Really awesome Mahalo page about how to best appreciate beer. I don't consider myself a connoisseur or anything, but I think I know a bit about how to appreciate a nice brew...and I found this page very enlightening. Check it out:
It seems like whenever there's one movie nominated for an Oscar that I truly disliked, that STANDS OUT to me as one of the year's biggest disappointments of most memorable turkeys, that's the movie that wins.
I thought for sure "Brokeback" had the Oscar all sewn up that year, and then what comes along and topples it? "Crash," the most embarrassing Best Picture winner in decades. Seriously, does anyone continue to watch or discuss that nonsense? It's reign of influence and importance was over before the afterparties disbanded.
So bearing that in mind, I'd bet the farm on "The Reader," because I was at least tolerant of all the other nominees.
I'll be liveblogging the event over at Mahalo.com. Here are some of the pages we've been prepping:
"Street Fighter 4" comes out tomorrow, and we here at Mahalo are EXCITED in a way that's somewhat inappropriate for people who aren't in middle school. Here are JUST A SAMPLE of the different places on our website where you can catch up on all the hot, steamy Yoga Flame-oriented action:
We're covering two major sporting events this weekend at Mahalo. It will be a rare chance for me, a pudgy coastal elite, to mingle with all you good regular salt-of-the-Earth Midwestern people, which can only be good for me.
I will once again be covering all the Super Bowl Sunday action for Mahalo.com tomorrow. Here's JUST A SAMPLE of the awesome pages we've already built to take you inside the athletics-junk-food-and-mindless-consumerism action!
I'm very pleased to introduce the newest feature on Mahalo, Mahalo Answers. We've been working on this quietly for a while now and it's exciting to get to share it finally with the world.
The basic concept is superficially similar to a few other services around the Web. Users can show up and ask questions or answer questions posed by other users. Then, a "best" answer is chosen that most directly provides the sought-after information.
Mahalo's bringing a few new concepts to the table. Perhaps most significantly, what we're calling "tips." If you want your question to get featured prominently, or if you want to ask something that may take a bit of time or expertise to properly answer, you can offer "Mahalo Dollars" for an answer. Collect 40 Mahalo Dollars (which would really be a matter of providing 4-8 really compelling answers) and you can turn them into actual money!
Of course, there are lots of other benefits to the system, too. Mahalo Answers interact with regular Mahalo pages. So if you're looking up Michael Jackson, and someone has already asked
for a list of all his #1 singles on Answers, you'd see that information on the regular Mahalo page.
Perhaps my personal favorite upgrade that Mahalo Answers brings to these kinds of Q&A services are the embeddable videos. A thread like this one, about Steven Seagal's finest on-screen moments, just isn't possible on other Answers sites, and it's really compelling stuff, almost like a crowd-sourced blog list.
So I'd encourage everyone to get a Mahalo username and password (if they don't already have one) and check this system out. We're all pretty proud of it.
Oh, and of course I got the Best Answer on that Steven Seagal thread with this unimpeachable classic:
Mahalo Daily hits a milestone today with our 200th episode. (That's 180 more than "The Famous Teddy Z"!)
I'm so proud to be a part of this podcast and to have worked (and continue to work) with such a fantastic group of people. Congrats to Michael, John, Conrad, Buck, Leah, Veronica, Tyler, Jason, all the Mahalo Guides like my brother and Evan who helped us out along the way and, oh yeah, ME!
So, part of me not blogging for a while has included me not blogging about working at Mahalo for a while. And that's gonna change...right now...
A few little things we've done I want to point out.
First, I think we're the best resource on the Internet for information about the big election. In addition to blowing out a ton of cool pages on the recent Democratic Convention, including pages on speeches by the Obamas, Biden, the Clintons, etc., we've been all over the VP race.
(My take on Sarah Palin? She's a Creationist who wants both creationism and evolution taught side-by-side in science classrooms. No thanks!)
Second, and perhaps more importantly, we made this page today about the Best Fictional Cops. I wrote the section about Commissioner Gordon!
The OxyWeb blog has released its hotly-anticipated "Top 5 Tech News and Gadget Video Podcasts Worth Watching," and I'm proud to say that Mahalo Daily has made the list at #4. Just look at the praise they're heaping on our modest little show!
This one is more of a variety show than tech, but ignoring that fact, it’s a worthy addition to the list. It’s hosted by the lovely Leah D’malio and some fat dude. Mahalo Daily provides a look at anything and everything from Comic Con to graffiti removal in LA. It can be a bit hit and miss but the “This Week in The Youtube” are well worth watching, everything else is a bit “meh”.
Some fat dude! I have truly arrived...
Just returned from the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget. Solid times were had by all. Here's some photographic evidence:
I also met Jeff Garlin, but that photo's just a Polaroid, and not immediately uploadable. Anyway, it was fun. Look for the episode to air some time soon.
