Wentworth Miller on Law and Order

Hi,I was just wondering who watched Wentworth Miller on Law and Order? I did!! LOL and boy I missed seeing him on tv sooooo much!! it was refreshing seeing him playing a different role. Zie and I had a conversation about it. But now I want to hear what you thought about it if you watched it. did you like it?

WOW!!

Ever think how much water you consume everyday? ever wonder how much water is used everyday to make things? well here's a video that opened my eyes to this... check it out

p.s. sorry I havent been on the blog in a few days, I've been so worried about tons of things but believe me, ur all in my mind. ALWAYS!! that's why i keep coming back to you. with that said, here's the vid.

I cut my hair

hi guys!! so last week I was dead tired of my hair it was long and dead so I went to my stylist at Floyd's and just walked in and told her to do whatever she wanted. She looked at my face and said... hmmm well you have a really pretty face and nice high cheekbones so I'll give you a medium cut. I said fine. do whatever you want. In the end I LOVED my new look. I'll post pictures as soon as I get my camera from my car which i dont have now cuz my sis took but as soon as she's back with my car, the pictures will be posted. thanx for coming!
SoHo

Trapeze with Mario Lopez!!

Ok so yesterday Philippe and I went to the Santa Monica pier AGAIN because he's addicted to kicking my ass at air hockey because he knows I used to be the airhockey champ. Anyway as we neared the arcade on the pier, I see some equipment set up for trapeze school. I look at the people under the net and guess who I see? MARIO LOPEZ!!! (picture above) he's the guy that played slater from saved by the bell and he now hosts extra. I think he was doing a story on the new trapeze school of santa monica because he had his cameras filming him. so that might have been for his show Extra. OMG I've met him before when he went to my high school years ago and he was very nice. This time I wanted to take a picture with him but Philippe was with me and really wanted to go to the arcade first so I didnt get a picture. But this man is crazy fit and mighty scrumptious!! He's also my "compatriota" meaning he's also of Mexican heritage.btw he did a book signing at the barns and nobles at the grove but i couldnt go because I was at work two restaruants away from there LOL. sucks eh? LOL Ok so that was one of the highlights of my day. Oh by the way, Philippe's a total foodie and we go around to all kinds of restaurants trying their food and pastries so we went to a chocolate shop in Century City that was featured on Chefs vs City on the food network and I had a banana curry chocolate (Yes Zie, it had curry!! LOL and boy it was not at all even slightly disappointing!!!) I loved it. Philippe had a spicy Mexican chocolate piece which I tried and I didnt find spicy at all. but it still had a slight hint of cayenne in it. I'll show you pictures when I go back to the store. Ok that's it for now. I'll do more posting when I return from work. see you in a bit!
soho

Wonderful Morning!!

Ok so I still have to finish my previous post about solvang which I will so hang tight. I've been crazy busy with work and at the same time there's so much drama in my life right now that I just cant seem to focus my attention on any single thing. Anyway despite my drama, I had a wonderful morning today. why? because I SAW WENTWORTH TODAY NEAR MY JOB!!!! I AM NOT JOKING THIS TIME!! LOL!!!!! I was parked at a post office across the street from my job because it was closed today so I could park there all day while I work. as I look into the street with passing cars, I see this black toyota truck and It looks very familiar. I actually recongnized teh person inside the car first, it was WENTWORTH!!!! he drove slowly behind another car that was really slow. I guess he had just come from starbucks because he was on beverly and the grove drive. Anyway he was wearing dark clothes and no shades... his hair still grown in and looking as delicious as ever!!! My first reaction was to txt Zie and call Laila, Laila didnt answer so I left her a message and Zie txt me back as soon as she got a chance to do so. anyway my day has been shitty but being able to have myself a lovely sight this morning I.E. Wenty... cheered me up. =) so anyway that was my wonderful morning. NO he didnt see me because I was parked at the post office. ummm... ok so yeah, that was nice. LOL!

