Disney video game party & giveaway

Last week, I attended the Disney Interactive Studios blogger night at Coco Deville (STK) in West Hollywood to demo some of their just released and coming soon video games for the Wii, Nintendo DS and PlayStation.


Although I already have the game at home, I talked e*starLA into going head to head in the Toy Story Mania! Wii game that just came out. I really shouldn't have talked so much trash initially though, especially since Esther kicked my butt at the carnival style shooting games. I did win one match at least, but eventually a little kid asked if she could play and we begrudgingly relinquished the controls before I could make my comeback, lol.
I also sang or at least tried to sing Miley Cyrus' The Climb (harder than I thought) in the karaoke Wii game Disney Sing It: Pop Hits. I failed, but it was fun just the same. I bet though in the privacy of my own home I would have rocked it more! The game is available on the Wii and Playstaion 2 and comes out on Oct. 6. It includes a microphone and songs from Taylor Swift, The Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato and Hannah Montana. Oh, and the best part is that Kanye West won't be there to interrupt you during your Sing It acceptance speech either ;)

Wii GIVEAWAY: We also recieved a blue Disney gift tote at the event with a Jonas Brothers mouse pad, Princess and the Frog measuring spoons, Toy Story Mania! and Spectrobes Origins for the Wii inside. I'm going to give up the goodie tote to one of my commenters here. To enter just reply to this post with a valid email address or with a profile where I can find a way to contact you if you should win. Also, you'll recieve an additional entry if you tweet this contest too. Ends Friday October 2. Update: Congratulations to #15 Craftymamaof4 on winning this giveaway!

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Carrie Ann Inaba and P&G Give Hope

GIVE HOPE, is a special partnership between P&G and the National Breast Cancer Foundation to help increase women's chances of survival from breast cancer through early detection. Yes, I've been blogging a lot about cancer recently, but as you know it's important so please listen up. A special edition of the P&G brandSAVER coupon booklet will be included in newspapers across the country Sunday, September 27. For every coupon redeemed from the booklet, a two-cent donation will be made to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. A total of 3 billion coupons will be distributed and this is an uncapped donation solely based on the number of coupons redeemed. So, get clipping!

Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba has joined this GIVE HOPE program too and kindly granted me a phone interview to talk about her involvement and the Fall season of her popular reality dance show. Overall, she was really easy to talk to and a thoughtful speaker. Her personality and warmth came through over the phone even.

The press release says that you have a personal experience with cancer, can you tell me about that?Carrie Ann: "Yes, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer last summer. She had stage 3, a mastectomy and she had radiation and now she is doing well and is recovering and a clean bill of health right now. We are very very grateful. She was actually treated at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, which was wonderful because she used to be a cancer researcher when she was in college and it’s funny how she sort of has gone full circle back to Sloan Kettering and got to experience what they do up-close."

You probably grew up pretty aware of the disease then?"No, you know not really. It’s not something you really bring up all the time at the dinner table unfortunately, and that’s kind of sad because we should be talking about it more. It’s important for us to be talking about cancer and breast cancer and raising awareness and increasing education, so that’s why I’m here with P&G right now working with them to help raise awareness."

So how did you get involved with Give Hope?"Well, because of my mom’s situation. When something like that happens to someone you love you realize what’s important and what’s not important. Being that in the last four or five years my life has changed greatly with the success of Dancing With the Stars and all the projects I’ve been working on a lot of opportunities have opened up and you start to wonder which ones you chose to do and who you want to be in this world. I think for me it became very evident that I needed to give back in as many ways that I could and since this is a topic that hits very close to home and that it is something that I could speak to with great passion and know what it feels like and have compassion for people going through it and people who are afraid to go through it. This is something that I thought would be good for me to be working on and the Give Hope program is just wonderful because it’s really trying to help educate people. Our goal is to educate 5 million woman and to raise their awareness about taking care of themselves, their monthly self exams, making sure they get mammograms, not being afraid to go in and make those doctor appointments. We have built a program that is online http://www.mypinkplan.com/ and it allows you to customize your own reminder program, so that you make sure you don’t forget about these exams and walks you through the process. It’s really good because right now the internet is accessible for everybody, you obviously know, and it’s a wonderful tool for communicating to people and reaching out to people and building a community and building a group of friends that you might not actually have in your physical neighborhood."

