Saturday, November 30, 2013

DC SocialPulse: The AMA's As Twitter Saw It

By DC Cueva
@DC408dxtr

Back here again for SocialPulse, where DC Blog compiles tweets from the biggest shows & events into a unique running diary so everyone checks out how famous people and fans reacted to every moment as it happened on television. During The Challenge: Rivals II, we compiled all of the tweets of cast members, alumni and fans as they watched a great season of The Challenge. And you can expect weekly, or at least - more frequent, posts such as those we did for Rivals II for Real World: Ex-Plosion and The Challenge XXV coming up in the new year. (It is, after all, the reason why I flood those timelines so I can then compile them later into these posts)
   Where available and when possible, DC SocialPulse will also cover big events too, including the lavish awards shows that bring together the biggest stars into one room. And in this first non-Challenge related edition of the 'Pulse, we will cover last week's American Music Awards. Yes, there was an epic comeback Tom Brady had against Peyton Manning, but there was also plenty of fireworks at Nokia LA Live in Los Angeles: Miley Cyrus & the singing cat, JT entertaining us again, Imagine Dragons amazes the audience, Ariana Grande shows what she's made of, plus Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, One Direction, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and a whole lot more.
   So, without further ado, here's now twitter saw the AMA's...

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

DC's View: Holiday Madness

By DC Cueva
@DC408dxtr

Today sees the beginning to one of my favorite times of the whole year, and it's everyone's favorite as well (let's be honest, it's everyone's favorite, my young bro loves it so much). Yes, the holidays are rapidly approaching. And if you haven't noticed from all those displays that's been going up in stores, malls and houses across the country, it's gonna be everywhere come Thursday. It's the only time of the entire year where most Americans have an extended 4-day weekend (5-day for some, and a paid holiday for many) when the country celebrates Thanksgiving and the beginning of the holiday rush.

This very Wednesday is the start to all of this: the busiest travel day of the entire year. Airports and roadways across the United States will be jam packed as families on the last day of the year's only 3-day work week either take work off or after work to fly home to spend Thanksgiving with their loved ones. I would always like to joke that for this day only, it'll almost feel like I live in L.A. with the freeways being jammed up all day long as many head off to grandma's to spend the next four days in. And airports will almost be like an actual sport with long lines at the ticket counter, large queues to the airport garage and the eventual journey of trying to find any parking spaces.
   Outside the airport, it is also one of the year's busiest nights for bars and clubs, sometimes referred to as Blackout Wednesday, as most college students & others fly back to their hometowns to reunite with family & friends and engage in a few cold ones. In the suburbs of Chicago, this night is sometimes more popular a night to party than New Year's Eve or St. Patricks Day, while it is also the top drunk driving night due to underage drinking. To say the least, it will be busy as ever on Thanksgiving Eve.

Then, of course comes the big day, that fourth Thursday in November when Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. Historically, it started out as a way of celebrating the harvest of the year and while it remains so for those who live in rural areas, as well as being rooted in religious and cultural traditions, it's become the official beginning of the holiday season. It has been celebrated annually since 1863 when, in the midst of the Civil War, President Lincoln first proclaimed it a national holiday. He thought of it as a day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dweeleth in the Heavens," just as the nation was going through that turmoil.
   This can all be traced back to what many think of as the "First Thanksgiving," celebrated by the Pilgrims after spending their first harvest in 1621 in New England. Their get-together, attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims, lasted all of three days. Those in the region were used to celebrating thanksgiving - back then it was days of prayer to give thanks to God for blessings like a military victory or the end of a drought.
   Numerous thanksgiving celebrations would continue on a regional basis in the years ahead before it became an official national holiday in 1863 when President Lincoln made the last Thursday in November the first Thanksgiving. And in 1939, during the Great Depression and in a once-in-a-while year that had 5 Thursdays instead of 4, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved thanksgiving one week earlier to the fourth Thursday of the year. His reasoning was to give merchants a longer holiday shopping season, and influenced by the head of Macy's (and with some early political difficulties), it would eventually become the norm in 1941.