Happy 27th Birthday, Smiley Emoticon

Yep, that's right, that little smiley emo :-) is 27 years old today! WOW! I never gave it much thought, let alone research but I was searching for something else a few months ago & found this info, so I decided to post it & share what I learned with you guys! Enjoy the pics & article posted by the man himself, Scott Fahlman!


A lot of people have asked me about this, so I thought I’d put the information here, linked under my home page:
Yes, I am the inventor of the sideways “smiley face” (sometimes called an “emoticon”) that is commonly used in E-mail, chat, and newsgroup posts. Or at least I’m one of the inventors.

By the early 1980’s, the Computer Science community at Carnegie Mellon was making heavy use of online bulletin boards or “bboards”. These were a precursor of today’s newsgroups, and they were an important social mechanism in the department – a place where faculty, staff, and students could discuss the weighty matters of the day on an equal footing. Many of the posts were serious: talk announcements, requests for information, and things like “I’ve just found a ring in the fifth-floor men’s room. Who does it belong to?” Other posts discussed topics of general interest, ranging from politics to abortion to campus parking to keyboard layout (in increasing order of passion). Even in those days, extended “flame wars” were common.

Given the nature of the community, a good many of the posts were humorous (or attempted humor). The problem was that if someone made a sarcastic remark, a few readers would fail to get the joke, and each of them would post a lengthy diatribe in response. That would stir up more people with more responses, and soon the original thread of the discussion was buried. In at least one case, a humorous remark was interpreted by someone as a serious safety warning.

This problem caused some of us to suggest (only half seriously) that maybe it would be a good idea to explicitly mark posts that were not to be taken seriously. After all, when using text-based online communication, we lack the body language or tone-of-voice cues that convey this information when we talk in person or on the phone. Various “joke markers” were suggested, and in the midst of that discussion it occurred to me that the character sequence :-) would be an elegant solution – one that could be handled by the ASCII-based computer terminals of the day. So I suggested that. In the same post, I also suggested the use of :-( to indicate that a message was meant to be taken seriously, though that symbol quickly evolved into a marker for displeasure, frustration, or anger.

This convention caught on quickly around Carnegie Mellon, and soon spread to other universities and research labs via the primitive computer networks of the day. (Some CMU alumni who had moved on to other places continued to read our bboards as a way of keeping in touch with their old community.)

Within a few months, we started seeing the lists with dozens of “smilies”: open-mouthed surprise, person wearing glasses, Abraham Lincoln, Santa Claus, the pope, and so on. Producing such clever compilations has become a serious hobby for some people. But only my two original smilies, plus the “winky” ;-) and the “noseless” variants seem to be in common use for actual communication. It’s interesting to note that Microsoft and AOL now intercept these character strings and turn them into little pictures. Personally, I think this destroys the whimsical element of the original.

Unfortunately, I didn’t keep a copy of my original post. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. By the time I realized that this smiley-face phenomenon was going to be long-lasting and that it would spread around the world as the Internet grew, it was too late to easily retrieve the post, and the original message was lost for many years.

Several attempts to find the post on old backup tapes were unsuccessful. But recently Mike Jones of Microsoft sponsored a more serious “archeological dig” through our ancient backup tapes. Jeff Baird and the CMU CS facilities staff put in a heroic effort with the support and encouragement of Howard Wactlar, Bob Cosgrove, and David Livingston. They found the proper tapes, located a working tape drive that could read the ancient media, decoded the old formats, and did a lot of searching to find the actual posts. I am most grateful to all who participated in this successful quest, which I call the “Digital Coelacanth Project.”

So the message itself, and the thread that gave rise to it, are here. The exact date of the smiley’s birth can now be determined: 19 September, 1982. It’s great to have this message back just in time for the 20th anniversary of the original post.

As you can see, the note in which I suggested this thing was quite short and casual – just part of an ongoing discussion that involved many people. I apparently didn’t even read it over before posting, since a word or two were dropped in editing. I do remember writing a longer message in which I explained the need for a humor-marker in more detail, and suggested the :-) symbol, along with :-( to indicate anger or real unhappiness. But this longer message must have come later – perhaps a later bboard post or an E-mail message that I sent to someone. In any case, that more detailed post did not turn up in our search.

