Brian.Indrelunas.com

Happy Nube Day... of the future!

2010-03-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

This morning when I woke up (feeling like Joan Rivers), the first thing I did was grab my iPhone and get on Facebook. There, I was reminded that today is the best holiday ever created: NUBE DAY!

I literally screamed with joy as I read José's wall post and realized that it's one of my favorite days of the year.

Ten years ago today, my friends Simeon, José and I turned in our TeleNube commercial to our eighth-grade Spanish teacher, Sra. Warren. I forget what the assignment actually was, but our project that somehow fulfilled the requirements was a TV commercial for a new television network, TeleNube. As I recall, we even managed to film the thing at the CHS-TV anchor desk over at the high school.

See, nube (i.e., "cloud" en inglés) was our favorite word. Don't ask why. We were eighth-grade boys; we didn't need a reason. So creating a cloud-themed news network was kind of a no-brainer.

Check out the script of our promo below and run it through Google Translate if you must. I'm Tomás Indrelunas, and then there's Simeon Owens and Hector Jiménez...

TI    ¿Estás cansado de noticias regulares?
SO    Intentas las noticias de nube en el canal "TeleNube."
HJ    Nosotros damos los reportes sobre el tiempo cada quince minutos.
TI    Y todas nuestras emisiónes están cubiertas por la patente del canal "TeleNube..."
SO    ¡Pantalla Nublada! ¡Vivo! del blimp "TeleNube."
HJ    "TeleNube" el canal international numero uno de las noticias te lleva mucho más atras de las camaras y enseña visiones exclusivos que solo veras aquí.
TI    Las noticias de nube es una mirada divertida en el tiempo y las noticias.
* * * * *
HJ    El presidente de los Estados Unidos... [Hesitate] ...¡Se me olvidó mi linea!
* * * * *
TI    Hoy es el primero de marzo y nuestro reporte especial es... [Begin laughing]
SO    ¡Su cabeza está en las nubes!
SO    ...No hay lluvia en el pronóstico. [Thunder and Rain] ¡uy!¡ay!
* * * * *
TI    Si tú no estás cerca de una televisión, visitanos en el internet en www.TeleNube.com
HJ    ¿Donde puedes hallar las mejor noticias?

  SO  TI       HJ
¡Aquí en TeleNube!

At first when I realized it was Nube Day, I got hella stoked because I realized that today was forecast to be a cloudy and/or rainy day in Palm Springs. I looked outside my window and saw that God has clearly decided to celebrate Nube Day too.

Shortly afterward, I realized that even though back in 2000, José, Simeon and I were television revolutionaries who were ahead of our time, we now live in the future and our vision of a 24/7 news network distinguished from the rest by the fact that there would always be nubes on the screen via our Pantalla Nublada system could finally become a reality!

So I hopped on livestream and made an account and then went to GoDaddy and registered TeleNube.com. And now, a mere two hours after I was sleepily reading José's Nube Day felicidades on Facebook, I'm just about to start the first-ever live broadcast on TeleNube.

You can tune in below, or better yet — head over to the newly minted TeleNube.com to celebrate Nube Day by watching the clouds hovering over Mount San Jacinto LIVE on the newly launched Web stream of the legendary TeleNube!

The tale of the purple shirt

2010-03-06T02:53:00.000-08:00

This isn't really a story about a shirt, but rather a pretty amazing day that just so happened to involve a particular shirt.

See, there's this purple shirt that's been hanging up in one or the other of my closets since I moved to Palm Springs in June. I've never worn it... until today.

While I was ironing clothes earlier in the week, I decided it was time to bring some new-ish clothes into what was becoming a rather limited wardrobe. So I got my purple shirt all gussied up and ready for its debut.

I thought the purple shirt would look good with blue jeans, so I put it on today and unwittingly joined the ranks of the purple people eaters at The Desert Sun. It was one of those days when a bunch of us all happen to wear the same color, and today, purple was definitely the new black.

Aside from being one of the cool kids wearing purple and just generally doing what I love and loving what I do, my workday was especially enjoyable because of a technical fail that cracked me up.

I'm on a companywide listserv for people who deal with video. All of us listserv members get a daily budget of notable video content from around Gannett, and the list is also often used by people who want advice or need technical help on something video-related. When one such general question was sent out to the list this afternoon, though, all hell broke loose.

For some reason, the Outlook system at a paper back east replied to the list on behalf of someone out there who's out of the office. But the e-mail system didn't just send one out-of-office reply; it sent at least 195 copies of the same "I am currently out of the office" message to everyone on the list in what was quite possibly the funniest 15 minutes of my week.

The steady stream of out-of-office e-mails prompted me to giggle uncontrollably, and other listserv members' often-frenzied replies got me to bust out laughing:

SOMEONE TURN THIS OFF NOW!!!!!!!!!!! I've got about a dozen of these same emails!!!!

This is going to crash my inbox, please turn his out of office message off. I've gotten 20 of these.

Please take me off this list!!!!!

SOMEBODY STOP THIS CRAZY THING...I'VE GOTTEN DOZENS OF THESE MESSAGES.

MAKE IT STOP!!!
IT'S CRASHING MY SYSTEM...AND EVERYONE ELSES!!!

Me too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Take me off this list!!!!!!!

Since exclamation points are something that journalists are expected to use very sparingly, if at all, I feel like the collective response to E-mailageddon 2010 must've depleted Gannett's supply of available exclamation points through at least 2050.

But it was hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND TOTALLY WORTH IT!!!!!

