Weird Science 2009: Digital Girl Remix

It looks like the 80's really did a teach us a valuable lesson. Those that remember the teen flicks of the 80's such as, Weird Science, 16 Candles, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, will remember that the director John Hughes (R.I.P.) really tried to implicate the possibility of communication and technology becoming a reality by teasing us with cool inventions not yet available at the time.

I remember as a child watching Weird Science thinking, that would be a great idea to be able to create a hot girl by making her on a computer. Look no further than 2009. Without a doubt, the form we know as social networking has taken over as the new mass medium form of communication period. With sites such as e-harmony, match.com and the advent of Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messenger, ichat, BBM, Text, e-mail, smartphones, and web-cams, you may not need to put a bra on your head in order to find a girl. These sites are indeed a digital menu, meaning you can choose what you are looking for and voila, that magicial person appears in front of your computers monitor.

Jamie Foxx obviously is no stranger to digital media, marketing and social networking and I'm sure he also watched the John Hughes films growing up. Foxx, has released a new video and single from his latest album Intuition called Digital Girl (Remix). The song Digital Girl (Remix) features The-Dream, Kanye West and Drake. The Video is very futuristic and colorful, and I think John Hughes would be proud of what he started if he were here today.

Jamie Foxx - Digital Girl Remix ft. The-Dream, Kanye West And Drake

*video courtesy of http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/

Earlier in the month, I posted a new song from Jay-Z's forthcoming album Blueprint 3 called Run This Town featurng Rihanna and Kanye West. With this new song and video, it seems as if Jay-Z is trying to assert his claim as Hov, the God by showing that "my teams too strong for yall".

Frankly, Kanye West and Rihanna stand alone as stars in their own right, so the three of them quite possibly could do what they say set out to do which is put The R...O...C. on the T...O....P. Here is the Video from the ROC conglomerate. Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 is set to drop September 11, the same day his original Blueprint album dropped 8 years ago. Let's see if the God MC still has the glow! As always, only time will tell.

Jay-Z - Run This Town

View New Video here

*Video Courtesy of www.WorldStarHipHop.com

Breakfast, The Meal Of Champions?

In order to get your day off to a positive start most nutritionists believe eating a healthy breakfast in the morning will give your body the vitamins and energy needed to accomplish your goals. Breakfast is also supposed to be the most important meal of the day because its the first meal so logically eating breakfast makes sense because food is energy and breakfast is food so its the first boost of energy to keep you going until lunch or if you're a career on the go person, until that next snack to hold you over.

Now that we have the technical jargon and healthy mambo jumbo out of the way, let's get down to the real question at hand. Where is a great place to eat this most important meal? Although its an opinion, I believe the best place for this tasty breakfast would be in your own kitchen.

Cooking your own breakfast will do miracles for your pocketbook as well as your time management and the rolling-out-of-bed-to-eat convenience factor would be second to none. But, if you are not a master of gourmet proportions with kitchen utensils, short on time or just plain out as most Americans want to do, pay someone to do your labor, then there are a few places in San Diego I would definitely recommend.

Here at SSD, we are ALWAYS trying to find the latest hyped up product, person or concept to see if it is truly worth of the accolades and publicity that it receives. The latest to come across my path was an ad about a pancake house downtown. I have been seeing ads for this restaurant for quite some time. I'm even convinced that they own stock in all the media publications here because I see the ads in all the magazines, handouts and even pamphlets. I'm joking, but the advertising is clearly visible. The place I'm referring to is Richard Walker's Pancake House.

Out of every meal including the in between meals snacks, junk food and on-the-go pick me ups, I actually love breakfast the most, sort of a connoisseur of this continental meal, so I take my breakfast very seriously.

