Nintendo has sold more than 6 million Wii systems and wii sales are now outstripping PS3 and the Xbox 360. It seems that everyone loves the wii. Even 4 year olds enjoying playing it.

MP3tunes has just announced custom technology for Wii, plus more music for New Year’s. If you were lucky enough to get a new Nintendo Wii for Christmas you now can play all your digital music through the video game with new technology from MP3tunes. Wii owners can now use the device’s controller to wirelessly stream their personal music collections from their
own Music Lockers.

MP3tunes is offering free playlists to sideload to the Music Locker for immediate access on the Wii and other devices. “To demonstrate how simple it is to add playlists to a Locker, we’ve created, in partnership with CDBaby, a terrific New Year’s Eve music set for our customers,” commented Emily Richards, President of MP3tunes. “With just one click, this New
Year’s playlist is sideloaded to your Music Locker for access on dozens of devices — with no listening limits.” Sideload the playlist to your MP3tunes Locker at http://www.mp3tunes.com/ .

My daughter lives with her dad up in the Bay Area and visits me once a month, so I consider myself a sort of “airport connoisseur” as I am there picking her up or dropping her off 25 or more times a year. Of course, I have never seen this perspective of the field, as I am driving there, but what I love about Burbank Airport is how easy it is to get in and out, especially compared to the nightmare that is LAX.

photo courtesy of PilotAge.com

The cops in front of the terminal are kind of grouchy and they don’t have a lot of patience with the pick-up scene, so my daughter and I have worked out a little system that I will share with you, because it’s been working for us. I probably should keep my mouth shut.

A side note: Here are some photos and the mission statement from the Burbank Airport Police website (!)

Their stated mission is: “…to provide a courageous, professional and courteous law enforcement response…”. OK, I get the professional and courageous part, but the courteous, well, maybe not so much. But then again, I guess standing outside in the heat and cold, telling people to move on is not that much fun.

Back to my smooth sailing technique: Right across the street from the terminal’s South entrance on Empire Ave. is the Amtrak Station. They have a small pull-in parking area there and that’s where I sit in my car and wait for my daughter’s (usually delayed) plane to land. Once her plane touches terra firma, she calls me from her cell and I swing my car into the terminal. On weekends (when she usually flies), there is often a terrible wait to even pull up to the terminal, so even though she’s on a Southwest Air flight, I have her walk beyond that first terminal, where all the crowds hang out, south to the end of the airport and wait for me there. I can usually just glide in, toss her bags in the trunk and screech out before any of the world’s grumpiest police officers can blink an eye!

Let me know (in the comment area) if you have any better tricks!

Just as an FYI, here are the airlines that currently are flying out of BUR: Alaska, American, America West, Delta, Jet Blue, Southwest and United.

If you are going out of town for a while, the long-term parking is pretty reasonable. The cheapest parking lot is across the street on Thornton and the bus ride is about three minutes. Don’t you just love it! Here is a handy parking rates chart.

burbank-parking-rates.pdf

ok, gotta run,

see you on the freeway!

jessica

Liza Minnelli is an icon of stage and screen and has won virtually every award
possible, including three Tonys, an Oscar, two Golden Globes and an Emmy. Her performances of trademark songs from the musicals, “New York, New York” and “Cabaret” are legendary and watching her perform a live show is an experience that you will not forget. Liza Minnelli continues her extraordinary music career with concert tours in the U.S. and Europe, as well as recording a new album.

Ticket Prices: $65 VIP, $55 Reserved, $45 General Admission (Members of
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attend. No refunds, cameras or videos. Tickets are on sale now at the Main
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Table Mountain Casino Event Center
(800) 541.3637 or (559) 822.7777
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Friant, CA 93626

InvisibleLA will be providing more frequent posting including Local cafe reviews (contact us for more information) and Live content – in regards to Los Angeles. Here are a few topic ideas you may want us to let you know about. Like the writers guild strike…..Hot spots for travel…Things to do free in LA. Tourist spots with pictures like Graumans Chinese theater. Or Vine and Sunset with the stars with the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Venice Beach – Santa Monica Beach, Pinks, Tommys Burgers. Pictures of outside the studios like Paramont(LA) and Sony(Culver City) and CBS studios on 3rd and Fairfax. A pic of the Hollywood sign(can be seen from in front of my house) to a pic of the Pantages theater.

