MADNESS

Let me be honest - I don't even watch much college ball.

But of course I filled out a bracket - because, let's face it, gambling (on random things none of us know anything about) is America's favorite pastime.

Photos via ESPN


So I was trying to get some work done this morning but then the Robert Morris/Villanova game went to OT and started to get ridiculous so I had catch the ending. RMU played pretty much out of their mind until the final play. I still don't understand how they failed to get a decent look at the buzzer but Nova really lucked out there.



Then a couple hours later this guy from Murray State put a dagger through Vanderbilt.



It's this type of unpredictable game ending drama that makes the tournament so undeniably compelling. I can see why "experts" estimate that March Madness costs the US economy $1.8 billion in lost productivity.



Anyway, at least my boys in Kentucky handled their business tonight. UNC didn't even make the tourney this year so I had to pick a new squad to pretend to follow.



It's crazy because these guys are now scheduled to play Wake Forest in New Orleans on Saturday night but I don't think Matt and I can catch it because our flight comes in too late. Such poor planning - believe me, this is the last time I let Matt book the airline tickets.

INDIAN WELLS

So I went out to Palm Springs for the weekend to watch some tennis.

Actually I went out there on Friday and took most of the day off work but don't tell Matt. So anyway, Friday night they had that charity match for Haiti when Agassi and Sampras got into it but my boy Robert and I missed it because we were hanging out back at the hotel and casino.

Saturday morning we woke up and made a few calls looking for tickets. This was the first weekend of the tournament and somehow it inexplicably sold out. Tennis, as I'm sure you know, is not at all popular so I'm not sure how that happened but the criminals on Craigslist were asking $100 for nosebleed seats to Saturday's day session.

We decided to head out to the stadium without tickets, or a plan, and I figured we would work something out somehow. Then we hopped in the hotel elevator and met Mike.



Mike's a season ticket holder from San Diego. We chatted for a minute and he offered to get us into the event.

So we skipped breakfast and followed him over to the stadium. Robert had all these samples from last week's Anaheim Health Food Expo so we ate a bunch of random antioxidant Acai chews and such for breakfast on the car ride over.


Ok, the gummy worms did not come from the Health Food Expo - I bought those myself from AM/PM

So we get to the venue and the surprise that Mike failed to mention was that he happens to own the best seats in the stadium.


Front row, inside the coach's box.

Svetlana Kuznetsova's mom was sitting in the row behind us screaming at her in Russian the entire match.



Anyway, around midday the moron tournament directors scheduled the Andy Roddick/James Blake vs. Andy Murray/Some Other Guy doubles match on one of the smaller, outer auxiliary courts.



All seating on these outer courts is unreserved and they only hold a fraction of the people that the main stadium court can. We waited almost an hour to get seats and there were thousands who didn't get in at all, including this Sports Illustrated supermodel chick.



Anyway, good match though. Roddick and Blake took it in straight sets. Then we headed back over to Stadium court to catch Rafael Nadal.



Sitting that close and watching someone like Nadal was insane. It was really an unbelievable experience, and it was so much better because it was a gift from this random stranger who decided to take care of us like his own family. Of course we offered him cash and to buy him food and everything - but he wouldn't accept it. And in fact, he not only got us in for the day session, but he gave us sunscreen and blankets and when he left after the Nadal match he handed us his tickets to the Saturday night session as well.





As you can see, we sat a few seats down from all these guys in Rafa's camp. The one on the end is Uncle Toni of course. My favorite part was in between points when Rafa would glance at his box and I would yell out my own coaching tips to him. I think it would've been more effective had my Spanish been less rusty.



You're sitting so close that you feel like you can literally call the lines just as well, or perhaps even better, than the linespeople. I was secretly hoping to catch one of them slipping and yell out my own call or advise Rafa about a potential lines call challenge but the opportunity never really presented itself.


Look how snuggly Robert looks. I'm not really going to criticize him too much - it got windy and we ended up sharing that blanket for longer than I'd like to admit.



Anyway, we ended up deciding to duck out before Djokavic played in the night session. So on our way out, we climbed to the top of the stadium and gave Mike's tickets to this mother and son who were freezing up in the 500-level bleachers. The gesture felt really good - especially since the alternative we considered at the time was to scalp them outside the box office and make $500 cash - but in hindsight it's abundantly clear that we made the right choice.

OSCAR GIFT BAG EVENT

So Matt and I went out to LA the other day to shoot some video and stills for Iron Horse Jeans at this Oscar Gift Bag Event.

There was actually all-you-can-eat free Fatburger all day. Yeah, I know it sounds phenomenal but trust me, the novelty wears off after a few burgers.


This was a random test photo from Saturday morning when we were setting up. Matt was adjusting some flash settings and you can see me in the background reading the video camera manual. I was thinking to myself that we should've hired a professional to tape the event - but then I remembered that I have a Film degree and that I was in fact hired for that very purpose.

So anyway, I brushed up on some things in the manual and it all went over very well. We're editing the video now and it looks great so far, so no need to panic. (especially if the people at Iron Horse are reading this)

Anyway, on to the celebrity photos. You can click on any of them to enlarge 'em if you really want to.


