Manhattan Beach drew more than 80,000 people over the weekend to watch the Charlie Saikley 6 man volleyball tournament.  The tournament first began in 1960 by Charlie Saikley, one of the founders of beach volleyball.  Throughout the years, the tournament became known as the “Wimbledon of volleyball” and drew professional athletes as well as regular players just wanting to have a good time.  Today, more than 100 teams enter the tournament and the majority of them have themes consisting of pop culture.  Saturday was the busiest day as all teams played while Sunday had less people because most teams were eliminated.…

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Tragedy struck the biggest event in dance music. At least 19 people were killed and more than 350 people were injured in a stampede in a tunnel at the Love Parade in Germany. Details are sketchy but it appears a massive crowd overwhelmed the organizers and a panic ensued. No one is quite sure why the stampede took place but people are already questioning why there was only one entrance for the crowd. I’m a massive dance music fan and I think it’s really a sad situation that could have been prevented with proper planning and execution. The organizer of the …

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt (JGL to his hipster fans like myself) is in talks to play The Riddler in the next Batman movie……or was he already cast ? It’s hard to seperate fact from fiction, but a lot of major websites are discussing this potential casting. As JGL’s biggest fan, I’d love to see him tackle a villain role in a big budget flick. He has done a lot of indie flicks and has now broken into the mainstream with his supporting role in Chris Nolan’s massive hit Inception.
If you just know him as the kid from 3rd Rock From the Sun …

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Michael Bay and crew are blowing things up nicely in Chicago for what seems to be the climax for Transformers 3 and  Joe was on hand to watch the spectacle.  Which actors did he see and which autobots showed up?  Below is his detailed report from the shoot (click on the images for high res pics):

Hey guys, here’s my lil’ report from spending the day downtown.

First off, if you plan on going, do a little more research than I did. I live about 30 mins from Chicago, and barely go, so I don’t know the parking or …

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Inception is a 2 1/2 hour puzzle about the world of dreams and our subconscious. It’s a movie about how dreams affect our real lives and about how dreams while not easily explained, have a power on our psyche that cannot be denied. Writer/director Chris Nolan has fashioned a thinking person’s blockbuster that is equal parts riveting and frustrating to the viewer. Simple explanations of the plot do not do justice to the vision on screen. There are cool special effects and some terrific acting from an A-list cast along with some awesome music courtesy of Hans Zimmer. His thunderous, booming …

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According to AP, Playboy has launched a new nudity-free (boo) website that is safe to be viewed at the workplace. It looks just like Maxim to me, but at least now you really can go there to read the articles. To be fair, their interviews are typically excellent:

Playboy Enterprises Inc. launched a website Tuesday that it swears will be safe to browse while at work, eliminating the need for men to throw themselves over their computer screen when the boss walks by.

TheSmokingJacket.com will contain none of the nudity that makes Playboy.com NSFW – not suitable for work. Instead, it’ll …

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This past weekend my girlfriend and I went down to Ocean City, NJ for three days of fun. The whole trip was a blur, it was over before it began but here’s the highlights in words and pictures:

Arrival at the shore in the pouring rain late Sat morning:

We arrive in Ocean City after 11am in the pouring rain. Check in at the Pier 4 in Somers Point isn’t till 3pm so we try to come up with things to do. We duck into a little shop and head to the boardwalk to hang out at arcades and wait in …

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Work of Art is a reality television series about fourteen aspiring artists competing for a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum and a big cash prize. Considering that it comes from the network behind “reality shows” about yuppie, soulless housewives and tired reality chef competitions with feuding chefs, I didn’t expect much from this new series. The funny thing is that Work of Art is good TV, scratch that, great TV. A fast-paced reality-based competition that takes the viewers inside the art world and gives us a peek behind the curtain. Yes it is still reality TV, so we get the …

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I’ve been to Anime Expo, the past couple of years but I still don’t know much about the anime community.  I mainly go for the impressive costumes and the cool people.  While I still wanted to hang out with the cosplayers and take pics this year, I wanted to learn more about the Anime Culture.

So on Saturday, July 3rd, I started asking attendees about their experiences.  I also talked to voice actor Kyle Hebert and several people from Artist Alley.  Although I’m still far from being an Anime expert, I was glad I talked to a wide range of attendees.  …

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I’m back again friends with more summer jams and duds for everyone to add or delete to their ipods. I’ve included the songs or music videos (if available) to each song I review. We gonna rock this club, we gonna go all night, we gonna light it up like it’s dynamite.

Here comes the jams:

Taio Cruz “Dynamite”

This is one of the best summer songs around. Light and dancable, UK star Taio Cruz comes back with an even better song than his debut US single, the infectious “Break Your Heart”. The chorus will have you singing along and the song …

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