Weekend Musings: The Myth of Carmageddon and Our New Favorite Malibu Beach Destination

Hello from what looks to me like a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. Honestly it feels creepy, a bit like the Stephen King movie – The Stand, welcome to Los Angeles, without the cars and traffic. Television and Radio reporters have been doing their best to try to keep things interesting but most are giving-up. This morning I was listening to the radio and the announcer actually said, “I’m so sorry folks, this is actually the most boring radio show I’ve ever done, I’m going to ask the station if we can cancel this coverage.”

At one point the radio host had to talk with a correspondent at LAX, her report was, “well nothing much to report here, it was very quick getting in and lots of people got here early so they’re learning how to best spend five hours at the airport.” It’s the media story that grew so big that is scared everyone in Los Angeles into their homes or out of the city entirely, leaving the rest of us to roam free in a trafficless Los Angeles, or at least for now.

Time will still tell if the gridlock that was predicted will actually come to fruition, but for now the drama of Carmageddon seems to be a great story for the news gone horribly wrong, in a good way. I did here a bit about traffic this morning, the news did report that there is heavy helicopter traffic from all the news choppers trying to cover the traffic, or lack thereof. Below are some pictures I took this morning of streets that are usually busy and bustling with life now empty:

Los Angeles CarmageddonLos Angeles Carmageddon 2Los Angeles Carmageddon 3

I was actually looking forward to walking around and shooting some video of angry drivers stuck in traffic swearing at each other. Instead I think this has actually become the best day on the planet to tour LA because you can get just about everywhere in record time. Okay, so enough about Carmageddon, if something excited does happen I’ll let you know.

A few more musings for this weekend:

  • Congratulations to Mike Mann who sold FatChance.com for 40K – for those who haven’t been keeping score Mike it kicking ass and taking names as per usual. I’m going to try to pin him down for an interview when he makes his way back out West, he is definitely one of the best and brightest in our industry and doing big things!
  • Facebook banned an ad for Google+, no major surprise there as I think Google+ has to absolutely scare the crap out of Facebook…could a MySpace-like disaster befall this Social Media monster?
  • Daina and I are totally excited about Los Angeles Startup Weekend – we’re on track to launch Xelot, the software company we’ve been building over the course of the year
  • Back to Google+, so far I really like it – nice to see Google finally make a move in the right direction when it comes to Social Media after Buzz was such a flop, the only less-successful Social Media concept is probably Ping by Apple…remember that?
  • We found-out about a beach in Malibu where you can rent cabanas and have drinks brought to you on the beach. Yes, I know  this is available at resorts around the world but most LA/Malibu beaches are insanely strict when it comes to alcohol…tomorrow we’ll be relaxing on what I think might become our new favorite beach spot
  • What do you think of Geo .TV names? I’ve been thinking of starting a Geo Site on a particular .TV since I’m such a video nut…any thoughts?

Okay, that’s all folks, back to the insanity of Carmageddon! Hope you are all having a great weekend and stay-tuned, if Carmageddon does actually happen I’m ready to broadcast it live on my iPhone on MorganLinton.tv 🙂

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton