because life is bizarre, somehow ive been invited to go to the playboy mansion and talk with hef.

he is 84 today.

im headed there now. i interview the legend at 1:30pm

but you can follow my every move on Twitter, which will include lots of pics from in and around the mansion.

wish me luck!

gotta say he stills got it.

beck. the second coming. the golden child. the new bob dylan.

its been a long time since i got excited about a new beck album and it met my expectations. but man, these record club experiments, now this is good.

last week mr hanson released a second inxs cover and its slowed down and stretched out and reimagined and in this bloggers case, rediscovered.

check out becks brassy vocal tone and sultry background singers.

every layer lingers long enough for us to soak them in and actually omg think about what we are listening to.

and what we are hearing is the protagonist telling his audience that hes gonna take them somewhere new.

when was the last time youve had a new sensation?

no like a new one.

really new.

i sure as hell want one. and bro is talking about experiencing one

right now.

not sure if this cover reached that guarantee but it got a lot closer than my mans most recent efforts.

and its nice to know hes seriously still trying.

but first lets notice how easy i can annoy people, while stealing their souls.

that guy up there is undercoffler. on foursquare hes the mayor of the LA Times.

he used to work for arianna huffington and now look at him, hes one of the tireless producers of our homepage at latimes.com

hes from mass, just broke his leg doing something lame, and always has good smelling food

this is jevon. libra. entertainment web producer. film buff. comic book guy.

tea drinker. style icon. usc trojan.

and yes ladies, hes single.

youre going to be seeing a lot more of jevon this summer on this b, so prepare.

as big of an apple fanboy as i am, i too am skeptical about the actual usefulness of such a device.

i love my iphone, i love my macbook pro. so why do i need an ipad?

games? i have a wii, a ps3, a psp, and a macbook. so why do i need an ipad?

books? i have books. i dont travel an hour to work on a train, i dont fly across country once a month. and ps i dont read many books.

it has a pretty screen? everything has a pretty screen these days. you can get 32″ lcd tvs for $500 that have pretty screens.

i think people are buying it because of the feel.

it feels like the future.

if they sold it like “have the future… today… for $500” then maybe id be curious. but they’re pretending like this is the present.

there needs to be a killer app. of course.

super nintendo didnt attract any attention till it got super mario bros.

making hamburgers in your kitchen wasnt interesting till george foreman got involved.

likewise the ipad needs something that can take full advantage of whatever its magic possesses till the masses, like me, will be willing to shell over the hundreds of dollars plus $30 a month for 3G, that we eventually will free ourselves from.

until then i’ll just tool around the culdesac on my seqway and wonder whatever happened to virtual reality.

and im thinking that johnny keeps it real and id like to keep it real but i fail and fail

and i think about all the fails ive been responsible for

and all the fails ive seen on tv, mostly by the Cubs this week.

and then i see David Letterman on tv trying to do his monologue with no voice cuz he has a cold.

fail.

and i think about kids. all these people want me to get married and have kids.

and for the most part the people have been right about most of the things theyve advised me on throughout my life.

and i was the jerk who was all, sushi? gross! (for decades)

but they were also the ones who said what are you doing dating 19 yr olds, but you know what, those girls taught me lots too.

and then i think of secret blogs, and secret lives, and undercover helicopters, and

secret powers.

of love.

and i think why would i want a little baby to have to muddle through all of whatever all of this is, on the daily.

when i get off work i think two things: i should eat healthy. and i want kfc.

and i think about my day and the weird things i dealt with and i think, i deserve kfc.

and i think, who wants to live to 80?

only way i wanna live to 80 is if there was a book called “look what we did after 80”

and inside the book was stories about people who had a three way kiss for the first time after 80, people who drove without seatbelts while speeding over 100 mph after 80 for the first time

while texting

and people who busted some sweet ass poetry about being over 80.

seems to me that you’re playing not to lose after 80, and ugh to that sorta game.

we are alive people. magically. being alive makes no sense. it defies logic.

walking around on two feet, let alone running, is completely illogically nonsensical magic.

forget jumbo jets.

so here we are cartwheeling in a world of magic and the dumbest thing we do

is play not to lose.

the saddest thing we do is act conservatively.

life is but a cabaret old chum

dont be dumb.

our pal danielle has been unemployed for a while and its super hard on her

but she keeps it real, especially in her blog where she lets all her emotions out.

today she got this very interesting anonymous comment. pretty much not at all what i was expecting.

Been unemployed for 18 months. Didn’t qualify for unemployment. Finally got a job with Disney making $7.35 per hour to replace $52k. Took Jag back to dealership. Losing house. (Feeling better yet?) Oh, did I mention I have my Ph.d.? Two kids and a wife? My walk with God keeps me going. Hopefully, I can get a second job as a security guard. Today is my son’s 16 birthday. Hoping we can survive Orlando until he graduates in two years. Hang in there. Many are hurting right now and those who aren’t are worried sick that they soon will be.

just another reminder at how tough the times are right now.

i miss you

know why im happy today?

1. its 82 degrees
2. im employed
3. you are here reading my blog
4. i have my health
5. cuz the Cubs are gonna win their first game of the season today

and cuz my mommy loves me

tell me why youre happy

me, i was in the mens room in Cabazon relieving myself of our less than amazing easter brunch. Cabazon of course being the town known for its amazing fashion outlet stores where most of the time you dont get amazing deals, but sometimes you dont.

i had entered a stall after this big dude left it and friends dont ever enter an enclosed number two stall after a guy who looks like hes a hells angel exits. apparently he had an even worse easter brunch than i had.

it was an aroma id never smelt before. and being as old as i am i thought i had experienced everything.

it was startling and mildly fascinating. strike that, nothing about it was mild.

anyways i sat down and pulled out my iphone because, i dont know about you, but i cannot use the mens room without reading something. so i checked in to my twitter stream to see what the world was up to.

and then i felt it.

rolling.

shaking.

more rolling.

it was strong but not frightening.

i looked up and around me to see if anything was bound to fall on me and i realized i just may be in a pretty safe place – reinforced walls, nothing hanging above me, nothing to fear – so i hung in there feeling secure.

so i tweeted something like “omg earthquake. happy easter!” and a second later i saw that Everyone else on my twitter feed also tweeted. so i took a screen shot of my phone

and then another.

the funniest tweet was from mother of four and Dancing with the Stars host Brooke Burke who tweeted some obscenities that i am only allowed to link to because the busblog is a family blog

my truest was on the other side of the outlets and because we have gone through dozens of these types of quakes we didnt even txt each other to see if we were ok because, duh, we were ok – THERE WAS SHOPPING TO BE DID

and because of the high holy days the outlets HAD to close at 6pm (instead of 8pm).

so thats my story of the devastating quake.

experienced in a stinky mens room.

first hand reporting that you dont get anywheres.

youre welcome.