today is ali millers birthday

shes 24.

born to new york jews who made their way to the promise land (the valley), ali has been enamored with video games, death metal, and japanese fetish vids since she hit puberty.

when i first met her at an LAist bbq i told her she was probably at the wrong shindig because no way could she be the ali miller who i had corresponded with via email.

one thing led to another and soon she was at the LA Times’ Metromix offices writing cover stories and then being on the cover.

suffice it to say, she was making me and LAist look good.

before we knew it Ali was gone and working on the wessssside for a video game company or the Japanese tourism bureau or someone, who knows who, all we know is she was no longer brightening the halls of the Times and sharing inappropriate discussions with Sarah and I at lunch.

we missed her so.

a few months ago she talked about a new video game company that she swooned over and deemed The Future of Gaming.

Monday she started working there.

happy birthday Ali – party up!

its sass’s birthday today

shes 25

theres many reasons to like people, but i like sass cuz when i say photo shoot? she says heck yeah

sass often has a sad or bored look on her face. its cuz im boring

my favorite picture of your friend from toronto was when she met Pau right after the Lakers won it all

i like it because we get to see how tall sass really is: pocketsized!

closetsized!

happy birthday sexy girl who spent most of the year living in a suitcase

may you find some sweet love, real love, this time around

try this: crush on some straight ones this year 🙂

today is lindsays birthday. shes 24

lindsayive got no business knowing her. shes got no business knowing me.

but one day i got an email which i promptly ignored and several month later there was a followup asking if i knew what the heck i was doing.

does anyone know what the heck theyre doing?

so i said sir make a video to prove to me that youre who you claim to be, and lindsay made a short but convincing video and conversation was had and a few months later there she was in hollywood at a party being thrown by canadians.

and the rest is history.

lindsay swears she was born on this day, but how is she not a scorpio.

born in minnesota, raised in minnesota, but while at the crossroads a vision appeared to her saying if you move away from minnesota then the vikings will make it to the super bowl

and she said but im dating a young billionaire and we’re pretty serious.

the spirit said, and you have to break up with bro too.

and the rest is history.

tonight lindsay is in vegas ringing in her new year.

single.

probably buzzed.

and no question, thinking about the busblog.

happy birthday

in honor of keira-anne turning 24

poutine at mcdonalds

heres the first “interview” we ever did with her here on the busblog , enjoy!

– interview with keira-anne of vancouver, bc, canada –

Tony sez: Here I am with a Canadian girl with a hyphen. Will you please state your name.

Keira-Anne says: Keira-Anne

Age?

My real one or my pretend one?

It’s your world, baby.

20 and a bit.

Weight in kilos?

Ouuu I have no idea. I work in pounds…and in that case, 136.

Website URL.

www.keira-anne.com

Please explain your hyphen.

Well, my name really isn’t hyphenated. At least not on my birth certificate. I toyed with the idea of going by Keira-Anne for so long after always just being Keira. The hyphen just makes it work I guess.

Who designed your website?

Technically the skeleton was built by Blogger, but I tweaked it, made it pretty and personalized it. I wanted to make it sleek, simple and easy to read. By blogger, I mean Blogger.com – they’re still my site host.

Your site is really a Blogspot but you do some magic to make it look like its not?

Does my site look magical?

It doesn’t look like a Blogspot.

Not looking like a typical Blogspot site was my main goal.

Where did you learn your magical ways?

From the magic set I got for Christmas when I was 9. You should see what I can do with a card and a nail.

Is your MySpace all pretty too?

It was, but let’s be honest…MySpace is pretty 2006.

Aren’t Canadians supposed to be above trends and fads?

That’s a good question. I’d like to think so, but apparently not. MySpace died for everyone at the same time.

What’s the trendiest thing that you do nowadays?

Blog

Blogging is trendy?

I’ll be honest – it’s why I got into blogging in the first place a couple years ago. I knew nothing of blogging geekdom, but it’s turned from something I did just because into something that I really enjoy.