Recently, I was actually invited to breakfast by a friend and what do you know, the perfect opportunity to try a new breakfast spot came up. Richard Walker's Pancake house has a very comfortable bistro feel, sort of like an LA brunch spot. I liked the decor and definitely the service was very friendly. The menu offers a lot of colorful choices including waffles and french toast, but seeing as I was there strictly to erase the hype and uncover the truth, I pulled all the stops by ordering the Raisin Nut Flap Jacks with a custom made sausage and cheese omelet. Being a vegan, my friend Janelle order the Best Western with Cheese omelet minus the ham.

I do have to admit, my custom made omelet was not custom made which kind of put a damper on my spirits as I had to wait for my new omelet to arrive before being able to dive into the pancakes. (Honest mistake, no points deducted...lol). The Raisin Nut Flap Jack was indeed tasty and I would go back again just for the pancakes, but I'm not sure about the omelet because I didn't get to enjoy it and reheated eggs the next day just don't work no matter how you prepare them...Ha!

For me, RWPH overall experience was pretty cool. The prices are very reasonable especially for being downtown and the portions are huge, so believe me breakfast was served the next morning. As for Janelle, she really had a bad experience and would not recommend it again. So right now I am at odds end. You can read her review here.

Changing Of The Guard...

Over the years, I have found myself becoming a modern day captain obvious by realizing that in life, there are definitely no guarantees. And even when someone provides you with substantial evidence showing the later, I still am ready to blow a whistle and throw out the SSD flag!

The entire reason for this website is solely based off of the dedication to determining whether or not someone or something can guarantee the result it claims from the hype it has surrounding it. Since there are no guarantees, throughout my research of this journey called life, I have found that there are three things you can at least rest assured to be inevitable: times changing, paying bills and death.

The irony of this is the longer you live your life, you will continuously begin to notice the more things change, the more things tend to stay the same and as long as you are living you will eventually have to owe someone something i.e. paying a debt/bill, until you die and then in that case, something definitely would be different and so my theory would be true, but I guess we won't know until the day after, huh?

Without falling too far off from the subject matter, some people don't like change and some people welcome it with open arms.
I grew up like most people watching my favorite basketball players on my favorite team play basketball. At that time, I thought these certain marquee players would play on that same team forever. And then the unthinkable happened, In 1998, forever arrived and Michael Jordan retired on top of the world, as an NBA World Champion Chicago Bull.

Being from Chicagoland at that time was a detrimental time in life. Was this the death of sports as we knew it or the birth of a marketing big business corporation dragon that today commonly devours the love of the game that players have for their respective sport or team?

As you know, SSD is dedicated to erasing the hype to uncover the truth. Through my perspective, it seemed that although Michael Jordan retired, his love and passion for basketball along with the desire to come back and play was not strong enough to compete with the "BIG BUSINESS" moving on without him, leaving MJ to have no choice but to migrate to another team that would accept his talent.

Now I know that the marketing corporation monster has been around longer than before Michael Jordan's days, my point is that this situation is far too common with players in this new age. Teams are not loyal to players and players are not loyal to teams. Its all business and in my opinion players are starting to lose the love they have for the game and are playing just to show up to cash a check. Is it the players fault for this mentality or is it the organizations that treat players/talent like cattle by not nurturing their players the ones to be blamed?

I guess there are so many variables at this point in time, its almost impossible to point the finger now. Art vs. Commerce is a life long battle across the board when it comes to talent vs client(organization) relations no matter what type of talent it is. (example: Athlete, Actor, photographer, recording artist etc.)

I digress.

So my question is, why should I continue to be loyal to a team if neither the players, nor the organization are showing loyalty to me as a fan? We want to THESE players playing on OUR team. It seems as if someone has sold their soul to the devil or given Biff Tannen the sports almanac to give us this alternate football sports universe.

Let's break this 2009 sports-opera'd, pro-club, Sunday drama scenario down, shall we? What's interesting is, I'm not even talking about 3rd and 4Th string wannabes being shipped off, I am talking about marquee Probowl caliber players that become synonyms with specific team recognition being shipped off like sheep for whatever reason. Its very interesting to say the least. Like Bill Gates and Microsoft, these athletes were, if not THE franchise player, or at least a franchise player within the organization.

