HugAPuppy

A new season!

I'm incredibly happy to report that we have finally waved goodbye to the Summer season here in Southern California and are welcoming in the chill of Fall.  Well, the chill that is typical in Southern California...  Nonetheless, Fall is here!  It went from being 90 degrees in Burbank last week to a low, chilly 67 degrees today, and I could not be happier.  I've been aching to stock up on the latest Fall sweaters but let's be honest... who wants to shop for sweaters in 90 degree weather?  Not me!  Well, I am now vowing to begin a small, modest, yet fabulous shopping spree to take me into the Fall & Winter seasons feeling toasty warm.

Now that Fall is here, I can tell you that I'm super excited to see the holiday seasons approach.  Vince and I celebrated our 1st anniversary last month and we're heading to Hawaii in two weeks.  We're going to spend 10 days in Maui.  It seems a bit odd to be thriving cold weather and then once it arrives, heading off into the warm sunset of Maui, but hey - I'm not complaining.  I've already booked a sailing trip on an America's cup yacht, a Whale watch and an evening at a Luau.  I'll be booking our snorkel trip today but I'm also thinking about booking some time on a golf course.  Maui has beautiful courses and I'm aching for some outdoor activity.  Do I golf?  No.  We went to Carmel a few months ago and I'm kicking myself for not golfing at Pebble Beach while we were there.  If you have any course suggestions for Maui, email me and let me know.  I'd love to get info from those in the know.  

In the meantime, I'm back after a long warm summer.  I'll be blogging regularly.  Now, off to take my prenatal vitamins like a good girl.  Happy Monday!

SXSW 2008

Having a running nosed, sniffly day.  Thought I'd post about my recent trip to Austin to the SXSW Interactive Festival.

This was one of the most eye-opening, educational conferences I've ever been a part of.  I attended many panels that discussed current technology topics that are relevant to my everyday work life.  My favorite panel was called "What kids want online and on their phones".  The moderator was from YPulse and the panel consisted of about 7 kids, age rangs 12-17.  It was incredibly eye-opening to hear them talk about everything from what they do online, what they hate to see online, what types of cellphones they have, what they do on those cellphones and what websites they like to visit.  I'll post a link to that podcast as soon as they put it up on the sxsw website.

I also spent quite a bit of time in panels covering the topic of ARGs.  I'm really fascinated by the growing popularity of ARGs and these panels helped me understand what an ARG consists of and how to build a great ARG.

One of the best keynotes @ SXSW was with Frank Warren, creator of the Post Secret.  He was incredibly moving, so well-spoken and informative.  You can find his project here:  PostSecret  You can also find the 1 minute video opening on YouTube:  PostSecret SXSW Opening Video.  Do yourself a favor and see this man speak when you can...
Hopefully SXSW posts a fully video of the conference panel.  If they do, I will post it here.

Here are some other panels that I found interesting.  (.mp3 format)

Respect:
How can architects, designers, writers and coders work with clients, journalists and the public to foster understanding and get their best work produced?

10 Things We've Learned @ 37signals
Join the leader of this Chicago-based company as he talks about collaboration, decisions, progress, morale, and not sweating the wrong stuff at the wrong time.

Go For IT!  Attracting Girls to Technology
This session will survey current programs encouraging computing education among girls, discuss what these programs are missing, and suggest what the techie community can do to help.

A little nap would be nice...

The weather outside is dreary and it's making me want to fall fast asleep.  I'm listening to some music on my headphones, trying desperately to do something productive at work and stay away.  I've got no reason to be tired but this weather makes me want to snuggle up in the sheets, watch a movie like "High Fidelity" and sip on some warm tea.  I'm not sure if there are any puppyhuggers out there in the world reading this but if so, I challenge you to do the same thing.  If there were room, I'd invite you over!  Then that would be more of a slumber party and I'm not feeling slumber party-eque.  Maybe next weekend...

Off to look productive...  It's an art form.  Really. 

Working My Way Back To You, Babe...

So it's been what.. a year and a half since my last post.  What did I do in that amount of time? 
Well, I don't really know where to start so I'll point out the big things and then perhaps the smaller bits will come to mind. 

For starters, I got married!  Vince and I finally took the plunge in October.  It was a beautiful wedding, celebrated with close friends and family.  I'll be adding pictures in the next couple of days.  What else, what else...  Let's see.  I started a new job @ Disney last year.  I'm working at the Walt Disney Internet Group with the Online Agency Services team.  It's a huge company, which is a big change for me.  The learning curve was insane and I was pretty much left to my own devices the first few months.  There were a lot of challenges to overcome but I'm much happier in my new home away from home.  I miss my old E! friends immensely but I still get together with them for Happy Hour.  =-)  Speaking of homes, I moved, as well!  We are now living in Burbank.  I swore I'd never move to the valley but I absolutely love it.  We live just around the corner from Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake so we can walk to loads of shops, Trader Joes and a few restaurants.  There's a great place called eight eighteen that Shawna and I pop into every now and again.

With the start of 2008, I'm bringing back the hugapuppy blog so I'll be posting all sorts of horribly boring stories here.  Up next on the slate...  I'm heading to Austin, TX in March for South by Southwest.  I'll be gone for a week but blogging on the scene.  I'm also trying to put together a trip to Mammoth at the end of March so hopefully I can blog while on the slopes!  I've also got a trip to London planned for July and a trip to Hawaii planned for Autumn.  What does all this mean for my loyal, missed, probably not there hugapuppy readers?  Good times, of course!

Until tomorrow...

xxxxxxx.

Two turntables and a microphone!

