Nike Harnessing the Power of Social Media

This is an incredible social media campaign (tied in w/ Livestrong) that Nike is executing during the Tour de France. Check out the vid below -- and for more info read here.

Microsoft v. Google - The Green Challenge!

Very interesting piece on CNET News (http://digg.com/d1vuQj) - Microsoft is unveiling its Hohm application that helps users reduce home energy costs. This competes with Google's PowerMeter - although both are still in Beta stages. However, this really paves the road for an all out tech war over energy cost reduction applications - which can't be a bad thing! Below is a snapshot of the Hohm interface.

South Carolina Republican Party Votes to Censure Gov. Sanford!

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Something Funny

Trying a new iTunes widget

Service with a Smile?

Through a chance click on a promotional e-mail I received from Calvin Klein, I was directed to their Facebook page - where - to my surprise, the very first post on the public wall was from a very disgruntled customer discussing how she feels she was taken advantage of via some shady pricing practices. She included a link to her personal blog (here) where she includes photo evidence. It'll be very interesting to see how, if at all, CK responds to the allegations. Stay tuned!

UPDATE (7/6/09)

Interesting development since this story was posted. I noticed at the end of June that the CK had removed the customer complaint from Facebook. I checked the customer's blog page and saw that CK has responded to her and offered recompense. BUT, does that justify them removing the post from their Facebook page? Would it not build better trust with customers to keep the negative criticism posted and comment on how that customer had been recompensed? I know I would appreciate that more than being paid to basically shut my mouth. Other companies have failed in this regard (i.e. Wal-Mart and Dell) by underestimating the intelligence of social media users. I'm sure I'm not the lone person on Facebook that was following this story nor was I the only one to notice that it mysteriously disappeared from the wall posts. When I contacted the blogger she confirmed that it was not her that removed her own post. She also noted that not only was her initial wall post removed, but also a comment of hers in response to another angry customer's dismay with a controversial CK billboard in New York City. It truly is a bummer, because I like the fit of all my CK clothes.. but now the brand has been tarnished by shady practices. Hmph.

NYT Gets OWNED

AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - this is hilarious in so many ways! But - I wish that newspapers weren't in the hole so much... I was just reading in Gore Vidal's second memoir that half of Americans will never read a newspaper. HALF! It makes you wonder how many decisions are being made by the Uninformed.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
End Times
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Newt Gingrich Unedited Interview

Jumping with GLEE!!!!

4 minute preview of Fox's new musical series. VERY EXCITED! I met star Lea Michele at Mark's on La Cienega a few months ago when she was performing. She did a duet w/ BF John Lloyd Young (Jersey Boys). I'm so excited to see her work!

The End of Pre-Fab Homes?

Crazy video below of a residential development area in Southern California being leveled after the homes could not be sold and the bank that financed it all was being fined by the city for every day these incomplete homes were standing. Back in NC, I used to see these neighborhood developments all the time. Literally, and entire neighborhood would be carved out on hundreds of acres open land and roads, sewer, housing, etc. would be built before anything was actually sold! The developers were banking on the market and that if you build it, buyers will come. I guess 2009 is a different story.. ya know.. with the recession an' all.

WWJD?

Friendly Skies! (FINALLY!!)

It's about time! American Airlines has announced that it will now offer award travel for one-way trips at HALF the mileage cost of a round trip. In case you weren't savvy to travel rules, airlines charge a minimum of 25,000 miles for a coach ticket when flying in the US - whether you are flying round-trip or one-way. Maybe the other airlines will follow suit soon. On a positive note, US Airways started complimentary beverage service again!! For a while they were charging for a cup or water or apple juice!

I Heart Jon Stewart

Many pundits have been talking and talking about the fate of the Republican Party. Honestly, it's a big who cares for me as long as they aren't the majority. They'll come back eventually... It's only a matter of time before Democrats mess up like the Republicans did. Remember, we're still on Planet Earth where shit tends to happen. However, I do like Stewart's take on it all. See below!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Republicans: The Lost Party
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

I'm back! Took a little hiatus.

Sorry the lack of posts recently. I've been crazy busy wrapping up life here in LA and getting ready for the big move to North Carolina! I'm very excited to be closer to family and in a state where the budget doesn't invoke Judgment Day fears and I could actually buy a home before I'm 50. Yay North Carolina!

