Friday, March 12: I am moderating a panel at SXSW, The Broke Diaries: Blogging and Twittering about Living on the Cheap.
Saturday, March 13: I will be speaking at TechMunch Austin, a food blogging workshop.
Sunday, March 14: I (Cupcakes Take The Cake) and BakeSpace.com will be hosting a Cupcake Social at Tiniest Bar in Texas.
Otherwise, I will be hanging out at IFC’s Crossroads House or at the Blogger Lounge at SXSW.
James Boo (The Eaten Path) organized a Food Blogger on Feb 16th. We went to Purple Yam in Ditmas Park/Flatbush. Beside me is Intern Melissa from Cupcakes Take The Cake who also has a blog (Spatula Queen).
READ: I highly recommend reading Heidi Durrow’s debut novel, The Girl who Fell From The Sky. The story is one part mystery, one part coming of age and one part race/identity politics. I went to see Heidi read at McNally Jackson tonight, and she did something I think all authors should do at their readings. Instead of reading from the actual book where the print is small and you have to fumble with the pages, print out the selection you will read on regular size paper. It is so much better.
EAT: I have been to S’Mac and wasn’t that impressed, but tonight I stopped in Mac Bar, and I loved it. [No, it doesn’t have anything to do with Apple.] Mac Bar is a place that serves only macaroni and cheese dishes. I ordered the Mayan Chipotle after asking the girl working behind the counter which one should I get. It was spicy, cheesy and filling.
GO: The next time Work It Brooklyn happens, you should go. It was fun to meet creative people during cool things like Chris Willets from the skint, burlesque artist Gigi La Femme, jewelry designer Megan Issacs, florist Kathleen Hyppolite and LaShunda Davis, owner of ‘Cure, a beauty bar.
I spent the weekend in Los Angeles, mostly Santa Monica. I stayed with my friends PJ and Marty who live in this apartment building. It reminds me of “Melrose Place”. I attended the LA Cupcake Challenge and visited a couple of cupcake places in the city. I had a great time!
This site, PleaseRobMe, got a lot of buzz today because it took the check-in data from Foursquare’s API and listed everyone who is not at home.
I guess this was supposed to illuminate that using Foursquare could make you vulnerable to theft but that is a fallacy.
One, it assumes that because you are out, then no one is at your place of residence. A lot of people that use Foursquare live in expensive urban areas (NYC, SF) where they may cohabitate with roommates or significant others.
Two, PleaseRobMe shows where you are, but not where you live. So even if a burglar is technologically sophisticated to use Foursquare to find out where people are, the next step is finding out where they live. I know this can also be found online, but people address searches may actually cost $$, so I doubt that a burglar is going to go through all that. But if said burglar got the address, then they want to look on Google Street View to make sure they got to the right place.
I think PleaseRobMe is just throwing Foursquare a “neg”. For some strange reason, I have been having conversations about Pick Up Artists lately.
Or it is just a joke.
Update: Time magazine writes about Please Rob Me. I’m starting to suspect that this is a bizarro publicity campaign for Foursquare.
Last month, I took the Bolt Bus down to Philadelphia for Chris’ surprise 30th birthday party. It was a blast with plenty of food, a slideshow, trivia and a DJ. My friend Matty Baker took all the pictures using a fish eye lens. I have to find out where they got those cupcakes.
I normally don’t write on matters of the Gawker, but I think that the CityFile acquisition is a good thing. Hardly anyone who has been reading Gawker less than five years knows who Remy Stern is, but I do. [I won’t call you out for being a newbie because maybe you were busy getting a graduate degree or working on Wall Street.] Remy Stern is a good writer and editor. His first blog endeavor was NewYorkist, which was kind of somewhere in the middle between the newsiness of Gothamist and the gossipy pop culture of Gawker. He’s worked at Radar, edited Gawker Media properties and then he launched CityFile a few years ago. CityFile gives the back story of all the media elite and celebrities in New York. It is a good fit for Gawker because CityFile is like a statistician for the baseball team called Gawker. “There’s no crying in baseball”, so everyone should just relax and carry on like Carrie Bradshaw.
Update: The Observer’s take. Sounds like the new Gawker will more the old Gawker. Sounds good to me.
Last night, I went to the Paley Center for the first time in years. It was so cool to see a screening of VH1’s new Rock Doc, “Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America”. I danced in my seat watching the footage of The Jacksons, David Bowie, Aretha Franklin, The O’Jays and many others performed on Soul Train. Don Cornelius is a fearless legend who produced the show which ran for 35 years. Growing up, I watched the show on Saturday afternoons and it was a tradition to watch it with my family. Speaking of family, I was pleasantly surprised to my cousin, Imani Perry, in the documentary as one of the “talking head” experts. Yay!
After the screening, there was a panel discussion that was moderated by Danyel Smith. Panelists were Soul Train dancer Tyrone Proctor, Big Bank Hank from The Sugarhill Gang and Questlove from The Legendary Roots Crew.
The Soul Train documentary will premiere on VH1 on February 5th. Check local listings!