This is Fullerton

Moving Day!

I have decided after much consideration of the page theme choices that its time to make the move to wordpress. This blog is slowly evolving into what I imagined it to be. So I’m adjusting to the new interface. Please bare with me, update your bookmark and send feedback!

http://myjeneration.wordpress.com/

I'd like to thank the Internet...

The 2009 Webby award winners have been announced! What this means for me: One more year that my genius has been overlooked in favor of 1000 favorite things. But on the upside, it means more websites for me to check out and report back on!

Can't get Enough of JJ Abrams

JJ Abrams is the new black in the geek world with Star Trek out on Friday, Lost 100th episode last week, and the guest editor of Wired this month. He was on the Colbert Report last night with more puzzles.

Zooey is the Fabric of MY Life

And finally today - because I learned how to embed videos and because I know everyone loved to stalk Zooey Deschanel as much as I do - Zooey's new Cotton commercial!

Iron Chef Microwave

I'm not a big cook. It's intimidating and too many ingredients. I prefer the pre-made stuff from people that already know the good seasonings and "pairings". My next mission is to check out Urban Fresh, a new grocery store for people like me that choose to leave the cooking to the professionals. But after making my first successful 3-step recipe for salmon, I had to admit it was kind of cool. Perfectly timed as always, Whitney Matheson posted the launch of a new Food Network website for 20-something-friendly cooking tips and recipes, Food2.com.  

Re-mix-mix-mix

Always a fan of the remix culture, this post on the Medium about the fusion of sampling and youtube caught my eye. The ThruYOU project pulls rhythm, sound, harmony, melody, and vocals from amateur youtube musicians. Here's one funky mix:

While we're checking out grassroots music magic, here is another project, Playing for Change, that brings together the dedicated international talent of street musicians across space and time. They recorded various layers of the song "Stand by me" on street corners across the globe to create this goosebump-inducing knitting of music:

And remix can't be complete without mentioning name-your-price recent release of Remix Manifesto. Director Brett Gaylor talked to Wired about the six-year project about copyright laws in music. Between my undying love for Girl Talk and the unavoidable topic of intellectual property in my New Media classes, I can't wait to sit down and watch this documentary (currently downloading). 

Texts for Last Night

"Remember that text you shouldn't have send last night? We do." is the ruthlessly relatible motto of the new site Texts from Last Night. Like FML's cooler older sibling, TFLN (too many acronyms!) is a site that lets you anonymously post the drunken text convo that result from a night of debauchery. Originating from Detroit, when I first came across the site I thought it was just another diluted dream of Oakland County rich kids to become infamously toocool. Except this one seems to have worked... I checked out the site today to see if it was still alive. Not only is it alive, it is thriving. The facebook page for the site already has 20,000 fans. This site is guilty pleasure at its worst. And damn does it feel good.

Friend Request from Obama: Accepted

The Obama Admin made another historic move to incorporate social networking applications into the relationship between the Prez and his people. The Official White House Photostream on Flickr. Some pictures are presidential and boring, but there are some candid everyday photos of just how many navy suits and red tied walk the halls of the White House everyday. And the puppy of course.

Obama also has a facebook page, youtube channel, myspace account, twitters, and probably others that I'm missing. I applaud the admin's efforts to stay connected and let people follow Obama the way we know how to; the language of social networking. We all speak it. Thanks to Obama for finally acknowledging that you should go to the people inside of the people having to come to you.

Bonnaroo + Daily Show = Love

It's that soul-searching time of the year - what festivals to go to this summer. Thanks to Justin's reviews and finding out I won't be losing my festival buddy to Fiji this summer, I am in a quandary over which to attend. I've already got my Lollapalooza tickets in hand to celebrate my sister's birthday on another hot and music-filled weekend. My next two choices are Rothbury round 2 or Bonnaroo. Doc was comparing the lineups yesterday and found two little gems hidden among the artists on the Bonnaroo list - Jimmy Fallon and Daily Show correspondents John Oliver and Rob Riggle (plus producers). Sold.

Music from Staten Island

Children's choirs may be the most fuzzy-feeling-inducing sound in this cold prickly world. I don't know why it's taken me so long to discover the kids of PS22 choir in Staten Island.  These kids are singing Coldplay, Tori Amos, and Bjork! They seem so genuinely inspired by singing in the videos. Bravo to their teacher, Mr. B, for turning music into more than just a practice in scales. You can recognize their amazing backup vocals for Passion Pit's "Reeling". I sang choir for four years and never got to sing anything cooler than Handel. I got chills when I first heard "Eye of the Tiger" on Pop Candy.

Tweet-izzle

I'm not on Twitter (I think because the media got to it before the masses, it never achieved its al-important grassroots initiative, and therefore lost the influence of college students everywhere) but I love a good culture matrix. So here is the Twitter Matrix brought to you by NY Mag, so you can distinguish the Rachel Maddows from the Snoops. 

The only tweet I'd follow would be if this Tine Fey character was really her.

