Awesome weekend

Wow, what an awesome weekend!

Friday night started with my buddy Oscar & I heading out to support our old high school by attending this year's Homecoming Game. I hadn't been to a football game since being at their CIF Championship game in 2006. The young men & women did an outstanding job of putting together a very fun event & Verb won the game convincingly. I saw and spoke with several old coaches, teachers & administrators. There were also a few guys I recognized from back in the day but by far the BEST moment came when we saw Gavino. I've known Gavino since we were 6 years old but we had all lost track of him for many years. The cipher is now complete & Gavino will forever be a part of it.

That was only the beginning, though, as I headed off to Firecracker's 10th Anniversary event in Chinatown. This is my favorite club in all of the U.S (been going for like 708 years since my friend Lea put me onto it)! Why, you ask? A very diverse crowd (both ethnically & age-wise) that enjoys a good time dancing led by phat beats-spinning DJs is the draw. Additionally, there's no dress code (they want you to be creative), a minimal cover charge & no pretentiousness allowed. For a few hours, you feel like you're not in Los Angeles. Headlining was Biz Markie (whom I'd never seen live) which was a treat for someone like myself who grew up listening to him- he killed it on the turntables as he drove us down a trip through memory lane. The resident DJ's were killin' it as usual (especially Coleman) & the other special, guest DJs (like Tittsworth) had us dancing all night long. Put it like this, I'm an old fogey but the music was so darn good I forgot about my age as I slipped back into my old "battling" days. Sure, I was sore the next day but I had such a great time & met so many cool folks that it didn't even faze me. Here's to 10 more years, Firecracker Crew!

Saturday was going pretty quietly along until my friends Vero & Adriana invited me to go with them to see a band. So happy I tagged along as I'd never been to that venue (Bordello's- the old Little Pedro's- next to Little Tokyo). One of their friends is in a band called the Boogaloo Assassins & they were great- fusing Latin Jazz with percussion, great vocals & a fun vibe. Up next was Humo Verde, a Latin ska, dancehall & reggae band that was really awesome & reminded me a lot of Quinto Sol.

Sunday, I headed over to my buddy Dan's as he wants me to collaborate with him on a MediaWiki project (more on that later, you'll want to hear about this sweet project). We did some work, did some research & then hung out & watched some football games also.

Great weekend filled with music & technology...what else could a geekmeister, like myself, want?

Website of the Week - new President!

In a landslide victory, this week's Website of the Week is:

The office of President-elect Obama

The Obama speech got me!

So there were two moments that really got me all emotional during the acceptance speech festivities. During President-elect Obama's speech when he started talking about the 106 year-old lady, reflecting on her plight and what she must've seen got me.

But the one that really got me was when the camera panned to the crowd and captured Jesse Jackson Sr.. Seeing him open up emotionally like that reminded me that he was so young during the Civil Rights Movement of the 60's when he was very involved with the Rev. Dr. Marlin Luther King's peace movement. He was THERE for all that discrimination and, yet, still trudged on.

People will say what they will about Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. but what they cannot say is that he has not "been there or done that." After all, he took the early lumps of attempting to become the first African-American president. Which, imho, paved the way (somewhat) for President-elect Obama's victory.

ps. I'm glad I was wrong about the long lines.

Obama's President! Download a free remix

So today is the day (ya, shoulda posted this earlier) where Lars Behrenroth of Deeper Shades of House was going to release a FREE remix in honor of President Obama utilizing words from a speech he gave in Berlin addressing 200,000 people in July 2008. The free download link is only active until 11:59pm tonight so hurry up!

From the site:
In celebration of election day in the USA, you will be able to download the current Deeper Shades Recordings release 006 "Now Is The Time" by Matt Flores at no charge.

enjoy.

2008's Hanging Chad

So I've told a couple friends of my prediction for this year's "issue" at the voting booths & figured I should put my money (words?) where my mouth is & post it:

I predict this year's "hanging chad" issue to be the really long lines at the voting places.

I know, not much of a prediction w/the voting almost over but it's something I've been thinking about for a while.

Hopefully, there are no issues so that whichever candidate wins out doesn't have to answer to 4 years of questions regarding it. But something tells me there's going to be issues reported- if simply for the fact of all the reports touting how many new voters will be coming out to vote in force. For example, a leader of the A.C.O.R.N. organization was on CNN Sunday night speaking on how they'd gotten 400,000 new voters registered!

Personally, I'd prefer to be wrong about my prediction. :)

Progressive Voter Guide

So I've been traveling a lot the last few months- for work & otherwise. During my free time, I've been teaching myself some new things & working on some personal projects (Stay Tuned for more details on these later).

There's a really cool site I got turned onto & it would've been one of my "Sites of the Week" because it's VERY cool.
Courage Campaign is a website for Progressive California voters. It is supported by various progressive organizations & they have a full listing on their site.

What's really, really cool is that they have a Progressive Voter guide for Californians in 2008. I like because it does a good job of explaining & summarizing the Propositions on this year's ballot. What I'm suggesting to all my open-minded friends is for them to print out the 2-pager & take it with them to the voting booths, tomorrow.