Anyway, after work and a stop at my apartment, I went to the opening of my friend Jayel's photography exhibit at a local Starbucks.

There, my purple shirt came into play again (See why I'm using it as a thread here?) as friends and strangers alike told me they liked the shirt and/or asked where I got it.

After the opening ended, we all (well, most of us) headed down to the Ace, where we used a gift certificate that Stacy won during a recent Ace bingo night to get a bunch of food at the bar. Most of it was delicious, but there was one notable exception — the grilled cheese that Stacy ordered.

The offending sandwich was passed around the table, and the consensus was clear: It... was... awful. To me, the sandwich tasted like an amplified version of how my dirty/sweaty socks smell after a long walk. It was so bad that I couldn't even swallow the trial bite I took; I had to spit it into a napkin.

Apparently, that's just the taste of one of the more obscure cheeses used in the multi-cheese blend that fills the sandwich, but wow. I don't think any of us at our table could stomach much of that taste.

But we didn't let some iffy cheese get us down. Instead, we headed up to Toucans and danced the rest of the night away.

While doing so, we ran into some people we knew, at least one other person who just looked like someone we knew and (of course) quite a few notbooks I wish I knew. Good thing I was all up in their peripheral vision wearing my oh-so-nice looking purple shirt. (And you thought I had forgotten about the shirt, didn't you?)

Oh, and Jayel and I staged a very brief performance atop one of the platforms reserved for go-go dancers, as I believe they're called, before we were told to get down by an angry-looking bouncer-type fella, a la getting booted from the stripper poles at Cherry in Tempe. That was like the cherry on top of a wonderful, full 7i, purple-shirt-wearing day.

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2010-02-28T13:42:00.000-08:00

About a month ago, Blogger, which I've used since '01 to make this site, announced that they're dropping support for FTP publishing. That's geek speak for "The way that stuff gets from Blogger's system, where I put it, to the Indrelunas.com servers, where you find it, ain't gon' work no more."

Because I'm way too cool for blogspot, I'm in the market for a new content management system... and unless one of y'all speaks up soon with news of a fancy new CMS that would be perfect for Brian.Indrelunas.com, it looks like I'm moving to WordPress.

I used to make fun of WordPress, especially when sites that were supposed to be serious launched sporting a default WordPress theme. But apparently, WordPress has grown up a bit over the years, unlike Blogger, which still kinda feels like it almost 10 years ago.

To be fair, I haven't opted into many of the new things the Blogger team has created, but that's because they've mostly been dumbed-down WYSIWYG-type things. The list of features that I can actually implement as a guy with a hard-coded template who uses the non-WYSIWYG post editor is kinda short — a title field, post labels, comments... all things that are kinda seen as a given these days. And that said, Blogger has sported some cool features that I've used all along, like the ability to post via e-mail and, therefore, via my barely e-mail-enabled brick phone that I had in college.

But it's time to move on, and I'm pretty confident that I can make WordPress bend to my every whim... especially after seeing what Scott did with the new statepress.com, which runs on WordPress.

So prepare yourself for yet another new (and hopefully improved) Brian.Indrelunas.com, coming sometime before Blogger shuts down FTP on March 26. Depending on how much I feel like messing around with WordPress and how successful I am in said messing around, the new Brian.Indrelunas.com may be a lot like this one or it might have a new look and feel by the end of next month as well.

'What a day you've had!'

2010-02-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

Indeed.

As I tweeted earlier, today was hella exciting — and also hella frustrating.

Today was a day full of breaking news, which really gets my journalistic juices flowing. But the fact that I started out one step behind a local TV station made me lose sight for a while of just how much I enjoy going out and reporting.

For some reason, my ears did not perk up like they usually do when, presumably, our newsroom scanners crackled with news of a structure fire, which is usually a phrase I can hear on the scanner from seemingly across the newsroom. But instead of hearing county fire dispatcher chitter-chattering about the fire at an Indio self-storage facility, I first heard about it when KPSP, Channel 2, mentioned it at the end of their morning newscast just before 7 a.m. By the time I had called the Cal Fire command center, the fire had been contained, so I handled that story from the newsroom.

Still, I kept an eye on KPSP's "Early Show" cut-ins to make sure the contained fire didn't look like something I needed to roll out to, and I looked on with bemusement as KESQ, Channel 3, repeatedly didn't mention the fire in their GMA cut-ins, even after both KPSP and mydesert had stories about the fire online.

An hour later, I looked to the TV to see if KPSP had anything new on the fire for their 7:58 a.m. cut-in when I saw that they were reporting a whole other incident in Indio — what was initially thought to be a chemical explosion. I wheeled around and saw that not only had KESQ caught up on the storage-facility fire but they also had gotten word of this hazmat situation.

Again I cursed my ears, and again I tried to play catch up. After some frustrating minutes in the newsroom trying to get basic information on what turned out to be a punctured chlorine gas cylinder at a scrap metal and recycling center, I was sent out to try to cover the whatever-it-was from the scene.

Luckily, the drive to east Indio was about 20 minutes, which gave me enough time to chill the eff out.

Eventually, I sort of got into my reporting groove as I covered the second of two fire-department-related Big Things that went down in Indio this morning. But the frustration and stress would come back in waves throughout the day, in particular as I was faced with another twin set of Big-ish Things going down in the same city at almost the same time.

The afternoon set consisted of two car crashes that were literally around the corner from one another in Palm Springs. Luckily, I avoided some of my morning frustration by having a mostly-charged laptop battery in the afternoon, and I was able to handle the crashes with more ease than I handled the morning brouhaha.