Many people have denounced the very idea of the smiley face, pointing out that good writers should have no need to explicitly label their humorous comments. Shakespeare and Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain got along just fine without this. And by labeling the remarks that are not meant to be taken seriously, we spoil the joke. In satirical writing, half the fun is in never being quite sure whether the author is serious or not.

To a large degree, I agree with these critics. Perhaps the E-mail smiley face has done more to degrade our written communication than to improve it. But in defense of the idea, let me say two things:

First, not all people who post on boards have the literary skill of Shakespeare or Twain, and even those luminaries had bad days. If Shakespeare were tossing off a quick note complaining about the lack of employee parking spaces near the Globe Theater, he might have produced the same kind of sloppy prose that the rest of us do. Besides, Shakespeare’s work is full of clichés and his spelling was atrocious. :-)

Second, and more important, these authors were publishing their words in a different medium, with different properties. If 100,000 copies of a novel or an essay were distributed in printed form, and if 1% of the readers didn’t get the joke and were outraged at what they had read, there was nothing these clueless readers could do to spoil the enjoyment of the other 99%. But if it were possible for each of the 1000 clueless readers to write a lengthy counter-argument and to flood these into the same distribution channels as the original work, and if others could then jump into the fray in similar fashion, you can see the problems that this would cause. If the judicious use of a few smilies can reduce the frequency of such firestorms, then maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all. Again, we’re talking here about casual writing on the Internet, not great works printed in one-way media that relatively inaccessible to the general public.

One final point: I’ve seen various claims that the sideways smiley face was invented by someone else. I believe that I invented this particular glyph and the “turn your head to one side” principle independently. I don’t recall seeing anything like this before my post, though a few messages in the thread we just located come close. Leonard Hamey’s post suggesting (#) for humor might be taken as an example of “turn your head to one side” – it’s not really clear if that was his intent – and apparently \__/ was used by one of our research groups to indicate a smile. I’ve never seen any hard evidence that the :-) sequence was in use before my original post, and I’ve never run into anyone who actually claims to have invented it before I did. But it’s always possible that someone else had the same idea – it’s a simple and obvious idea, after all.

Some people have told me that the :-) or :) convention was used by teletype operators in the old days. Maybe so. I haven’t seen any examples of this, but it’s plausible, given the limitations of the character set in that medium.

So, the smiley idea may have appeared and disappeared a few times before my 1982 post, but it is pretty clear from the timing that my suggestion was the one that finally took hold, spread around the world, and spawned thousands of variations.

Let me close with a quote from an interview with Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita and other modern classics (thanks to Eli Brandt for calling this to my attention):

Q: How do you rank yourself among writers (living) and of the immediate past?

Nabokov: I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile – some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question.

Secretary by Day, Royalty by Night

A secretary in Washington DC becomes king of Ghana over night!!!! check it out!!



By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The king folds her own laundry, chauffeurs herself around Washington in a 1992 Honda and answers her own phone. Her boss's phone, too.

Peggielene Bartels lives in Silver Spring and works as a secretary. When she steps off an airplane in Ghana on Thursday, arriving in the coastal town her family has controlled for half a century, she will be royalty -- with a driver, a chef and an eight-bedroom palace, albeit one in need of repairs she will help finance herself.

"I'm a big-time king, you know," said Bartels, seated at her desk at the Ghanaian embassy just off Van Ness Street NW, where she has worked for almost 30 years.

In the humdrum of ordinary life, people periodically yearn for something unexpected, some kind of gilded escape, delivered, perhaps, by an unanticipated inheritance or a winning lottery ticket.

In Bartels's case, that moment arrived 15 months ago. The phone in her condominium awoke her at 4 a.m.

"Hello, Nana," said the overseas caller -- a relative, as it turned out -- employing a title Ghanaians use to refer to people of stature, from kings and queens to grandparents.

"What you mean, 'Nana?' " answered Bartels, 55, who has no grandchildren -- or children, for that matter. Her husband lives overseas. She thought the call was a prank.

