I'm a bit tired today...probably because of the incredibly delayed flight that arrived this morning. Or, it could be because I had one of the best SXSW that I ever had. For the fourth straight year, I attended the SXSW interactive conference and each year I try and do things differently. Four years ago, I tried to build a network while slowly starting to take photos. The second year had me become an official photographer for SXSW with the third transitioning to me being a hired gun and photographing some of the biggest parties at SXSW. This year, I decided to change it up again and went as the Editor in Chief of Bub.blicio.us...and my goal was to tout and promote it...I think it worked.

Part of my exhaustion stems from me always being on my feet running from party to party meeting friends, both old and new, and evolving who I am. Many new people were introduced to me and I managed to help out others too. Plenty of photographs were taken...so many in fact that I'm struggling to get them all done quickly! Those 8000 photos will be one of the best moments of my SXSW experience.

Plus I got to meet celebrities too! This year I got to see Forrest Whittaker, Leonardo DiCaprio, Toby Maguire, Kevin Connelly, and D Pannabaker. Definitely it was a star-studded event and the parties didn't disappoint.

Had a chance to even see the Jay-Z performance but turned it down...probably a bad move but I made up for it by going to hear Thievery Corp perform with several friends. That mistake still wound up being one of the greatest parties ever...

Of course SXSW wouldn't be anything without the ever-favorite douchebags...those who would steal stuff, be rude, and walk around with an over-imaginated sense of self-entitlement. We'll leave it at that, but I experienced a few of those this trip.

Thanks to all my friends for an amazing SXSW. Hope we'll get to recreate that magic again soon!

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Taken with picplz at LAUNCH 2012 in San Francisco, CA.

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Taken with picplz at LAUNCH 2012 in San Francisco, CA.

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Taken with picplz in San Francisco, CA.

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I've admired Warren Buffett for what he's saying to Congress about the tax code. I do think that those with wealth should pay their fair share to help the country, if not for the national debt, then for the services that we all use. No, I'm not talking about socialism...I give those who earned their wealth credit - I want to be wealthy like them...

But in this latest battle between Senator Mitch McConnell and Buffett, the senator chided Buffett and said that if he wanted to do more, then "send in a check". Buffett's response? Classic and said he'll even match the amount returned by each member of Congress one-to-one! Oh and here's something to leave you with...

"I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions."

You can read more about Buffett's response and the tryst between the McConnell and Buffett here.

Go get 'em Buffett!

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Taken with picplz in San Francisco, CA.

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Taken with picplz in San Francisco, CA.

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Taken with picplz in San Francisco, CA.

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While vacationing in Seattle this holiday, I happened to walk across the world-famous Microsoft store in Bellevue Center. It's a pretty large store that really overshadows the nearby Apple store. It was almost magical standing in front of the store because it seemed almost surreal standing in front of a retail store of a company I've been a consumer of for my entire life...

And that was before I walked into the store.

Stepping foot in the store, I was a bit overwhelmed by what I saw...it seemed a bit of a mixture of outdated technology and cool software. Along the walls, people could play XBox games on the wall screens and even could interact with nearby Microsoft Surfaces. But what was weird was when I walked around, I stumbled upon their laptops and Windows Phone displays...I have some issues with Windows Phone, but I'll jot those down later. But looking at their laptops and even their tablets, it almost looked like Microsoft wasn't even trying to reach ME with their tech, more like businesses. The software was more suited to the individual, but probably not the tech. After all, why would anyone want a tablet with a stylus on it? After using Android and iOS devices, I can see that Microsoft's Windows tablet OS is misplaced and needs to be reworked so that it caters to touch, not to stylus.

In any event, my first experience to the Microsoft store was surreal and a nice reality-check. I think it's pretty cool to be in there, but the experience I got was a bit misleading. If I wanted to buy XBox games or even software, I'd check them out, but not for hardware.

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While vacationing in Seattle this holiday, I happened to walk across the world-famous Microsoft store in Bellevue Center. It's a pretty large store that really overshadows the nearby Apple store. It was almost magical standing in front of the store because it seemed almost surreal standing in front of a retail store of a company I've been a consumer of for my entire life...

And that was before I walked into the store.

Stepping foot in the store, I was a bit overwhelmed by what I saw...it seemed a bit of a mixture of outdated technology and cool software. Along the walls, people could play XBox games on the wall screens and even could interact with nearby Microsoft Surfaces. But what was weird was when I walked around, I stumbled upon their laptops and Windows Phone displays...I have some issues with Windows Phone, but I'll jot those down later. But looking at their laptops and even their tablets, it almost looked like Microsoft wasn't even trying to reach ME with their tech, more like businesses. The software was more suited to the individual, but probably not the tech. After all, why would anyone want a tablet with a stylus on it? After using Android and iOS devices, I can see that Microsoft's Windows tablet OS is misplaced and needs to be reworked so that it caters to touch, not to stylus.

In any event, my first experience to the Microsoft store was surreal and a nice reality-check. I think it's pretty cool to be in there, but the experience I got was a bit misleading. If I wanted to buy XBox games or even software, I'd check them out, but not for hardware.