Me and T.O.

This guy is still looking for a job right now. I told him not to sweat it because I know plenty of people out of work at the moment. And I told him not to be ashamed if he has to resort to collecting unemployment. I mean after all, it's the recession and we all can't own our own small businesses. Keep your head up buddy.

Not to mention the fact that Iron Horse gave him like $750 worth of jeans - so that should help hold him over while he's in between $100 million contracts.


Angela from Iron Horse alongside Shar Jackson AKA Kevin Federline's other ex-wife


Baywatch's Traci Bingham


Christi from Iron Horse with Pete Docter, director of UP. Pete ended up winning an Oscar the next night for Best Director of an Animated Feature.


I guess this guy won Project Runway at some point? That was the word on the street anyway.

By the way, Matt knows no one. Not like he doesn't recognize people - but he claims he's never even heard of the movies or TV shows that they're from. Anyway, I took advantage of this and started to mess with him after awhile - I told him this guy was Kanye West.


This is actually the slightly less well known rapper Sleepy Brown


This girl stars on some show on the Disney Channel. She was super nice. In fact everyone throughout the day was really friendly. Actually except for Omarosa from The Apprentice, but don't get me started on her...


This dude claims he was on The Hills at some point. Not sure about that - Matt has them all Tivo-ed so I'll check next time I'm at his place. On the way out he handed me his business card and asked if he could be my body double but unfortunately he's not tall enough.


Cero Quatro Ocho Quatro and Ocho Cinco.


Gilles Marini from Dancing with the Stars - or as Christi from Iron Horse refers to him, the "hot naked guy from the Sex and the City movie"


Amanda Righetti from The Mentalist

And everything was pretty calm all day until this guy walked in the building.

Chad Michael Murray showed up toward the end of the event and got sort of mobbed by fans soon thereafter.


And yes, in person CMM does seem to have that one brooding, quasi-introspective look sort of frozen permanently onto his face at all times. Whatever, maybe that's his secret. Who knows?

EVENT PLANNING

Thursday at 5PM - Mark from Iron Horse Jeans called and said they were invited to be a part of an Academy Awards gift suite on Saturday morning.

Their participation at the event didn't get confirmed until the last minute, so basically Matt and I had to throw a few things together for them in about 36 hours. Thursday night we started making some plans. I hit up my boy Jordan and asked him to come out and work the event with us - sort of host the video that we were going to shoot - but unfortunately he was out of town.

Friday morning I rented all the film and camera equipment we needed.


Meanwhile Matt hit the stationery store to grab a few things.


And I swung by Target to pick up some other stuff we needed. None of which were adorable Easter baskets but no one visits a blog to look at pictures of 9-volt batteries.

Spent most of the day on conference calls working out details and designing signs and materials for the event.

Friday afternoon - Got these new Air Max 1's in the mail. Totally irrelevant to the event preparation but I thought they were worth mentioning nonetheless.


Friday around midnight, Matt came up to my house. He and I, and a few strangers with various personality disorders, went to Kinkos around 1AM to print a few last things.


We printed some legit matching gold and silver envelopes as well but I didn't get a picture of those for some reason.

Anyway, went to sleep at 3AM Saturday and then woke up at 6 to head out to LA. (Right, we only slept for 3 hours - it was like a nap. Like a really crappy nap.)


Newport Beach at dawn



The event was at the Universal Studios backlot.


I went on a field trip to this Technicolor lab, which is also located on the Universal premises, when I was in school. They sat us in a dark room and showed us advanced color correction techniques and some other fancy stuff. In fact a couple of my friends from school currently work here, not me, but others from my class who didn't fall asleep as soon as they turned the lights off on our field trip.



Anyway, I'll throw some pictures from the actual event up later this week.

RECENT WORK: SARAH BARNARD + ENV CONCEPT

We updated a couple sites this week.



Sarah is an eco friendly interior designer in LA. We added a bunch of shiny new images throughout her site.



And we also programmed a whole new portfolio section for Environmental Concept's site. These guys do high end landscaping for a bunch of people in LA - celebrity homes, fashion boutiques, The Aquarium of the Pacific, etc.

We have a really wide random mix of clients, but these two fit together well. So if you own a home - and want it to look nice - on the inside or the outside, hit them up. Tell 'em we sent you, they'll take care of you.

P.S. We've now logged over 100 posts on this little blog (this is #101 actually). So to celebrate here's a link to the new Drake single, Over, which dropped online a couple hours ago. Enjoy it and have a good weekend.

OPEN GYM

One of my boys got the keys to the local high school gym the other day.



I guess he's an assistant coach or something, so he said it was cool, not like we broke in or anything.



It's crazy how much better basketball is in this type of environment than at a park or your local 24Hour Fitness. No waiting, no strangers, no time constraints.



The best things in life are free, right?



Anyway, I gotta get back to work. By the way, Matt and I picked up tickets to New Orleans this morning so we'll be out there in a couple weeks.