After a very belated lunch break, I got back to my desk and cranked out the STORM WATCHAGEDDON 2010 story I had promised the editors in the morning before tying up as many loose ends as I could and getting all my content from the Web site and/or my notebook into the systems we use to make a printed newspaper.

Three sets of photos, three stories, one brief and one extended photo caption later, I was more than ready to call it a day — and yet, not altogether opposed to the idea of doing this all again tomorrow.

I feel like I haven't posted anything here in a while...

2010-02-23T22:02:00.000-08:00

...so rather than waiting until some transcendental thought hits me or I feel the need to write about something I have file photos of, I will simply say: Free food is awesome, and free food with good friends is even better.

OK, and actually this post will have a photo with it. In searching for photos of last year's free-pancakes-at-IHOP outing, all I could find were pictures of the IHOP in West Hollywood (the site of a story or two) and of making pancakes in South LA... oh, and this one:

Notice that in the top right corner, someone has spelled IHOPANON, which some of us here in the desert may have to join soon.

Also, click on the photo to go to the Flickr photo page, where you can mouse over words like FIERCERS for explanations of how they are totally legit words.

Early Halloween lives on!

2010-02-15T18:59:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not already know, last year, I started celebrating Early Halloween on Feb. 14 because, you know, it's not like there are any other major observances on that day.

Well, truth be told, I was also pretty angsty about being single and took great joy in repurposing Valentine's Day. This year? I'm not quite as angsty and I also didn't have a truly killer costume idea, so the future of Early Halloween was looking dim.

I had thought about being a Jersey Shore cast member, but that would've required me to keep my hair all long and gross-looking so that I could attempt some sort of a blowout. And when I began to realize just how many friends from Arizona I was likely to run into in Las Vegas this weekend, I decided that a haircut was definitely in order because appearing somewhat presentable on Saturday was more important than being able to maybe pull off a the guido look on Sunday.

So when I set out for Vegas, I didn't really bring many costume-able items, and on Sunday morning I just put on a T-shirt and jeans for the day's Strip-based activities. But later that day, we unexpectedly stumbled across the best costume imaginable, so Early Halloween was back on.

Now, without further ado, here is...

the story of my Early Halloween '10 costume

Let's flash back to the first time I ever went to Las Vegas, which was on my youth group's way to and from SSP '04.

Before we left, my friend John kept telling us that he was really excited about stopping in Las Vegas because people on the streets handed out free Pokémon cards there. I thought that seemed pretty unlikely since a) Pokémon were not that cool anymore by the summer of '04 and b) unless there was some sort of Pokémon convention there, why would people hand out free cards?

On the way up to the Duck Valley reservation on the Nevada-Idaho border, we stayed at University United Methodist Church in Vegas, which coincidentally is also where I spent a lot of this past weekend at the Relevance X conference. University UMC isn't all that far away from the Strip, but we stayed close by the church on our way to SSP. And John's tales of free Pokémon cards remained the stuff of legend.

On the way back, however, our adult leaders gave in to our never-ending requests to see the Strip. One night, they agreed to drive us down Las Vegas Boulevard in the church van on a magical journey, during which my face was literally pressed up against the window as I was awed by the "sparkly, sparkly" outside.

At one point on our trip, while we were stopped in traffic, I looked down to the sidewalk and saw a bunch of those little cards advertising the services of various female escorts.

I said something along the lines of, "Hey, look at all those stripper business cards on the ground!"

"Yeah, see? Pokémon cards!" John replied.

Well — much to the adults' chagrin, I'm sure — Pokémon cards became one of the hallmarks of our SSP trip. We even made our own out of our placemats from a buffet where we ate:

And ever since then, whenever I've visited Vegas, I've generally had some fun with the guys who stand along the Strip, snapping the cards at passers-by in an attempt to pass out a handful of the ladies.

I've collected enough to snap them back at the guys, and I've asked them a whole host of questions (sometimes in my comically basic Spanish when they say they don't know English) including if they have any cards depicting dudes. One time, I even used the cards to create a display that came to be known as the Skank Bank.

This weekend's Vegas trip was no exception. After Relevance X wrapped up Saturday night, I headed out to the Strip with the Tempe First young adult group and ended up collecting 189 escort cards, which I eventually just had the card-snappers drop in a CVS bag as I asked, "Trick-or-treat?"

At the time, I didn't even realize how perfect it was that I was trick-or-treating on the strip on the eve of Early Halloween. But the next day, as Chris, Amanda and I were strolling past the Citta Delle Luci shop in Planet Hollywood's Miracle Mile, Chris noticed that they were selling shirts that looked just like those worn by the ubiquitous card-snappers. Amanda suggested that I throw one on for a quick photo-op, but I decided that instead, I'd actually buy the shirt and use it for my early Halloween costume.

Since my trick-or-treating bag was far away, sitting in the trunk of my car, we quickly went about collecting some more cards as we went to meet up with the rest of the crew. Then, I put on my new shirt and almost immediately met some girls who clearly needed some GIRLS DIRECT TO THEIR ROOM IN 20 MINUTES:

See more photos from Early Halloween

Then, once we hit the Strip, there was a card-snapper who offered to sell me another shirt for $20, but I told him that one was all I really needed.

Minutes later, we had identified a heavily-trafficked corner where there were a couple real card-snappers who I could snap alongside of. At first, we set up some posed photos just in case the guys took offense to me trying to hand out stripper cards to real passers-by:

That guy in the blue shirt tried to get in on the action, giving Amanda a few of his cards as well. But instead of running me off, he actually was quite happy to augment my stack of escort cards with some of his own. I'm guessing he saw my enthusiasm for my Early Halloween costume as an opportunity to unload some cards and come closer to meeting some sort of quota.

