Greg Isaac's Blog  

So I hadn’t heard of the Grammy Museum or LA live before. I hadn’t even heard that they where building a huge new entertainment complex next to the Staples center. Now admitingly I don’t make it up that way very often (I think the last time was in 2004!) but I still thought I’d have heard of it.

Anyway, I was there on Thursday (06/11/09) to see Mandy Moore. But before I headed over to the venue, I decided to swing by Disneyland. I only had a couple hours at the parks, so I decided to spend it at DCA. Quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done, for unbeknownst to me, Selena Gomez was at Disneyland that day! In fact, had I simply checked twitter on my phone when I arrived, I’d have seen her tweet about eating a pickle at Disneyland: “I ate a pickle, ice cream, fries, corn dog, and corn at Disneyland. Hmm now what else is there to do here? Oh. I guess I could ride rides…”

But sadly, I did not check my twitter. As I got onto the tram several tween boys where seated right in front of me. And my ears perked up when I heard one of them mention Selena. Another clarified, “Selena Gomez, that girl from Camp Rock” Ar which point I realized that if they couldn’t keep Demi and Selena straight, they where probably idiots and tuned them out. Had I instead corrected them, I might have learned why they where taking about Selena.

I arrived at the Grammy Museum with a good hour to spare. And was the 15th or so person in line. Not too bad if I say so myself. As I stood outside the venue I pulled out my blackberry and checked Twitter. Once I saw Selena’s tweet, suddenly everything made sense and I quickly realized I had missed a possibly once in a lifetime opportunity. I mean, how often does one actually get the chance to meet a DC star? Even with SDS resources I had only met Amy.

Needless to say, I was bummed. But then I remembered I was 15th in line to see Mandy Moore. And I realized that this day was still gonna be beyond awesome. As the line grew longer, they took us inside the building, up to the second level, and into the theater. I end up in the front row of seats, which meant that there was both no on in front of me, and because we where sitting, that no one behind me would complain about my height.

The event was called “The Drop” in reference to the familiar phrase that signifies the release of the new album. The idea behind it, was to explore the process of creating the album. So we started with a roughly hour long interview and Q&A with the director of the Grammy Museum and Mandy Moore. Mandy told us a lot about Mike Viola who was in many ways her partner in producing this album. She had many great stories about the little house in Boston, and how they used the different acoustics of just about every room in the house on different parts on the album.

(Click to enlarge )

Following the end of the Q&A, Mandy preformed several songs acoustically, accompanied by Mike who had been hiding in the back the whole time.

Finally, following the end of her performance, Mandy autographed copies of her new CD. Sadly, the no photo rule was still in effect but I did get a moment with her and an autograph. I considered snapping a photo as I left, but decided against trying it.

Monday morning bluehost suspended the hosting account for SaveDisneyShows.org. The SDS hosting account includes all of the SDS related sites including SaveKP.com, SDSForum.com, DisneysWitch.com, and the site that was targeted by the hackers, FixDisney.com.

We believe the hackers where able to access the site through a security hole in an outdated version of phpList. I upgraded the mailing list software and remove the phishing site the hackers had installed on the server. /after speaking with Wayne, we felt we had the problem solved.

We were wrong. This morning Bluehost re-suspended the account. And after discussing the situation with Bluehost, I was again given access to the site and I found the tool the hackers had installed that gave them access to the site after we plugged the original security hole. I went through every file on the server and found several problem files which I’ve all removed.

The site should be secure now, and should be back up Wednesday Morning.

 UPDATE 06/10/09: SDS is back up.

This past weekend (May 14 – 17) was the yearly CDA Convention at the Anaheim convention Center.

As a W.I.T.C.H. fan, I found the Quintessence booth amusing and had to take a photo.

On the whole, the convention definately seemed slower than years past. There where empty booths where there seldom where before.

In the afternoon I headed across the street to Disneyland.

Lines where insane! Just look at the Indiana Jones fastpass line!

