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but at least raymi took the words right out of my mouth in this card

happy bday fil! youre a good man, you have a great gf, a great blog, and an even greater camera.

.. from the classic blook, Stiff

my flesh had melted into my bone, i was on fire, and yet somehow i was shiverring.

i was greeted by a man in a Santa suit with a clipboard who extended his white gloved hand who said, “welcome to Hell.”

i shook his hand and a buzzer went off in my palm.

“i dont have time to give you the grande tour, my apologies, we have to get you suited up and we dont have much time.” he said.

i said a little prayer as we wound our way through the dark caves lit by torches and occasional flourescent tubes.

no need to pray down here, we can read your mind, and the prayers only go on your permanent record and used against you in nasty little ways, my guide esped to me and led me to a giant cave filled with Santa Claus suits.

quickly i can tell you the purpose of Hell, it’s not to punish you, it’s to torment the Creator. tomorrow is His birthday. it’s our assignment to water it down, to trivilize it, to ruin it, to distract people’s thoughts, to do everything we can to take the Holiness away from it and make it seem like a child’s birthday party.

but it is a child’s birthday party. it’s Je–

my mouth was zippered shut.

we dont say the J word down here.

my mouth was unzipped.

Xmas isnt just a child’s birthday, it’s a lot more than that, pastor, dont be coy. yes it’s Someone’s birthday, but we dont want it to be about Him we want it to be about every other child in the world Except Him. comprende?

i nodded.

Santa Claus is the greatest acheivement of Hell. we have successfully intergrated our fake-out on the entire planet. anywhere you go you are more likely to see a picture of the white jolly elf than the Creator of the Universe. even in Latin America where people name their children after the Messiah you will see Santa. Even in Bethlehem, even in church.

within minutes i was in the familiar jacket, boots, gloves, fake beard and cap. and i was loaded onto a bus and before i knew it i was back on Earth.

Home.

i couldnt speak the words that i wanted to.

i stood outside a shopping mall ringing a bell. people put money into my cauldron.

all i could say was ho ho ho.

because it wasnt Hell, i was capable of saying Merrrrrrry Christmas, but it was an ironic one. A celebration of theft. I thanked people for their money. It wasnt going to the poor or the sick or the needy. It was going to Hell. my new home.

after lunch i was collected, my money was counted and i was reassigned to the throne inside the mall where little kids sat on my lap and mothers cooed and fathers smiled for the first time in a long time.

pictures were taken and little kids told me what they wanted and i lied and told them that they would get everythign that they wanted.

were you a good little boy this year?

yes, Santa.

were you good to your mother and your father?

uh huh.

were you good to your brothers and your sisters?

i was good to my sister, but i dont gots any brothers.

did you clean up your room like a good boy?

i dont gots a room, santa claus. i sleep on the couch.

the little kid laughed like it was the silliest question ever.

i just wept.

but theres no crying in the Santa suit.

all that came out was ho ho ho.

since then i…

got to watch our oldest hardest-working blogger blow everyones mind – daily

got to see and meet some of my heroes at sxsw

got to interview some upncomers at sxsw

got to speak at usc’s annenberg’s school of journalism three times

got to cover coachella properly and with the best team in business

felt a pretty good earthquake while giving a training in the A1 room (not pictured)

got to review some sweet ass rock shows

used to have an office

lindsay studied theatre at ‘sc. this is her do we really have to move look
btw couldnta still been here without her, and im indebted

hauled ass to the main newsroom where they put up a tv for me us

i have a window and a view now. and a place for my plant.

got to celebrate my 102nd birthday at the traditional LAT bar, the redwood,


with old friends and new ones

have no idea what this was all about, but i smiled every time i saw it

got to interview a legend in his front yard

got to teach a legend how to blog, and for a short time man did he have a good blog

there are now six LAist alumni working in the times building, these two are the latest

got to see history while working in a major newspaper newsroom

within one week, got to watch people go from standing in front of our building to protest,


to lining around our building to buy handfuls of papers with glee

despite everything, we are so much further ahead now than many thought we’d be today

couldnta done it without mr. matt welch, whom im indebted

couldnta done it without my boss meredith, whom im totally indebted

how have the blogs fared in the last year? how about last november they accounted for more than a couple million page views and this november they accounted for almost exactly five times that.