But I think people that started to blog because it was a trend have stopped blogging overall.

What pleasure do you get from it?

I’ve always loved to write and I’m a pretty expressive person. I love being able to do that in such an open way and I love being able to discuss things both with people I know and totally random people.

Sometimes I’ll get an e-mail from someone telling me they’ve found a bit of encouragement through something I shared on my blog. It’s clichĂ©, but things like that give me the momentum I need to keep writing.

What does your boyfriend think of your blogging?

If I had a boyfriend, I’d hope he’d be supportive of it.

Oh I’m sorry, your girlfriend, what does she think of it?

Hahaha…you’re so cheeky, Tony. I’m into he’s, not she’s.

So you’re saying you’re a single girl?

That’s definitely what I’m saying.

How is that even possible? Is Vancouver that gay-friendly?

That’s a most excellent question Tony. Vancouver really is gay-friendly, and I live in the gayest of neighborhoods. Even our garbage cans and bus stops are painted pink. Maybe I need to move.

Do you drive to work?

Definitely not. I walk in sun, rain, wind and snow. Being conscious of this planet and how precious it is is really important to me. I’d be a total jackass to walk the 10 blocks to work everyday.

On your cute little girlie walk to work do dudes hit on you?

What constitutes as “hitting on?”

“Hey baby, yeah you, c’mere. Oh come on, baby, don’t be stuck up. Fine, how about your number – come one, just five digits? How about a little flash then? What about a smile? Are those real?”

Hahaha…I can honestly say that nothing of that sort has ever happened. The extent of it would include glances and that’s about it. I think I must send out unapproachable vibes or something.

Or I smell bad. That might be it too.

You don’t wear perfume?

I don’t smell bad. Sometimes I wear perfume.

What kind?

Lately it’s been L’Occitane’s vanilla balm – I’m crazy about that stuff! I’m also a sucker for Victoria’s Secret’s Love Spell. Now THAT’S magically babelicious.

If you catch a whiff of a hot babe who smells good, will you turn around and find out what she’s rockin’?

Nah…if I can smell her perfume from three or four feet away, she’s wearing too much in the first place.

You never find yourself closer than that with women?

Generally, no. But even so, I can’t ever remember asking a girl what she’s wearing.

So you’re not rubbing up against girls and you’re not dating dudes? Your mom must be very happy.

My mom’s a proud lady.

Doesn’t she want you squeezing out grandkids?

I know deep down she probably is. But I just got a new puppy so hopefully that’ll do the trick for her – for now at least.

Are you the oldest of her kiddies?

I sure am. I have a younger brother, but in many ways, he’s definitely my big brother.

When did he become your big bro?

I’d say it probably happened when I moved to Vancouver a little over three years ago. I think we finally just “got” each other and were able to respect that. He’s totally the guy I look up to more than any other guy and treats me with oodles of respect and integrity. I’m a lucky sister.


What had you overlooked in him while he was a teen?

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that when he was graduating high school, I was already 20 so our realms were completely different. I also had a huge stick up my ass at the time, so that didn’t help things either.

How did the stick get yanked out?

In a nutshell, I stopped going to church and stopped living my life and making my decisions based on what other people expected of me.

Wait. One. Second.
You’re saying leaving the church helped you?

Don’t be mistaken though…I said “church” and not “faith.” Those are two totally different entities, and I’m talking about the church as an establishment here.

What did these people expect of you that you didn’t want to do?

They expected me to say the right things and do the right things and get married by 25 and basically be perfect. Oh and I wasn’t allowed to say that bad word…you know, s-e-x.

I’ve always been a pretty open-minded person when it comes to sex and sexuality and it’s a really interesting topic to discuss with people. I hated being muzzled for just being me.

Did your parents understand your problem with their church?

Absolutely. Oddly enough though, my family didn’t attend church with me – I started going on my own at 16.

