Timelapse: Eight Hours of The Great Los Angeles Walk in 11 Minutes (VIDEO)

Will Campbell documented his day on the Great Los Angeles Walk 2012 via a timelapse camera -- and here it is, from Disney Hall in downtown to Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica (although Will notes that the camera did not record Melrose from La Brea to ink.sack, our lunchtime stop). It's a fun, fast-paced video set to a swingin' jazz track. Thanks Will!

VIDEO/PICS: This Year's Best Takes on the Great Los Angeles Walk, By The People Who Walked It

Thanks to MsGeek703, who took part in the first half of this year's Great Los Angeles Walk on November 17. She shot this video of her experience.

ICYMI, you can read our recap of the seventh annual Great Los Angeles Walk here. But here are a few more recaps of our wet, wonderful day hiking 17 miles from downtown to the ocean, via Melrose:

I couldn't have explained the walk better than Mikki Brisk does in this wonderful post. A first-time GLAW-er, she writes:



A day like that is hard to explain. I guess it takes a bit of crazy to even agree to such a walk. Not everyone understands it or accepts it (“What do you mean it’s not for charity?”). Some people were deterred by the rain. Some people caught a bus to the endpoint. Some people caught rides. Some just hit their max and went home.

That’s all okay. But for me, I needed to do this for no other reason than to prove to myself that I could. There’s no reward in completing a trek like this. There’s no fanfare or to-do. One doesn’t get any special letters after her name for walking the entire 17 miles.

But there is a sense of accomplishment. There is the joy of camaraderie. There is the beauty of the city.

And yes, there is pride. As I sat at the bar at the end of the day and looked around, I was proud of everyone there (including myself). I was so pleased to have spent the day with women I adore. I was glad to have met a cool chick who was willing to maintain a crazy pace for the second half of the route. I was, in short, happy.

Blogger Nick Campbell wrote the other amazing post I read about this year's Walk; check it out here. Having recently moved into a downtown loft, Nick was excited to be so conveniently situated to this year's starting point, the Walt Disney Concert Hall. He also had Scoops ice cream on the brain. An excerpt:



We met up with the rest of the people on the steps of the Hall just after nine to see more people than I remember ever seeing. The requisite human interest reporter was there (not surprising given the event exists in the dearth of non-turkey-related activities the week before Thanksgiving and that the person who started the event, Michael Schneider, is, himself, press) and I saw a lot of the same people I’d seen the past two years: mostly active seniors, some middle-aged Angelenos involved in the community, and a few young people who are both. But this year there were a lot more of everyone. It was surprising and nice. This is an event I really love and get excited about every year. That being said, I’d already picked out some of the people that wouldn’t make it. Sorry, ma’am. Your dog is not going to want to walk 17 miles.

City Council candidate Elson Trinidad (who's running for the CD13 seat) walked part of the route amd wrote this recap. An excerpt:



People were fascinated to see even the most mundane things like holes in the windows in a DWP storage building along 1st Street, visually stunning murals like Eliso Art Silva’s Filipino American history mural, the “Twilight Zone” mural on Beverly and a Cache/Eye One “bicycling chickens” mural across the street from it. The walk also exposed the bad and the ugly, such as the blighted trash heaps and urine-stenched pavement under the 101 Freeway above Melrose, a reminder that there’s much work to do in the community.

Still, my 5.3-mile trek from Downtown to Hollywood enabled me to socialize, enjoy the city, see some things I’ve never seen before (such as the Jack London house off of Van Ness), see things I wish we didn’t have to see, and get to the places I needed to go that day.

Many Angelenos unfortunately have a hindrance to walking, which is purely psychological and socially-reinforced. But once freed from those shackles, walking lends to a wonderful world of discovery and exercise (it’s great for the blood pressure). Other hindrances, like uneven pavement and inconveniently narrow sidewalks (Melrose between Normandie and Serrano, I’m looking at you), are things the City needs to address.

But “Nobody Walks In L.A.” is already an outdated diatribe. Some of our streets and neighborhoods are getting more pedestrian-friendly, either through design or demand. A walkable Los Angeles is a must for our City’s future.

Great LA Walk-er Ron took some beautiful black-and-white photos of this year's Walk, check 'em out here.

Check out Great LA Walk-er Jonathan's pics here.

Check out all the Great Los Angeles Walk photos uploaded to Flickr here.

It Was Probably Inevitable: "Sh*t People Say in LA," The Video

Given the "$#*! People Say" video trend on YouTube right now, this was inevitable, right? Here's "Sh*t People Say in LA," written by Heidi Niedermeyer and Elena Crevello. (h/t Blogging.la)

The Old Spice Man's Busy Tuesday, Making Viral Videos for All

Like many of you, we were transfixed at work by the nonstop output on Tuesday by Wieden + Kennedy, the ad agency behind those Emmy-nominated "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" ads -- along with the star of those ads, Isaiah Mustafa.

All day, W+K was uploading video of Mustafa, in character, responding to Tweets -- from both celebrities (he went back and forth with Alyssa Milano all day) and media organizations, as well as from Internet mavens and average folk -- and YouTube comments. The videos were being uploaded virtually half an hour after the original Twitter messages were made -- which means the W+K writers were scrambling to write the copy and put it in front of Mustafa, who would then, shirtless, perform it. This went on all day, and led to at least 100 videos.

Check them all out here, on Old Spice's YouTube home page.

Below, the Old Spice response to a L.A. Times staffer's Tweet -- making a reference to Los Angeles landmarks along the way.



Here's an example of a celebrity-targeted response, to Rose McGowan:



And finally, how about when brands contact other brands? Here, the Old Spice guy responds to a Tweet from Starbucks Coffee:

I Know, Right?

It's funny how phrases and expressions suddenly explode and become commonplace. "I know, right?" (or just "Riiight?!") is one of them. Here's one YouTube user's take on it.

You Tube: Your New Babysitter

It's not the most exciting YouTube video in the world -- "miscellaneous freight trains at the river Rhine (right bank) near Bad Honnef, Rheinbreitbach and Linz (Germany)" -- but for a 3-year-old, it's must-see-TV.

Turns out YouTube is chock full of homemade videos of trains crossing intersections, airplanes taking off from runways and garbage trucks tossing cans full of trash into the back. Now that Evan -- the Kid Formerly Known as Blogger Toddler -- knows they're there, he's constantly demanding YouTube time. Get in line, kid, there's blogging to be done first.

Still, it's coming in handy during those early morning hours when Mommy and Daddy need a few more minutes of shut-eye. Of course, I worry that he's one click away from a video that isn't quite as innocent as the one above. But for now, YouTube is his new BFF.

Retro: Everyday is Halloween

Hmm, if you've got little ones standing close to you, shoo them away before checking out this video. Ministry never made a video for their classic 1980s track "Everyday is Halloween," but this homemade version -- uploaded (and created?) by YouTube user deeky666 -- will more than do. It's a nicely cut montage of some creepy and gorey horror scenes, as set to the synth track (from back before Ministry went full-on industrial).

17 Years Ago... Mike's Acting Debut in a (Purposely) Cheesy High School Video

After plenty of trial and error, I've finally figured out how to take some old VHS videos, convert them to DVD, and then convert them again to YouTube. (I know, simple stuff for some of you, but I'm not as savvy about this stuff.)

For my first-ever VHS-DVD-YouTube dub, I present to you... "Love Story." A meant-to-be-cheesy short that was one of several videos that a bunch of us high school kids wrote, produced, shot and starred in at the University of Hawai'i in the summer of 1990. I'm 16 in this video... and yes, I miss having all of that hair.