Ok, Linda is just on her way out the door to Farmers Market behind CBS Studios. Let her see what she can pull up. She knows about 3 restaurants at Farmers Market. Farmers Market is a tourist attraction for its history(has been around since late 1920’s). Its behind CBS studios and right across the street from the Screen Writers Guild/Union where the strikes has been taking place. And the movie the “Black Dahlia” was about a murder that took place across the street in the 40’s.

So give her about 24 hours and let her pull something up for you.

I know that some people just aren’t “joiners”, but I am, and I am a HUGE extrovert, so a fun, lively gathering of interesting people calls to me. If you need a little jolt to spur you to action, here are some ideas…

There are networking meetings for business, there are singles gatherings, there are social groups to find new friends and then there are plenty of special interest groups like the Sierra Club, etc.

The other night, I attended my first meeting of a business networking group that I recently joined called Ladies Who Launch. More about the organization in a minute, but this gathering was held in a retail store. Not just any store, but the fabulous Three Dots, home of the famous delicious high end T Shirts and comfy, hip easy to wear clothing that feels like you’re in your pjs, on Melrose near Crescent Heights.

The founder of Three Dots, Sharon Lebon and her creative director Yuchin Mao were on hand to tell the fascinating tale of rags to riches (Yuchin recently came on board, previously designing for the likes of Helmut Lang and Prada). There were about 75 high-powered business-owners and would-be start-ups and a good time was had by all. Most inspiring to me was Sharon’s humble account of the last 10 years, growing the company from having $4000 in the bank to an expected gross next year of over $100,000,000. That’s ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS. Wow. She made it really clear that if SHE could do it, we could do it and each one of us went away with a feeling of true inspiration. If you’re interested in hearing an interview with the innovative young designer Yuchin Mao, go here: Three Dots Creative Director Yuchin Mao. There are many amazing stories in Los Angeles, it was extraordinary to get such an up-close and vulnerable peek into a superstar in the fashion industry’s business.

Ladies Who Launch, the group I mentioned, is for women only (sorry, gentlemen, there are plenty of places for you guys to gather!), particularly women who have the intention of launching a business or who are ready to jumpstart a business they already have. They offer a four week program called an incubator, where you declare your idea and get support, homework and a shot in the arm from the leader and the other participants. MANY women-owned business, as well as friendships, partnerships and affiliations have started from these impactful groups!

Pictured here is LA Chapter Founder Amy Swift (on the right) and Jen Sincero, sex columnist and Incubator leader extraordinaire. They are modeling Three Dot dresses, hence the title of this post. If you are interested in finding out more about this amazing group, go ahead and check out their website. And if you don’t live in Los Angeles, they have chapters in most of the major cities in the US.

I feel so great about being a member of this national organization that boast some powerful movers and shakers in their membership.

Here are a few other resources for connecting with people in LA:

My People Connection

My People Connection features weekly events for friends in most of the major cities, including LA. With thousands of subscribers and thousands of events in the past eight years, MyPC brings together friends from diverse backgrounds and communities. It’s still FREE to belongno mandatory membership fees, since 1999!

These events are for any age, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, etc. It’s just people getting together to have fun and to meet others in this vast metropolis of ours.

Meetup Groups

Time magazine says MeetUp is:

Meetup is a website where anyone can create an interest group and for a small fee, post their ongoing event or meeting on the site. There are so many interesting and quirky things going on here, such as Santa Monica DEPECHE MODE Devotional Group or the Gin in North Hollywood group for those gin rummy enthusiasts in the San Fernando Valley, that you are sure to find one to suit your lifestyle!

In fact, all you have to do is go to Yahoo Groups or Google Groups and type in Los Angeles, and you will be shocked at all the people meeting all over this city!

So, have fun, and if you have any other great resources or ideas…let me know!

see you on the freeway

So how are you going to vote? Who are going to vote for? Do you know about any of the current presidential candidates and what they stand for? Do you know about any of the propositions and measures? So get out and research. Than go to your designated polling place and vote.

You may also find out which Presidential Candidates were certified to be on the current 2008 California Primaries at the California Gov page for elections.

You may find a list of the current propositons at California’s Voter Guide. There are 7 Propositions which are 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96 and 97.