Leah and I, along with intreped producer Conrad Quilty-Harper and cameraman John Porter, went deep inside the 1-800-AUTOPSY compound in Downtown LA to bring you the following chilling Mahalo Daily.
I can honestly say it was the only interview I have ever conducted that was interrupted by the sentence: "I'm sorry, I have to go to children's hospital to remove a baby's brain." Well, okay, the second interview...but that's still pretty rare.
I think the episode's really entertaining and informative, but we couldn't really capture the ridiculous scope of this place in one 5 minute podcast. The company, in addition to performing autopsies, also rents out equipment and space to TV and film productions replicating autopsies. And they turn coffins into couches. The guy who owns it was a forensic investigator for decades, and is just kind of grimly fascinated in this stuff, so the whole place is something of an autopsy museum. There's one room that's a replica of a 1920s embalming room. It's seriously like walking into an Alan Moore story.
ATTENTION BOING BOING TV: I love experimental animation as much as the next guy, but you should mix it up more with some visits to peculiar, real-world locations. You all could get 2 weeks of shows out of the coffin couch factory. Maybe we can put some steampunk goggles with brass fittings on one of the skeletons, if it would make you more comfortable.
Before working at Mahalo, I was not particularly gadget-conscious. I'm the sort of guy that thinks to replace his cell phone only when it suffers irreparable physical trauma or dies of its own accord, and not a moment before. (My current cell phone is from the first era of "camera phones," when the notion of taking a picture using your portable phone felt roughly as bleeding-edge futuristic as hovering skateboards and automatically-resizing Nikes.)
However, now that I'm immersed in the world of tech and gadgetry (tonight I went to what is essentially an adult science fair to check out homemade robot tables), I've actually started to lust after new shiny objects of consumer goodness. Such as the new ultra-deluxe 3G JesusPhone announced just yesterday by Captain Turtleneck. The mere fact that I understand the term "3G" is a big plus for me...That's the sort of thing I once assumed was arbitrary, like the naming system for new Terminators. (How do you go from T-1000 to T-X (which looks like T-100)? Shouldn't she be the T-10,000?
Here's the thing about the iPhone (or, if you prefer, the iPhone 2.0)...I will probably use 1/500th of the actual available features. (I frequently hear people complain that the phone is missing things I would never in a million years even think to put on there, sometimes with intimidating acronyms like VPD and SQL.) I basically just want a phone that I can also use to watch YouTube videos while I wait in lines and airports. (I'll consider playing this rumored Cro-Magnon Man Rally game, perhaps.) So my desire for the thing is almost entirely manufactured, a function of living every day in this world of gizmos and gadgets more so than any kind of practical application. It's sort of a new feeling for me...
DOUBLE UDPATE: The comments on this thing are amazing. I'd say a good 4/5 have generally nice things to say - they enjoyed the video, they find me intensely sexually attractive or they support Leah in the contest. Those other 1/5 are just...well, it's the kind of hilarious obscenity you can only get from YouTube comments.
A lot of them feel the need to inform me of my own latent homosexuality. And I think we can all sympathize. How often have you been watching a clearly comical video on the Internet and thought..."Hey, the gentleman who made this is wearing something typically associated with females, or those of a different body type! He must therefore be gay, and is most likely unaware of his own sexual orientation and proclivities! I think I ought to inform him of such, lest he go through his life not realizing that he was physically attracted to members of his own gender!"
UPDATE: Leah's video may actually be going viral. It has been up for less than 24 hours and is currently showing 25,336 views on YouTube. Holy crap.
Seriously. I mean...this is too far...
Can I please stay on the Internet, please? I promise not to wear any more midriffs.
To be honest, when Leah first suggested it, I was a bit conflicted about this one. Are people laughing with me? Or at me? It took approximately two comments on the Mahalo Daily page for someone to show up and make a cheap shot at my lack of fitness.
In the end, I decided...If it's funny, it's worth doing. Call it the Chris Farley Principle.
By the way, here's Andrea's video from the day before, that was also fun to shoot and features me in a guest role:
Sorry I forgot to post that this morning...Total oversight.
AND of course, there's your Behind-the-Scenes bonus feature:
When the idea first occurred to us to turn the search for the next Mahalo Daily host into a reality show, it was totally meant in the spirit of parody. The whole notion was to mock reality shows, particularly how overblown they are and how they pit people cruelly against one another. Hence, me in a hot air balloon with my shirt unbuttoned introducing something called "The Bachelon," or Jason doing his Trump impression in the boardroom.
See, there were always two levels to the whole thing, to my mind. On the surface, we're genuinely conducting a real contest, looking for someone to host the show. But on another level, we're pretending that the contest is this massively important, epic thing, that lives were literally in the balance, and that our competition would feature all the drama and excitement promised on shows like "The Amazing Race" and "The Bachelor."