how about last november none of em were even in the top 2000 in technorati and now one of em is at 54 and another one is in the 900s with several more on the way.

how about i work with a great team who are far more responsible for those amazing successes than me since they, you know, actually write hundreds and hundreds of blog posts a week, and edit them, and take the pics, and create the graphics, and bring the news, and moderate the comments, and do it while also putting out a first class newspaper, by the way.

how about this job is pretty much exactly how i never imagined it. and so much better.

almost every month something totally mindblowing happened. sometimes we were the news, somehow; sometimes the news we covered was just totally wild. zero days were boring. zero days were anything like the one before it.

my first day there the publisher knew my name, where i came from, and asked me blogging advice. and before that day i was interviewed by the guy who is now the editor of the whole paper. few weeks later SUVs were out front the building because obama was being interviewed by the ed board, and then later hillary was being interviewed.

not much later robert downey jr was filming a movie in our newsroom. few days later a Pulitzer prize winner was conducting a live online chat in my office on my computer and we talked about which n.w.a songs we liked best.

early into my job i was teaching the nbas all time leading scorer how to blog and a few weeks later i was taking a phone call from china to help our sports dept blog from the olympics. i ate lunch at a mansion. blogs that came out of my insane head became reality, one of which meant that we had a blogger in air force one.

and yet one of the biggest milestones was not only to beat LAist with one of our blogs one month (and then later with two), but to triple them; because before i left LAist, we had quadrupled the best LAT blog. we pulled it off and i liked that milestone the best because LAist hasn’t stopped growing or improving in this year, which also makes me happy since im their biggest fan and use them as an example almost every day.

yesterday on my 364th day at the times we launched a new blog, Idol Tracker, not at all my idea, but i voted yes to make it happen cuz its brilliant and will probably be another one of our million pageview a month blogs.

i know its not cool to gush or beam or, hell, even be happy when you write things down. which is why it must be such a burden for those who try so hard to be cool.

its so much easier to count yr blessings.

i think im at a gazillion and one today.

goal for next year? five times better than what we’re doing now.

thats all.

Have you scene the movie Zeigeist? If so, what did you think of it?

No I haven’t – do you recommend it?

Is it a crime to leave blogger for wordpress?

Not at all, you should use whatever you like more. Back in August, I started using WordPress for the updates on my Drew Barrymore site & I love it.

innie or outtie?

innie

What kind of cookies should I bake for Christmas? I’m baking for about ten.

Do cupcakes instead! They look more impressive, but they’re actually a lot easier to make. And they’re ALWAYS a crowdpleaser.

and omg Tony will answer these questions…

1. “touch too much” or “walk all over you” ?
2. vicodin or percocet??
3. what happens to us when we die???

1. how ya gonna top this?:

It wasn’t the first / It wasn’t the last / She knew we was making love

I was so satisfied / Deep down inside / Like a hand in a velvet glove

It’s feels like a touch / a touch too much

2. any time youre doing anything rush limbaugh did you’re probably on the wrong path

3. milk, honey, and front row tickets to jimi

why don’t the dudes in the ucla undie run at :43 just make out and get it over with?

cuz they havent won the lord stanley cup yet.

Have you scene the movie Zeigeist? If so, what did you think of it?

keira-anne: No, I have not seen it. Anytime there’s hype written all over something, it’s a major turn-off. Same goes for that movie about vampires that has all the other young ladies changing their panties.

Thong, g-string, panties or commando? Why?

Awww I’m blushing. Booty shorts or thong

1. “touch too much” or “walk all over you” ?
2. vicodin or percocet??
3. what happens to us when we die???

1. Um, what?
2. Gravol
3. I’m bored.

1. Which of the Jonas Bros will be the first to succumb to groupie love?
2. The George Perros ‘stache, yea or nay?

1. Who?
2. What?

Is it a crime to leave blogger for wordpress?