The 90-year-old king of Otuam, a town of 7,000 residents an hour's drive from Ghana's capital, had just died, the caller said. The king, as it happened, was Bartels's uncle. The town elders had performed a ritual to choose his successor, praying and pouring schnapps on the ground and waiting for steam to rise as they announced the names of 25 relatives. The steam would signify which name the ancestors had blessed as the new king.

Bartels, the caller said, was Otuam's new Nana, with power to resolve disputes, appoint elders and manage more than 1,000 acres of family-owned land.

"Oh, please don't play games with me," Bartels replied, reminding the caller that she was a woman, making her more fit for the title of queen. The caller replied that the kingship was the post that was open.

"Things are changing," she recalls him saying; women can now hold many more positions, even king. "You have to accept it.'"

Bartels endured three months of sleepless nights as she weighed whether to take the throne. She asked herself, "Why me?" The turning point occurred one morning as she drove to work through Rock Creek Park. A voice inside her pronounced: "You can't escape it. It's yours."
"Not everyone gets to become king," she said. "Perhaps it is my destiny."

Soon after, she traveled to Otuam for her coronation, during which she was lifted on a palanquin and paraded through town. She stayed for 10 days before returning to Washington. She was still a secretary, after all.

At the office, Bartels works next to an oversized copy machine, across from a pair of metal filing cabinets. On the wall, a framed portrait depicts her in royal regalia, complete with kente cloth, sword, gold bracelets and, atop her head, a gold crown she described as "heavy."

In five or six years, after she retires, she plans to move full time to Ghana. For now, she is a commuting king, using her paid vacation time to visit Otuam for the next six weeks. She aims to cement her hold on the town and show the all-male elders she meant it during her coronation when she warned them not to confuse her sex with weakness.

"If you step on my toes," she told them, "I will hit you where it hurts."

The king already has a biographer, Eleanor Herman, a historian whose published works include, "Sex With Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry and Revenge," and "Sex With the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers and Passionate Politics." Herman met Bartels at a reception at the Ghanaian embassy and became intrigued when Bartels described herself as a secretary, but added, "I'm also a king."

"A king of what?" the writer asked.

That led to a lunch, and more lunches, and now Herman is accompanying the king to Otuam. "You have an average human being who suddenly finds herself in a position of power," Herman said. "It's a story that brings into play all the human elements of life: you have power, she's going to have deal with male chauvinism, there may be cases of greed. How is she going to change it?"

Although Ghana is a democracy, many of its towns and regions have traditional chiefs, kings and queen mothers, some juggling less vaunted obligations in other parts of the world. "Some of them are teachers and lawyers, and some of them are executive secretaries," said Katherine Carboo, the embassy's press attache and Bartels's boss.

Far less typical is a female king -- Carboo knows of two -- although more and more women have become candidates for the throne. "It's in the last 20 years that there's pressure for more equitable gender representation," said Gwendolyn Mikell, a Georgetown University anthropology professor who studies Africa.

Bartels grew up in Cape Coast, daughter of a railroad motorman and a shop owner. As a teenager, she aspired to become a caterer. As it turned out, her father had grown up with Ghana's ambassador in Washington, whom she met during a trip to the District in the late 1970s. He offered her a job as a receptionist, and she's been there ever since.

A few days before her coronation, she traveled to Otuam to be groomed for her new post, a process that required her to sleep in a room with several aunts who tutored her in the dos and don'ts of royalty. Mostly, they were don'ts: no eating in public, no handling of money, no arguing, no talking directly to villagers.
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"You can't go to clubs and dance anymore," they told her. "If a person hurts you, just smile and leave."

"What if they slap me?" she asked. Her aunts assured her that no one would.

The town's challenges are formidable. The king wants to wire local schools for computers, complete construction on the water system and build a library. She intends to replace half of the 15 male elders with women.

Living in Silver Spring is no escape from her duties. On many nights, the phone rings at 4 a.m, even though she has complained to the elders, "Don't you know what time it is here?"