Proposition 91: Transportation Funds

Proposition 92: Funding, Governance, Fees For Community Colleges

Proposition 93: Term Limits For Legislators In Office

Proposition 94 – Proposition 97: Amendment To Indian Gaming Compact
Proposition S (Los Angeles)

If you need to find out where your polling place is to vote in Los Angeles, you may visit LA Vote.
Or call the following phone numbers to find out. (800) 815-2666 (Local Callers Only) or (562) 466-1310

So, last week, when I got an update from one of the myriad of food blogs in L.A. (I wish I could remember which one) and they were talking about a new concept in dining that is sweeping the country; underground restaurants, I knew I was in!

There’s a lot of snobbery and dissing of these roving eateries in the food review world, but I was curious and wanted to see what it was all about, to judge for myself. So I called my friend Anne Block, who is a fabulous tourguide in L.A. and beyond, and owner of Take My Mother Please* custom tours (and who by the way, will be one of my regular guest bloggers on this site) and said, “let’s go!”. She was in, too. She’s like that.

I didn’t know where to start looking, but as it turns out, The Ghetto Gourmet, normally based out of San Francisco, was holding an event every night this week in Los Angeles. We signed up right away at the reasonable cost of $42.00 and made our battle plan for the evening.

What is an underground restaurant? It’s a roving dining experience where chefs, waiters and entertainers come together in different people’s homes and offer a prix fixe [the fancy way of saying fixed price] dinner to hungry and adventurous guests. Often the menu is posted on the internet or in a confirmation email (if you are lucky enough to be privy to the super-secret lists I keep hearing about). They operate in a quasi-legal atmosphere and have been compared to speakeasys of the Prohibition Era and the early verison of raves.

Here’s what I found when googling around:

Bruce Frieseke, head chef at Manzanita [an underground restaurant in Silicon Valley in California], believes the appeal of underground restaurants comes largely from diners’ shifting attitudes toward the entire restaurant scene. “I think this is part of a trend,” he says, “even in traditional restaurants, to make the dining experience more homey.”

This change toward wanting a dining experience to be more comforting and less highly formalized is a welcome one, according to many restaurateurs. Taking a restaurant out of the traditional context and putting it–quite literally–in a homier setting allows people to relax. Providing this type of low-key atmosphere is much easier when running a restaurant out of a basement or a garage, and these illegal dining spots are rapidly gaining cult status.

So…what was it like, I hear you wondering? It was SO MUCH FUN! Anne and I were among the first to arrive, as we wanted to make sure we got comfortable seats. Jeremy Townsend, the host of GG, was there to warmly greet us and, as we would later discover, to memorize the name and occupation of every single guest. (the night we were there, there were over 30 people). We chose a table in the stylish Silver Lake living room and opened our delicious wine.

The food was very good, local Chef Anita Bergman offered up a delicious 4 course meal, well described at our tablemate H.C.’s L.A. food blog here. But to me, the most fun part was the way Jeremy worked the crowd. His warm and engaging energy and personality made the night what it was.

Of course, sitting in a strange house with people you don’t know can be quite awkward, but the way it came down, it was as if we were at a party of good friends and so there was little or no social anxiety. (I am sure the 5 bottles of wine at our table helped!). By the dessert course, we were exchanging email addresses, phone numbers and promising to stay in touch. We all left with a sense that we had participated in something that was out of the ordinary.

The cool thing is, Jeremy not only tracks down local chefs, but also local entertainment wherever he hosts his soirees. The other night, we were regaled with the caffeinated song stylings of Mr. Jose Promis and the quite politically incorrect comedy of Ryan Stout. (I did laugh anyway, I admit). Was he funny? Ummmm, not really, but I am one of those people that figures it’s good to laugh when you can. It feels good.

I like what Jeremy does and I really appreciate where he comes from. He is most excited that he can bring crowds of people together all over the country (and soon the world!) and create a magical evening where everyone is involved and everyone goes home happy. That IS a good mission, Jeremy! Thank you, and I will be back again for sure.

see you on the freeway…

jessica

PS Tonight, Anne has invited me to see a funky slideshow offered up by Charles Phoenix at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. I can’t wait! He is known for his retro-snarky (in a loving way) look at America and Americana in the 50’s and 60’s and I am hoping to scoop and interview for you with him!

Greetings, friends and welcome to the newest addition to HomeTurfMedia‘s growing list of city sites!

My name is Jessica Duquette and I am a professional organizer/lifestyle management consultant and adventurous person, lover of the quirky, the fiery hot, the heartfelt and of delicious food and passionate art in whatever form. As long as the inspired one is coming from their heart, it works for me!