What P&G limited edition pink product are you most looking forward to getting?"All of them? (Laughs) Probably. I’m a coupon-cutter always have been and always will be and they are sending out more than 3 billion coupons and for every one redeemed two cents goes to the National Breast Cancer Foundation."

This is the 9th season of Dancing with the Stars? I remember watching it in the first season I can’t believe it’s been so long."Actually, what’s great is we do it twice a year, so we aren’t all nine years older than when it started luckily. (Laughs) I’m just so grateful that people still love our show."

Are there any surprises in store for this coming season?"This season has got a lot of surprises; we have changes in the judging format. We have a relay dance where we for the first time ranked them ourselves, the judges and put them in order of who we thought was best when they danced side by side, which is very new and I think it went across very well and we enjoyed ourselves. I think it’s good to start comparing then right off the get go like that. Plus, this season I think episodes 5-7 we are going to have double eliminations, which is a big deal. We also have this new thing where the judges, while they (contestants) are dancing we are going to let them know they are out of that section right now. It’s hard to explain, you’ll have to watch it."

Which contestants are you most excited about this season?"Because it’s still so new I’m excited right now for a lot of the contestants. I like Louie Vito because I think he’s really engaging to watch and completely a surprise, I think Donnie Osmond is interesting and I think Aaron Carter and maybe Mark Dacascos is very interesting. As for the girls go, loved watching Mya, but completely memorized and intrigued to see how Kelly (Osbourne) does. Super shocked by Joanna Krupa she was good, oh and the swimmer. See there’s a lot. (Laughs) Each week there is a lot going on."

Thank you very much and I’m glad you are getting involved in this cause, that’s awesome."Thank you so much that means a lot to me, I appreciate it."

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2010 Wedding Trends

Fantasy wedding concepts and new wedding day ideas came alive for Los Angeles brides at the highly anticipated Wedding Salon event last week at The London in West Hollywood. Featuring the most prestigious celebrity stylists and planners in the industry highlighting the latest tips and wedding trends. Since I had so much fun planning my own wedding and because I love all things bridal and girly, I attended with an actual bride-to-be and took some notes.

Here are some of the latest wedding trends for 2010:

• Candy Buffetts - As I reported before, candy buffetts are becoming the new must have indulgence at weddings. They are even being used as table centerpieces instead of flowers. Now, bags are left on the table and at the end event you can scoop up the edible work of art. It also makes for a good alternative for favors and cakes, especially those non-dairy eating. The below arrangement comes from PersonalizedCandyBuffet.com
  
• Teal - looks like the hot new wedding color is teal or a Tiffany blue. This fondant cake with white roses is from A Pinch of Spirit.
  
  
• Chocolate Ganache Lollipop Gardens - These adorable dessert tables also taste wonderful. The dark chocolate ganache pop that I plucked from their sustainable display was rich and wonderful. From Primal Alchemy, these pops are eco friendly too as they believe cooking what nature provides. As a result, all the grass goes back into their garden afterwards and the lollipop paper sticks decompose within 30 to 60 days. Thus, guilt free treats (not including calories of course ;).



• Glam is back - Forget the slip dresses, big and beatiful dresses are back in fashion. Below is a design from Winnie Couture.
  

More: The Sex and the City Bridal Shower

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For Andrea

Eight years ago, when I yahoo’d my new author obsession and stumbled upon a message board and book club, little did I know I’d soon be meeting a group of friends for life. Friends who are quick to support each other through family deaths and crises and just as quick to congratulate, rally around accomplishments and to send a wedding gift too. After millions of emails and the most memorable trips ever, one woman would become one of my bridesmaids and I’d also have someone amazing to visit in almost each state whenever I traveled.

One of these amazing women would also become my IM buddy though, she’d be the one to hear about my grievances at work or about the fun things that I was doing. I’d type a message and hit enter and BAM she was there to chat with. She also got me into the show Alias and supported my move across the country, even calling me courageous for it. Ha, when she was the courageous one - moving to Iraq for a bit for work and later battling breast cancer so bravely. Her name was Andrea and she died this weekend at age 38 from cancer.