One call was to report about a land deal. Another was about a husband who had been accused of beating his wife.

"I will talk to him," the king promised. "If he does that again, we'll throw him out of the town."

Danish day out

Hi everybody!! It's SoHo here. Just want to let you know I'll be posting some pictures of me,Philippe, and my college buddy in solvang,ca. I've never been there before so I was excited to go. It's like a cool little Danish town with lots of little shops kind of like you would find on Larchmont out here but only the architecture is "Danish" looking and they're all Danish shops. I didnt even try a danish because i forgot to go back to the bakery at the end of our trip.... grrrr!! oh well, we'll be going back in two weeks!! YAY!!! . LOL ok well anyway right now I'll load the pictures onto my computer but I do have to get to work so I will post them when I get back. Here's a preview of what's to come... enjoy!!

Gotta love the little door!!

Ok so last night I had a late lunch with my boss at Mishima on 3rd and La Ciengega. BEST UDON NOODLES EVER!! I already told you guys about this place so now you know what I am talking about. Anyway, My boss had the curry udon noodles with chicken and I had my usual fried tofu udon noodles without fish cake. We had hung out at grifith park that afternoon and hit up Mishima for a late lunch/early dinner. I am glad he liked it. After we split, I met up with my boyfriend who wanted to go out for dinner as he does every single night because he doesnt cook even though he's a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu. Anyway so am I LOL!! but i do cook at home... he hasnt used his stove since he bought it, which is over a year ago because he eats out for breakfast,lunch and dinner every single day!! crazy right? Anyway so my friend Amina wanted to go to Mishima so I said ok let's go there. So my boyfriend orders sushi which he has been eating this almost every night for dinner since he came to America...over a year ago. I order AGAIN LOL and have what my boss had earlier that day but instead of chicken, I had mushrooms. My friend ordered a beef udon noodle bowl. We had dinner and went over to "The little Door" which according to my boyfriend "very authentic/old school classic french cooking" we went over for dessert only though because we had already eaten. Philippe had a lemon tart... In my opinion, not very excited but crazy good anyway, my friend Amina and I had the Baba au rum CRAZY DELICIOUS!!! basically it's usually an individual size round little cake soaked in a rum syrup topped with cream and fresh berries!! OMG never have had a better cake in my life!!!! the cake itself is a lot richer than a brioche and just unbelievably good. That was the food highlight of my night. LOL!! By the way, the picture up there is not my picture. I got if off line because I forgot to take a picture of mine last night. LOL but you get the idea!
anyway definitely hit up "The little Door" on third street in West Hollywood... actually it's los angeles but around the west hollywood area... gotta love the little door!!

Congratulations City of Santa Monica!!!

Sorry for not being around for a few weeks, I was going through a bunch of bumps of life and I was really busy with work too. Anyway,
This past Wednesday, September 9th, was Santa Monica pier's 100th Anniversary so to celebrate, the city of Santa Monica hosted lost of activities on the pier and ended with a beautiful firework show at the end, marking it's anniversary. The night before I bought some kale salad and some soba noodle salad and took it over to my uncle ray's work because as a doctor, he was pulling on of those 72 hour shifts so he hadn't been home for a few days. I was having the blues because of my breakup with my boyfriend and I just needed to talk to my uncle so he can make me feel better. We sat down in the hospital cafeteria and we had our salads and a vegan strawberry cupcake. I told him how sad I was and how I asked him to give me closure and tell me to move on and he did so it was over for sure. My uncle being wacky took my phone and sent him a txt message inviting him to the pier's centennial anniversary. He replied saying he would go but was feeling very bad about some situations he was having. So Wednesday came around and we went together. I invited my college buddy too. as we waited for the sun to set, we hit up a tapas restaurant and had us some Spanish tapas and a bottle of delicious Spanish red wine. It was really good. It was nice and light and fruity with a hint of raspberry at the finish. Anyway we enjoyed our wine and I notice my ex boyfriend is acting strange... later after we leave the restaurant and waited for the firework display he starts acting all "boyfriend like" you know, grabbing my hand, massaging my shoulders... then as the fireworks started and we watched, he holds me and says "lets start over" I was soooo happy so I said ok and now we are officially together again since Wednesday!!!! so far so good. we stay up watching iron chef America (Cat Cora is by far my absolute favorite iron chef) and chef vs city ( I LOVE Aaron Sanchez, he's super funny and kind of cute too!! sssh dont tell Philippe LOL (Philippe's my bf's name. anyway the fireworks were great and a wonderful touch to our new start. For dessert we went back to hollywood and had bread pudding from Kitchen24 which is a really hip restaurant/bar that's open 24 hours a day seven days week!! I love that place so if ur ever out here, make sure you go... its on Caghuenga and selma street. Congratulations to the City of Santa Monica for their pier's centennial anniversary!!