Ever since, it has become a holiday that brings so many families together, and along with Christmas there's nothing like holidays when everyone is together. And it's also full of traditions, too. Since 1947 at the White House, the National Turkey Federation has presented the President with one live turkey and two dressed turkeys, and it has become tradition since the Reagan administration for them to be given a presidential pardon.
   In New York City since 1924, Macy's has hosted its annual Thanksgiving Day Parade, arguably America's biggest parade and televised across the country on NBC. Starting on Manhattan's Upper West Side, working its way through Times Square and right into the department store chain's flagship location in Herald Square, it features parade floats, cartoon character balloons, Broadway numbers, celebrities and high school & college marching bands. And of course, it climaxes with the arrival of Santa Claus, which serves an the unofficial beginning of the holiday season. Other thanksgiving parades take place in Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis and Pittsburgh.
   And of course, there's those Thanksgiving football games, headlined by NFL games whose tradition dates back to its 1920 founding. Since 1934 and except for WWII, the Detroit Lions have hosted a game on Thanksgiving Day. They were joined in 1966 by the Dallas Cowboys, and 40 years later a 3rd game was added on Thanksgiving night - which in 2011 saw, what turned out to be, the first Harbaugh Bowl as brothers Jim and John coached their respective 49ers and Ravens teams, two years before their Super Bowl XLVII rematch. A number of high school football games are played on this day, while college football's regular season ends over the weekend. Football aside, other sports events include early season college hoops tournaments, an NHL Friday nationally televised matinee, and local Turkey Trot road running events in numerous cities on Thanksgiving morning, ranging from 1-mile fun runs to 10-mile events.

Now to the evening festivities, and of course the food is the talk when you walk through the door to grandmas. The majority of dishes in your usual U.S. Thanksgiving dinner are comprised of foods of New World origin, as per tradition the Pilgrims received their foods from the Native Americans. And of course, the main dinner course is that large roasted turkey.
   The use of a turkey preceded the 1863 nationalization of the holiday when President Alexander Hamilton declared "no citizen of the U.S. should refrain from turkey on Thanksgiving," and many Founding Fathers had great regard for it, but didn't become standard fare until the 1800s. Since then, it's become the most common main dish at Thanksgiving, a day that's often referred to as "turkey day." These days, turkey growers are projected to raise around 270 million of them, to be processed into five billion pounds of turkey meat w/ an $8 billion value tag, with a third of all turkey consumption during the holidays and a per capita consumption of nearly 18 lbs.
   Cooking a turkey on Thanksgiving is so much popular that Butterball runs a "Turkey Talk Line" phone bank for those who need help in all this. Most would prefer stuffing it with the traditional herb of Sage along with celery, carrots and onions. And others, including one of my aunts, would deep-fry one and then bring it over to our place, just as she did a few years ago. Alternatives to a turkey, or those that's served alongside them, include ham, a goose, a duck, and, especially in Texas, a quail.
   For the side dishes, among the varied choices include cranberry juice, stuffing, dressing, gravy, sweet and/or mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, green beans, winter squash, peas, carrots, bread rolls, cornbread, green beans and a salad. If you go to other parts of the country, you may find macaroni & cheese and collard greens in the South, some lasagne at an Italian-American family's table, or see mole & roasted corn with the Mexican-Americans. For desert, many pies are on offer including apple, sweet potato, pumpkin, pecan and mincemeat. And for beverages, spirits and cocktails are sometimes available before dinner, followed by Apple cider and/or wine on the main course.

And then, on the day after Thanksgiving, as many take advantage of those leftovers, most Americans undoubtedly take advantage of this Friday off to trek over to malls & shopping centers for, by far, the busiest shopping day of the year: Black Friday. It is the unquestioned kickoff to the Christmas shopping season and many non-retail employees & students join those federal & most business workers in enjoying Black Friday off in this Super Bowl of shopping, thus increasing the number of potential shoppers into the thousands in many malls. And it's known for attracting aggressive crowds, with reports of assaults, shootings and overcrowding by some to get their hands on products before it's off the shelves. I have been in that adrenaline rush many times, and it never gets old experiencing what it's like being one of the many who go to a mall on a Friday or during the holiday weekend.
   Recently, most major retailers have moved up the holiday opening bell extremely early by offering promotional sales just days after the Halloween trick or treating ended. For years, it was commonplace for stores & malls to open at 6:00am, but a few years ago (mirroring a trend among local morning TV news) many started at 5:00am, even 4:00am. And in 2011, Target, Kohl's, Macy's, Best Buy and others opened at the crack of midnight for the first time. A year later, Walmart & others did one step further, and opened their doors at 8:00pm on Thanksgiving night in most places (except in states where blue laws protect workers from working holidays). This year, Kmart will be open around the clock from 6am Thanksgiving morning to 11pm Black Friday; while other Thanksgiving night openings include Toys R Us at 5pm, Walmart & Best Buy at 6pm; Macy's, Sears, Target, Kohl's & JCPenney at 8pm, and Simon Malls (including my hometown Great Mall in Milpitas, CA) also opening up at 8pm.
   What's the origin behind the name "Black Friday?" It originated in 1961 in Philadelphia, where had originally been used to describe the heavy, often disruptive traffic amongst people & cars which took place the day after Thanksgiving, and started gaining broader use outside the Delaware Valley in 1975. Its definition from a business standpoint is that while retailers typically operated at a financial loss from January to November, "Black Friday" marks the spot where they start to turn a profit, or going "in the black." For Walmart and other large retail chains, their net profit skyrockets from $14 billion to $19 billion in their calendar year net profit income.