He also tried to get the other guy at that corner to give me some of his cards, but the second guy was wary of the idea. A minute or so later, though, he tried to give me a whole big, rubberbanded stack that was probably a good 500 cards.

Anyway, after I peddled some ladies' services to a couple of the ladies from our group, the light turned green, the crosswalk signal turned to the walking man, and a whole bunch of people I didn't know came our way.

That's when I really got to work, as you can see in this video:

See more photos from Early Halloween

The woman in the car was hilarious, btw. In addition to asking for my escort cards, she said she was going to snap some back at me. Then the guy in the blue shirt came up and tried to get in on the action, but she shut him down, saying, "Ew! Your cards are nasty!"

And I love how some passers-by said my girlfriend would probably be pissed about this little adventure. Although I haven't asked Justine if she would've approved, I'm guessing she'll get a kick out of it.

Speaking of girl (space) friends, my thanks go out to Amanda and Jill for taking some cards for the team. Also, thanks to Dan, who shot the video as well as some stills and can be heard cracking up at the girlfriend comment, and Chris, who helped me collect cards and also took photos. All y'all made it an Early Halloween for the ages.

Oh, and I should also mention that I got a ton of strange looks as I walked around Vegas with my shirt on... as well as when I wore it to Toucans last night. (I just couldn't resist the irony of wearing a "GIRLS DIRECT" shirt to a bar where about 90 percent of the clientele has no interest in women.)

And my card-snapping self will be making one more Early Halloween appearance at the Ace tonight for Sissy Bingo.

Random fact: I ended up making it back to Palm Springs with 425 escort cards. The Skank Bank has become a veritable Tramp Treasury, my friends.

You are tearing me apart, Savannah!

2010-02-12T00:55:00.000-08:00

When I first saw the trailer for Dear John, I knew I had to see it.

I wanted to see Dear John not because it was adapted from a Nicky Sparks book or because it was about true love or anything like that. No, my friends. I wanted to see this movie for the sole reason that it looked like it included some significant screen time for a shirtless Channing Tatum.

In that respect, Dear John certainly didn't disappoint. But in almost every other way, this movie was so bad.

Stacy and I saw it tonight, and right from the get-go, we couldn't help but snicker at the awkward pacing and repetitive dialogue. Soon, I was interjecting lines from The Room whenever they seemed appropriate, which was surprisingly often.

In fact, by mid-movie, I had become convinced that Dear John was on par with The Room in the epic fail department. It even lent itself to such commentary as "Because you're a woman!"

And just as I was starting to get into the plot and wondering whether there was more to this movie than just the unintentional comedy of it all, someone up and gets cancer randomly! SRSLY.

remake! remake!

Now that I've seen Dear John, there's nothing I want more in the cinematic world than for Tommy Wiseau to cast himself and his The Room co-stars in a Dear John remake.

Tommy would play John, of course, so that he could show off his nice pecs in all the surfing (but not) scenes.

Juliette Danielle, aka Lisa, would play the female lead, and I can think of a perfect place in the script, right before the cancer revelation, for John to yell, "You are tearing me apart, Savannah!"

The beard-growing skills Greg Sestero showed while playing Mark in The Room clearly qualify him for the role of Tim, who for the purposes of our remake might as well be John's best friend.

Then my friend and fellow State Press alum Phil Haldiman, aka Denny, should probably play Alan, whom the other characters seem to say "O hai" to quite often.

And I guess that leaves Carolyn Minnott, who played Claudette in The Room, to be John's dad. I suppose Tommy could tweak the script to have the character be John's mom, but I feel like Minnott could really stretch herself as an actress by playing the male role.

In any case, I do expect Tommy to write in a little confrontation between Mr./Mrs. Tryee and Savannah that ends with the former saying, "If you think I'm autistic today, wait till you see me tomorrow!"

This could be a beautiful thing, Tommy. Don't let me down. Remake this movie.

Football FTW.

2010-02-09T21:58:00.000-08:00

Oh, how I love football.

Around this time last year, I was bemoaning the death of the Arena Football League and wondering how I'd make it through the college football offseason without it.

This spring, things don't look so dire.

I'm still no NFL fan, but I did attend an epic Super Bowl party on Sunday and, you know, kind of pay attention to the game.

The day before, though, I was in football heaven. I made my first-ever appearance in the Atagi Memorial Bowl presented by Tecmo — otherwise known as a bunch of guys who have some connection or another to TDS running plays on the field at Palm Springs High. That was a lot of fun in and of itself, and the postgame shenanigans proved to be even more... well, YouTube-worthy:

It had been a long time since I had played some football as opposed to just watching it on TV, which has been pretty evident for the past few days. I still have some muscles in random places that are kinda sore.

But it was totally worth it.

And on top of all that football non-fiction, my new guilty pleasure on TV is a scripted series about college football, Blue Mountain State. This show is so not classy, but it makes me laugh... and it fills that little hole in my heart that's all too often left open in the offseason.

Long live football.

on hipness

2010-02-02T20:41:00.000-08:00

So I wrote this last Thursday and meant to post it Friday, but my pre-weekend plans got in the way, so now here are my much-delayed thoughts on hipness:

Part I: Coachella

Photo by Caesar Sebastian

When this year's Coachella lineup was announced last last week, I was rather impressed that I had heard of (and in some cases, straight-up heard) many of the artists who'll be playing in Indio come April.