Most people in my life that truly love me are now able to say how much I seem myself and how much my wings no longer seem “clipped.”

What inspired you to go to church by yourself at 16?

I had a lot of friends that were going to youth group once a week and it was just that adolescent desire to feel included.

Who are better kissers, church going boys or non-church going boys?

I like this question! But I won’t discriminate – I’ve had good experiences on both sides.

I’ve also had bad kisses on both sides.

Have you ever kissed a girl on church grounds?

I’ve kissed a girl on church camp grounds.

Don’t get too excited though – we did it for the boys because we were being teases.

Please elaborate, thank you.

All I remember is that there were about five of us in the hallway: me, Girl X and three boys. I can’t remember who dared us to kiss, but one of the guys wanted a picture. It was a total closed mouth kiss but I adjusted my head and she told me to “stop Frenching” her.

How old were you?

Probably 19 at the time.

You were at church camp at 19?

True story.

Was church camp as hot as I’m imagining it?

How are you imagining it?

Girls in plaid skirts in the woods getting their rosary beads tangled in the brambles. Kneehigh socks. Rosary necklaces. too-red lipsticks.

You really like the plaid skirts, don’t you? I saw some this weekend and almost picked one up.

I will say this about church camp: In my experiences, I’ve seen girl-on-girl kissing (obviously), skinny dipping, drunkenness, and major making out. Maybe more, but that’s about as scandalous as it ever got.

20-year-olds are majorly making out, away from home, in the summer, in Canada, and that’s as far as it got?

Does that disappoint you?

It’s just hard to believe. Especially since in my visits to Canada all I saw pretty much were goodlooking girls.

But this is Canadian church camp…not Wet Hot American Summer.

Ok, you were there how many summers?

Two full summers…once at 18 and once at 20, two months each summer.

So that’s one hot chick in church camp. Are you saying you were the only one?

Nah, there were definitely other hot chicks there.

Does talking about God all day stop the hormones from raging? Is that what you’re telling me?

It doesn’t stop the hormones from raging…I think it causes guilt for feeling the raging hormones.

So kids raging with hormones are forced to masturbate at church camp?

I guess so, but I never did.

No lying in the busblog interview!

I’m serious! It’s not something I felt good about doing until I was 19 or 20.

Ah ha but you said you went to church camp at 20.

This is true – I still never did that. We had dorm-style rooms.

The boys were doing it I’ll bet ya.

I wouldn’t doubt that for a second! I’m sure a lot of girls were too.

When was your last boyfriend?

Officially speaking as in brought home to mom and called my “boyfriend?” 18.

When did you contract the HIV virus?

Hahaha…I like to think of it as Carrie Bradshaw-itis. Either I pick wieners or wieners pick me.

Do you not put out on the first date or something?

The soonest I’ve put out was the third. Is that pushing it?

It all depends. You kissed him on the first date at least.

Oh for sure.

And grabbed his ass when you kissed him, right?

Some guys actually don’t like that…

This is all baffling to me… What’s the catch?

With what?

You seem nice, you’re not bad looking.

I like to think so.

You’re a little over weight but it’s Canada.

Ouch!

Just kidding… You’re really picky?

I can take it.

Hmmm…I’d like to think that I’m not but maybe I am? I’ve never been one to be into a certain look with men. What gets me is their mannerisms. So without a certain look that I go for, am I capable of being picky?

Their mannerisms ruin it for them?

“Ruin” sounds like such a harsh word.

Well are you saying that if you met a guy like LL Cool J and you were all yeah… But then you noticed that he licks his lips a lot. You’d be all, “nah.”

I don’t know…if he looked adorable doing it, why not?

Have any dudes that you dated during these last few years asked you to be their girlfriend?

Nope.

Why do you think that is?

I’m really not sure, to be honest with you.

What’s your guess?

Bad timing, wrong circumstances? Sometimes, in my experience, guys just aren’t capable of or aren’t willing to buck up either.

What was the longest you were with someone?