Afterlife and the City

It's official. The Sex and the City cast is complete for a sequel to the supposed-to-be-final-chapter movie of the show. Chris Noth has signed on to play Big in the movie, to be released in Summer 2010. I don't know anyone that is actually excited or even surprised by this "BIG NEWS!!!" of a sequel. But does it even matter anymore? Advertisers are still going to gobble up the gold mine of committed fans that will go see the movie anyways. Its like someone coming back to life. We said our goodbyes, we were at peace with the happy endings, we had moved on. But wait! They're still alive and living in NYC! Its not a happy ending! The wounds are reopened and you must know what will happen now, for final closure. Again. 

Also - SJP and Ferris Bueller are having twins this summer from a surrogate mother. Do with this what you may.

Video killed the Radio Starlet

While I'm still in the swells of podcast love, I have a newfound level of cool for radio personalities. NY Mag did a profile on 16-year-old Keili Hamilton, the youngest radio DJ on WFMU, an indie station broadcasting to NYC and Jersey. She makes me cure my parents for letting me listen to hours of Broadway soundtracks instead of PJ Harvey when I was little.

Advertising Backlash

Commoners are finally getting smart about how to get corporate attention. $$$$. The show Chuck on NBC is being threatened with cancellation. There is a small but strong band of fans of the show that are petitioning to save the show. But instead of writing letter to the network that will never get read for fear of anthrax or revolution, fans are going to speak in the language of the corporation - advertising dollars. Subway is a major sponsor of the show with product placement sprinkled throughout episodes. On the night of the finale (tonight) fans are encouraged to buy footlong subs to let the advertisers decide if they want to pull out of this gold mine of customers.

I'm wearing it as a joke

I could watch 30 Rock a hundred times and always find some new quip buried under the plot. That's why I watched last night's episode 3 times (one for every glass of wine I poured). When Liz and Jack google "la viuda negra" to uncover Elisa's dark secret, this is the website they find. Liz: "Blue writing on green...Why??" My web design prof would have been so proud. We spend an hour of class last week looking at the world's worst websites.

Also, per the AV Club, during the montage of Tracey JORDAN'S stomach there is a clip of Tracey MORGAN flashing his stomach during a chicago news broadcast. Trying to hunt down the clip now.

And lots of special guests for the finale!

Fighter of the Night Man

I'm starting to get shaky with the lack of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in my life. But until the new season premieres (if you find the date PLEASE tell me), I came across the personal blog for one of its writers, Sonny Lee. In the absense of new episodes, this site is a great look at the inside workings (or not working) of the machine that churns out the Seinfeld-on-crack show.

Its a Mad Mad World

What are we going to tonight, Brain? The same thing we do every night Pinky - Try to take over the world!

A favorite topic of mine is trying to understand the breadth and depth of the Google infiltration of our digital lives. As part of Mad magazine's 500th issue, they give their theories on what goes on behind the primary colors of the Google offices.

At the Palm of your Hand

Somewhere between the too tiny keys of a blackberry and the 6 lb weight of a laptop, a hybrid laptop has emerged. I saw a girl on the #8 bus this morning with an 8 in mini laptop in her lap, typing away in Word. She had one of the most popular of this emerging product, the Aero Aspire One Netbook. Not only does it go easy on your shoulder at only 2.2lbs, but easy on your wallet as well. Most netbooks cost under $500. I am conversational at best at tech spec language but I believe the money savings comes from the low quality drives and screen.

Per my tech geek dad: "They're designed primarily for web browsing and email, so they have a very basic operating system, like XP or Linux, no CD drive (so you can't load software onto them except via download), a small (like 16 or 32 GB) solid state hard drive (like that used in an ipod Nano or shuffle), and a wireless network interface. You can't open a word document or spreadsheet, or anything like that, unless you're using something like Google Docs."

Doc has been researching buying one before he leaves for Fiji next month per the recommendation of lots of returning Peace Corps volunteers. They are very easy to travel with and if you run it with Linux, there is less of a chance of catching some ravaged computer virus from the South Pacific. They have a battery life of 5-6 hours, which is good if your going to be living a hut for 2 years. Most come with build in webcams so your friends and family back in the US can track the length of your dreadlocks over 2 years. Or to connect with an elementary school in the US to teach the youth about volunteering and the vastness of the world. The possibilities are endless!

Lost in the pages of Wired

Wired mag, in all its geeky glory, handed over the reins to JJ Abrams for their May issue. And yes, he is just as much of a mindf*ck in print as he is on TV as the creator of Lost. The issue is dedicated to mystery, puzzles, clues, theories, and more. Grab your magnifying glass and basset hound for this one. There is another layer to this editorial. Abrams has created a cerebral riddle hidden within the pages of the magazine. The prize is unclear, aside from true mastery of codes and patterns. Steven Bevacqua was the first to successful solve the riddle; NY Times walked through the tests that he conducted to discover this hidden website.

This issue is interactivity without the use of technology (All of the clues are within the pages, none on the Wired website). A major strain to the magazine industry has been the shift to digital. This excitement and sense of being part of something within the tangible pages of the magazine pulls the read into the pages at a new level, reading between the lines and noticing details they may normally skim over. It may be a novel gasp of fresh air for print magazines, but if its getting people to turn pages and think critically about text, then its fresh air all the same.