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Taken with picplz at Tesla in Bellevue, WA.

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Taken with picplz at Grand Central Bakery in Seattle, WA.

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Taken with picplz in San Francisco, CA.

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Saw this on TV today and immediately thought that it represented my thoughts. Politicians have gotten a bad rap, deservedly so...regardless of your affiliation, the Democrats and Republicans are self-serving leaders. Wait, I don't think we should call them leaders, because they haven't done anything to lead. Just watch this CBS News video and listen to what legendary anchor Bob Schieffer has to say about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fkqh5bp718

Honestly, I hadn't thought about just linking to the video, but apparently CBS News felt it was unwise to allow embedding - not really sure WHY they wanted to do that, especially after posting it on YouTube. It's a bit ridiculous, honestly.

Anyways, let's get rid of all the jokers in Congress...they're clearly not doing anything for us and everything that they've done or tried to do has resulted in failure. I'm not sure why we keep believing these politicians who say that they're all for "change" and also that they're outsiders. No, you're a politician and we no longer trust you. I'm going to expect you to show me some real examples on how you've worked with other politicians to be more productive -- and why can't we have these elections be like job interviews? Sure you have a few debates and go out and kiss babies, but what have you really done to make yourself someone that we really want? Are you our favorite because you've managed to deploy successful negative ads to fear your opponents? How has that proven anything? If we did that during job interviews, then we'll be laughed out of the meeting.

Speaker Boehner and his idiocy shouldn't be Speaker of the House because all he wants to do is say "no" to policy and bills that his party doesn't support. We elected politicans to help guide and govern, not to operate as a Republican or Democrat - make yourself useful and stand up to your own party if your CONSTITUENTS want the law enacted. Forget what your party stands for...you don't represent your party. You represent the people who elected you. This also goes towards Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid as well...stop jerking yourselves off and act like adults and work together.

I agree with Bob Schieffer - Congress is "totally dysfunctional" and with a 9% approval rating, just how the hell do we expect to get anything done? Basically the rule of thumb here is to not expect your government to help you out. Even with the urgency of the recession, poor economy, housing crisis, war, and domestic needs, our government can't even help us out because they're bickering because the President isn't one of them and they are having to wage war in order to win the PR battle. Umm...you're not winning it anyways so why don't you politicians concentrate on doing some good and your job!

And so now the House and Senate are in recess and leaving town. Wait, so we make fun of President Obama going out to play golf for a DAY and there's nothing wrong with Congress taking WEEKS off for a recess that they frankly haven't deserved?

My, how our government works...when you think about it, even Afghanistan's corrupt government is better than ours. At least when we know Afghanistan's government fails, we're not surprised and it's corrupt. But our government? Yeah, try explaining that failure...

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Taken with picplz at District Wine Lounge in San Francisco, CA.

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Taken with picplz at PeopleBrowsr Labs in San Francisco, CA.

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Taken with picplz in San Francisco, CA.

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Taken with picplz at PeopleBrowsr Labs in San Francisco, CA.

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Last night, I, along with several others, were invited to the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco for a special event: the opening night performance of a new musical to hit the city: "Bring It On: The Musical". Thanks to SHNSF, we were treated to an amazing show of cheerleaders and high school drama into one two and a half hour musical that had you glued to your seat the entire time. 

Now I know what you might be thinking..."Bring It On" was a movie that stared Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku so how in the hell could they make it into a musical, let alone something really worth seeing? Well I can tell you that the director and screenwriter has proven everyone wrong. This musical has already received incredible reviews before coming to San Francisco and if tonight was any indication of how good it is, you won't be disappointed.

The premise of this musical follows similar lines as the movie, but centers around a teenager named Campbell, played by the talented Taylor Louderman, who hits her senior year of high school and is the captain of the cheerleader squad. Then, through some sort of "mishap", she's reassigned to a new school in the inner city where she discovers there's no cheerleading squad. Eventually, she discovers she was betrayed and set up so that someone else could have all the glory. So what does she do? She teams up with her new school's dance crew to get revenge. It basically follows the general premise of the "Bring It On" movies.

But what's more intriguing about this musical is that they've modernized it...they use a great deal of digital screens to help accentuate the environment and the dialogue is pretty up-to-date. There is quite a bit of adult humor and even have a transgender on stage as a major character (who is absolutely incredible). Jokes were thrown into the dialogue to reference Google, Wikipedia, mobile apps, and much more. It's definitely not 100% kid-friendly so if you're bringing a young one, you better make sure that they've heard some swearing before and understand adult comedy.

At the end, it was incredibly moving and I enjoyed every minute of it. It's worth seeing at least once...and maybe twice. Music was incredible, the set design was amazing, the cast was holy shit balls unbelievably talented!

"Bring It On: The Musical" is now playing at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco through January 7, 2012. Tickets on sale now.

Disclosure: I received two free tickets from SHNSF and their agency, Red Magnet Media. In no way was I asked to write a review or tweet on their behalf about them or the performance. These words are my own.

Photo credit: Craig Schwartz/Flickr.com

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Taken with picplz in San Francisco, CA.

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