from the formspring dealie comes this question:

“If I go to the Outside Lands music fest in San Fran, where should I stay?”

the closest nice pack of hotels are in Union Square. its a $10-$15 cab ride to Golden Gate Park. youve come to the right place because not only will i show you how to save at least $30 a night, but you will be staying in a pretty nice hotel.

the best places to stay, like i said, are in Union Square. Four-star hotels like the Westin St. Francis or the Grand Hyatt have rack rates of $160. but if you use name-your-price sites like Priceline or Hotwire you can usually get a nice room at one of the hotels for between $90-$125. the only catch is you dont know *exactly* which hotel you’re bidding on, but all 4 star hotels in SF on these sites are nice.

the ones you should bid on are the Union Square East properties which has a pretty interesting discussion going on this message board.

If you really want to cut corners it looks like the three star Civic Center Holiday Inn recently got remodeled. Civic Center is not where you want to be loitering around much at night, but if youre rocking out all day and really just need a central place to crash near public transportation, there arent many hotels more convenient than this one, and this guy got it for $41 a night.

if youre flying into frisco, dont rent a car, take BART to Powell Street and walk up to Union Square where you will be lodging. take cabs around town, theyre cheap, fast, and the best way to get around SF during your rock weekend. also, to park your car in a downtown hotel spot can cost between $25-35 a day – even if you are staying there.

no need to wait for Ask Tony, ask your questions on my formspring dealie and if its good i’ll add it to the busblog.

six years ago today i met the elusive and wonderous

zulieka whose blog i still read

as often as she posts this very day (and because of that i know that she has deleted some posts – tsk tsk)

yes it’s true i just had breakfast with the mysterious and glamorous zulieka from zulieka dot com.

i am not all that crazy about meeting people from the blogosphere generally but i have been known to make exceptions. and when you have revealed your soul in your writing And revealed your flesh in pics, and you contribute to Lick and send me sweet emails then my arm has been known to accept the twisting.

zulieka is in town to make her dreams come true. her nights were booked as were her afternoons so we agreed on a breakfast meetup at the pantry, which is very close to the standard downtown, where all the cool kids stay when theyre in town.

for some reason i always expect people to be taller in real life.

zulieka isnt what i’d call tall. probably normal sized. very smart. gorgeous eyes. i liked the way she did her hair. much thinner than her nudes. she had pancakes and eggs and bacon. eggs scrambled. grape juice.

i had the eggs, also scrabbled. bacon, hash browns, sourdough toast that i didnt touch cuz we were yapping away too much.

we talked about blogging, and hollywood, and sex. even ventured into some not-really-meant-to-be-talked-about-sex-over-a-meal topics and she not only hung in there but smiled and encouraged the conversation to stay over there.

i think if she moved to LA she would do very well here.

again, very smart. im very happy i met her.

and i didnt get into the office too late so alls good in the hood.

she did ask me about the xbi and after i told her i erased that part of her memory with a sprinkle of “Splenda” in her juice.

sorry, hottie.

the next time we met a year or two later we drove around LA, shared a glass of wine, and she said she felt like she might be pregnant. turned out she was, with a beautiful lil z.

update: zulieka asked me to swap out the original photo with this new one so we can better see her bathroom.

the third installment of LA Times Movie Club

was Prince of Persia

we saw it at the Americana in Glendale, but the video was dark. so then we went to the Vista the next day and talked not only to the people leaving the theatre, but also to the manager of the Vista who inspired us (me) to dress up when we go to the movies.

full review on the 24 Frames blog which was part of the stable of blogs at the Times that had record numbers last month.

dont call it a comeback…

dont you love this song?

of course you do

there was a time when we all felt bulletproof.

no reason we should lose that feeling.

no reason we should go for the things we want.

some of us are afraid to even dream. afraid to even say what it is we want.

the Lord lets us sleep so many hours a night so we can dream.

so dream.

dig deep into your heart and discover exactly why youre here.

figure out all the things you want and its ok if they change every day,

every hour

every minute.

the world is yours. make it the way you want.

all of this is a beautiful canvas with hundreds of colors.

and if you wanna draw outside the lines, fine.

paint everywhere Except the canvas if you want.

only paint on the paint can.

but dream