For brick and mortar and locally-owned businesses, the day after Black Friday sees their biggest day, Small Business Saturday, a relatively new shopping holiday having just been conceived in 2010 by American Express and now taken seriously by those businesses. Through social media and Amex's multi-platform ad campaign, SBS encourages holiday shoppers to patronize and/or sample the small and local businesses that look to cash in on the increased business that comes with the holidays.
   Sunday sees the 2nd busiest travel day of the year when airports and roadways will be busy yet again for the return trip for so many families as the Thanksgiving holiday ends. Among the travelers include my dad, who has spent the last two weeks in the Philippines celebrating his birthday over there, and has also likely seen some of the devastation from the devastating typhoon that ripped through the motherland days before he flew there after my bday.
   And the day after that when all of us return to work and to school, it is Cyber Monday. Based on a trend that retailers began to notice about ten years ago, this is the day when all retailers who sell online experience their biggest online selling day of the year. Those retailers realized that many consumers who were too busy to go to the mall or didn't find that thing they wanted, went online to shop for bargains on that first workday after Thanksgiving, and they had to adjust their strategy to reach them online. Last year, a record $1.465 billion was spent on all ecommerce in those 24 hours of Nov. 26, 2012.

And when the final tally by the National Retail Federation is published just after the first holiday shopping weekend wraps up on Sunday, the numbers will just about mind boggle you. For last year, it was a blockbuster showing: more than 247 million people (or 79% of the entire U.S. population) spent $59.1 billion over the four days of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. And the average spending total for a typical shopper was $423.66. In all three categories, it was a record by a mile, and this coming after all of the turmoil, politically and socially, of a recession that ended during the year.


And, that is that. Nothing much more to say after all that, other than to hope everyone is all set for the wave of emotions that we will be experiencing over the course of the next 100 hours or so.
   That's my view, and thanks for reading. Until next time, DC Cueva saying, have fun, happy travels, happy shopping, and have a safe & happy thanksgiving.



Sources: Wikipedia
Articles sourced from: Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving (United States), Thanksgiving Dinner, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday, Blackout Wednesday, Christmas and holiday season

Sunday, November 24, 2013

DC's View: Music World

By DC Cueva
@DC408dxtr

With the American Music Awards taking place tonight as I write this on Sunday, November 24, it's safe to say that music is one of the good handful of things I'm most into, along with sports, television and social media. I've been avidly following this world since back in high school (this goes back to the late '90s) and, though I'm not a musician myself, something always gets to me every time I something with a rhythm on the radio, my ipod or on TV.

Unlike some music fans who are into just one or a few genres, I am into the entire musical spectrum, able to handle pop, hip-hop, rock, R&B, EDM, even some country, classical and jazz too. Every time a multi-genre music event takes place, whether I'd be a music awards show (Grammy's, AMA's, VMA's & Billboard), a festival concert or even just the weekly radio countdown shows or viewing videos on my ipad, it always makes for appointment viewing or listening for me. Tonight is one of those nights with the AMA's, which I'm gonna be tuned in tonight. Often times when we have family parties at our house, including what we'll be having on Thanksgiving coming up on Thursday, we would typically put on music DVD's: any one of my parents' music DVD's from Earth Wind and Fire, Mariah Carey or Journey, or the Live 8 & Live Earth DVD's that I have with a ton of artists.