Now that we've had a month of great shows and two amazing finalists, I think I can safely say that there are two things we did not consider when planning this thing:
(1) Pitting people against one another, even in jest, creates rifts, divisions and hurt feelings;
(2) The reality format itself is powerful, and creates strong emotions in viewers, even when presented ironically
I'm still very glad we did the contest. I think the episodes themselves have been some of the most entertaining we've ever done. Even better, we got the chance to get to know and collaborate with some fantastically talented, interesting and, of course, beautiful women - not just the Final Two, Andrea and Leah, but also Sarah, Nadine, Michelle, Kristina, Lisa, Martine, Pili, Roxy, Alice, Melody...and more. I have a feeling you'll see many of them on the show again in some capacity.
But having said that, I do kind of regret taking part in anything that would inspire this kind of angry, mean, vitriolic comment thread. We never intended to create a show that would turn people against the contestants. ANY of them. The whole point was to celebrate all the talented aspirants, not to make them look bad and unleash the rage of the Internet upon them. MD viewers and fans...please do try to keep your commentary professional and respectful.
This little incident is largely our fault, for blurring the line between fake funny reality show and real reality show too much at times. I hope we can all put it past us as we declare a winner this week and start making new shows.
If we end up not choosing your preferred choice, I'd suggest you at least give the new host a chance...They're both really creative and fun, they both have a lot of enthusiasm and ideas for the show, and I promise you, they're both really genuine, nice people, no matter how a competitive 5 minute podcast featuring my boss might make it seem.
I interviewed actor/screenwriter/intense Dune fan Thomas Lennon ("Reno 911," "The State") the other day. He's an intensely awesome guy, and gave our little Mahalo Daily podcast a full hour of his valuable time. I think it's definitely among the best Mahalo Daily episodes with which I've been involved...Let's watch!
As of today, we've seen all the podcasts produced by our six Mahalo Idol finalists, and bloggers are starting to chime in with their selections for who should move on. (I should mention, you can actually vote for your favorite at Mahalodaily.com. I'm fairly certain the audience favorite will automatically move on to the next round.)
Let me just say, I totally appreciate all the bloggers who noted that I desperately need an attractive female counterpart. As blogger Tony Andrew Meyer notes, "realistically, the show needs an extremely attractive host (especially if co-hosting with Lon)." Apparently, to Tony's mind, nothing is worse than looking at a fat guy who doesn't have an extremely beautiful woman beside him. I guess the two of us would even out into, like, some relatively plain-looking hermaphrodite at which you wouldn't mind gawking for 4-6 minutes at a pass.
Now, it wouldn't be fair for me to name a favorite, and I don't want to influence the viewers' selections (not that I feel like I have that kind of sway, but you get what I'm saying). However, I would like to post all the ladies' entries and offer some of my thoughts to any interested parties...
Leah D'Emilio
Leah kicked off the contestant podcasts winningly with a trip to a Capoeira studio to do some Brazilian Dance Fighting. I kind of wish there had been a bit more footage of her actually trying to do some Capoeira moves, but what I really liked about this episode was the sheer amount of information presented. Leah's extremely polished, and when you watch this, you feel confident, like you're in the hands of someone with a plan, someone who will make you just a teensy bit smarter. My episodes certainly don't offer anything like that. I tend to get caught up in one-liners and silly costumes, forgetting that part of the original idea behind Mahalo Daily was to be informative and enlightening. Leah remembered.
Also, did you all know she's an accomplished singer-songwriter? Got to be worth a few bonus points...
Michelle Hummel
Michelle's episode is set at an Anaheim go-kart track. I think her advantage here is that riding around in a go-kart is genuinely a lot of fun, and viewers can tell she's actually enjoying herself, not just going through the motions. The phrase "great energy" has been thrown around a lot in this competition - almost to the point of becoming meaningless - but there's no other way to describe Michelle's performance in this episode...Her playfulness and enthusiasm come through.
She's also probably the best actress of all the finalists. Whenever we'd give her direction for one of the teasers, she would nail the performance on the first take. Her crying scene in Teaser #4 is spot on.
Nadine Heimann
Nadine's episode is about Mixed Martial Arts CAGE FIGHTING! I mean...yes! Best choice of topic, I think, out of all six contestants, and as we all know from that other "Idol" show, your choices say a lot about you and can often make or break your whole performance. Plus, I love the way she just goes for it and actually does some of the moves with the instructor here, even flipping him over her shoulder at one point. A cool visual like that, in a lot of ways, is more important than all the perfectly-enunciated intros and outros (or "extros," as Alex Albrecht might say) in the world.
In general, I'd add that Nadine's very physical and athletic, which would make a great counterpoint to my fat, sedentary ass. Right, Tony?