You know, back in high school, I only had this vague idea of what Coachella was and probably knew 0.3 of the bands that played the festival... and now all these years later, I live in the Coachella Valley and kind of maybe want to go to Coachella — assuming, of course, that there are enough bands I want to see that won't be playing while I'm at work Saturday night.

Part II: KWXwhY?

This past past Saturday, I was listening to KDES (Tempe translation: KOOL) because, you know, I'm all 65 years old and whatnot. And I heard the DJ say that KDES' long-anticipated move from 104.7 FM to 98.5 FM is was coming up on Feb. 2.

That means the station ~~that's now~~ was on 98.5, KWXY is leaving FM forever!* I heard earlier ~~this~~ last week that the beautiful music station is moving to its old AM frequency, but things still won't be the same. Lots of markets have older-than-oldies on AM, but ever since forever, we here in Palm Springs have had classy old jams on the FM... along with all the cuteness of a station by senior citizens for senior citizens. This is the station that calls itself "the valley's 24/7 news source" because they have their DJs read national wire stories at all hours of the day and night. Srsly. I think I've heard more local news about Canadian cities on KWXY than I have about Coachella Valley cities. Also, some of the DJs go all out during news time and tell you that the temperature is, say, "65 KWXY degrees" before consulting "Doppler 98-5."

But even though I like to poke fun, when KWXY ~~moves~~ moved back into the static-y, mono world of amplitude modulation, my life ~~is gonna get~~ got a lot less classy... or I'll just have to get used to the much more low-fi version of Sinatra and company.

The possible silver lining to all this change on the airwaves is the hope that someone, somewhere will deem the soon-to-be-wide-open 104.7 frequency a proper place for a much-needed alternative station for the Coachella Valley.

Ah, but who am I kidding? The powers that be will probably turn 104.7 into the valley's fifth-or-sixth-ish classic rock station. Srsly. We already have two that bill themselves as classic rock stations (KMRJ and KDGL), a Jack FM (KAJR) that plays classic rock a majority of the time, a hard rock station (KCLB) that revisits the '70s and '80s way too often and a healthy helping of classic-ish rock on KDES.

Actually, since I wrote this on Thursday, I found out from my colleagues' reports in Sunday's paper that 104.7 is now licensed to Redlands, and 95.9 switched formats on Monday to what was billed as a kind-of KWXY replacement but has so far sounded like a slower and sappier version of the old Jack FM playlist.

* I can't actually guarantee that it'll be forever. What do I look like? A magician? No. I'm Ginger Jeffries, your First Alert forecaster. Duh.

Part III: Draw the Circle Wide

Speaking of local radio, I should add that KCLB does play quite a bit of new rock amid the oldies. Lately, they've been really big into Skillet's "Monster," which cracks me up to no end because I remember back in high school when:

I was one of relatively few people in this country who had actually heard of Skillet, then an obscure Christian rock band
Priya always used to call them Saucepan
and I totally went to go see a Skillet show at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix.

When I first started getting into Christian pop and rock way back in 2001 or so, it seemed the conventional wisdom was that the Christian music scene was always a few months or years behind mainstream music. As I recall, Britney and Christina preceded the likes of Stacie Orrico. Likewise, *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys begat Plus One.

But ever since I left the all-Christian-music-all-the-time scene in '04, I've kept hearing a whole bunch of singers, bands and groups that at one time only came on Air 1 and The Effect.

My all-time favorite band, Switchfoot, is all over the place — movie soundtracks, commercials, the radio, ESPN college football intros (and events)... and they also randomly show up in Palm Desert when I go out of town.

I've heard Skillet on the radio and on NBC football promos this past fall, and at one point back in AZ, I even heard Thousand Foot Krutch on a real rock station.

Hell, even sweet li'l Katy Hudson was resurrected as girl-kissin' Katy Perry.

All of these instances and various other "This sounds familiar" moments always make me smile and/or laugh.

Who knew that so many of my '01 jams would be tied to such '10 hipness?

I mean, none of my old Jesus jams are getting played on KWXY. The only songs from the past two decades I ever heard on 98.5 before the big switch were some Michael Bublé track and Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's 1993 Hawaiian-style cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What A Wonderful World."

But one of those old Air 1 bands, MUTEMATH is scheduled to play a Sunday set at this year's Coachella festival.

And thus, the hipness comes full circle, y'all.

writer's block

2010-01-28T21:48:00.000-08:00

Ugh. There have been so many things that I've been meaning to tell all y'all about, but I just haven't found the time to sit down and tap out all these moderately epic Brian.Indrelunas.com posts about various things that have been kickin' around in my head.

Srsly kids. Just like Sam when he's drunk, "I just have so many important things to say and you guys don't even know."

So in an effort to break through this mental logjam and get myself to a place in which I can write about relatively recent things without feeling all guilty about never mentioning all those long-ignored topics, I'm going to sum up — in relatively brief fashion — all the things I've been meaning to tell you about:

Well, as it turns out, three out of the four topics I was writing about here fit pretty well together thematically, and some of them got rather lengthy... so all that copy will be forthcoming tomorrow after I spruce it up with some file photos so it's not just an endless span of text. While you're waiting for my epic post "on hipness," here's a little nugget about bad, bad movies:

#PSBFF

Right in the middle of a very legit and (mostly) classy film fest, I hosted the 2010 Palm Springs Bad Film Festival at my apartment, featuring Glitter, Snakes on a Train and The Room.

It was a great success, and it involved a humongous bag of popcorn that I'm now nearing the end of thanks to lots of popcorn munching while watching TV... and not blogging.