About a year and a half…about two years ago.

How is that not a boyfriend?

Well, to me he seemed like it but in retrospect he wasn’t. I know I wasn’t the only girl.

Oooooh ahhh ok. Did you subtly compete with her?

Oh there was more than one other girl, I’m quite sure. I think I just lived in oblivion.

If this fellow asked you to dress as a cheerleader and twirl around on his coffee table, would you have done it?

I have an adventurous spirit – that sounds like a lot of fun actually…

Did he ever ask you to do anything like that?

Hmmm…nope. Too bad, hey?

Did this chap know that you would have liked to have done something like that?

Probably…but it doesn’t really matter now anyways. I’d rather dress up like a cheerleader for someone rad anyways!

On what date would you dress up and twirl for a dude?

I won’t say the first because a girl’s gotta have a bit of mystery. But really, why put a timeline on something like that? If I’m into you and have fun with you and feel real with you, then I’m going to dress up like a cheerleader if it’s what you want. Why not?

Too many people ask “why?” when they should be asking “why not?”

todays my buddy Chris’ birthday. hes 79

we met in the dorms of San Nic at UCSB way back in the day and we’ve both turned our lives over to the Lord and because of that our paths have been lined with beauty and joy.

we went to finals together last year thanks to the fact that Chris is a season ticket holder.

in fact, chris and i went to the first Laker game Ever at Staples, and we had schweet seats.

chris and jesus rob invented Thirsty Thursday back in Isla Vista and because of that we met many friends and randoms. fortunately we met young ladies as well. because when you have a keg and you brought a buck and yr own cup, how can you not make friends?

ah yes those were the days, but probably the most fun i had with Chris back then was skateboarding to class together, we are both college of creative studies grads, writing poetry all night, and then reading them the next day to the enjoyment of our class.

im sure anyone who saw us then would not think that chris would turn out to be a genius digital video forefather, whose work has been in every Tony Hawk skateboard game since the first one. and no one would ever think that id be an xbi chopper pilot.

despite his drinking, smoking, etc, my question is, how did chris get to keep his great hair?

happy birthday g

today is michele’s birthday

shes 24.

i get along pretty well with almost all of my xgirlfriends

but one of the few ive lost touch with is michele, my first california gf.

she taught me the beauty of poetry, she was a journalism major. she was the first environmentalist i ever met.

and she turned me onto the cure and malibu. as if thatd be difficult.

theres no way id be who i am today without her early influence on this very bland boy from illinois.

today is JaG’s birthday

only dutchgirl ive ever kissd, today she turns 24.

JAg
a long time ago she emailed me that she had a blog, it was pretty good so i bookmarked it and that was that.

some might say that she was more smitten with me before i was with her

some would say that now the tables are turned and i like her more than she likes me

there are a lot of firsts with JaG n me, for example shes the first girl i ever ate sushi with in canada

id love to say that she was the first to send me pics of herself in a plaid skirt, but i will say she sent me the first plaid skirt pic from europe. and for that reason alone i gladly say Happy Birthday JaG, and i hope you get some wooden shoes or something wooden today over there in amsterdamn

today is lindsay’s birthday

technically she sits next to me

astrologically they say that pisces and libra will probably only meet each other because of work because we roll in different orbits and probably wouldnt get a long. but id say we get along quite well and together we’ve done ok with the blogs.

lindsay asked for and received the day off to go to disneyland but before she left she compiled some “fun facts” that appeared in our boss meredith’s letter to the staff today. in these monthly letters meredith talks about the cool new things we’re up to (like this month was the launch of the mapping la project and the relaunch/redesign of la now), she goes over the most viewed stories, and then reports on what happened on the blogs, video, photo, and everything we do online like the amaaaaaaazing mexico under siege series.

this month she reported that we had an alltime record in pageviews, with over 17 million. there were some interesting LA-based stories in february from octomom to rihanna to the oscars and its nice to see that when people want to read about those things they’re coming to our blogs more and more. From the Readers Rep Journal:

Blogs
Our blogs broke a traffic record for February – impressive given it was a short month. Three blogs had more than a million page views. A warm welcome to Pete Thomas and his Outposts into the top 10. Congrats to Dodger Thoughts and Idol Tracker -– both new blogs -– on their strong showings. Blogs with an asterisk broke individual page view records.