Let's start with former Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss (the whole reason I even started watching football as adult). Moss was traded from the Vikings (NFC North) to the Oakland Raiders (AFC West) and then finally to the New England Patriots (AFC East). Next, former Atlanta Falcons starting quarterback Michael Vick had a run in with the law therefore forfeiting his NFL career only to be reinstated into the league and signed two years later with his former nemesis the Philadelphia Eagles (NFC East). I really wonder if birds of a feather...naaaah!

Brett Favre who was a Green Bay Packer fixture as well as the starting quarterback forever, retired and then after a stint with New Jersey Jets, decided to come back this season and is signed to the Vikings now (going from one NFC North to another NFC North team is the equivalent to the CEO of Samsung LCD Television screens throwing his 52" in the trash and picking up a Sony, you just don't see that every day). Then again, times change. The Vikings, (my former team) also had running back Michael Bennett during the Randy Moss hay day, but Bennett now plays with the Chargers.

I know all of these players were traded for various reasons, but for whatever the reasons, I'm merely stating that it seems odd to see these marquee players performing in different colored jerseys. I think back to my Bill Gates analogy and envision of Mr. Gates sitting down to an apple macbook pro doing some itunes and iphoto for his grand kids. Wait, Itunes is compatibale with windows. I guess times do change. HA!

Either way, 1998 my faith in sports for love, passion and entertainment was crushed but I learned that you can always enjoy sports, just to stay away from the business side as you will be let down every time if you get caught up in more than the entertainment aspect of sports.

Fast forward 11 years. It seems all the teams with marquee players have basically traded the players to the enemy. Literally. It's the Babe Ruth curse all over again.

With this knowledge, I chose my new football team based off of friends, business acquaintances and newly found home front ties. Being a professional photographer that living in San Diego, I have worked with The Chargers organization on nonprofit and profitable events not to mention becoming friends with some of the players so its only logical that I ride with my home team. I figure with the exception of a few lucky players, no one on a given sports team is actually from the city they play for.

This means the bandwagon threats can remain idle as long as you pick your team before the pre-season starts and the team has no previous championship at least 3 years before you picked them. Don't worry the football gods will grant you a change of team in that situation. Michael Bennett is with the chargers now, so as far as I'm concerned, I am atill routing for the home team.

Can't Stop Football Fans!

As I am sure you were, earlier today, I was super pumped to watch the starting kick-off of the 2009-10 football season until being hit by a super buzz kill finding out the game would not be televised due to local NFL guidelines blacking the game out. I know for me, finding out the Seahawks-Chargers first official preseason game being blacked out only in San Diego definitely put a damper on my "good ole fooozeball spirit" so I could imagine how any other football fanatic felt.

Apparently, the NFL has rules and guidelines to when it comes to airing games in the home game teams area based off of how many tickets the stadium sells and obviously the stadium didn't meet the qualifications, hence the game not being televised in the San Diego market.

Honestly, this is the pre-season so I can understand why people might hold off on paying full price tickets to see their favorite star players only get to play a few downs before sitting out the rest of the game to preserve star athletes from devastating injuries.

*Sidenote (what's ironic is, I don't see how the game should be blacked out even if it is the pre-season, because almost every Facebook update and twitter post shows pics of people being at the game...lol). Fortunately for us, we all know you can't keep a good football fan's perseverance and spirit down.

Whether you love, hate or don't care about a particular sports team, to not be able to watch any game is a football fans worst nightmare as well as an overall unjust travesty.

Without further delay...WATCH THE CHARGERS GAME SINCE ITS BLACKED OUT!!!!

*Thanks to my man Travis's and his facebook Page for sending us this link.

DJ Cobra Release Party @ Stingaree

DJ Cobra had his mixtape release party last night at Stingaree Night Club. Fans got a chance to get a copy of his latest mixed cd while enjoying the sounds of Cobra's Live DJ set.