Last night's Beck concert @ The Wiltern was outstanding.  Beck’s setlist was too much to even document.  He played so many songs, loads of favorites and even a few new tunes.  "Lost Cause", "Loser", "Que' Onda Guero", "Black Tambourine", and "Girl" were just a few highlights.  A hilarious surprise to the crowd was the marionette puppets replicating the band on a mini stage just behind Beck, next to the drumer.  Each band member was represented exactly, down the the outfits they were wearing, and master puppet controllers handled them during the entire show.  They mimicked the movements of the band members almost exactly to the performance.   As always, the band did their dinner sit down set while Beck played acoustic guitar on a few songs.  Then towards the end of the sit down set, they broke into some fine rhythm playing with silverware on plates and glasses, as Beck stood next to them rocking out on his guitar.   One last enjoyable moment was just before the band came back on stage to do their final encore.  They played a puppet video of the puppet band members going out into LA that day, heading to places like Dodger Stadium, Pinks hotdogs, Silverlake and other LA favorites, while the band members, including Beck, did voiceovers.  Eventually, the puppets ended up staring at the marquee at the Wiltern that announced "BECK, June 28 & 29", walking into the Wiltern dressing rooms and then taking the stage where they then began to play a song.  It was a fantasic show with Beck and band ending the set with "E-Pro".   

Wanna Rock And Roll All Night???

While browsing the web today and drinking my tasty carmel macchiato with soy milk, I came across this little love note of information... 

KISS has opened a coffeehouse in Florida.  Yes, that's right... the band KISS, from the 70's, have opened up shop to bring caffeine desiring Floridians their daily java fix.   I figured it would be  bar before a coffeehouse...  I have to say that I'm disturbed and amused at the same time.  I'm not sure I'd want to buy coffee from a coffeehouse who's owners wear more makeup than I do but the atmosphere in there has got to rock.  I wonder if they have will have monthly contests of  "Guess this KISS song for a free coffee!".  Right now, they are only in Myrtle Beach but, I'm sure in the future, you can look for this piece of rock coffee history to make it's way to your town.  It will be sitting right next to the Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Cafe.    Thanks to KISS and their new coffeehouse, you really can "Rock And Roll All Nite"!!

KISS Coffeehouse

Busy bee returns back to the hive...

I've been extra busy this past month so I havent had much time to post.  How are you, puppyhuggers?  Are you still out there?  I started running again in the mornings and work has been really busy.  By the time I get home, I just want to relax and not think about internet things.  However, I've decided to take a few things out of my schedule to make room for posts!  What did I remove, you ask?  Well...  I have automated all of my bill payments each month so that I don't have to sit and go through each one to find out how much it is.  I get the total, it's popped into the auto bill payer and we're good to go!  How much time does this save, you ask?  Loads.  So much time that I feel as though I've added an extra day on to my life each week!  Now not only can I post but I can also post about interesting things that I see, experience, hear, smell, etc.   

Speaking of smell...  A quick puppyhugging tip of the day to all of you men who exercise at the gym in the morning:  Lay off the cologne.  Seriously.  No one needs to smell your Hugo Boss at the gym.  Yesterday morning, I was running and a regular at the gym decided to get on the machine next to me and do his regular morning 5 minute run.  A quick "Hey there" and he was off running.  I was listening to my iPod, rocking out to Muse and imagining I was a female Pete Townsend of the Who, when suddenly I was overwhelmed by the smell of cologne.  Every breath I took tasted like Hugo Boss.  Now, under normal circumstances, this would have been a good thing because it reminds me of my boyfriend.  He smells delicious.  But when I'm running... inhaling and rocking out... this is not a good thing.  My eyes started to burn and my mouth tasted horrible.  After he left, the smell dissipated and my eyes and mouth returned to normal. 

I'm pretty sure this is not what Sting had in mind when he was writing "Every Breath You Take"...

Wascally Wabbit!

Just in time for Easter, I stumbled upon this story on Yahoo today.  It seems a mystery rabbit is eating through all of the veggies gardens in Northeast London.  I swear, I think this ginormous creature's ears are larger than my slippers.  Perhaps he's just preparing for the Easter weekend in advance.  Perhaps he's just hoping to be dipped in chocolate.   Mmmmm... chocolate.  Did I mention that I got a lovely chocolate bunny from Vince's neice & nephew for Easter?  How easily distracted one can get with just the mention of chocolate....

Anywho, read the Rabbit-tale here:

Rabbit-tale

Who'll Stop The Rain?

It's raining in Los Angeles.   Guess what this means?  Yes, that's right...  Bad drivers come out to play.  Rain in Los Angeles is basically the call of the wild for bad drivers.  They drive too fast, sliding into the middle of an intersection.  They switch lanes, moving left then right then left again, to try and get ahead of all the sensible drivers.  Lisa no like.

=)  In happier news, its ONE, ONE, ONE day until I leave for London!  I'm so excited.  I had a list of things to do for tomorrow and it's kinda long but that's okay...  With each task, I'll be smiling, thinking of what's waiting for me at the arrivals gate @ Heathrow.

Stuck in my head...

I fell asleep last night listening to the adorable "Curious George" soundtrack, by Jack Johnson.  All day long, I've been singing random tunes from this soundtrack and I find myself smiling at the most inopportune times.  Like this afternoon, I was going into the little girls room at work and just humming the song "The 3 R's" when I realized that I was just standing in the restroom door with a line forming behind me.  I'm in need of serious help...  Why do I do that?  I'm always singing or humming.  Whether it's humming a few lines on a walk down the hall or singing "Gooooooood Morrrrrrrrrniiiiiiiiing" to the coffee guy, I'm in serious need of tune control.