Sarah Atwood
I'm not trying to say Sarah doesn't have her own style, but this feels like a Belmont-era "Mahalo Daily Classic" to me in a number of ways, from Sarah's friendly, laid-back tone to her total engagement with the subject to her slightly nerdy sense of humor. (Hey, that's not a knock, it's even in the name of her blog). Something else I'd point out about this episode...I think you probably hear more from the interview subject here than in any of the other contestant's shows...Sarah's not desperate to interject - she allows her subject to drive the conversation. This is something with which I struggle all the time...it's tough for me sometimes to just shut up and let someone else engage the viewer, even if they're the ones people want to hear.
Sarah's already built up a pretty strong Internet fan base on her own, without the Daily, which essentially proves she can do the job before we even have a chance to offer it to her.
Kristina Allison
Kristina is completely and thoroughly natural on camera. She's just herself. I'm noticing in the comments on her episode around the Web that some people don't like that...They want her to be more outgoing or excited or bubbly or something, I suppose. And I'll grant that most people (myself included) put on at least a bit of a persona when they get on camera. But, in this video, Kristina just has a casual conversation with a sound mixer about his job, without ever making it feel forced or stagy. She's just chilling with Dave, checking out his studio. Because of this ability to make you feel like you've hung out with her after watching a 5-minute video on the Internet, I think she might have the most potential to become Internet Famous. This is a girl with whom geeks will want to Twitter.
Also, did I mention she's the lead singer for rock band The Paper Dolls? Come on!
Andrea Rene
Andrea's episode, set at a gun club's firing range, is hilarious. Actually hilarious. I've actually been to one of these places and tried it out myself, and her reaction strikes me as entirely appropriate - the experience is weird and intense and freaky and extremely fun. There were some negative comments on the Daily page about her somewhat casual attitude towards the guns (at one point, yes, she kind of breaks protocol by pointing a gun away from the target), but it didn't bother me a bit. I was too busy being massively entertained. This was a big risk - I thought so from the moment she suggested the idea - and it really paid off. A great sense of humor is a big part of what we're looking for in a host, and if we were going on laughs-per-moment alone, I think Andrea would have it wrapped up.
I should also note, Andrea has had a lot of other hosting gigs, on and off-line, and she has nailed every single challenge we've put forth in "Mahalo Idol," leaving little doubt about her potential success as host.
Let us know your thoughts at Mahalo Daily. I'm not exactly sure where we're going from here - Jason has discussed everything from eliminating one lady per week to cutting it down to 2 on Monday - but we're committed to giving the audience a say in the matter. Your votes will COUNT! Which is more than several U.S. states can say with any measure of certainty. That's the Mahalo Daily difference.
Mahalo is searching for a truly badass Los Angeles Systems Engineer. Details can be found at CEO Jason's blog.
Does this sound like you? If so, let us know. If not, why are you still reading this? Here's the basics:
Systems Engineer, Los Angeles
Mahalo.com, Inc. is a new human-powered social search service backed by Sequoia Capital (the world's #1 venture firm), Newscorp, CBS, Elon Musk (Paypal founder), and others. This kind of opportunity is extremely rare in LA: these high-profile rewards are usually found only in Silicon Valley.
We're looking for a seasoned Systems Engineer. You should be expert in massively scalable architectures, how MySQL and Linux interact, how MySQL and memcache interact, sharding, replication (including multiple
master replication) and how to tune MySQL based on various schemas for maximum performance and availability. You are a HANDS ON implementor, a get-it-done kind of developer. The right person is a self starter
with the "general get it factor". You work well with a team of like-minded engineers, and have a genuine desire for excellence.
You should be expert with:
Applications: PHP 5.x, MySQL 5.x, memcache 1.2.x
Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, Unicast and Multicast socket programming
Scripting languages: Unix shell scripting
Other languages: Applicants with C, Java, and Objective-C experience preferred
Bonus: Hadoop / HBase, Lucene, Nutch, Spread
Well rounded candidates such as release engineers with a background in both large corporate environments and small startups have an edge.
Mahalo VLOG Idol is now...THE BACHELON!
Man...a shirt unbuttoned to my navel and a tuxedo T-shirt in the same episode...Will I ever be able to top this?
The special secret about the Mahalo VLOG Idol competition that's heating up several of the Internets is this...the teasers!
We're not just putting these together in an attempt to get you to watch our show! No! I mean, we are doing that.
But the teasers are really giving you Behind-the-Scenes insight into how the show was made. Think of them, if you will, like the Special Features on the DVD that is Mahalo VLOG Idol.
I really didn't intend for all of this footage to see the light of day...I realize I come off as something of a monster. But that, my friends, is the cost of perfection. Sometimes you have to break a few eggs. And by eggs, I mean Idol host Ryan Budke.