June 24th - My New Best Friend

Woman, why don't you be answering any of my pages?

The Wikipedia Page for the movie Clueless is surprisingly short given its tremendous (and welcome - at least by me and my friends) impact on the lexicon, fashion and zeitgeist of my generation. Is this because of "geek prioritization," a term explaining the preponderance of "long and well-written articles on obscure characters in science fiction/fantasy" and the grievous lack of articles on other things that geeks don't care about? Surely it can't be that the film isn't sufficiently "notable" to merit an extensive article detailing its influences and its impact on contemporary culture (there isn't even a quotes section!). Whatever!

Anyway, one thing Wikipedia (because it is run by geeks) does mention is technology's pervasive presence in the movie. With this in mind, I just re-watched Clueless, noting which technologies Cher and Dionne had access to and which were absent from the movie.


Technologies conspicuous in the film:

• Polaroids (RIP) - Cher uses them because she "doesn't trust mirrors"
• Cordless landlines - Cool then, ugly and depressingly backward now
• Large cell phones - REALLY large, but everyone brought them to the dinner table anyway
• Pagers - Yep
• Starbucks! - It hadn't even opened a single oversees branch in 1995, but Cher bought it for all the lawyers on her daddy's case

Technologies conspicuously absent from the film:

• Text messages - Oh and Twitter, obvi! Though for effective use of text messaging in film, I recommend Tarantino's "Death Proof."
• GPS - The kids get totally lost trying to make it to the Val party.
• iPhones - See above
• Computers - Surprising. I mean, they existed back then, right?
• DVDs - Christian brings video tapes of Some Like it Hot and "Sporadicus" for his movie night with Cher.
• OMG - Weird, right? Apparently LOL and BRB were in use way back in '89, but OMG was noticeably missing from the Valley Vernacular.

CONTRACT SIGNED! Now I just have to make it through the coop approval!

YACHT4Life

So glad YACHT has officially become a duo, teaming up with new recruit Claire Evans. Basically I can't stop humming this song from their latest album See Mystery Lights:

Apparently this is actually a remix from a song originally written by a "friend"/fan. Hot Chip also went on to do a remix of YACHT's version, click here to listen.

Password: Dorsia

I finally made it to my first clandestine dining experience which apparently is the "hottest thing since sliced organic bread." This "Secret Restaurant" was held in a friend's huge artist loft slash industrial space in Brooklyn, and when I say Brooklyn, I don't mean yuppie dominated Williamsburg - I'm talking about real, pre-gentrified BROOKLYN. You might be thinking, "with thousands of restaurants in New York, why would you pay to go to a dinner party?" But my question for you is, "it's New York! Who has the space to host a dinner party?!" And moreover, it's illicit and new and novel - what's NOT alluring about that?

Unsurprisingly, the clever and tasty menu/food, makeshift bar stocked with $2 homebrew and gin-based cocktails, a group of 30 strangers (all much hipper than myself) consisting mostly foodies, artists, writes and the like made for an unbeatable night. And, the $10 price tag makes it clear these guys (our hosts) aren't in it for the glory or the cash, but for the sheer love of entertaining and cooking - which makes it that much better.

So how long before the secret's out? Well, I for one, am hoping that it'll be awhile before this hush-hush world of underground dining crosses over into the mainstream.

Everyone Loves Corporate Rebranding

Which name do you like best? Click to vote.

What were you doing August 23, 1999?

Prya Labs was launching Blogger. That's right. In a few days (Sunday) Blogger celebrates it's 10th birthday and will be rolling out some new features in the coming weeks!

You might stunned and thinking, "who uses Blogger when there's Twitter and Tumblr?" - but I'll return with "Who can fit everything they want to say in 140 characters?" Plus, Blogger is far superior to all the other globbing platforms....it's FREE, quick, easy and best of all the image handling is much better than competitors like WordPress, Movable Type and LiveJournal.

Kudos, Blogger!