The Bunnells on indieWIRE… Hanging with the Stones and Scorsese in NYC. Nice pic Lisa and Steve!

(photo by Brian Brooks)

After the Rolling Stones crush at Michael’s restaurant in Midtown Manhattan celebrating Martin Scorsese’s rock doc “Shine a Light,” there was a more chill photo shoot with Lisa Bunnell, VP of film at Landmark Theaters (left), Steve Bunnell, head of distribution at the Weinstein Company as well as Variety’s Madelyn Hammond.

[link to story on indieWIRE]

Here’s a street ad (on 6th Ave) for the movie:

(photo by Dio Dipasupil)

Apple’s iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store is pretty cool. Immediately after updating my iPhone to firmware v1.1.1 I “clicked” on that little purple iTunes icon and presto, I was browsing an iPhone formatted version of the iTunes store. I gave it a try and purchased Matchbox 20’s “How Far We’ve Come” (which in hindsight was so fitting). It couldn’t have been easier… in seconds the song was on my iPhone and crankin’ away (great song BTW).

Yesterday I stopped in to the Hoboken Starbucks on Washington Street (yes, the one I affectionately refer to as the “AMD Hoboken Office”) and checked to see if the Starbucks iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store was live. The Starbucks feature wasn’t there yet, but I was still able to access the T-Mobile HotSpot for free and browse the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store on my iPhone. I went ahead and purchased an album (Pearl Jam Live at Lollapalooza 2007, for those keeping track). In less than 10 minutes 20 songs were on my iPhone and crankin’ away again. Wicked cool!

It’ll be neat when the Starbucks iTunes functionality gets enabled in NJ (I’ll check it out in NYC this week anyways). I always seem to like one of the songs playing in Starbucks and not know what/who it is. Pretty soon I won’t need to ask someone and will be able to purchase it on the spot. Some smart people at Apple and Starbucks… maybe I should finally jump in on those stocks.

How is it I DID NOT buy these stocks years ago?? Yeah, I’m still kicking myself for that. Either way, I’m lovin’ my iPhone more everyday (even with firmware v1.1.1)…

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Starbucks to spread 50 million pieces of iTunes love

In order to promote its new partnership with Apple and the Wi-Fi Music Store, Starbucks plans to give away 50 million iTunes songs to US customers. Between October 2—the launch date of the Wi-Fi Music Store capabilities at select Starbucks locations, according to a separate announcement of the company’s today—and November 7, the coffee kings at about 10,000 stores will hand out roughly 1.5 million free song downloads per day. That’s a lot of songs… and coffee.

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[via Ars Technica]

I must be dreaming. Coachella here I come!

L.A. Times: Rage Against the Machine will reunite for Coachella

Hard to believe it’s been 25 years…

Looking for a great search engine for music and movies? Look no further… check out LivePlasma. Wild!!

[via TechCrunch]

If someone ever mentions to you that weird things happen when the moon is full, believe them. Although the moon is in a “waxing gibbous” phase or 99% illumination (for those of you who care), I had a strange day today. Good and bad things happened, but it all seemed to balance out (so far)…

Left my wallet at home (a Bad Thing):
I had appointments in Manhattan and left my house mid-morning to get there on time. I get to Hoboken, park my car, and start making my way to the PATH train. Sure enough, I reach for my wallet and it’s not there. At first I thought I lost it, but then confirmed with my wife that I left it on my desk at home.

So here I am in Hoboken, trying to get to NYC, and NO MONEY. I couldn’t even drive home if I wanted to — no money to pay the parking garage. I went to the Hoboken train station to try to cash-in some NJ Transit train tickets I had in my bag. The lady at the customer service counter denied me, but the teller next to her heard my story and was nice enough to give me $1.50 for a PATH ticket. Whew! At least I didn’t have to beg at the turnstile.

I finally manage to get to NYC, but now I’m 20 blocks away from my meeting and still without cash. Thanks to my good buddy Hal Cohen, I was able to take a taxi to 56th St where Hal met me and paid the fare. Got to my meeting on time. Whew! Hal also helped me out by lending me some cash to get home! Thanks Hal!!

Lunch with Beyonce (a GOOD THING):
Okay, I didn’t really have lunch WITH her, but she was sitting at a table close-by and was easily viewable from our table. Needless to say, Beyonce was absolutely smoking hot! She actually looked better in person than any picture or video I’ve ever seen of her. Just a natural beauty. Good thing we didn’t notice her sitting there until half-way through our lunch, because we all would have been gawking the whole time (a Bad Thing).

The moblog pic (below) of her “ride” was her Escalade parked outside the restaurant. I limited my paparazzi maneuvers to just a pic of her car… didn’t want to be “one of those people”.

Oh yeah, the kitchen at our restaurant was somewhat out of order and could only offer a partial menu (a Bad Thing), but with Beyonce close-by, it really didn’t matter.

911 Call from my Parents’ House (a Bad Thing):
I get home late afternoon and turn on my scanner (”police” scanner, not flatbed), as I usually do. I hear a police dispatch for a 911 call come over for my parents’ town and for THEIR ADDRESS. I’m thinking maybe I misheard what they said, but they repeated it and sure enough it was their address. I call their house and the number’s busy. Oh shit! I call my mother on her cell and she answers… as if there was nothing wrong! I ask her if the police were there, but she says no (why should they be?). I then tell her to look out her window and sure enough, the police just drove up and are getting out of their car… Long story short, their phone must have been malfunctioning and there was no emergency. Whew!

Weird day… blame it on the Moon? Can’t wait for tomorrow (when the Moon is FULL).

Finally made it to Austin, Texas. My flight out of Newark was held up due to the weather and I got to Dallas late — missed my flight! Luckily, flights from Dallas to Austin run frequently, so I managed to get on another flight about an hour later.

Other than the missed flight and a female captain on one of the segments (a first for me), my travel was uneventful. I did manage to get a first class upgrade for both segments, so that was nice (I think this was the first time I got an upgrade on American). Hopefully I can get an upgrade on my flight from Houston to Newark (on Continental).

As for Austin’s slogan? Where else can you experience live music in the airport! Gotta love it.