last night we celebrated the birthday of ms carolyn kellogg who is currently the lead blogger of the LAT’s book blog, Jacket Copy. i first met carolyn a few years ago at the blogging while black sxsw panel that i was part of. she was a friend of jason toney’s and after the panel we spoke and became friends. it was hard not to notice the pale white girl with shocking pink hair in the front row of the blogging while black panel.

at the time she was the editor of LAist, a site that i had been interviewed/profiled.

about a year later she invited me to drinks at hollywoods oldest bar, musso and franks. that night i was still working at buzznet but the writing on the wall said that i wasnt going to last there for much longer. carolyn told me that she was going to be stepping down to move to pittsburgh to get her masters. i told her that i would love to be editor of laist but they didnt pay. she said that there was a rumor that they might pay the next editor and sure enough a few weeks later i was canned and carolyn put in a good word with jake and jen of gothamist and bam they decided to pay their first non-NYC blogger and the rest is history.

so basically without carolyn (pictured, right) i would have never had a chance to blog for a living at LAist, which means i would have never been discovered by the LA Times. therefore i owe her everything. believe it or not, but that wasnt the reason i made her editor-at-large when i was editor of LAist. i made her that because often times i would lean on her for advice and i wanted her to write more for LAist and i wanted everyone to be able to learn from her mighty skillz.

which is why it was so funny when earlier this year the book editor of the times asked me how i felt about carolyn because he wanted to hire her to blog for the book blog. i told him i owe her the world and probably wasnt the right person to ask because i was clearly biased. he said, oh i know the story, but i wanted to throw it past you anyways. i said she rules, we’d be lucky to have her, particularly since she already writes for the books section in print and already has a pretty great lit blog of her own.

the very important person who’s birthday was this week is mr os tyler who for nearly seven years hosted this very busblog on his mighty servers. through thick and thin os was there for not only me but matt welch, ken layne, ben sullivan, amy langfield, and many others. a true trailblazer. mr os (pictured, top) is also a talented singer, songwriter, and musician who every once in a while, magically will pop up on stage with our bffs or on records with all the boys and girls in our musical circles.

im very happy that he and my lawyer continue to reproduce because their children are beautiful and sweet and are easy on the eyes. they make a lovely family and theyre an example for us all.

and today is mr eric case‘s birthday. heres what i wrote about eric in april when he stepped down from being the main blog dude in charge at Google:

the busblog has been around for seven years this august. the entire time ive used Blogger. one reason is because i have had unbelievable support and encouragement from the people behind Blogger, from ev, to the jasons, to biz, to kimmy, and eric and many others.

my love of Blogger is basically unconditional, i have received pretty much everything because of blogger and this blog, but to be respected and taken care of by so many hard working and generous souls at Blogger only added to the already wonderful feeling about this whole thing.

eric case is pretty much the last person from the early era of Blogger to leave the blogger team at Google. he is probably the nicest guy you will ever meet, retardedly handsome, and spiritual to a point that even i will never achieve. bro’s got it all.

not long after he retired from the G we all partied in palm springs during coachella and it was great to actually hang with him for an extended period of time. a true gentleman, gentle soul, and amazing cook. and he didnt try anything funny with suzie even though she was running around half naked most of the time.

without carolyn, os, and eric the busblog would not have happened the way it went down and we all agree that it went down perfectly. so i thank them all for everything. happy 24th birthday each of you!