Go, Storm Team, go!

2010-01-21T21:39:00.000-08:00

I'll admit that I wasn't all that excited about starting work an hour early today to cover Part III of the Coachella Valley's rainy week.

It's not that I don't like weather. I took (and loved) Intro to Meteorology in college, and you know I like to do a First Alert Forecast every now and again.

It's just that so many people had talked up this third storm as having the potential to be one for the ages, but most of the meteorologists I had talked to earlier in the week didn't seem ready to call this set of storms something that hadn't been seen in decades.

Well, Wednesday's and Thursday's rainfall totals both set records across the Coachella Valley and although the conditions out there were somewhat less than apocalyptic, I was impressed with just how much storm news really was out there to chase today and grateful that TDS had assembled a whole Storm Team of sorts to try to tackle as much of it as we could.

I spent the early morning hours trying to keep up with an ever-growing list of road closures from the office. Oh, and I also busted out my Ginger-imitating skills and did a quick standup for mydesert.com:

But my day got a whole lot more exciting when we heard about a roof collapse over the scanner and I headed out to the Ross Dress for Less at the Palm Springs Mall, where built up rainwater had caused a 20-foot-by-30-foot section of the store's roof to collapse.

Being the desert dweller that I am, I left my jacket in the office and didn't think to get my umbrella out of my car when I got to the mall, so after a bunch of tromping around in the rain whilst reporting and e-mailing quotes back to the newsroom, I realized that not only were my feet and ankles wet from walking amid puddles, but the rest of me was pretty soaked too.

That situation required a lunchtime wardrobe change, but soon I was relatively dry and back in the newsroom. Then, I ran out to a reported water rescue — with my jacket on and umbrella at the ready — that ended up being less catastrophic than it sounded. But the amount of water on Ramon Road east of Varner Road was still pretty freakin' impressive. On my way back, I lost the road closure game and got to see even more of the street flooding across the western part of the valley.

Those afternoon experiences got me thinking about just how crazy things get out on the roads when it rains here. I mean, a few times over the years that I lived in Arizona, things got rather wet and/or wild, and apparently the conditions are rather intense there tonight. But back in the Valley of the Sun, I never saw anything like the widespread road closures that pop up across the Coachella Valley when it rains — especially when it rains as much as it has lately.

I suppose that's partially because of when I lived in Arizona. By the time I moved there, almost every major road that crossed the Salt River did so via a bridge, unlike back when roads like Rural and Alma School crossed the riverbed and then during the big rains of 19-something-or-other, traffic backed up beyond belief on Mill Avenue because it was one of very few bridges crossing the no-longer-dry Salt River. Back then, perhaps the Valley of the Sun wasn't so different from the Coachella Valley, where a number of major roads cross the Whitewater Wash at ground level.

But anyway, like I said, I found today's weather-related news all rather exciting. And you can see a few scenes from across the valley overlaid on my second attempt at beating Ginger at her own game:

News sucks when it happens to your friends...

2010-01-20T21:42:00.000-08:00

My friend Aldrich's ceiling caved in during this week's rain, and tonight some Palm Springs firefighters took down much of the ceiling and put up this tarp to divert the rainwater coming through out to the patio. Yikes.

And sadly, this is the kind of stuff I'll be looking for starting tomorrow morning at 5 o'clock, which is an hour earlier than I usually start work... not that I'm going to bed early or anything. This is gonna hurt.

It's (beyond) official: I love Hungarian movies.

2010-01-12T22:13:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I walked up the street to see Kaméleon (and hear from its director, Krisztina Goda) at the Annenberg Theater in the Palm Springs Art Museum. Whilst buying film fest tickets on Sunday, I chose this movie for two closely related reasons: a) it looked totally bad ass, and b) it was Hungarian.

Yeah, I've got a thing for Hungarian movies, and it's not because of Vascora, a "comedy" that I saw at ShortFest earlier this year. (Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed Vascora... but it was kind of odd and not all that funny.)

Rather, my first true Hungarian cinematic love was the 2003 film Kontroll, a dark thriller that takes place in the Budapest subway system that each Flinn class gets to know so well.

Ironically, though, I was actually quite far away from the familiar da-da-DA-duh of the BP metro when I first heard about Kontroll.

I was actually in the city of Pécs in southern Hungary, where we had a pretty epic homestay. For this part of the trip, I was paired up with my Flinn classmate Wayne and we were hosted by the wonderful Ági, who introduced us to her family, took us on our very first Tesco shopping experience, showed us the sights and also took us to a street race — not to be confused with the later experience in Romania when I almost died in a Dacia.

Anyway, I believe it was toward the end of this eventful stay that the three of us were walking down a street in Péecs, and Wayne (who was and is a film buff) started chatting up Ági about Hungarian movies: Are a lot of movies made in Hungary? What types of films are popular? et cetera, et cetera.

And I remember him asking Ági something along the lines of "If I could only see one Hungarian movie, what's the best one?"

Her answer: Kontroll. It was very popular, a box-office success in Hungary and very well done, I think she said of the film as she described the basic setting and plot outline.

Well, though I'm no film buff by any stretch of the imagination, I committed that title to memory and did some Googling once I got back to the states. And luckily enough, by June 2005, this '03 film had finally and miraculously made its way not only into American distribution but also secured a spot in our very own hometown Valley Art theater in Tempe.

A delegation of us '04 Flinns went to see it, reminisce about Eastern Europe and also arm wrestle at Taco Bell, apparently.

Soon afterward (or was it before?) I ordered the DVD from Amazon.com, and Kontroll has been one of those movies that I make my friends watch ever since.