Labor Day history

Tomorrow is Labor Day!!! what does this mean? A legal holiday off WITH PAY!!! YAY!!! not for me though... I still have to work but for corporate America and lots others, it's a day of hot sun barbecue and taking a dip in the pool!! Now you'll find it kind of ironic that it's Labor Day but nobody works right? well here's a really sad history of why that is... enjoy!!



For most of us, Labor Day means backyard barbecues, weekend sales, and a last carefree day before school starts. But the laid-back holiday has some seriously sad history, including chaos, riots, and even death. Let us explain.

A tragic tale
Back in the days of the Industrial Revolution, workers were expected to put in 12-hour days, seven days a week (yes, including kids). Already sounds awful, right? It gets worse. In Pullman, Illinois, a company town that employed and housed workers to build posh railway cars, times had gotten tough. In response, George Pullman cut jobs and wages. It was 1893. Thousands of workers walked off their jobs in protest, demanding higher salaries and lower rents. Other unions joined, refusing to work the Pullman cars, turning the small-town fracas into a national fury.

With mail cars backing up, and riots worrying train execs, President Grover Cleveland stepped in. He declared the strike illegal and sent 12,000 troops to break the strike. Cue brutal protests and bloodshed. The strike was broken, but so was the spirit of the workers. To reach out to the labor movement, Congress rushed the national holiday into law. The bad will resulted in Cleveland losing re-election. But the day off for hot dogs endures.

When is it?
Labor Day falls on the first Monday of September. This year, that would be Monday, September 7. According to the Department of Labor, Congress passed an act in 1894 making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday.

So, working stiffs everywhere, say it now, with feeling: Happy Labor Day.

Fresh Prince bloopers

is it just me? or do you also enjoy watching ur favorite actors mess up their lines and having fun? check these bloopers out.

Carlton sings

This is the same show only with Carlton "Will's cousin" singing jungle fever and it's hilarious!!! He's supposed to be this really proper preppy rich kid and he all of a sudden breaks out in song. It's just way too funny. ENJOY!!

HILARIOUS!!

Ok so I was on youtube as always and I came across this clip from the american tv show called "the fresh prince of bel air" which I LOVE. I swear I used to watch this show non stop every single day. anyway so this clip is hilarious because will smith is just really funny in this show which was years and years back. anyway he acts a song out... well just watch and enjoy!

New SVU Went clip & pics

Thank You Zie for the email on the a new Went vid of Went on SVU. He's looking GREAT!!! Oh and some pictures too!! Thanx again Zie!!

Michael Jackson's "Finally" Put to Rest

I sat up last night to watch the burial service/funeral. The family had a live feed from inside the memorial park. We could see guests arriving: Barry Bonds, Elizabeth Taylor, Macaulay Culkin, Chris Tucker, Lisa Marie Presley, etc. Debbie Rowe was invited but did not attend, neither did Diana Ross.

The service started about 8:30 LA time - it was an hour & a half late & lasted about two hours rather than the planned one hour. The live feed ran until the hearse pulled up & the brothers met at the back door of the hearse to take Michael's coffin out... then we see "Michael Jackson Funeral Service... End of Live Feed"! I was like "Dude, NOOOOOOO"!!! From that point, CNN broadcast from the helicopter but it was basically pointless b/c they were flying 3,000 feet above to avoid interruption (originally there was supposed to be no aerial coverage).