1. Dish Rag – 3,224,676 *
2. L.A. Now – 2,443,674 *
3. Top of the Ticket – 1,276,706
4. Gold Derby – 898,618 *
5. Pop & Hiss – 739,750 *
6. Show Tracker – 678,270
7. Fabulous Forum – 576,199
8. Lakers – 528,093
9. Technology – 527,553
10. Outposts – 426,816 *
11. L.A. Unleashed *
12. Idol Tracker *
13. Dodger Thoughts
14. Hero Complex
15. L.A. Land
16. Daily Mirror *
17. Comments Blog *
18. All the Rage
19. Booster Shots
20. Culture Monster *

Fun facts from Lindsay Barnett:
* Last February we had an all-time traffic record with 5,764,230 PVs. We almost tripled it this month.
* Dish Rag’s traffic this February was almost 15 times what it was a year ago.
* L.A. Now’s traffic this February was more than 10 times what it was a year ago.

there are many tales behind those numbers and one of them involves Lindsay. because of promotions and people moving around, the animal blog Unleashed found itself needing some tlc. lindsay took it over and she was so close to breaking into the top ten with no spikes from digg or links from drudge or anything other than grade a blogging.

also prepare to see the dodgers blog, dodger thoughts, to break the top ten next month. bro gets 200+ comments on many of his posts and spring training just started. wait till theres a) a fella named manny playing b) actual games.

anyways i hope lindsay had a nice birthday. none of the success of the lat blogs could have happened without her. shes the not so secret weapon of our little dept.

karisa asked “hey tony whaddya want for your birthday?”

i was all just come to my birthday party on wednesday at the redwood. she was like, no no, other than that, of course i will come to your party, but what do you want on top of that?

i was like, i dont care, lets just hang out if you have some time either the weekend before or the weekend after. she said duh, but what? i was all, lets eat somewhere and see a movie or something.

but karisa doesnt like movies so she said “how about i get some of your favorite bands together, i know how weird you are about getting everyone together.”

so i was all, cool! tsar, monster squad, rocket, mere mortals, this will be great! so yesterday she picked me up, i didnt know where the rock was gonna be. and she drove me to the valley, which is weird cuz most of our friends play in silver lake or hollywood or downtown.

we went inside this car dealership where she had rented out this well whole car dealership

and there were remote control cars to play with

and the batmobile was there!

and this crazy space ship car from the Jetsons was there

this car from the future by Ford of all people was there

but i was promised rock. so we went inside and there was Dave Navarro playing guitar with kip bauersfield singing!



then my favorite American Idol, Ryann Starr showed up with these dirty pussycat doll babes and they danced to one of my favorite AC/DC songs “girls got rhythm”



then the guitarist from The Cult came out and everyone sang “Love Removal Machine”

then Steve Stevens came out and they all sang “Rebel Yell”




then Xzibit came out and rapped something crazy but i was getting drunk at this point and i cant remember what he sang but Karisa was fully eating it up

but weirdly, all of that was just the warm up for the good stuff. all of a sudden Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols came out and everyone sang “EMI” and “suffojet city”



then Cypress Hill showed up and did a few numbers including my fave “Rock Superstar”:


with SLASH on guitar!

then they did Welcome to the Jungle!



slash + navarro trading solos was pretty amazing all by themselves


then because karisa is the best. and she hearts me. and i heart her back.

Ozzy

Frickin

Osbourne

busted with Crazy Train, Iron Man, I Dont Know, and S.O.S.

with Slash and Navarro on the dual guitar attack



then she sent me home with bai ling

best birthday ever.