And another great comedian’s gone. Sad, sad day.

I’ve spent the last 2 weeks frantically finishing up web work for clients (and ignoring my own websites). Now I’m in Austin for SXSW, and I’m hoping to finish rebuilding my personal sites - including Daily Guilt - by the end of the weekend.

Yeah, that’s gonna happen.
If you’re at SXSW, come find me. I’ll be adding my whereabouts to my new Twitter account, so you can get updates in the small box in my sidebar (or follow me: melanieo).

I’m on vacation in NY right now, but I wanted to quickly post about a 101 item I did last week, while visiting my mom outside of Boston. For Valentine’s Day, we made crème brulee… a bit on the brulee side.

The custard part of the recipe went well, once we got past the endless whisking. I’m still not sure why I decided *not* to use the kitchen mixer for that, because we ended up having to take turns until the eggs were pale enough. Crème brulee is pretty darn simple: eggs, sugar, vanilla. It’s also simple to screw up.

My guess is that we overcooked the custards, since the tops were a bit brown once we got them out of the oven (before the sugar), and the custard was a bit too “set.” We put on the sugar and broiled them anyways, and the end result was good, but not great.

Next time, I’m gonna find a blowtorch and do it right.

“Sixth street (we love it, we love it)…”
From the song “I Love L.A.” by Randy Newman

• The task: Find 6 great things about 6th Street
• My guide and fellow photographer: Scott, the greatest location scout ever
• The location: Somewhere East of Downtown LA

This past Sunday, Scott made it his mission to help me discover 6 great things about 6th Street, so despite my complaints about being tired, we headed out to walk and drive the entire span of 6th street. I’m so glad we did, because I learned more than I ever imagined about an often-neglected part of LA.

In no particular order, here are 6 great things I learned about 6th street:

1. It starts right around the 6th Street Bridge, which has been seen in numerous movies and offers a fantastic view of downtown LA.



2. Under the 6th Street Bridge is a (now blocked off) ornately designed passageway to the LA river. Oh, and lots of homeless guys.



3. The Southwestern Bag Company is used in a lot of filming, as are the DC Stages next door. 6th Street in downtown LA is also used for filming, and though I don’t have any photos, we walked past the shooting of “Rush Hour 3″. They had a bunch of cars lined up on the street for a shot, and I don’t know why, but it was a little bit creepy seeing them all at a standstill.



4. There’s a gun club over there!



5. In downtown LA, Cole’s Pacific Electric Buffet - closed when we were there) - is an LA institution. I’ll definitely be back for some of that. I didn’t get a picture of Cole’s, so here’s a shot of an awesome guy we saw at Clifton’s.



6. We saw the site of Scott’s great-great-grandparents’ house, now the Hayward Manor Apartments.

OK, so I’m stopping my list at downtown LA. It turns out there really is a lot to love about 6th! If you’re interested in checking out 6th Street on foot, you can join Sha in LA next Sunday on her walk. I’d be there if I could.

… I love L.A. (We love it)!

Update: I found out from Scott that the Hayward Hotel’s actually on the site of his great-great-great-grandparents’ house

Those escalators for shopping carts that you see in places like IKEA and Target? They’re called Vermaports, and according to the Wikipedia entry…

The world’s largest Vermaport is located in Big K-Mart in Middle Village, Queens, New York City, New York. It has a length of 120ft (37m) and a vertical rise of 50ft (15m).

I MUST go see that when I’m in NY in a couple of weeks!

I stopped by this cheesesteak place in Second Life last night and took this snapshot. I guess the Second Life servers were struggling all night, because there was a lot of lag. Consequently, some of the stuff in this shop hadn’t “rezzed” by the time I took the snapshot. That grey sign over the picture of the cheesesteak was a sign for Amoroso rolls.

Yes, Laurie, that *is* a virtual Tastykake sign!

After a couple of years of resisting the lure of Second Life (a virtual world or “metaverse” online), I finally took the plunge this week, and I can’t believe I waited so long! I had heard that it was very similar to the metaverse described in my favorite book, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, but in truth, it’s so nearly identical to his world that someone’s even set up Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong within SL.

So, I got Scott hooked, too, and we’ve spent some time together exploring. Yesterday, we went dancing at a couple of virtual clubs, checked out apartments I’ve been thinking of renting in SL, and explored a recreation of Venice Beach.

I’m learning more and more about the economy and culture of SL and looking forward to networking with Real Life interactive marketers who have offices (and conferences) within the game.

If you’re in Second Life, look me up. I’m Melanie Yates. And if you’re at all interested in interactive marketing and/or podcasting, you can join me at Coffee with Crayon tomorrow morning in Crayonville (6 AM PDT/SLT) or PodCampSL this weekend. Just IM me when you get there!

Update: I’ve added a snapshot from my apartment/house rental search in SL. I think this is a little bit more “house” than I need.

• From Jane Austen’s “Persuasion,” the definition of “cavil“: to raise trivial and frivolous objection
• From Amy Sedaris’ new book, the definition of “heliolithic“: of a civilization characterized by megaliths and sun-worship
• Judgment, acknowledgment, and abridgment all have an extra “e” in their British spellings: judgement, acknowledgement, abridgement. Who knew?

I’m back online!

On my birthday last Saturday, Scott and I joined a group of his friends at Disneyland to celebrate a couple of birthdays and take in the holiday decorations before they were removed on Sunday night. We had a fantastic time, hitting the Tower of Terror ride 4 times, riding Space Mountain twice, enjoying the updated Pirates of the Caribbean, and yes, taking a spin through the “Nightmare Before Christmas”-themed Haunted Mansion. My favorites? Aside from the Tower of Terror, which is always good, it’s a tie between Space Mountain (now with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Higher Ground”) and the new Pirates of the Caribbean.

All in all, it was a good day.

I’m offline for a few days, since my computer’s hard drive died. I’ve got another 101 to cross off, but that’s going to be put on hold while I replace my hard drive, handle a bunch of stuff at work, and generally just try to do ten things at once. If you’ve emailed me in the last few days and haven’t heard back, I promise I’m not ignoring you… I’m just swamped and trying to get my computer up and running so I can finish some web sites. I hope to be back by the end of the week.