At about 10:30ish LA time, we could see the cars leaving the funeral & heading to an Italian restaurant in Pasadena called Villa Sorriso for a celebration of Michael's life. And that was about it =( I didn't cry b/c I didn't get to see much so it wasn't so final for me. I'll rewatch the Staples service in time, but for now, I guess I await justice to be prevailed... until then, how can it be truly final?

Photos of the memorial invitation courtesy of CNN. Hopefully we'll get photos of the actual funeral program that was sitting in the chairs until the guests arrived to retrieve them. If you'd like to read the story posted by CNN, along with the rest of the invitation scans, please click "Read More" below!


LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Seventy days after his sudden death, Michael Jackson will be interred in what may or may not be his final resting place Thursday evening.

Only his family and closest friends will attend the private burial starting at 7 p.m. PT (10 p.m. ET) inside the ornate Great Mausoleum on the grounds of Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale, California.

They'll then drive to an Italian restaurant eight miles away in Pasadena, California for "a time of celebration," the nine-page engraved invitation said.

The first page inside the invitation holds a quote from "Dancing the Dream," a book of essays and poems published by Jackson in 1992:

"If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with."

The news media -- which have closely covered every aspect of Jackson's death -- will be kept at a distance, with their cameras no closer than the cemetery's main gate. The family will provide a limited video feed that will only show mourners arriving.

Little is known about the planned ceremony, though CNN has confirmed that singer Gladys Knight -- a longtime friend to Jackson -- will perform. Her song has not been disclosed.

The massive mausoleum, which is normally open to tourists, was closed Wednesday as preparations were completed for the funeral. A security guard blocking its entrance said it would reopen to the public on Friday.

Fans of Clark Gable, Carole Lombard and dozens of other celebrities buried on the grounds have flocked to Forest Lawn-Glendale for decades, but Jackson may outdraw them all.

It is unclear how close tourists will be allowed to Jackson's resting place. Security guards -- aided by cameras -- keep a constant vigil over the graves and crypts, which are surrounded by a world-class collection of art and architecture.

The Forest Lawn Web site boasts that the mausoleum, which draws its architectural inspiration from the Campo Santo in Italy, "has been called the "New World's Westminster Abbey" by Time Magazine.

Visitors will see "exact replicas of Michelangelo's greatest works such as David, Moses, and La Pieta" and "Leonardo da Vinci's immortal Last Supper re-created in brilliant stained glass; two of the world's largest paintings," the Web site says.

Jackson's burial has been delayed by division among Jackson family members, though it was matriarch Katherine Jackson who would make the final decision, brother Jermaine Jackson recently told CNN.

He preferred to see his youngest brother laid to rest at his former Neverland Ranch home, north of Los Angeles in Santa Barbara County, California.

That idea was complicated by neighbors who vowed to oppose allowing a grave in the rural area -- and by Jackson family members who said the singer would not want to return to the home where he faced child molestation charges, of which he was ultimately acquitted.

The mystery of where Michael Jackson would be buried became a media obsession in the weeks after his death.

After his body was loaded onto a helicopter at UCLA's Ronald Reagan Medical Center hours following his June 25 death, it stayed in the custody of the Los Angeles County coroner for an autopsy.

It was only later disclosed that Jackson's corpse was kept in a refrigerated room at the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn cemetery until his casket was carried by motorcade to downtown Los Angeles for a public memorial service in the Staples Center arena.

Again, speculation about Jackson's whereabouts grew when the media lost track of his casket after his brothers carried it out of sight inside the arena. Though the family has not publicly confirmed where the body was taken, most reports placed it back at the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn while awaiting his family's decision.

Though Thursday's interment may settle one Michael Jackson mystery, a more serious one remains. The coroner announced last week that he had ruled Jackson's death a homicide. A summary of the coroner's report said the anesthetic propofol and the sedative lorazepam were the primary drugs responsible for the singer's death.

