Ali for Hitcheddesigns: Booking the Band of Your Dreams

 

My personal favourite of all the articles I've written (for money):

 

For most, the question of music at a wedding boils down to a simple either/or: Hire a local band or find a DJ to play your favourite hits.

For people with an unlimited budget, though, getting the real thing is actually in the cards.
Sadly, I do not know any of these people, nor have I been invited to their weddings, but it’s fun to dream, and thanks to some wily, well-connected folks at priceonomics.com, we’ve got an actual price tag to attach to those dreams. If these superstars are in your price range, visit The Degy Booking Agency for more information.

If not, with tongue firmly in cheek, I invite you to consider the pros and cons of some very well paid wedding singers (all estimated prices exclude expenses and are subject to negotiation with the talent’s management):

The Diamond Circle:

Madonna: $1,000,000

Pros: Imagine, the Queen herself singing Like a Virgin as the garter is tossed! She’s got a huge catalogue with dance hits and ballads. Plus, True Blue and Cherish are two of the happiest love songs that ever existed.
Cons: She hasn’t performed True Blue or Cherish in more than twenty years, and there’s a good chance she’ll do something inappropriate/outrageous that will simultaneously overshadow the bride and infuriate her parents.

Bruce Springsteen: $1,000,000

Pros: Springsteen is the definition of cool. He gives 110% as a showman and his concerts are always great parties.
Cons: Faced with the sheer animal magnetism of The Boss, the bride may have second thoughts about marrying anyone else. In fact, most of his marriage songs are more “soul-crushing-life-of-regret” than “happily-ever-after”. Save this one for the tenth anniversary.

For more, read the whole article at http://hitcheddesigns.com/booking-the-band-of-your-dreams/ and http://hitcheddesigns.com/booking-the-band-of-your-dreams-part-ii/

Ali for Hitchedesigns: In Defesne of Small Weddings

Weddings these days feel bigger than ever before. Not that there are more guests than there used to be (with the rise in popularity of destination weddings the opposite is likely the case), or that they are more expensive (even though on average they are). A lot of weddings just seem to be about more in every way.

Last year I attended a wedding with a photo-booth, an all night candy bar, midnight fish buffet, and a custom pizza bar. All this in addition to a five course dinner in a hall with two giant screens behind the head table so that guests in the cheap seats could watch the (pre-recorded) speeches in all their high tech glory. The wedding invitations and seat assignments had a “tabloid news” theme that screamed your table number out at you like big block-letter headlines. The ceremony itself had a Broadway-style program (also newspaper themed) to introduce the couple and the wedding party, presumably for any strangers that wandered into the church by accident...

For the full rant, visit http://hitcheddesigns.com/in-defense-of-small-weddings/

Ali for Funautomotive:The Self Driving Car

The company behind the world’s favourite search engine has something up its sleeve that’s gonna change the world as we know it, starting with the automotive industry.

For more than a decade, Google has been the leader in its field, sitting on an estimated thirty billion dollars in cash (all in offshore accounts, of course). But ad revenue isn’t growing, so Google’s top minds are trying to develop an actual product that will keep them ahead of the curve once their current (fabulously profitable) business model becomes obsolete.

We’ve all heard of Google glass, a product that seems to have come and gone without making much of an impact beyond tech blogs (most people don’t appreciate technological breakthroughs that have to be worn on their faces). Google’s experiments with hot air balloons bringing internet access to remote areas seems to have merit, while I have yet to hear an explanation for this floating behemoth in San Francisco Bay that doesn’t terrify me.

It seems that Eureka has come at last with the advent of a self-driving-car. You heard that right. The Google car has gone 300,000 miles without any crashes, and now they’ve got one with no steering wheel at all. When it finally comes to market, it will radically change, not just the automotive industry, but also life and the economy as we know it.

To find out how, read the whole article at http://funautomotive.com/introducing-the-age-of-the-self-driving-car/

Ali for Funautomotive: Tesla's Big Shakeup

Last week, Tesla CEO and generally impressive person Elon Musk announced that the Tesla motor company would be releasing the patents on their electric cars and Supercharger stations to promote the electric car industry. On the Tesla Motors blog, Musk claimed that patents “stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors,” and announced their patents would be open to any person or company willing to use them to further technology’s march toward sustainability.

To find out how this will actually change your life (hint: it involves a battery factory), read the full article at http://funautomotive.com/teslas-big-shakeup/

Ali for Funautomotive: For Those Who Think Big

What is it about an unsafe, aesthetically unappealing, gas-guzzling hog barrelling down a city street that we all find so appealing? By “we” I mean, “you”, and if not you, then the millions of Americans driving Sport Utility Vehicles today, fully in the knowledge that they are environmentally unsound, structurally unsafe, and effectively little more than a pickup truck with a row of seats where the bed used to be....

Read the full bitch-fest at http://funautomotive.com/for-those-who-think-big/

Ali for Funautomotive: Dead Mau5's Pun Mobile

I am typically unenthralled by celebrity cars. I mean, what could Miley Cyrus’s car have that any other second hand auto couldn’t offer (a dusting of cocaine in the back seat, perhaps? Not very appealing). But the Ferrari 458 F1 Spider that DJ DeadMau5 (pronounced “Dead mouse,” because who the fuck cares anymore?) is now selling on Auto Trader from my home town of Etobicoke certainly has some character...

Read the full article at http://funautomotive.com/looking-for-a-pun-machine/

Ali for Funautomotive: The Big Wheel Strikes Back

Are you one of the millions of people who owned a big-wheel in the 1970s or 80s? Has your adult life been marred by the tragic lack of a low-riding tricycle that drifts like a dream, and is vehicle of choice for touring a haunted hotel? (Full disclosure: Yes that is a link to The Shining, and no, don’t click it unless you want to have nightmares).

Well, weep no more, persons who never grew up. SFP Industries , a company with the proud slogan, “Never Grow Up,” has developed a motorized Big Wheel. And it can be yours for a mere $2,000.00 American.....

Read the full article at: http://funautomotive.com/the-big-wheel-strikes-back/