Well, last night the first episode of "Deal or No Deal" that I worked on aired. With it, my first ever Prime-Time TV credit: Eric Carroll, Casting Assistant. Have to admit I'm pretty jazzed about it. I've worked on other things that I maybe should have got credit on (I'm looking at you, "Gang of New York"), but this is, as far as I know the first thing with my name on it broadcast nationwide, and certainly my first credit on a channel as big as NBC. I hate to get all nerdy about it, but its the first concrete sign of me making progress on the things I moved to LA to make progress on. Don't get me wrong, I like LA and I love living with my brother Alex, but leaving NYC was very hard. I hated leaving the city I consider home, and all the friends I made over my 8.5 year there who MADE IT HOME for me, but I did it to further my career and this credit is proof that even though I haven't REACHED my goals, I am making progress. So look for it after any prime-time episode of "Deal or No Deal" if you find your self channel surfing at the appropriate time!

I cut off a lot of my hair. I decided I was sick of having all that hair on my head and said I wanted to get rid of it, Alex promptly offered to buzz me with the clippers at the house... The result, makes me look kinda Tough, eh? I mean sure in this pic I took of my glasses and I m giving you my best "Ojo Loco" but between the short hair and the ridiculous facial hair... I look MEAN. You should see me in my leather jacket, children run from me.

You guys know I try to post when I can, so I'm going to stop apologizing every time I post for the first time after a long break, deal? Okay, so I got new glasses. Here I am "working it for the camera" in them. So, what do you think? Awesome? Too Nerdy? Just the right amount of Nerdy? I think they work, and keep in mind they grow on you... that being said I have 30 days to change my mind, so if you HATE them, PLEASE let me know... And if you're opinion matters enough to me, I'll take in into consideration, ha ha ha ;) Alright, back to work!

As I mentioned earlier, Alex and I have gotten into baseball in a big way this summer, enough so that between all the games Alex, Kevin, Hart and I have been to, we decided to call this the Summer of Baseball. So I thought I would update you guys on the status of the Summer of Baseball, which has been a great success so far! Here is a little spread sheet of the games I have attended... The Parks in Blue signify the first time I was ever at that Stadium, and the team Highlighted in Yellow won the "match" as Ridgway would put it... It's been a blast, I hope to at least catch a Game at Yankee Stadium and Shea while in NYC, but maybe I will hope down to Baltimore, or over to Philly! YEAH BASEBALL!

Last night I experienced a real "life in California" milestone: My First easily felt earthquake. Last night as I was sitting down with a bottle of Smoking Loon Chardonnay playing a little Burnout: Revenge when I felt the apartment shake a little and I thought to myself, what are the neighbors up to? But then the rumbling and shaking grew in intensity for a few seconds, maybe about five total. Turns out it was a magnitude 4.5 earthquake with an epicenter only about 20 miles away from our apartment. It was definitely something... Woke my room-mate Mike up. I'd like to say I knew exactly what it was, but truth be told, I had no idea until a few seconds afterwards, when it finally occurred to me that it might have been a quake. In the heat of the moment though all I thought to do was jump up and make sure the door was locked... not sure what I thought was happening, but knowing the door was locked seemed important at the time... Anyway, it was interesting. Assuming no one gets hurt or loses any property, I wouldn't mind experiencing another one. Although I have to say, if that was only a 4.5... I'm not sure I'm anxious to feel anything much bigger!

This isn't going to be a super-involved post, but I ended up in Vegas this weekend helping a friend shoot a commercial, I actually ended up acting in it, ha (I can't really talk to much about it, but once I am allowed to, I will share it with you here via YouTube or something). It was a blast we got to use a lot of fun film equipment including a CAR MOUNT for the camera, FUN STUFF for us A/V Nerds! My Ex-Roomie Dale was the other actor in it, and the Director, Mark is a buddy of ours who comes over almost every Sunday during football season... The DP was a guy by the name of Rob, who was a complete professional and a total blast to hang out with...