For myself, the way I consume & get my music has evolved over the years. I've devoted three iPods to my regular music listening - my iPhone and 2 iPod Shuffle's, a new 2GB & old 1GB - with which to rotate my listening around. I did have a CD player that until this year I put inside a CD bag that I wrapped & carried around my body when I go places, but I recently retired it after my recent Vegas trip since I used it only twice. I do continue to buy CD's for the principal reason that I can transfer to MP3's easily, along with buying digital tracks if I'm not into getting a full album just yet while also keeping an eye on that bank account.

For my radio listening, though I listen to sports and to podcasts a lot, I'm probably one of the handful who, for his music listening, would prefer a top 40, contemporary hit radio format over other music radio. Yes, pop radio. To me and a lot who work in the music industry either in radio or those who handle the charts, it's the most accurate barometer of what's the most popular music right now. This format has been around since the '60s and is . No music radio format features all of the biggest artists and the most popular songs of the moment like contemporary hit radio. And in a given market, no other station features the best of pop, rhythmic, hip-hop, rock, R&B, EDM and a couple country tracks too, like pop radio stations. When I go to the iHeartRadio or Radio.com apps on my iPhone, or if I travel out of the Bay Area, I would generally check the pop radio stations first over all others.

For you would think that because I'm a huge music fan that I've been to a lot of concerts, but I've been to just one. That would be in 1998 at a now-defunct radio station concert in San Jose where top 40 acts performed. I literally don't remember who performed that night since it was a long time ago, but it's safe to say that I'm well overdue to go to another one. Shouldn't be that far off. But then again, of course, there was that night nine years ago in 2004 when I met Linkin Park. I devoted a blog post to that ultimate fandom moment of mine and it still ranks as a top 5 moment in my life.

And I can't mention about my music relationship without mentioning about my brother in law. He is a part-time DJ and does some music composing on the side. In fact, three of the Vegas trips I took in '07, '09 and '11 were DJ gigs that he hosted. And because in every instance told him to bring along speakers and his DJ rig, we obviously took the long road from the Bay Area to Las Vegas. In '07, he was asked upon to DJ an event at the Flamingo, then in '09 he DJ'ed at Planet Hollywood following the Pacquiao-Cotto fight, and in '11 he DJ'ed a party at Tuscany.

Lastly, you all want to know, which artists are my favorites and what's in my iPod? Well, of course, because they're my favorite band, Linkin Park has the most tracks of any artist on my iPod including all of their albums. But aside from Chester, Mike & company, I've got a lot of the staples of top 40 radio on my iPod: Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo, Eminem, Imagine Dragons, JT, Pitbull, Drake, Maroon 5, Adele and even 1D (sometimes people have their guilty pleasures, right?). And among them, those are among my favorites right now along with a whole slew of others. I can thank getting the NOW That's What I Call Music CD's and checking the current charts for helping me get my fill of what I should my music mix with. And because I'm into a lot of music, it's hard for me to single out some favorite track as well. I'm that deep of a music fan who's into everything, even including production music that's used in television and movies, as well as some classical & jazz if I'm in the mood.

Okay, so that's that. There are a good number of television events that I always look forward to watching, and music awards shows are one of them. And it should be another fantastic night of music coming up tonight with artists who I'm looking forward to watching, as always. It's one of the very few nights where I have to cut out of watching Sunday Night Football, even with this big Manning vs. Brady matchup, for events such as this. So, time for me to grab that popcorn & get set. Talk to ya on twitter when I live tweet the big show coming up shortly.

- DC

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

DC's View: Real World Ex-Plosion

By DC Cueva
@DC408dxtr

Okay, so amidst all of this excitement surrounding my 30th birthday today and getting a lot of love from the social media world (and again, thanks to everyone who've sent me birthday wishes throughout this day), there's also been a lot of talking on twitter today surrounding the show I've been watching & following the most for almost half of that time, and that would be The Real World.
  The mere luck of the draw has seen three big developments in the past day or so in RW/Challenge world. First, last night I got my copy of The Challenge: Rivals II DVD in the mail, and I'll be looking forward to watching it a lot coming up (that long promised season wrap should be posted very soon, promise). Second, there's been a lot of hot stove talk over the last month about the cast & format for the upcoming Challenge, currently taking place in South America. And third & perhaps the biggest one of all is season 29 of The Real World. Yesterday, cast members teased on twitter to expect big news coming from them on this Wednesday, and today we got that big news.

