Using the Shakeit Photo iPhone App

Posted by: Mia Taylor on October 8, 2009

As promised, I have continued to play with the ShakeItPhoto iPhone Polaroid photo app to take pictures. It’s become my favorite app, by far. Wait, didn’t I say that in my last blog about this??

Well Ok, for someone who has pages upon pages of miscellaneous apps, the creator should be honored that it has remained my favorite application for the iPhone. :D Infact, it has a place on my iPhone dock for easy access.

Here are some of the more recent photos I’ve taken with the iPhone Polaroid app, ShakeItPhoto.

50's Car BedDog and Bone

Telegraph Beer ColdSelf Portrait- Mia TaylorKings of Leon ConcertMiner Silhouette Calico Ghost Town


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Austin City Limits: Keeping Austin Weird.

Posted by: Mia Taylor on October 5, 2009

A recent trip to Austin, Texas for the annual Austin City Limits Festival (ACL) of 2009, had me both confused and excited. As we began our final decent into the “weirdest part of Texas,” I had no clue what I was in for.

From my previous travels and venturing around Austin, I was reminded somewhat of a unique blend of Bourbon Street and a country-style Downtown San Diego. The Downtown Austin area is flourishing with new and unusual architecture (most notably the armadillo-inspired City Hall Building- even has a tail!), blocks of bars with live, local bands and rows of tourist-ridden shops selling the infamous “Keep Austin Weird” shirts.

Visiting Austin Texas for the Austin City Limits festival was a great experience. Yea, so it rained pretty gruesomely all day Saturday, but luckily that was the day I decided to skip and explore around Austin, check out the Austin capitol building, and eat some delicious southern food. I even saw a Michael Moore film, Capitalism: A Love Story at the Alamo Drafthouse a dinner movie theater with full service. Can you believe the movie was only $9.00 and the food wasn’t even overpriced!

Friday and Sunday I slept in until 11 am and dilly-dallied until I was ready to make my way to the festival. Once I got there, I realized it was NOTHING like I expected. It was easy-going, few restrictions and a LOT of people. In comparison to Coachella, ACL wasn’t nearly as restrictive. People had blankets, chairs, blow-up and life size Gumby dolls, Flagpoles with distinctive flags adorning them and quite a bit of muddy debauchery. I was excited to see Pearl Jam, Kings of Leon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bassnectar and tons of other cool bands.

Here are a few pictures.

keep-austin-weird shirtAustin City skyline Photo by Mia Taylor

Mud at Austin City Limitscrowd of people at ACL

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Dirty Santa Monica Beaches Need Rescue

Posted by: Mia Taylor on September 18, 2009

dirty beach santa monica pier

A recent article in the Santa Monica Daily Post discussed the need to improve the cleanliness of the local Santa Monica beaches by netting off the Santa Monica Pier  from seagulls that desecrate in and around the water. While I agree that  Santa Monica beach pier area has a lot of birds, it is still their natural habitat and netting off their homes and hatchlings seems, well, like the least of our problems.  Their solution was to hire the Bird Busters to net the area beneath the pier- a home to baby birds and gulls alike- for a mere $100,000. Instead, they could spend a fraction of that cost to clean the trash from the beach. (see photo at right)

With California’s budget in the red as of late, wouldn’t you think that Santa Monica- a pet friendly and eco-friendly city would focus more on cleaning the beaches of trash rather than removing the gulls- in any way they deem necessary to do so? Our state needs to re-think budget allocation. Schools are lacking the fundamental requirements that students need in order to learn, State Parks are being shut down and worst of all- many California residents received IOU’s instead of tax refunds. But that’s a whole other issue.

Here is what I wrote to the Santa Monica Daily Post in reply to their article:

Editor:

It has come to my attention that part of the city budget is being dedicated to installing netting around the Santa Monica Pier. As a life-long, native Angeleno, I must agree that pigeons and seagulls are amongst several problems in Santa Monica, however, when it comes to keeping the public beach areas sanitary, far more attention should be directed toward efforts to clean trash, clothing items and vagrants’ belongings from the beaches.

It has been years since I last sat in the sand and enjoyed the serenity of Santa Monica Beach. Even if I am in the area, I find myself drawn to other, cleaner beaches. Although I do not spend a lot of time swimming, the sand and beach area are far more of a concern to me personally. There are a few reasons for this concern; the most important are littering, homeless, drug infestation and overcrowding. While overcrowding lends itself to the idea that tourism is flourishing, drugs, homeless and trash are far greater an issue than seagulls and pigeon droppings.

In an environment so closely involved with being eco-friendly and highly conservative by way of natural resources, it should reflect some kind of juxtaposition that the city is more concerned with animal feces than our own, human irreverence of public land we so often enjoy.

In the case of the bird netting being installed, It is my suggestion that the $100,000 budgeted for the bird netting be re-allocated toward funding beach cleanup, recycling, patrolling of the public areas and consistent maintenance groups.
Mia Taylor
Santa Monica
September 10, 2009

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Time to Travel.

Posted by: Mia Taylor on September 6, 2009

Time to travelIt’s getting to be that time of year again, the time I usually start setting things into motion- a habit learned from the flawlessly consistent university academic calendar- and a time I usually wish I was somewhere exciting and new.

My ultimate goal is to incorporate my writing into a career that will allow me to travel, explore cultures unlike my own, visit historic landmarks and meet those who also value the excitement that ensues in the midst of a journey.

My feet are definitely itching to get back on the open road, vast skies and tumultuous waters.

“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” ~Seneca

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Auto-Locking Shopping Carts- Whole Foods Venice

Posted by: Mia Taylor on September 5, 2009

On a recent grocery trip to Whole Foods for all the new apartment necessities I caught myself stopping short before making it to my car. Why you ask? Well, good question… I was dumbfounded as well. As I walked out of the store, strolling with the cart, I passed by a few policemen handling an angry couple’s outbursts and all of the sudden- WHAM. I ran into the cart as it screeched to a halt.

The cop looked at me, as I knelt down to inspect the faulty wheel, and said, “It’s locked.” He could tell I was confused and explained from afar- “There’s a wire around the perimeter that auto-locks the carts.”

Wheel locking mechanism

Wheel locking mechanism

What? Seriously? And apparently it’s been around for a few years- at least. How did I not know of this previously?

Just as I was about to discount the cop’s outlandish comment, sure enough a Whole Foods employee walked over with a remote that gave my cart the ability to become mobile again.

Being that theft and homelessness is an overwhelming issue in the Venice and Santa Monica area, it’s smart for Whole Foods to invest in this kind of deterrent. I can’t help but wonder what the ROI is on an investment like this.

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