Anyway, it was very HOT though, check out this picture of the outside temp gauge on Mark's car reaching 122! Holy... Cow! It was really really hot, even at night it didn't cool off much. Note to self, try to keep the Vegas Trips to the Winter Months...

It has a few little issues, but it is, hands down the best phone I have ever owned. Most of you know the basics of the thing, REAL mobile internet, full iPod features, and of course, the little things that make all of Apple's products more fun to use, so I won't go into a detailed review of it's features, instead in this post I'll mostly just talk to you about they day I got it, and the things that I have really learned to love about it...

So on day 1, Kevin Anderson and I waited in line at an AT&T store up Lankershim since we figured it was least likely to have a line of rapid Apple Fan Boys out front, and it was listed on Apple and AT&T's websites as one of the store guaranteed to get iPhones in stock opening day. The phones went on sale at 6, we got in line at 12:30pm. At 5:15 we were told that they were NOT going to get any iPhones... So Kevin and I rushed to a Mall on Riverside to see if we could get them at the Apple Store there, since we were told that the Apple Stores were reportedly getting thousands of iPhones... That tidbit of info turned out to be true, and at 8:30 or so (about 8 hours after we got in line) we had our iPhones in hand! It was a crazy adventure of a day, but it was worth it, and made it seem like even more of an event!

Now, the things I love about it so far (and I promise to post a list of my problems with it, to give everyone a good idea of the iPhones ups and downs):

The screen: Photos and Movies look INSANELY GREAT on this screen, it is amazing.
The Internet: being able to log onto the my bank website to check my balance, or transfer money is... AMAZING. Being able to load the full version of ESPN when I am not near a TV or radio to follow the Tigers, is downright addictive... I mean I almost get excited when I have to wait in line now since there is NO way I can get bored...
The Headset it comes with: It comes with a pair of iPod Headphones (you know the ones, little white earbuds) but they have a mic on the cord. So if you are listening to your iPhone's built-in iPod, and you get a call, you just click the mic/button on the cord and boom, your on the phone, click again and BOOM you hang up... Awesome.

I was always a fan of baseball, and really big fan of Detroit Tigers baseball, but since leaving Michigan for college in 1998, I haven't been able to watch the Tigers on TV except when they played the Yankees. And although I enjoy watching almost any baseball game on TV, its hard to REALLY get into a season when the only teams you can watch on TV, have almost no bearing on your teams divisional standing, they play in another league, or they are the Yankees and you HATE the Yankees. Well, now I have Extra Innings, courtesy of DirecTV. I've have watched nearly every game that I can and am more into this baseball season than I ever have been before. I even have satellite radio in my car allowing me to hear games on the ride home from work, if I can't make it home in time, or when the game is blacked out for some reason... But its really allowed me to get into the season as a whole. I've even adopted the Mets as my National League team, so that I can care about NL games too.

Anyway, Alex, Kevin Anderson and I have dubbed this "the Summer of Baseball". I've been to 6 live games in 4 different stadiums this year (none of which I had been to before: Angel's Stadium, Dodgers Stadium, Chase Field in Pheonix, and AT&T Park in San Francisco) with plans to see games in at least five more stadiums (Yankees and Shea while in NYC this summer, Comerica at least once, if not several times, and Wrigley field, which I have never been to, next Friday, and at the Oakland A's MacKafee Coliseum when the Tigers play there in July/August). It is such fun, and even with Extra Innings on TV, Satellite Radio and road trips its been pretty affordable. The last game I went to, we managed to get a group of 12 people together, it was awesome.

Then there is the bet I have with Joel Johnstone, who bets that his Milwaukee Brewers will have a better record than the Detroit Tigers. I took that bet, despite the difference in competition in the leagues and divisions (AL Central vs NL Central, please, we all know where the smart money is...), loser has to buy tickets to local game in the winners league (So when the Tigers win, Joel will be buying tickets to an Angels game).

