNN.com). And still others worried about how this latest LA celebrity brouhaha would affect traffic and parking later for a play at the Geffen Playhouse, right across the street from UCLA Medical Center where Michael died and crowds were gathering (hi Di.). I had my own traffic fun, trying to get to the Arclight to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (which was an hour too long, at least, and not as good as the first one). Driving down Vine Street, I suddenly noticed five or six newsvans all parked on the side of the street with their satellites up and large crowds on the sidewalk. Turns out that's where the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for the Jackson 5 is (1500 Vine Street), and that's where fans were being directed to pay their respects to Michael, because his personal star near Grauman's Chinese Theater (6840 Hollywood Blvd.) was "unavailable" due to the red carpet premiere of Bruno. Are you KIDDING me?... you might ask. No, no I'm not.

Despite all the news coverage, and all the crazy from his later years, there are three things I will always remember about Michael Jackson. One was in the fourth grade. Our P.E. class had to put on some performance for some reason I don't remember at all. What I do remember is that it was a dance routine to Rock With You. Listening to the lyrics now, it was a highly inappropriate song for fourth grade girls to be doing a dance routine to, but it was totally fun. I remember being out on the blacktop with my friends, a big boombox and a cassette tape playing over and over till we all learned our moves. I think of that every time I hear that song.

Shortly thereafter, Thriller was released. That, along with The Police's Synchronicity, were the first two "grown-up" albums I ever got. I got them both for Christmas 1983, and I've had them sitting in my giant plastic bin of LPs in the closet for years. I just pulled Thriller out and am listening to it on the record player I've refused to get rid of all these years. The record has old finger prints all over the vinyl and a few scratches, but so far, it sounds just like it used to when I played it over and over and over again throughout the '80s, dancing around my parents' living room to "Thriller" and "Beat It" and upsetting my grandma with "Billie Jean" -- that's her name and she did NOT like what that song was about at ALL ;)

The third thing gets into the crazy a bit. I'd been interning at Disney Adventures magazine close to a year when we landed the ultimate celebrity cover shoot -- Michael Jackson. Everyone was sooooooooooooooooo excited! I didn't get to go to the shoot (hello, lowly editorial intern) but I heard about it. Michael was really nice they all said, and all he wanted was to appear on the cover with Pinocchio (who dreamed of being a real boy) and to get one of our cool Disney Adventures letterman jackets, which we of course gave him. Well, flash forward a few months to when all the child molestation charges came out, and what do all the news stations show footage of Michael wearing walking through an airport with his accuser? Yep, our letterman jacket. Did I mention Disney Adventures was a KIDS magazine? Yeah, not good.

The court cases, Bubbles, Neverland, his plastic surgery, and dangling "Blanket" off a balcony have all been mentioned in news reports today. But people have mostly focused on his music, as they really should. Yeah, he was a weird guy who lived a very weird life. But that doesn't change the fact that he was an amazing talent. I'm listening to a record that I haven't touched in a good 20 years, and I still remember the words to every song. I remember where I was when I watched the MTV video premiere of the 25-minute "Thriller" mini-movie. I remember watching Michael moonwalk for the first time on that Motown TV special, and win a bunch of Grammys wearing that sparkly silver glove. Michael Jackson was the Elvis Presley of my generation, and his sudden death at such a young age was just as sad and shocking. It's still kind of hard to believe. (God help you all when someone from Bon Jovi or U2 passes away, which better not be for a very, very long time!)

Well, as if all that wasn't enough, some big happenings happened today at the digital house of mouse. Not going to go into them, but I'll just say it was a totally surreal day, all around.

June 23, 2009
Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc was voted into the NHL Hall of Fame today on the first try! WOOT! That's cuz he's awesome... you don't become the NHL's all-time top scoring left wing without being awesome, ya know :) Maybe I should go to Toronto in November... Robitaille, Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull and Brian Leetch. You don't get too many years with an induction "class" that amazing! Ahhh, the good old days...

June 22, 2009
So ever spend a lot of time on something, letting it marinate, only to realize you let it sit too long? Or maybe had the wrong ingredients all along? What about being hit with the realization that something you hoped was going to turn out one way -- even though it could easily turn out another way, which you knew all along and thought you were okay with -- is actually likely going to turn out that other way and you're really not okay with it? That's why my head hurts tonight. And I just noticed I have to be at the dentist tomorrow at 8 a.m. Good gawd, and goodnight.