I can go on and on about the things I’ll miss about her and how much I hate cancer for killing such a young and vivacious woman, but she was so strong through it all that I want to be too. I’m so thankful that I saw her just a few weeks ago when I was in D.C. for work and had dinner with her and her mom. I could tell then that this second round of radiation and treatment was taking its toll as I could barely recognize the beautiful woman I knew, yet her strong-willed defiance still shone through her pain. I didn’t return to my hotel room right away after our dinner, but walked around the monuments at dusk and cried, because I knew that tight embrace was a goodbye hug. It was so memorable; I can literally feel it now and how I impulsively kissed the top of her shoulder as I tucked my head in for the hug. I'm still stunned that I was literally having dinner with her three weeks ago and now she is no longer on this earth.

I’d like to share with you the following stupid video that I made for Andrea a few months ago. We all created a YouTube page to post videos to in order to say hello and cheer her up this year and here was one of mine:


I love you Andrea!

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Cancer Luncheon at the Maloof Emmy Party

When producer Noreen Fraser was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer she was told she'd most likely have 5 years to live, she is now in her 6 year surviving and fighting back. She is the co-creator and co-producer of Stand Up To Cancer and also launched the Noreen Fraser Foundation (NFF) to find cures for all women's cancers.

I had the honor of attending a pre-Emmy luncheon in support of NFF at the home of Adrienne Maloof (founders of the Palms casino in Vegas and other businesses). After four years in Los Angeles and attending a lot of celeb events, it takes a lot to make my head turn, but I was more than wowed by this amazingly orchestrated event. The luncheon was held under a beautiful tent in the backyard of the Beverly Hills estate. Attending the lunch was Kevin Connolly from the show Entourage, Melissa Rivers, Rosanna Arquette, Phil and Adrienne Maloof, Noreen and her amazing doctor and many more supporters.

After the lunch and speeches about the importance of funding scientific researchers directly, everyone was invited to visit several smaller tents on the property for free swag courtesy of clients of the entertainment and marketing company The Silver Spoon . We were all given a pretty floral waterproof tote from Emilie Sloan in Seattle and here are just some of the swag that I filled it with: a beautiful silver necklace from Lois Hill, thank you cards from tiny*prints (I follow them on twitter!), dark blue pumps from Menbur shoes, a bottle of Vaseline Sheer Infusion body lotion that will be available in stores late this month, a canvas tote and white sunglasses from Ezekiel, a sassy snow princess Halloween costume from Seven 'Til Midnight, some naughty sex toys from 69, a t-shirt benefiting NFF from Not Done Yet with the breast cancer symbol in the words and shampoo from Ovation, which works well for chemo patients.

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CBS Pepsi Max Premiere Party

Last night, I attended the CBS Pepsi Max Premiere Party at the popular nightclub lounge My House in Hollywood. Although I did not handle the event, I was still able to score a ticket thanks to my client Pepsi and tweeted the night away from the intimate party.

While inside the party, I spotted a lot of the CBS stars like Joe Mantegna, the cast of The Big Bang Theory, David Spade and Patrick Warburton (Putty) from Rules of Engagement and How I Met Your Mother's Jason Segal and Josh Radnor. There were some other faces that I recognized from more supporting roles too. Sadly, I did not see NCIS' Mark Harmon.

Despite the star power, the party was kept pretty small and with limited outside guests, which made it nice and also allowed me to approach David Spade, who I always liked from movies, SNL and Just Shoot Me. When we posed for a photo I admitted "I was just watching Just Shoot Me this morning when I got ready for work." Yes, that was dorky of me. Oh, and you can see Seinfeld's Putty in the background of this photo of me and the Spade.

I also spoke with Jason Segel again (first time here) and yet again he was super sweet. He said no problem to taking a photo with me and just seems like a genuinely nice, easy going guy.

Pepsi Max CBS Premiere Party red carpet from PepsiCo on Vimeo.