And to think that I might have never seen one of my favorite movies and would've likely passed up a great one tonight had it not been for Wayne's questioning and Ági's answering. So to both of you, I raise a metaphorical shot glass of pálinka or ţuică or whatever it was that Ági offered Wayne from her fridge in Pécs almost five years ago.

Let the cartoon movies begin...

2010-01-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, I was worshipping online with The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Kansas, which is one of the few Methodist megachurches. See, not only did I sleep right through all the United Methodist church services that I could've attended in person here in the Coachella Valley, but also I've made a point to tune in for COR Senior Pastor Adam Hamilton's current sermon series, "Who Is This Man?"

Anyway, in the course of his sermon yesterday, Hamilton talked up all the various things that COR would be doing to mark Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday next weekend — cultural exchange opportunities for a still largely segregated metro area as well as service opportunities.

That got me thinking about what I should do to honor King's legacy next weekend specifically and also about civil rights and social justice issues writ large.

So when I went online to get tickets for a movie I'm seeing today at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and find a few more to watch, "Soundtrack for a Revolution" caught my eye.

Thanks to some quick thinking/clicking, I got myself tickets for last night's showing of this awesome documentary, which weaves together stories of the civil rights movement with the common thread of songs from the movement. And the film doesn't just use original recordings but also has contemporary artists redo these songs of the '60s throughout the film:

"Soundtrack" is showing again Wednesday night and Thursday morning at the Palm Springs Art Museum (albeit presumably without the sweet Q&A with the directors and Danny Glover that we got to see last night) so if you have the time and the dollars, I say go see this one. It's totally worth it.

more movies

Btw, here are the other movies I have tickets to see at the festival this week:

The Balibo Conspiracy (a journalistic flick) today at 2:30 p.m.
Chameleon (a Hungarian thriller) Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Looking for Eric (a British comedy) Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.

The Full Monty Mariah

2010-01-06T15:56:00.000-08:00

Well, Mariah Carey's speech at the Palm Springs film fest gala has been the talk of the town today — and not just my town. The Associated Press moved a story on her "long, rambling acceptance speech," and I just heard Ryan Seacrest give her a good ribbing on the radio.

But last night, while Hollywood was apparently snoozing, my co-worker Matt uploaded to YouTube the first minute or so of the speech, which you could see through the magic of embedding here on Brian.Indrelunas.com about eight hours before TMZ took notice (and also took Matt's video).

Well, that original video was cut short because the TDS crew had to switch out tapes during Mariah's speech, but Matt has since stitched together the full version of the acceptance speech heard 'round the world:

Oh, Mariah...

2010-01-05T22:17:00.001-08:00

I love how such star-studded nonsense happens within a mile of my apartment.

SWEET CHRISTMAS JAMS'It doesn't matter if it's March, May or July...'

2009-12-27T10:55:00.000-08:00

Even after the 12ish Days of Christmas and even when it's not SSP Christmas (aka Christmas in July), I hereby give you permission to listen to these sweet Christmas jams all year long.

And if anybody tries to give you a hard time for rockin' the holiday tunes in March, just crank up this last one, The Huntingtons' "It's Always Christmas at My House."

As (almost) always, here's a link to the song on Amazon MP3.

SWEET CHRISTMAS JAMS'I want to be evergreen. I want to live all year 'round.'

2009-12-26T14:21:00.000-08:00

What? You thought I was done recommending sweet holiday jams now that Christmas Day has come and gone? Well, it's still Christmas, liturgically speaking, and I've got a couple more holiday favorites to share.

This one comes from my favorite band, Switchfoot, and it's a nice mellow song that's especially good for days when the #winterblues hit or when you just need to chill out after a hustle-bustle Christmas:

"Evergreen" has been one of my favorite holiday jams since I found it on "Happy Christmas" (Volume 1), but apparently it also appeared on "Happy Christmas Vol. 4," meaning it's downloadable from Amazon MP3.

SWEET CHRISTMAS JAMS'Christmas is Jesus Christ's birthday. That is what it is all about in the mix.'

2009-12-25T21:13:00.000-08:00

I feel like this one doesn't even need to be explained, so sit back and enjoy the late Chicago street singer Wesley Willis' "Merry Christmas," with Spanish subtitles to boot... because YouTube is weird like that:

And here's the Amazon link if you feel the need to add this sweet Christmas jam to your MP3 collection.

21:19 » I should note that Sam — i.e., someone with actual musical taste — first introduced me to this one. Therefore, it's totally legit.

SWEET CHRISTMAS JAMSIt's lovely weather for a 'Sleigh Ride' or two

2009-12-25T20:57:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas from Posh Spice Monster Truck!

Now, "Sleigh Ride" wouldn't really be on my list of favorite holiday jams had it not been for two awesome covers of the song.

In fact, I'm still not a huge fan of the song itself, but these versions wormed their way into my heart with all the spoken-word stuff on the side.

So without further ado, here are my two favorite versions of "Sleigh Ride" with the quotes that make them my favorite:

TLC

"Wait Wait. I know what I want for Christmas: I want T-Boz to get me some headphone sets, and I want Left Eye to make me, uh, to make me a fly dress!" –Chilli

Spice Girls

Scary: You can do whatever you want at Christmas, as long as it's good.
Posh: Well, what I say this Christmas is just do what you want, but make sure you do it like a lady.

SWEET CHRISTMAS JAMSMerry #christmaswithmacy!