June 20, 2009
Finally got to taste the infamous Kogi BBQ tonight at The Alibi Room, a cool little bar in Culver City that has a tiny kithen full of Kogi chefs. I tried the three taco combo and think I liked the short ribs taco best, although all were delish. The Korean spiced fries were also way too good and, for that reason, seriously dangerous.

June 18, 2009
Spent a fun night with Di, Daryl, James, Linda and Christie at the TV Academy for a Father's Day Salute to TV Dads. A great lineup of past and present TV dads -- Dick Van Dyke ("The Dick Van Dyke Show"), Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad" and "Malcolm in the Middle"), Dick Van Patten ("Eight is Enough"), Patrick Duffy ("Dallas" and "Step by Step"), Bill Paxton ("Big Love"), Jon Cryer ("Two and a Half Men"), Reginald VelJohnson ("Family Matters"), Michael Gross ("Family Ties") and Stephen Collins ("7th Heaven) -- were there, seated on living room easy chairs, to answer questions about their dads, getting into "the biz," and being dads in real life and/or on TV. Sadly, one of the most memorable dads, "Mr. C" (Tom Bosley from "Happy Days") was a no-show due to his wife being hospitalized. But "Mrs. C" (Marion Ross) and daughter Joanie (crazy Erin Moran, who, did I mention, is CRAZY!!!) were there and said she's doing better. Other TV moms, brothers and kids in attendance to salute the "dads" included Suzanne Somers, Charlie Sheen, Meredith Baxter, Jane Kaczmarek and Frankie Muniz. It was a very cool night... Dick Van Dyke even sang the theme song to "The Dick Van Dyke Show" at the end with his barbershop quartet. Betcha didn't even know it had words, right? If only he'd transitioned over into "Chim, Chim, Cher-ee" afterwards, I would have been in fan-geek heaven ;)

June 16, 2009
Went to a fun dinner at The Grove's Cheesecake Factory with Di and Ms. Mack. Three things I learned on this outing:

1. Ms. Mack got a new job working for a non-profit out to save the environment, and starts on Monday. Yay! Congrats :)
2. My new favorite alcoholic beverage is a Pomegranate Mojito, which consists of Mount Gay and Bacardi Superior Rums with Pomegranate and a Float of Cane Rum. Rum now = YUM! I'm kinda not into the vodka that much anymore. I think it's cuz of that drink I can't pronounce that I always get at Taco Tuesdays.
3. Lauren Conrad of "The Hills" (both of which I'm morally refusing to add a link to) wrote a book and was doing a signing at Barnes & Noble. This is disturbing on multiple levels... First off, she can spell? Who knew? Secondly, someone gave her a book deal? SERIOUSLY? I have a journalism degree and actually know rules about punctuation and sentence structure and how to ask and not ask questions to get the answers I want... I want a book deal to write about a bunch of BS too! Thirdly, there was a really long line of tween/teen socialite wannabe's lined up to get her autograph. Kids, this is NOT someone you need to spend time waiting in a line over. She's "famous" cuz she was on a bad reality show and got in a fight with the two most annoying, ignorant, STUPID people ever to walk this planet (and that's saying A LOT). Sorry for the rant, I'm just really disturbed by this... these people are our future... which means we're all gonna die.

June 10, 2009
My fellow Muppet-y co-worker sent this to me today. Pretty funny... I'll never watch 30 Rock the same way again ;)

June 7, 2009
Went on an AMAZING hike today to Sandstone Peak, which is the highest point (3,111 feet) in the Santa Monica Mountains. At the peak, we were actually looking out over Newbury Park, Camarillo and Malibu. It was crazy! Speaking of crazy, my friend Jeff and I also went "rock climbing" while we were up on the mountain... I think we counted four stupid things in total that we did that we probably shouldn't have done. But luckily we lived to tell about it, and show off in AWESOME photos! (Note: when you feel the need to give someone your car keys in the event you DIE, maybe you shouldn't do that thing you're thinking of doing ;-)

June 6, 2009
Happy Birthday Mom! I love you :)

June 4, 2009
Got my new garage door today! Love it! It opens at the push of a button now and has lovely windows so the garage isn't as dark anymore. Did I mention it has a button to open it? YAY!