I first met Shira Lazar a few years ago at Launch Party Vancouver 2 I believe. Shira was up from Los Angeles to cover the event at the request of a mutual friend, Maura Rodgers. I unfortunately didn't get to talk to Shira too much that night, but have kept in touch with her periodically over email. Shira is a well known Los Angeles media personality, and blogs frequently on CBS News' On The Scene). Shira was nice enough to do a guest entry on my blog during the 2008 Blogathon. That event helped raise raise over $10,000 for the Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver and some of Vancouver's homeless. The ...

Today is Tony Pierce's 104th birthday. Tony's a great guy who has built himself quite the media empire down in LA. The last time I saw Tony, it was at some dimly lit, somewhat seedy strip club in east Hollywood. Prior to that, Tony and I sat in his car in some parking lot, drinking cheap beer out of a brown bag and reminiscing about life. Good times. Have yourself a good birthday dude, and try not to get into too much trouble. ...

The following is a guest post by the always lovely Shira Lazar. Shira is an amazing reporter based out of Los Angeles, and was nice enough to offer to help me out with a guest posting. You can read more about Shira Lazar on her main site, or head on over and check out her blog, The Pop Report. Thanks again Shira! After a few hours of sleep, I'm back and ready to rumble in San Fran. My fellow Canuck and blogger, Duane Storey, has been doing a 24-hour blogathon for charity starting last night at 10pm and has been getting friends to do guest entries- so here's my contribution. Last night at the ...

I love hearing stories about groups or cities becoming more environmentally conscious. I have a pile of posts to do in the next 24 hours about clean energy, and I thought I'd start it off with this piece. Photo by Sekihan on Flickr Los Angeles recently voted to ban plastic bags by the year 2010. Not only did the entire city council support that effort, but the vote was actually unanimous. The City Council voted Tuesday to ban plastic shopping bags from stores, beginning July 1, 2010. Shoppers can either bring their own bags or pay 25 cents for a paper or biodegradable bag. The council's unanimous ...

Well, thus marks the end of my first two-week vacation stint. This vacation saw me bounce from San Francisco, to Los Angeles, back up to Vancouver, to a Matthew Good show, then to the North Cascades, up to Whistler, and then back home. Not bad for just over two weeks. Golden Gate Bridge, taken during my trip It was great getting to hang out with my sister, brother-in-law, and their two kids down in Disneyland. Despite only being an hour and a bit away, I don't get a chance to head home that often. Plus, I haven't really spent much time with my niece and nephew (although I was there in Chilliwack ...

Wow, it feels like I've been disconnected from the Internet for a very long time. I spent today somewhere between Los Angeles and San Diego, hanging out at Legoland with my family. I actually wasn't really sure what to expect, given that I haven't really been into lego in a long time. But the good news is that Legoland was a lot of fun, and it was a nice change from the line-ups and the pace of Disneyland. Also, Legoland was near the water, and was a nice change from the hot weather down in Anaheim. Jessica, taking a break at Legoland. My nephew Derek spent about $150 on Lego in Legoland, and ...

Ok, ok. I'll take a break from writing about the iPhone. But business has been great lately - my traffic has nearly doubled in the last few days. Not like I really pay attention to those things, but it's pretty clear when there's a big prolonged spike -- clearly people are excited about the iPhone. To be honest, while talking about web traffic, I'm actually surprised mine has stayed up. I used to host all my plugins here and sort of assumed when I finally moved them over to BraveNewCode that alot of my traffic would disappear. But for whatever reason, my traffic has actually increased quite a ...

As I mentioned in my last post, my mind is starting to drift towards a vacation sometime in the next two or three months. I'm thinking about overlapping it with a trip I'm making in June to Disneyland (to hang out with some of my family who will be there). Here are a few ideas: Vancouver -> Los Angeles -> Costa Rica: I loved Costa Rica when I was there, and it might be cool to head back and rent a little place on the beach for a week. The flights for the entire trip are about $1000 right now. Not bad for five flight segments. Vancouver -> Los Angeles -> Cancun: I've actually never ...

I heard little bits of pieces of this last night, but just managed to read the real blog entry today. Tony Pierce is going to be leaving LAist and will be heading over to the LA Times to run all of their blogs. Congrats Tony, that's really awesome. First beer's on me out in TO bud. ...