Graffiti Sightings

Tags and throwies I’ve seen in downtown SF.

Bboying with Wicket

My cousin Bboy Wicket teaches workshops around the globe. He was holding two sessions in SF covering powermoves and footwork flava.

I was able to check out day two. It started out as toprock warmups then straight to drills and combinations. He doesn’t simplify for the beginners, but teaches difficult combos to challenge the experienced dancers. All levels were welcome. He even helped people with he most basic six step.

As a surprise, BGirl Shorty and Alison of the Beat Freaks were in the area for the Brittney tour. They’ve known Wick since he was in his teens. It was cool chillin with them. Man, their footwork was fast and clean.

By the end of the workshop, everyone was drenched in sweat. Wick gets you conditioned for battle. Come train with him.

Scrabble Isn’t Luck

Every year, one of my co-workers goes to Vegas to run a national scrabble championship. I figure he must be pretty good. Today I had a chance to chat with him. I asked him if scrabble was luck. He said it isn’t, and if he played 100 games, he would win 99 of them. That’s a damn good ratio! But he did say, I you’re playing someone who’s at your level. It’s more luck than if you played someone who’s a lot better. He mentioned to know all your two letter words for playing parallel. Another tip was, the tiles you don’t have are more important than the tiles you do have. Now I felt like I was talking to a martial arts master! There are similarities though. Last tip was to keep your tiles balanced or you’ll end up with all consonants or vowels. It’s better to get rid of tiles and be in a better position, than to get more points… Sometimes.

Instagram, daily photos, Brisk Ice Tea and Winning

When I first heard of cell phones having cameras, I thought… “Who needs that?”

Now I’m shooting photos daily on my super slow iPhone 3G. With my LG flip phone I was able to flip it up switch to camera and take a shot of some graffiti while driving… all without looking. Takes time to shoot w/ my clunker, at least 30 seconds.

Enough complaining. An app was released last year called Instagram. I also thought it was just another image site like yfrog or twitpic. I was wrong. There is a small niche iphone community that loves photos. Most people shoot from there iphone, but there are a lot of professional photgraphers in the mix. Nice site for inspiration.

A few weeks after I picked up the app, I heard about a contest they were holding. Winners get to be on a special edition Brisk can made for SXSW. I added hash tags to two photos to join the fun. One of my photos was picked. So stoked!

Shot under the bay bridge

I shot this on the way to work. Took it with the iPhone. Only tweak was contrast since the phone takes flat looking photos.

Sunset at Daly City Bart

Shot this on the way home last week. Nice to have a camera handy. Rays look cool peaking out of the clouds.

Redbull gives you wings

I finally picked up the Red Bull X2010 prototype. Test drove it he other night. A-spec as way more fun than B-spec, but I had to collect cars first. B-spec is perfect when I don’t have time to get behind the wheel. Which is 99% of the time, haha. In this photo I was driving a race in Rome. Hit a divider while avoiding slow traffic! I actually flew twice as high as the building, but this was a better shot.