It Keeps You Running

Onwards from AKQA on Vimeo.

NY One Step Closer to Marriage Equality!

Governor Paterson's marriage equality bill will be reviewed by the state Assembly's Judiciary Committee on Tuesday of next week. Meanwhile on that Tuesday, gay rights group Empire State Pride Agenda is hosting its Equality & Justice Lobby Day. Let's hope the state legislature moves quickly to pass this!

Bag of Weed!!

HIGH-Larious

Teabagging America!

I know Tax Day was last week but I just got this great clip of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow discussing "Teabagging" and it's amazing how the Right is oblivious to today's definition of teabag (as a verb). Check it out below!

National Review Crazies

Apparently when a pro-choice person speaks at a Catholic university commencement a baby angel gets its wings ripped off and is thrown in a tank full of rabid sharks infected with Hepatitis - or at least Kathryn Jean Lopez would want you to think so. She's all up in arms that President Obama was asked to speak at Georgetown University:

"

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City — On Tuesday the president of the United States gave a much-anticipated economic address at Georgetown University. While speaking there, a usually impossible-to-miss “IHS” — a common monogram for Jesus Christ — was missing from its perch at the center of the auditorium stage.

Georgetown is, of course, a Catholic university, and the fact that Jesus Christ is represented prominently in the school’s much-used auditorium is no surprise. And it wouldn’t come as a shock if someone from the school — perhaps aware that a defender of infanticide was coming to speak — attempted to remove any sense that Jesus might be endorsing the president (or his Sermon on the Mount-metaphor speech).

That the president’s people might have asked the school to remove the IHS wouldn’t come as a shock either. After all, a speech on the economy is no Passover Seder at the White House, and who knows who might be offended. As it happens, the White House did request that the IHS be hidden during the president’s appearance. But Georgetown officials should have reacted immediately by asking that the speech be delivered elsewhere — anything to avoid obscuring the school’s reason for being.

"

Seriously K-Lo? Seriously? Can someone get me Chris Brown's # please? I have a job for him.

Are You Safe?

Hate Crimes happen across the country every day, but not every state includes "sexual orientation" in their hate crimes legislation. Just this month, two students at UVA were attacked in what law enforcement described as a "gay bashing." However, Virginia is one of 14 states that do not protect gays from hate crimes. The other states are: Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.

UVA story here.

Gay Republican Schism

News has hit today that the lone major gay Republican political group, the Log Cabin Republicans (the name ties to Lincoln), are splitting. Conservatives are initiating the breakaway - calling their fellow Cabin colleagues too liberal. Their new group will be called GOProud. There's been a minor yet noticeable effort on behalf of moderate Republicans to try to reel in a little bit of the gay vote - but party leaders support for anti-marriage equality ballot measures keep about 3/4 of the gay vote with Democrats. Presence is a good thing - but I don't think that having 2 gay Republican groups as opposed to 1 is going to sway the GOP much on LGBT issues.

Log Cabin Republicans

GOProud

More on the story here.

Prop 8 Ruling by 4/20?

Queerty has found a march permit submitted by Christopher Street West (the group that organizes the annual Los Angeles Pride Parade) for April 20th announcing the "Prop 8 Decision Day & Rally." Has anyone else heard about 4/20 being the Decision Day?

UNC Protest Gets Rowdy

A group of students from my Alma Mater were pepper sprayed during a protest of a speech being given by a former Colorado congressman who opposes in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants.

This can be a bit of a tricky situation. One one side, you could argue that giving in-state tuition benefits to illegals is wrong because they are not contributing taxes to the state university system. However, this is not always true. If illegals are paid under the table with cash - then yes, they are not paying taxes into the system. But, many illegals are paid through payroll and receive W2 forms at the end of each tax year. The catch? They provided false social security numbers when they submitted their W4 tax forms at the start of employment. What does all of this mean? It means that the Federal and State taxes taken out of their paycheck stay with the government and are not refunded - because an illegal immigrant can't file a return with a false social security number. This actually accounts for several billion tax dollars annually to the Federal government that it doesn't have to refund. Now it's easy to see one reason why immigration reform is moving at a snail's pace..

Hell No! We Won't Go!