InvisibleLa is a blog about the city I was born in, was not raised in, but currently (happily!) live in: Los Angeles. No, it’s not just another LA blog, it’s my mission to ferret out the cool, the weird, the freaky, the marginal and the touching, in people, events, architecture, food and fun. I will be asking regular guest bloggers to add their talents and insights to the blog each month and I always love to hear from you, the reader, on what you think and feel about what you see here. Let’s get this party started!

Even if you don’t live in LA, I hope you will come back and visit to see what’s going on here!

see you on the freeway…

jessica

PS please come visit It’s Not About Your Stuff, my blog about the reasons people find their lives cluttered and stuck and what we can do about it.

A little back story before the film portion of this post: Charles Phoenix grew up in the L.A. area and always had a love for things kitsch-y. One day, several years back, he was rooting around in a thrift shop when he came across a small blue box of slides marked “our trip across country 1957” and in that fateful moment, his life came into sharper focus (pun intended). What began as a casual collection (ok, an obsessed collection), soon turned into an passion shared with the world at large through these slide-show-cum-commentary presentations. Charles has been asked to present these glimpses into American history in the innocent years all around the U.S. and in Europe. I think it says on his website that he now has over 500,000 slides that he has collected from thrift shops, estate sales, flea markets and the like. His audience members often give him their family slides when they come to the show. They are amazing because of their momentary look into the living rooms and front yards of regular people, and I have to say my favorite of all was a slide of a home-fashioned styrofoam and tinfoil tree on a raft, listing to the left, in someone’s swimming pool.

Wikipedia has a great definition of kitsch (and here’s part of it):

Kitsch is a German term that has been used to categorize art that is considered an inferior copy of an existing style. The term is also used more loosely in referring to any art that is pretentious or in bad taste, and also commercially produced items that are considered trite or crass.

Because the word was brought into use as a response to a large amount of art in the 19th century where the aesthetic of art work was confused with a sense of exaggerated sentimentality or , kitsch is most closely associated with art that is sentimental; however, it can be used to refer to any type of art that is deficient for similar reasons—whether it tries to appear sentimental, glamorous, theatrical, or creative, kitsch is said to be a gesture imitative of the superficial appearances of art. It is often said that kitsch relies on merely repeating convention and formula, lacking the sense of creativity and originality displayed in genuine art.

Though kitsch and kitschy may be terms used to criticize, the term is sometimes used as a compliment as well, with some finding kitschy artwork to be enjoyable for its “retro” value or unintentional, ironic humor or garishness. [my emphasis]

Well, Charles’ performance piece (those words don’t do it justice, I promise!) was certainly ‘enjoyable for it’s retro value and ironic humor’, no doubt, but it really was also surprisingly touching and screamingly funny (I laughed so hard that tears were pouring down my face) and smart at the same time. Charles is a true chronicler of what he calls ‘Americana’: the cultural mores of the American 1950’s and 1960’s. In fact, he has a book by that name: God Bless Americana.

If you’re a fan of retro (which I am!!!!), check out his great website CharlesPhoenix.com and don’t forget to sign up for his “Slide of the Week“, where he sends out one of his retro postcards (plus commentary) every week via email.

Also, Charles will be presenting his slide show several more times during December at the Egyptian, it’s well worth the trip to Hollywood!

Charles Phoenix Retro Holiday Slideshow

Here are a couple of video treats for you! Charles showing us how to make the famous ‘Astro Weenie Christmas Tree’—wow!

I’m sorry, I am experiencing technical difficulties, so please come see the video in my ‘Christmas Hacks’ post on my other blog, It’s Not About Your Stuff. (photo courtesy of sheer incompetence)

And here, dear new readers, is the first ever of my fabulous hand-crafted cellphone videos! This one is called

A night in Hollywood

(still in the working stages. You have to have the free and friendly Quicktime Player installed on your computer, and I didn’t realize that if I held the camera sideways, I wouldn’t be able to flip it like a photo, so forgive me!)

Other guests included Mia Maestro, Ana Ortiz, Giannina Facio, Eva Chow, celebrity florist Eric Buterbaugh, and celebrity stylists Elizabeth Stewart and Rachel Zoe. Teri Weinberg of NBC and writer Marc Abrams were also in attendance.

Sergio Rossi at 8424 Melrose Place, West Hollywood. (323) 944-0864. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.