2009-12-25T12:27:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, in the summer of 2008, I developed an odd affection for Macy Gray when I discovered that the raspy songstress who got "I Try" stuck in our heads back in '99 had also put up on her myspace an altogether different type of single, "Slap a Bitch."

I mean, let's be honest: Macy was 98 percent of the reason I started watching Dancing With The Stars this season. I tried to care about the other contestants, but after Macy was bumped during the first week, I had a hard time maintaining interest in the show.

Well, this summer whilst thrifting with Aldrich and Stacy, I discovered the aforementioned "Very Ally Christmas" in the CD bin at the Revivals thrift store on Palm Canyon. Much to my delight, I saw that the one, the only Macy Gray had recorded a Christmas tune for the Ally-bum.

That's right, kids. No longer does Macy just slap bitches, try to say goodbye and succeed in saying "Good niiiiiight!" She also says "Merry Chriiiiiistmas!" with her rendition of "Winter Wonderland." Take a listen:

If you want to download a copy of this holiday classic, you can do so over on Amazon MP3 (and, as always, benefit Valley Wesley with a portion of the profits.)

Honorable mention

For all y'all out there who just can't get enough of Macy, she also recorded a cover of "Santa Baby" that's available on Amazon.

Two Three nights in a row!

2009-12-23T22:28:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite episodes of one of my favorite shows is this exchange from the second episode of Cougar Town:

After going out on the town for a wild and crazy Friday night but then finding herself too sore and exhausted to go out Saturday, a rather depressed Jules asks her BFF Ellie, "I'm never gonna have my 20s again, am I?"

"Of course you are," Ellie answers. "But just not two nights in a row."

That kind of sums up my attempts to have a social life in the midst of working early mornings during the week and the overnight shift on Saturdays.

But last week, while I was in Arizona for #ChrisAmandaWedding, I went out on Mill Avenue not just two but three nights in a row, and I lived to tell the tale.

On Thursday night, Chris' bachelor party started out at a wine bar in north-ish Phoenix but eventually migrated to Mill Avenue, where we frequented Slices, the Tavern and Cue Club:

Then, after the rehearsal dinner on Friday night, I met up with some very special lady friends. We headed over to Cherry, a borderline-sketch dance club on Mill where we attempted to dance our asses off in honor of Justine, who moved back to Maryland on Sunday.

Sadly, the Friday night DJ kinda blew, so good danceable tracks were hard to come by. But we still had a good time:

By this point, I was marveling at how it felt like I was back in college again for the weekend. And this time around, I was able to hit up Mill Avenue without the worries of classes and work looming large just on the other side of University Drive.

And as if reliving my (early) 20s Courteney Cox-style two nights in a row wasn't enough, on Saturday night after the wedding and reception, there was talk of some of the wedding party and other attendees going out on the town. I got involved in the plans, which were quickly made for... yep, Mill Avenue.

So we all went our separate ways to freshen up and/or eat Filiberto's and then we descended down into the basement that is the Big Bang.

Alisa, one of the bridesmaids, and her friends were kinda wary of the place, saying that there's a piano bar they know of in Chicago that mostly just plays host to "trashy bachelorette parties." But Mike, the best man, vouched for the Big Bang since he had been there before, so we decided to give it a go.

No sooner had we walked in and paid the cover when we spied, of course, a bachelorette party... but at least it wasn't trashy. Oh wait. Just then, the pianists were just finishing up "Great Balls of Fire," and one of them got up and lit his balls on fire. Great.

Since a good portion of the crew was interested in shaking their groove thangs, we decided to pay a visit to Cherry and crossed our fingers, hoping that the suckage of the previous night's DJ would not be repeated. Luckily, there was a new DJ on the ~~turntables~~ MacBook, and the music didn't disappoint.

And thus, I shook free from the bonds of living in a cougar town and managed to go out in my old college town three nights in a row — and without any major hangovers. Granted, I didn't emerge completely unscathed. I do have some leftover jankiness in my knees that has persisted since I shook my groove thang perhaps a little too hard on the Cherry dance floor one (well, actually both) of those nights, but it's so worth it.

I finally got all my wedding week photos posted!

2009-12-23T21:38:00.000-08:00

Check 'em out:

SWEET CHRISTMAS JAMSBest Christmas album of ALL TIME!

2009-12-23T12:38:00.000-08:00

It seems like every singer and/or celeb out there has done a Christmas CD at some point. Hell, there's even an Ally McBeal holiday album, "A Very Ally Christmas." (More on that later. Hehe.)

But my all-time favorite Christmas album is probably your all-time least favorite one if you've ever been around me at Christmas time — in December or July.

Yes, friends, I'm talking about the chicken Christmas carols CD, aka "Happy Clucking Holidays" by Dirk Keysser. Basically, this album consists of 10 tracks, in which a grown man clucks like a chicken to the tune of a whole bunch of holiday favorites.

Perhaps needless to say, this cracks me up to no end, so I bust out the chickens for my holiday celebrations quite often... like when my SSP staff and I woke up our visiting boss, Rick, on Christmas (in July) morning in 2008 with the soulful sounds of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

And now, the post you've all been waiting for...

2009-12-22T23:04:00.000-08:00

...will be here tomorrow. I promise.

I know, I know. I haven't actually said anything about Chris and Amanda's wedding (i.e., my whole reason for going to Arizona last week) yet.

I'm getting there. I just have so much other stuff to write about too. As a great man once tweeted, "I just have so many important things to say and you guys don't even know. I am so cogent right now I'm Encyclopedia Brown status. Omgggggggg"

Plus, I'm also trying to buy some time as I upload photos from wedding week in fits and spurts.