Do you feel like paying taxes on songs you purchase from iTunes or Amazon.com? What about an e-book or any other online purchase like direct-to-download software? To date, the internet has been a relatively tax-free zone - but that could change very soon. Many states are already implementing new tax laws to bring in government revenue from internet purchases - from music to ringtones! It seems a bit hypocritical that government touts its desires to make America a broadband nation but then tax the hell out of us - it's the equivalent of having toll booths on your neighborhood streets.

More on this story here.

Wii!!!!!!!

For all you Wii fans out there - a date has been set for the release of the Motion Plus - June 8. This is an attachment (only $20) that connects to the bottom of your current Wii nunchuck to improve the accuracy of your movements when playing. This new addition coincides with the release of the Wii Sports sequel: Wii Sports Resort! I'm very curious to see how much the tennis game changes - we used to play it in the office at Untitled all the time - I should call over to see if anyone is ready for a Wii-match!

I Dreamed a Dream

Yes - I'm sure everyone has already seen this clip of Susan Boyle.. but a lot of YouTube links have the embedding disabled for some reason. Here's a recap as it appeared on CNN.com.

Pirates Attack AGAIN!

What the hell!!

Freakin Somali pirates don't know when to stop! After the US Navy heroically took down 3 pirates holding a US Captain hostage they decide to attack another US cargo ship -- luckily they were not able to get on board.



CNN has the story here.

Did Somebody Say "Baby?"

This still hasn't gotten old!! Instant Classic!

Helloooooo Marcus Buckingham!

I would quit my job just to get this guy to help me find a new one!

Sugar/Azucar

I had a chance to catch a screening of this movie that Ryan Gosling hosted at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. This is the type of movie I call a slow burner.. much like Brokeback Mountain (although I won't say this movie is better by any means) - but it does tell a very interesting story of a Dominican immigrant who is recruited to minor league baseball in the United States. It avoids all the typical pitfalls of many contemporary movies with sensationalism and melodrama and just tells a story. A.O. Scott of the New York Times gives his two cents.

More about the Amazon.com Snafu

Amazon.com decided it wanted to get rid of user ratings for adult materials. This was because when someone wanted to see a list of items categorized by user ratings ranks - many of the adult items were rated very high and would find their way into the lists of online shoppers not looking for XXX media. However, when Amazon stripped the ratings from those books, it also happened to strip the ratings from all LGBT publications - adult or not. The titles included in this are D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and James Baldwins' Giovanni's Room. This is detrimental to sales of those publications and the online community is wondering why this happened and if there was prejudicial play involved. I tend to think it was a programming mistake in the website coding but who knows! After all - Lady Chatterley got the ax but Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds did not. Hmmmmmmm.......

Story from the NY Daily News here.

Bullycide - A Serious Problem

This kind of behavior often goes unchecked by school administrators and teachers in areas where LGBT people have little or no voice. No excuse.

ABC News reports on it here. Heartbreaking.

Amazon says gay-books listing snafu was an error, not a hack

Amazon says gay-books listing snafu was an error, not a hack

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MMM... Apple Pie!

Yay! This is a great day folks! I hosted a small dinner party w/ some college friends that are here in the LA area. Two of them have food blogs and my dear friend Chrystal posted my pie and recipe on her food blog she writes with another Tar Heel alum, Amir Thomas. Check out the comments on her post!! :-) *Click on the pie to see the blog*

Amen, Brother!

Some words of reason:

Are you on the list?

Oh to be a gay liberal Catholic in the age of Pope Benedict XVI. Not only does his papacy disapprove of the UN resolution that would effectively call for a ban of the criminalization of homosexuality worldwide, or that he also believes that condoms are not a part of the solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa, but he ALSO says that the greatest liberating invention for the modern day woman is..... drum roll.... the electric washing machine!! Screw the Pill, you can do 100x more loads a day with this puppy!


Well today the Vatican said, in an unsurprising announcement, that President Obama's suggestion of Caroline Kennedy to be the US Envoy to the Holy City would not be accepted. Man! Obama just can't get a break with his nominations!

*Ahem*.... How much?

Matt Asay chimes in on his thoughts of what the big tech mergers of 2009 will be:

"

ZDNet's Jason Hiner suggests "Seven big tech acquisitions to watch for in 2009," and each of them looks highly plausible (Oracle to buy Salesforce.com? You bet), though I think a few are mismatched.

First off, Hiner points to a tie-up between EMC and Dell. That feels about right, except that I have heard that ink is still being spilled over a Cisco acquisition of EMC.