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Disney D23 Expo

Last weekend, I was able to attend the Disney D23 EXPO, where the entire world of Disney comes together under one roof at the Anaheim Convention Center behind Disneyland. Basically, it’s Comic-Con meets Mickey Mouse with the same hardcore fans present but with their Mickey ears and princess tiaras on. Also, sneak peaks were shown, new products announced and celebs like Johnny Depp even showed up to announce Pirates IV. Here are some of the most interesting things that I saw and experienced in the exhibit hall:


Lost Signing
At the Disney ABC booth two supporting characters of the TV show Lost were signing autographs and I snapped the following photo of the young Ben Linus:

Disney Tattoo Guy

At first, he just seemed like a guy with a lot of tattoos, but then upon further observation we discovered that they were all Disney tattoos, all 4,500 of them! If you ask him "where is Dumbo?" and he'll point to where exactly on his body it appears. He literally goes by Disney Tattoo Guy and has a website, but he warned us that it's currently down for maintenance. So, for more info you can read this OC Register article.

Disney Playhouses
From Lilliput Play Homes these are not yet available to the public, but are aimed at delighting children and adults with charming and durable heirloom-quality playhouses. The above free standing play house was inspired by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and inside included a loft with ladder, plus other fun features. Not that I'm tall, but I could easily stand up comfortably inside as could taller adults who kept going in and out too. Another pre-fab dream home that was on display was designed to look like a retro 50s style Mickey dinner. Man, I wish I had one of these magical forts growing up and hope I can buy one for my kids one day.

The Latest Kirstie Kelly Disney Princess Wedding Dress
By now, almost every woman, bride or not, has seen the Disney Princess inspired fairy tale wedding dresses. However, while I was at the show Kirstie Kelly unveiled the latest sketch for Princess Tiana from the upcoming Princess and the Frog animated movie. The Princess Tiana-inspired wedding gown has beautiful ruffles flowing down the back and officially releases this October, but will be available next year for purchase. Take a look:

(Photo by Adrienne Helitzer/courtesy of the Walt Disney Company)

Toy Story Mania for the Wii

I love the interactive 4D ride at California Adventure and was able to play the Wii inspired game while at the expo. The game for Nintendo Wii comes with 3D glasses and allows you to play up to 4 people in 25 carnival style games like a ring toss, popping balloons, etc. It's a lot of fun and comes out today (Amazon link).

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An Open Canvas

Tonight, I attended Harveys Original Seatbeltbag's "Open Canvas Night" with Maya from ShopEatSleep.com. It was titled Open Canvas because the walls of their Melrose Avenue store and gallery housed blank canvases where all attendees were encouraged to show their art skills and draw something with a Sharpie (official party sponsor).

Amidst colorful seatbelt straps weaved into fashionable purses, beer, chips and sharpees being passed out, I brazenly approached one of the canvases' filled with blank male cartoon faces up for the decorating. Despite my lack of artistic skills, I decided to make my jolly face into a little devil and Maya designed hers into a pirate. It was simple, but I was kind of proud of it, better than just coloring in some hair at least.

Here are the more serious artists at work though:

Here's a shot of the Harveys Seatbelt purses ($104-$198), I particularly liked the olive and red colored ones.

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FiOS Takes Me Out to the Ballgame

Verizon FiOS, a PR client in our Dallas office invited me and several other bloggers and media to attend a demo at Citi Field a.k.a. the new Mets stadium, in order to dispel myths that their competitors have been spreading and to offer the real Facts on FiOS. I hadn't been to either of New York's new stadiums yet so was eager for the insider experience. Also, for the last few months Raphael has been eagerly checking when FiOS will be available on our own street (we received a letter saying coming soon!), so I figured it would be a good opportunity to learn more.

In their Verizon Studio out in the outfield deck of the brand new stadium, I learned that besides the 100 HD channels, FiOS allows you to check your Facebook and Twitter right from their fiber-optic box. At first, I thought it would be too hard to do and couldn't see the point, but it seemed easy enough and I especially liked that you could pull up your photo album and your friends Facebook pics on the larger TV screen, thus no more crowding around the computer in order to laugh at your friend's wacky mugs ;). As for twitter, which I'm addicted to anyway, you can have your followers stream update in real-time in a column on one side of your screen and have your show playing on the other side. Seamless. You can also click on a button that shows you who is tweeting about the show you are currently watching. I can see this being especially funny for reality shows and awards shows and laughing at what people are saying during the show happening right then. My ears also picked up when I heard that their one DVR unit can be accessed by multiple TV's. Thus, my husband and I could both be watching our recorded programs at the same time, so no more begging to watch Grey's Anatomy and forcing him to be within earshot, lol.