And I will say this, Disney has really been promoting the Hatching Pete and Dadnapped DVD set.

And then we rounded out the day with a trip to the Fullerton Train station

I am happy to announce the creation of the G2I Media Store!

(I also considered calling it Greg’s Disney Shop or something like that)

Anyway,  I’ve bought and sold textbooks on Amazon and eBay for ages, but recently I’ve started to feel like I could really make use of my own site. I certainly have the necessary experience with online stores, and the timing just seemed right.

The heart of the new store are the media items, gently used DVDs and CDs. All at reasonable prices of course. Also listed are a couple books and of course some great Disney Pins! Any and all sales generated by the store will, of course, help cover web hosting costs for all my sites.

The pins are probably the coolest things in the store, just because I’ve put together a good cross section of Disney Channel related items including Kim Possible, High School Musical, and Hannah Montana.

Please feel free to pass the link on to anyone you know that might be interested.

I wanted to take a moment to formally announce the launch of two new celebrity websites. Both of course are related to Demi Lovato’s new show Sonny with a Chance.

The first is dedicated to Tiffany Thornton, TiffanyThornton.us.

Tiffany plays in-control diva Tawni Hart. She’s also in the upcoming DCOM Hatching Pete.

The second is dedicated to Jillian Murray, JillianMurray.net.

Jillian has a smaller role on Sonny as Portlyn, one of the Mackenzie Falls cast members. Jillian also stars in the new direct to DVD film, American High School.

I hate April Fools day. I mean, seriously, I wish it would just, like, go away. At MKP and later SDS, we’ve had quite a few serious prank gone wrong events. The first was many years ago and involved Mike, Adam, Tuc and the management of RS.net and MKP. It was quite a mess and eventually wound up getting Mike tossed out of the movement. It was that day that I first saw Tuc actually mad at someone, and I decided to make sure I never got him mad at me. And of course, I broke that rule too.

While that was probably the worst prank gone wrong, we’ve gotten the usual “OMG ___ show has been renewed! Here’s a link on wikipedia” messages every single time. Usually for more than one show. And these rumors take WEEKS to stamp out. Even win the original author admits it’s a prank.

There was even one year when we where gonna make zei Admin for a day on SDS, but Phil promoted her for real like a week beforehand. Talk about killing my moment!

Anyway, just remember to not trust anything that anyone says today. All ” important forum announcements” are probably gags. And if you fall for anything, well, you’re just not thinking straight.

Oh, and the SDS Forum is a Hannah Forum now. Click the banner

My Mom’s birthday was March 26th, so she cashed in her free birthday ticket and me and her went that day,

Among other things,  she wanted to see Billy Hill and the Hillbillies at the Golden Horseshoe Saloon.

But the most interesting thing that happened while we where there happened at the end of the day, a few minutes after the park officially closed. We had just gotten off of the Nemo subs and where walking through tomorrowland toward the exit. And as we where walking past, they where playing “Call Me, Beep Me” (The Kim Possible theme song) at the tomorrowland terrace. I was a little slow on identifying it, but I pulled out my camera and took a video as proof that  Disney hasn’t forgotten about KP.

I can’t wait for Ashley’s new album. And I seriously hopes she does a decent concert tour to promote it. And I don’t mean a little mall tour like she did for Headstrong.

I’m proud to announce the formation and soft-launch of two new celeb websites. EmilyOsment.ws and TiffanyThornton.us.

Emily Osment, of course, plays Lilly Truscott on Hannah Montana. But the timing for this addition has a lot more to do with the upcoming premiere of her DCOM Dadnapped.

Tiffany Thornton, a less familiar name to most, plays Tawni Hart on the new DC series Sonny With a Chance along with Demi Lovato.

So yesterday, I came across a like to my old webpage on the UCR Engineering server. And boy, was it out of date! I gave it a through refresh. Have a look!

http://www.engr.ucr.edu/~gisaac/