Of course, with how active Cisco has been lately on the acquisition front, it's now far too easy to assume Cisco will buy just about everyone. Even so, I think Cisco is a more likely suitor for Red Hat's hand than IBM, which is Hiner's guess. As part of Cisco's grand design to do...just about everything, it's going to want more expertise in the underlying operating system powering it all: Linux.

Such a move would arguably make a big impact on the enterprise computing space, whereas Hiner's assumption that "Microsoft needs to make a bold move in the mobile space" (true) and hence will buy Palm, almost made me break into uncontrollable laughter. Palm? A bold move? Sure, a decade ago.

Hiner calls out some cogent arguments for Microsoft acquiring Palm's technology, but neither Palm nor Microsoft really has a mobile technology problem: they have marketing problems, and a marriage of equal (duds) isn't going to change that.

The merger on Hiner's list I'd like to see most? Apple buying Adobe. Both companies make beautiful products. It would be awesome to see what they could build together.

"

Full article here.

Princess Toadstool to go XXX?

CNET News blogger Don Reisinger takes on not just the abundance of nudity in video games - but it's sexist nature! Frankly, I'm perfectly content not seeing Mario or Luigi in their birthday suits.

"

Last week, I wrote about The Godfather II game, which features topless women. I argued that the nudity was unnecessary and gratuitous.

After reading through the story, some readers debated whether in-game nudity objectifies women. Both sides make a compelling argument.

One reader, "CrimsonCantab", said "female nudity...is unneeded and degrading to women. Pornography is shown to have many negative side effects, like reduced fidelity in marriage. There's already too much of it on the Internet, and I find it harder and harder to be a gamer when games are headed in the same direction."

"Renegade Knight," on the other hand, wrote that "the problem isn't the nudity so much as the reaction to it. Clearly, it's a problem for some people."

"Infinitely" responded that "(Don) made a good point that (the game) is using (the female body) to sell copies of a game. That alone should be a reason to decry it. There's nothing wrong with nudity, but this is objectification of women. You don't see any nude guys in video games, do you?"

The latest in the Grand Theft Auto series, Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned, shows a man fully nude. That said, the majority of games with nudity show only women nude (here's a full list).

DarkerRaul wrote in the comments that, "While I don't necessarily agree that nudity in any form is pornography, I do think that the context of the scene is pornographic, if the player 'was greeted by a woman offering me sexual favors.' That is disgusting and offensive," the commenter wrote. "And while female nudity does not degrade women, this scene certainly would degrade women, whether the character was nude or not."

Is it, then, the game's actions rather than the mere nudity that objectifies women? One reader, "raywkirk," sees no harm in at least the former.

"What a bunch of prudes! And, what about men? You never hear anything about men being degraded by nudity," he wrote. "In Britain, it's not unusual to see topless women on bus posters and television. What is the harm in it? I don't get it."

"
Full story here.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun?

Out and Proud Rachel Maddow had a hilarious clip on her MSNBC show about a new acronym that Anti-Marriage Equality folks have adopted - "2M4M" - which is supposed to stand for: "2 Million 4 Marriage." Yeah.....notsomuch. Check it out:

Mom Comes to Los Angeles!

Since I'm playing catch up - I'm a little late sharing this. My wonderful mother came to visit me last week from Wednesday to Sunday and it was an absolute blast! We dined and drank in a variety of places: The Abbey, Pink Taco, Eleven, Nobu, Pizzeria Mozza (delicious! get the Bianca pizza!), Eleven (mom took a photo with a gorgeous server), Lilly's French Cafe, and the bar at the new SLS Hotel. As usual when anyone visits, shopping was high on the priority list and mom returned to her favorite store on Robertson Blvd - LF. We also made a quick stop into D&G where she took a step on the wild side with a pair of tangerine slingbacks -- however, the D&G tripped was not perfection: I tipped over my green tea latte I had precariously sat on the back of a sofa - and coated a pile of shoes in day-glo green liquid. The staffers said it was their first spill! Hey - someone had to pop the D&G cherry.

Maiden Voyage

Hi all! I'm trying out the blogosphere for posting news and opinions since so many people have followed all my link postings on Facebook. I think a blog forum may be a more practical way to do it - and, it'll spare those Facebook friends who don't want to see articles posted every five minutes. So - here we go!

Joey