You can download the "promotional-use-only" Iller Mixtape CD here.

DJ Cobra Release Party Event Photos Here.

Vick Returns to NFL...

After an almost 2 year stint in prison, former NFL Quarterback Michael Vick has been reinstated into the NFL. Since being reinstated, the NFL, media and fans alike have welcomed Vick back with a lukewarm reception. There has also been a surge in media scrambling to change headlines about figuring out which team was going to add the former star to their roster. Would he be as good, is this risk worth the pay off and what team will even want the added media attention are just some questions NFL execs, coaches and fans have been asking.

Well Look no further friends, because it seems we have an answer.

Previously, Michael Vick was the starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, but as time has progressed, so has his team. After being reinstated into the NFL, Vick has reportedly swapped feathers ultimately to join the immortal NFC enemy, the other bird in the east, the Philadelphia Eagles. How is this for irony? If you can't beat em join em is right. Michael Vick once a Falcon, is now a Philadelphia Eagle.

Obviously, until he proves otherwise this particular season the name Vick will be synonymus with controversy seeing as the current starting quarterback Donavan McNaab, a probowl teammate of Vick's now has pressure to play well or lose his job. How is this Phily sunday daytime drama different from any other season you ask? In my opinion its not. Just some more negativity for people to talk about in the city of brotherly love. Either way, the deal is signed and preseason has arrived and after all of the off-the-field off-season antics, I just have one question...Are You Ready For Some Football?

G.I. Joe Premiere in San Diego...

Last Wednesday, the movie premiere for the new Paramount Pictures motion film G.I. Joe was brought to San Diego by a young boy name Justin Velasquez, who entered and won "the Real American Hero" contest. Justin who's father, Jose Velasquez, was just returning from duty overseas, in which Justin decided to enter the contest and tell why his father was a real American hero and deserved a real heart-felt welcome home.

The contest premiere brought in the films stars, Marlon Wayans (Ripcord) and Channing Tatum (Duke) as well as the film's director Stephen Sommers along with other special invited guests. 93.3 FMs Geena The Latina hosted the event by getting fans hyped up to see the premiere. Geena also introduced the motorcade featuring the stars and hero's family amongst the fans massive applause for a job well done.

Fans waited on-hand for hours before finally being able to get a glimpse of Wayans, Tatum, and The Real American Hero, Jose Velasquez. The family as well as the films stars arrived on the red carpet in style being brought in by the motorcade filled with hummers, firetrucks and SUV's fit for the U.S. President himself.

Club Skin Part ii @ Bondi...

It's another beautiful day which brings about another SSD photo post and at present the time is 1:59 pm on August 2nd: August 2009 is in full effect! So now that the month of August is here, it also means the Peak of Summer is here, Football season is about to start, Baseball starts to actually get interesting and a lot more events will start popping up to finish off the San Diego Summer 2009 Tour.

Annnnd, since it is August, its about that time for people to find their snuggle bunny for the cold months ahead like this guy in the photo, but in the mean time, my fortune teller has told me there will be a plethora of pool parties to be thrown in my distant future to take advantage of the warm Indian summer coming in September. Club Skin at Bondi was a great way to start off The END of summer extravaganza. I say, "Let the August games begin..."

Club Skin Part ii Pix

Twitter Party featuring a Live Performance by Tommy Redding

Ah...the end of July brought for a very busy, busy week for I.$.H. the photographer which was indeed a great thing. Friday night was the twitter social networking party and the official launch party of SSD! Fun times for sure...A lot of people came out so that was a good thing. Tommy Redding did a live performance and a lot of social networking was accomplished, ha ha. I am very pleased with the turn out and thanks to Z90 Radio station, DJ D-Rock, DJ Ironic, Ridiculous Entertainment and Tommy Redding (50Fifty Ent)

Twitter Party Pix Here.