WAHT FUN! Anyway, looks like it is shaping up to be a great summer FULL of Baseball! If anyone wants to go to a game with me, let me know, I'd love to plan some more outings this year!

This Friday, May 19th, Apple opened it's latest Flagship Retail Store on Fifth Ave. right here in New York City. The centerpiece of this store is the 3-Story 9 Million Dollar Glass cube. The store is also going to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Whew. They made a pretty big deal out of the whole thing and NYC responded accordingly. At it's height the line to get into the store was about half a mile long! They also gave away a slick new MacBook every hour for the first 24 hours of the opening. Those of you who frequent apple.com also noticed they featured a time-laspe image of the first 24 hours the store was open on their home page. When Alex and I went to go check it out on Saturday afternoon, I made sure to stand in place long enough to show up on the Apple web-page (I'm near the center of the picture in my red Asthmatic Avenger sweatshirt, and Alex is to the left of me, I've circled us so you can pick us out). I know, I know, I am a geek, but my brother inadvertently got in the shot too, and to be fair there were a few people that out-geeked me by FAR: a couple of guys stood in place for over an HOUR so as to be sure to be features on the Apple home-page for the same mount of time, and one guy even proposed via the time-lapse image...

Ha, Ha, Anyway, the new store is pretty cool and I am glad I got to check it out, if you are in NYC, are an Apple fan and haven't checked it out yet... try to go when you get a chance.

I guess this is the logical place to take Apple's new Application Front Row, so I doubt I am the FIRST to do it, but I thought I would share a picture of Front Row running on a projector. I was using the hacked version (Thanks for the headsup TUAW) so not all the features worked, but almost everything worked in the "Movies" section. Most notably, was the Movie Trailers, which I have to say were a LOT of fun on a big screen with my surround sound system. Anyway, this was so much fun (not to mention watching DVDs) on this projector I borrowed that I pretty much decided I HAVE to have one. Obviously you can see from the TV being slightly in the way and the projection being off center this was a temporary but I hope to make it more permanent soon!

I didn't want to like PhotoBooth, not that I am EVER rooting against Apple, but when I saw the new little program slated to come with all of the new iMac with built in iSights, I thought, "Oh Cute, some people might enjoy that, but I don't think I will." So when I acquired a copy and launched it for the first time, it was much to my dismay that I realized I had wasted over 45 minutes playing with the simple little app. I took all sorts of pictures of me and my business partner Anoush and I, most of which are just funny little images of us with our faces distorted. I think my favorite product was this image, which I created with PhotoBooth's "Comic Book" effect and the program Comic Life.

Well done Apple, once again you've proven you know how I want to spend my time better than I do sometimes...

As Pat, Michelle and I went out to dinner on Saturday Night I passed by one of those wood barriers they put in front of a building they are renovating. As they all inevitably are, this one was covered with hundreds of ad and posters. One was this very bizarre image of the iPod as a lock. For those of you that haven't been following, Real has released a file format that allows their securely purchased music to play on an iPod. Apple wasn't happy about it and said that they reverse engineered Apple's technology, the ultimate NO-NO in Tech-town. After calling REAL Hackers, Apple reminded REAL all it had to do was make an "update" to the iPod that would negate their work, so now REAL is in a full on battle to keep their music playing on iPods. Apparently this poster is the latest attempt to get people to tell Apple to leave it this way. Unfortunately, I think they should be pooling their resources to keep Microsoft from dominating yet ANOTHER market, but I have to side with Apple. The iPod is their product, their music store has more music that Real, so I don't think it is totally out of the question to think it is okay for Apple to want to keep people buying from them. What annoys me most about this poster is that it TELLS me what I want... Come on Real. I guess it is good news that they recognize that selling to iPod Users is important, thats not something we Mac Users are used to...