For 28 seasons starting in SoHo and then most recently in Portland, The Real World has followed in that same tried & true formula of, as its mantra likes to say at the beginning, telling the true story of seven (& sometimes more) strangers picked to live in a house & work together, to find out what happens when people stop being polite & stop getting real. Now, the show has taken a bold step by, for the first time in the show's long history, of tweaking that formula, and adding some spice to this upcoming season, taking place up the way from where I'm situated here in Silicon Valley, in the good old City by the Bay.
   Just like any other season, the season 29 class of the chosen seven strangers of Arielle, Ashley, Cory, Jamie, Jay, Jenny and Tom will all move into their loft in San Francisco, doing what every other cast of recent times do: living it up, partying it up and hooking up in their loft in the Polk Gulch neighborhood, which for locals like me is right near City Hall & the Civic Center. But the dramatic twist that will radiate all throughout this season is that at one point during their stay when these people go on one of their usual trips around the Bay Area, the ex-girlfriends & ex-boyfriends of the original seven strangers will actually fly into SFO, move right into the house and no doubt surprise the SFO Seven when they come back from their excursion. Yes, the occupancy rate in the house will reach more than the usual seven and we could almost have a mere house party every day there.
   As usual when those new relationships blossom inside the house at the start of all this, it will definitely become a very awkward situation for the roommates to live with their exes when they move on, with loyalty and romance being tested to its limit and, of course, more tempers flaring than in your usual Real World. Obviously, the SFO seven are gonna learn that it can be a curse and/or a blessing for them to live w/ their former significant other, and we may even see more love triangles than in the past with this new twist. Some are gonna find newfound romance while others will find realization to all this. And had this been used in St. Thomas involving my favorite roommate from Baltimore, imagine what it would be like if you're Trey and you're living with Laura and with Chelsea. That would've been gold.

Almost immediately, the reaction to this was broad, and much of it has been negative. Those tradition-minded people, including even a member of a season that won Favorite Season at the Awards Bash, complain that it deviates more from the old school from the pioneering ways of the old school seasons where social issues were much prevalent, and that this season could lead to its downfall into cultural obscurity behind the much more popular Challenge and other reality shows. And I also took the necessary steps of sending that kiss of death of blocking a couple people who've shown some discontent over this issue. These people are those who aren't open to change, but they must learn that saying that if you get the same things in life, you'll always get the same results in the end. And for me, I'm not going to start any drama by venting things publicly in the social media world, that's something I don't value myself in. No drama kind of guy, always someone who prefers to be in the background and let everyone else grab the mic.

For me, I've always been a huge Real World fan for as long as I can remember, going all the way back to high school in 1999, and watching most every episode (or at least one episode) of every season since Hawaii. And even with both the new twist to this upcoming season & being engaged more in The Challenge, it will still be the case. I'll still give the legacy show priority over the spinoff as far as stature & preference when it comes to remembering cast members in this franchise.
   While I do have some traditions & occasional tweaks to the things I do everyday, I'm always someone who is open to any changes in the format, provided that it would be beneficial in the end. I am able to handle anything & everything that the show focuses on each season whatever the case may be. I've been able to handle the old-school oriented seasons where social issues & life experiences are focused more, and the new generation of the casts are having fun in exotic locales. And of course, I can handle whatever twist TJ gives the Challengers more than others.
   And The Real World one of those shows where I feel I'm most comfortable in watching, where I can just simply sit back, relax, watch and be engaged. Unlike The Challenge where I'm on the edge of my seat watching the drama that occurs on the competition field and in the house, The Real World is much more my comfort zone: more laid back, more storytelling oriented, and more of a steady pace of following young people & their everyday lives, the same people who I've been talking to a lot in social media since I joined the night of the St. Thomas premiere.

As for my thoughts on this twist of the cast's exes moving in, I think it's a good idea to tweak the system a bit if the formula gets stale & predictable. And though I've enjoyed watching this recent generation of the show, the folks realized that their playbook was becoming somewhat outdated and felt it was time to a page out of The Challenge, take a bold gamble and tweak it a bit. If what we see all the time of twists being made to everything that goes on in Challenge land, such as the ones we saw a lot of on Rivals II and the one that inspired this RW season in the first place - Battle of the Exes, then it should be beneficial in the end. There's nothing like getting making a big twist to a good formula to try & get people talking and get themselves interested in something once again. If viewership is very good (even though I would still have to miss watching two episodes live in February due to the Winter Olympics), then it should get a whole new generation of viewers right into the door of the show that Generation X & Y have watched since the '90s and breathe some new life into this franchise instead of being one that's just there to cast potential new challengers.
   But we all have to remember that saying, you shouldn't really judge a book by just glancing at that cover. Just as I've been seeing with my good friends of Scrubbing In where lots of people have been pouring haterade on the cast for the nurse life that they live in and outside the hospital, I feel that instead of continuing to go off on this new twist, we should show a touch of class in just waiting for the trailer to come in a few weeks (and by then the entire RW/Challenge community will be at capacity after those doing Challenge 25 will be able to tweet again) and then for the season to finally premiere before we can give our judgements. I'm going to do exactly that and wait it all out with everyone else.