It’s not a crime – in fact, it’s encouraged. I switched to WP over a year ago and haven’t looked back since.

update:

Keira-Anne, do people often misspell the “Keira” part of your name? They mess up “Keir” all the time for me. I before E and all that. Perhaps Canadians know how to spell better than Americans. Who knows.

Yes…it’s pretty much never-ending and I’m always in amazement when someone spells it correctly without even asking. Most common are Kyra, Kiera, Kierra, Kara, Kira and who knows what else. My favourite is when someone writes to me on my Facebook wall or something and mis-spells my name even though it’s right there in black and white. People are lazy.

Which leg could you live without? Right? Left? (or Third?)

Neither.

Is a man better off smoking weed frequently or not at all? I’m 28 and take care of business but have never any balance between the two.

I’m going to go with the “not at all” option. For anyone.

what’s your dream?

This

What kind of cookies should I bake for Christmas? I’m baking for about ten.

You should make these. They’re easy, yummy and always the hit of any Christmas party

thanks keira-anne!!

and he said, “dude even a gazillion years ago you were an old man whining about this and complaining about that.”

which is why i failed to mention what i liked at the beverly center this weekend.

of course i liked the company and the delicious soup at pf changs.

but the beverly center has something that i dont think many malls have – hunky santa and the candy cane girls.

now hunky santa has been interviewed a few times in the local paper, but omg these candy cane girls – i totally underestimated them.

for some reason i just thought they were sorta inappropriate sultry vixens that danced around.

yes some of them dance, but some of them hang from the ceilings by nothing but a banner of sheet-like material, and one of them was on stilts.

it was truly amazing to see

there was even a magician

it got everyone pumped up, and i dont know much about sales psychology (ok i do) but it was working.

people were smiling and clapping and they wanted to hang out at the mall which is quite a trick in LA where there are multiple options on a sunday in a town with no pro football team.

and moving ooooot of vancity

the talented photographer and party host, the once host of the busblog, duane said in his blog yesterday:

A few minutes ago, I delivered my 30 days notice to my current company. It is something that I have debated doing for quite some time now, not because I don’t like where I work or the people that work there, but mostly because my job is in a field I no longer find that interesting. I have been employed there for nearly five years at this point, which is strange when I think about it. I was actually out at UBC doing my master’s degree in 2004 when I answered a call in the video lab (also strange, because I hated being on campus for any length of time) for a company in Vancouver that was looking for a video expert. Jump ahead five years, and here I am.

bros moving to Chilliwack. the apartment he says is “around 1200 sq. feet, and is basically brand new. It has stainless steel appliances, a gas fireplace, dark hardwood floors, two full bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, large patio, dining room and a den, which I plan to use as an office. The best part is it’s for less money than I pay for my 700 square foot, one bedroom apartment here in Vancouver.”

his apartment in vancouver is pretty bad ass. check out his view.

saw this and thought, how is this possible? how is it legal?

dont they know little girls go into such stores?

am i really gonna have to put my daughters up for adoption?

even the adopted ones?

what if i was a proud parent and today i got a list of things they wanted “santa” to get them and on the list said “and omg anything from the NARS Orgasm Collection!”

not only would i say no baby youre not getting one damn thing from any orgasm collection, but the concept of burkas are suddenly seemingly more appealing.

believe or not but this:

is not from the orgasm collection.

you dont even wanna know how much that stuff cost.

two things caught my eye at the department store, which was next door to the makeup hobaggery:

a tshirt that cost $70 dollars. yes, during a recession/depression such a shirt exists

and torn jeans that cost $200 out the door.

my mind exploded.

what world do people live in where they can afford $70 for tshirts and $189 for jeans? who ARE these people? what jobs do they have?

sometimes i forget where i am sometimes

the boutiques werent any better. $50 for obama tshirts. $19,999 for 70 inch televisions.

last week i spent $25 on a pair of jeans at the Obey outlet sale and i had to think about it for a few minutes. what goes through peoples minds when they consider spending what should be considered enough for a new car for a new television.

shouldnt you flinch at such a price?

because if dont i really need to get back into selling televisions.

as i blogged earlier, karisa suggested a few friends should go ice skating

then there was fondue

had to get the bad christmas music playing in the tv

we built a gingerbread house

then set it on fire