Los Angeles police detectives have not concluded their criminal investigation and no one has been charged.

Michael Jackson Fans 4 Charity: UPDATED

Be sure to watch in HQ!!

Help save the life of a child!

To many of us, Michael is our hero, our childhood & the one and only person who touched the world on such a magnificent level, through his gift of song but also through his gift of generosity! Michael once said: "...always help the children. Love them...". We've adopted that philosphy by teaming with UNICEF. Our goal is to raise one million dollars! Now I know that it might seem impossible but Michael taught me to think big! Individually it might be hard but just think if EVERY Michael Jackson fan gives just $1. What if EVERY fan gets another person to give $1! In other words, TOGETHER WE CAN! TOGETHER WE CAN make a difference in the life of a child! Let's do it for Michael, but most importantly, let's do it for the children!

There are ongoing emergencies like war and natural disaster that have a devastating impact on a child’s life. Children caught in crises count on organizations like UNICEF to help them survive.

In Sudan, over a million children have fled their homes and are living in refugee camps. UNICEF has vaccinated these children and has built schools so they can go back to class.

To help the flood victims of Bangladesh, UNICEF brought in high-energy biscuits, water purification tablets, and shelter materials.

In countries with “forgotten” emergencies like the Democratic Republic of Congo, children have been suffering for years. They die from disease and starvation, girls are abducted and raped, and boys are recruited as child soldiers. UNICEF provides shelter for refugees, reunites children with their families, and counsels child soldiers.

These children rely on UNICEF’s emergency assistance to survive. Your support of UNICEF’s Emergency Response Team can help save their lives!

It doesn’t take much to help: $5 can provide one emergency health kit, $87 can provide a family water kit for ten households, and $188 can provide a “School-in-a-Box” kit.

Children cannot wait. Even a short crisis can have deep effects on them. I am asking you to help UNICEF provide life-saving assistance to children in emergencies. Won’t you join me in helping children survive! Please donate today!

The campaign kicked off this Saturday on Michael's 51st birthday! Please visit the official Michael Jackson Fans 4 Charity website for more information! Remember, please share this with EVERYONE YOU KNOW! We need your help! Children need your help! Let's make Michael proud!!!

Update: Our video guy, Ron (the one who made the video above), will be publishing a book w/the thoughts, fan-counters, etc. of MJ & all the proceeds will be donated to UNICEF through our charity fund! Check it out!


Be sure to watch in HQ!!

Michael Jackson's Burial

Michael Jackson's burial is tomorrow night at 7pm (LA time). The ceremony will be at Holly Terrace in The Great Mausoleum at Glendale Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, five miles from Hollywood in North Los Angeles, California. I just saw on CNN that Michael's crypt will be under (or near, I believe) the Last Supper Window. There will be cameras, an alarm system & "crypt keepers" there to protect Michael's crypt to ensure security.

I decided to check out the website & found some really cool pics! This is a magnificently beautiful place, simply breathtaking! No media will be allowed inside the huge iron gates (including areal coverage), but CNN will be outside the gates, so be sure to tune in tomorrow night for live coverage.

The first photo above is of the outside of the Great Mausoleum. Here's the caption posted on the Forest Lawn website:

" With its architectural inspiration coming from the world-famous Campo Santo in Genoa, Italy, the Great Mausoleum has been called the "New World's Westminster Abbey" by Time Magazine. Shown here is Memorial Terrace, the entrance to the Last Supper Window and the Memorial Court of Honor, where exact reproductions of the greatest works of Michelangelo are on display. "

This next photo is of the Last Supper Window, underneath which Michael will be buried. The captions say:

"This stained glass masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci's immortal painting was crafted in Italy by Rosa Caselli Moretti. Using Leonardo's own sketches, she sought to capture for posterity the original appearance of the now damaged and faded painting. Come see this spectacular work 365 days a year; it is displayed every half-hour, 9:30 a.m. through 4:00 p.m."

"The Last Supper Window is the centerpiece of the Memorial Court of Honor, the only place in the world where Michelangelo's greatest statuary works can be seen together in one location."