So, that's my view. And to Arielle, Ashley, Cory, Jamie, Jay, Jenny and Tom (and the extra roommates we'll be seeing eventually), welcome to Team MTV. Let the countdown to the fireworks begin.

- DC

DC30: Reflections on 30 Years in the Life of DC

By DC Cueva
@DC408dxtr

And so, here we are. The day has come - Wednesday, November 13, 2013...one that has been exactly three decades in the making.

It was 30 years ago on this very day, on a Sunday night in 1983 at a hospital in San Jose that I entered the world as the 2nd child to two proud parents and a daughter. That month, the country's government shut down, the made-for-TV movie The Day After depicted nuclear war, Larry Holmes became heavyweight champ, and Miranda Lambert was born, 3 days before me and just before now-disgraced major leaguer Ryan Braun. That year, we saw what would become two huge parts of our lives take their first baby steps, the mobile phone and the internet, along with the moonwalk, the space shuttle, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the McNugget. And in events, there was a U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut, M*A*S*H's farewell, Australia II winning the America's Cup, and the AIDS scare was just beginning.

What has transpired in the course of the last 30 years is worth a whole lot of boxes to put these memories in, both in the world and in my own life. I have lived through five U.S. presidents, five schools in the Milpitas school district, 16 Olympic Games, trips to the Philippines, Las Vegas & New York, countless number of relatives and school friends too many to mention on here. And of course, there's been a whole lot of memorable events that we have lived through from that decade of the 80's, into the 90's and to now in this 21st century, both good & bad, triumph & tragedy, again all too many to mention in this post.

As I wrote on my opening blog post last summer, I'm just your typical person who's living life as much as I can. I have a great loving family, great cousins & relatives who care about me, and a great group of friends who know who I am, people who I now talk to again regularly thanks to this platform known as social media. Though I sometimes might be shy and don't spend as much time going out as much as everyone else, I'm someone who likes to be friendly with everyone, and is that guy who people can trust & talk to. I'm, as my twitter profile likes to call me, a people person.

Something I talked about in my opening blog post was that I have a symptom of autism carried over from when I was born. As everyone is aware, it is a serious disorder that affects many children & families, and my family has dealt with not only one, but two people with this condition, the other being my younger brother which affects him much more seriously than I am. Over time from when I was in my early childhood, I have gradually grown from being very autistic to becoming far more high functioning, right to the point where people can hardly think that I had autism at one time.

I have lived through a lot of my own personal events over the last 30 years: the aforementioned trips to the motherland, the big apple, sin city, SoCal & Hawaii. There's those weddings that my family have had in the last several years: my sister & bro-in-law on 7/7/07, and recently with my cousin Jeff last year. There's my strong relationship with the sports world & many sporting events I've went to, starting with that very first one, a Warriors game on Halloween 20 years ago. I got to meet Linkin Park almost a decade ago that ranks as my all-time favorite celeb & music moment, matched now by the many dealings I have everyday with MTV people on twitter. And the moment that tops them all, graduation day back in June 2001 when me & 561 people got our diplomas at Milpitas High School. I've was great friends w/ a lot of them back then and, now through Facebook, I'm able to talk to them regularly, just like those good old days.

Thanks so very much to everyone from the bottom of my heart who have sent me happy birthday greetings today, both from the inner circle of people who know who I am and for whom I'm proud to call my family and friends, as well as a new group of people who I've never met in person but have become good friends with in the social media world. These messages mean so much and it makes me feel good and thankful. The great support & respect I have received from you all - whether on my birthday or during the year - is very gratifying, and as always I'm most appreciative. It has been an amazing ride over the course of the last 30 years, and of course we can only wonder what the next 30 will have in store.

From me to you, here's to 30 years, and here's to 30 more. And once again, thank you for all of your birthday wishes. I cannot thank you all enough.

- DC