We all got to enter the stadium via the VIP Press entrance, which was pretty awesome and allowed us to be in the stadium before all the crowds, thus giving us the chance to really take a good look at the new digs. I was very impressed as I thought that Shea Stadium was an orange eyesore with no historic feel to it, however, this stadium while in its inaugural season has an old fashioned look, probably due to the brick columns that evoke an older time in Baseball past.

We also were able to actually stand on the field or rather the dirt track behind home plate during the visiting team's (Florida Marlins) batting practice, where one of the players missed a ball, which rolled and hit my shoes. The player then said I could keep it and so I did! Unfortunately, the game itself was less impressive with the New York Mets losing 4-2. Below are my feet on the field!

Here's a video of my tour of Citi Field:

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The Swag Report

I hate when people tell me, "I want to start a blog, so I can get free stuff too." Hmph. First off, it's not that easy and second it's not the reason why I blog. But yes, I won't lie, it is a nice perk, lol. After almost 5 years of blogging (my 5th anniversary is in October!) I'm finally at that point where I do get quite a bit of cool freebies and invites, but as the about section on my blog states, I only blog about stuff that I actually like and think you might like too. If I do not like something, I simply do not give it the time of day on here. However, when I am digging something I'm always eager to share it with you and here are some of the fun swag items I've received this summer--yikes does that mean summer is over?

Despite knowing the jingle from their commercials (easy, breezy, beautiful cover girl!), I've never actually used any CoverGirl products before, but I'm now loving their CoverGirl & Olay Simply Ageless Foundation ($15.99). It's a packed cream compact with a white swirl in it. This soft, creamy foundation contains Olay Regenerist Serum to help give skin a boost of anti-aging benefits (it's clinically proven to provide significant improvement in just 4 weeks). Apparently, It's also the product that Ellen does the ads for and she definitely looks good. I don't usually use liquid foundations though, as I've been using MAC powders for some time. Yet, when I forgot to pack my makeup on a business trip and had this sample in my purse, I started using it. It comes with a circular sponge for application and it feels slightly wet going on, but it blends really well and quickly dries. I really like how light it feels on my face and moisturizes my skin and evenly covers red areas and any flaws. I briefly went back to my powders when I went home, but was disappointed with how dry it would look on my skin, so now I'm definitely sticking to CoverGirl Simply Ageless and have since purchased another shade. Oh and it also has SPF 22!

While at BlogHer '09, Suave hair care had a booth in the conference's exhibit hall and were giving out full-sized bottles of their shampoos, conditioners and styling products. I picked up their Suave Professionals Volumizing foam mouse and root lifting spray ($2.99) as my straight hair sometimes can use a little poof. So, as I got ready for the different evening parties, I eagerly applied the volume products to my hair and was impressed with the lifting it caused and overall added volume to my hair. I've now been using it since BlogHer! They also smell really good. On the bottles it reads that it's comparable to Matrix Amplify. Note: Suave is a company client, but not in my office or my account.

Another beauty product that I tried and enjoyed is Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser ($24.50). Apparently Liz Earle is already a popular natural botanical company in Britain, but it was my first time trying the brand. I immediately liked the fact that their products contain natural and safe ingredients. The polish includes cocoa butter and skin-brightening eucalyptus and comes with a muslin cloth to wash it off with and a zip-up kit bag to put it all in. Not sure if it's the creamy polish or scrubbing with the muslin cloth, but it left my skin looking bright, fresh and radiant. I found it especially soothing after being in the sun like getting a facial, but without going to a spa.

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Panel: She Says LA

I was recently invited to speak on a panel at SheSays LA, a free organization for women interested in digital marketing and advertising.

The topic was "The Digital Diet, You Are What You Tweet" and striking the balance between our online professional and personal lives on social networks. The "digital divas" on the panel with me included Marisa from Hey You Listen Up, Kat of Exopolis, Erika of Wiredrive, Kim from Weber Shandwick and SheSays and Rebecca of lovinglivingsmall.com and Blog Out Loud.

Here's a video recap of the night and some of my answers. At one point though when another panelist is talking it looks like I'm totally ignoring her and am texting, but I was just looking up a related tweet, which I then read aloud. You can see it at minute 2:12, lol.

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