POPROCKS.COM
The online home of Jess Barron
Web content and community expert, writer, editor, blogger, and internet video producer.
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In 2004, a guy who I don't know named Jeremy Abbate saw my website and wrote a song called "I Wanna Be As Cool As Jessica Barron." It still amuses me. Here's the mp3 and here are the lyrics.

Archives (slowly being reconstructed):
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See how this site looked in 1998
Poprocks.com screenshot from early 1998
and how the place looked in 2000.
Poprocks.com from June 2000
Yahoo counted me as a "cool person" from 1997-2001. How far have I fallen?!
Yahoo counted me among the "Cool People" in 1997-1998.
The internets have come a long way, baby...

November 1, 2010 Our Wedding Rocked!
Matt Odom a.k.a. AtariCharm made a cool video of our wedding in Malibu. Check it:

JESS+CHRIS's Malibu Wedding at Stone Manor by Matt Odom.

Here are some of the photos our friends took at our wedding at Stone Manor in Malibu. We just got back from our Around-The-World Honeymoon. It was awesome! Thank you to everyone of our friends and family who helped to make it all possible. It was definitely the most amazing thing that either of us have ever done. Chris and I swam with Whale Sharks in The Maldives and bottle-fed Tiger Cubs in Thailand. As if that wasn't enough, we also saw Stonehenge and stayed at the Park Hyatt Tokyo (where "Lost in Translation" was set/filmed). We'll also have some of the professional photos of our wedding from Rob Greer to share soon. Rob set up a Silly Booth at our wedding, and the photos from that are pretty hysterical.


posted by Jess Barron @ 1:36 AM
June 9, 2010 Celebs Tried Yoostar at the MTV Movie Awards Gift Suite
Rico Rodriguez from "Modern Family" Had Fun Trying YoostarRico Rodriguez from "Modern Family" and his sister Rani cracked us up trying Yoostar at the MTV Movie Awards Secret Room gift suite on June 3 at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. They put themselves on the moon using a Yoostar Video Background.

CCH Pounder from "Avatar" tried out Yoostar at the MTV Movie Awards Gift SuiteCCH Pounder from "Avatar," Iqbal Theba (Principal Figgins) from "Glee," Nolan Gould from "Modern Family," Shar Jackson from "Moesha," Nikki Blonsky from "Hairspray," Joanna Krupa from "Dancing With the Stars," and more ended up trying Yoostar and taking the systems home with them.

See all the photos of celebs trying Yoostar.


posted by Jess Barron @ 7:36 AM
March 16, 2010 Evolving Yoostar into the Future of Gaming
Last week the Yoostar team and I traveled to San Francisco to the Game Developers Conference (GDC) where we met with a number of gaming industry insiders to discuss our plans to evolve Yoostar into more of a "Social Video Game"™ over the next year. (Though we can't tell you our specific plans publicly yet, we will reveal more information at the E3 Gaming Expo in June 2010.) We can tell yoo that what we are planning is exciting and moves Yoostar into the future of gaming.

This Fall, console gaming as we know it will radically change when specialized add-on peripheral cameras for Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 will enable motion control of select games.

Last week at GDC Sony officially announced that it is launching The Move™, PS3's wand-like motion controller that will work with PlayStation Eye camera to track the users' gestures during game play. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the video of the demo Sony gave last year at E3:


At last year's E3, Microsoft wowed gamers by showing off Project Natal, which is their code name for the depth-sensing camera add-on for Xbox 360 which will allow a completely controller-free gaming experience. Natal will be available in stores this October, and Microsoft plans to announce the real product name for Natal and a list of Natal titles at this year's E3. The demo that Microsoft gave last year at E3 made Natal look pretty amazing; check it out:


What do yoo think of these new motion controlled games that will be coming out later this year? Which products and games are yoo most excited about? Tweet your comments at me (I'm @p0pvulture), and let me know.

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posted by Jess Barron @ 9:36 AM
March 2, 2010 We Gave William Shatner a Yoostar System...
William Shatner with Nick, Emma, and meAfter making my red carpet entrance in front of a wall bearing the Yoostar logo, I was inside the pre-Oscars "Suite of 100 Stars" at the Beverly Hills Hotel to introduce Yoostar to the celebs. William Shatner, Captain Kirk in the original "Star Trek" TV series and movies, Bridget from "Girls Next Door," James Pitt from "Avatar," Candace Cameron Bure (a.k.a. D.J. Tanner from "Full House"), Brody Jenner's mom (Linda Thompson), Mimi Rogers, Lou Diamond Phillips, Candy Spelling, Amy Yasbeck, John Heard, former NBA player John Salley and his wife Natasha, Charlene Tilton, Margot Kidder (Lois Lane in the original "Superman" movies), Lorenzo Lamas and his new fiance Shawna Craig, and Lou Ferrigno (the original "Incredible Hulk") all took home Yoostar systems.

I demo'd Yoostar for Joyce ("notaspringchick") Chow from MBN; check out the video:


As for those who stepped up onto the stage to try Yoostar, what movie scenes did they jump into?

  • John Schneider (the original Bo Duke from "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV series) put himself into a scene from "Beverly Hills Cop."
  • Alessandra Torresani (from "Caprica") put herself into scenes from "American Pie" and "The Addams Family"
  • Sofia Milos from "CSI: Miami" tried out the "Blues Brothers" scene "It's 106 miles to Chicago."
  • Alexa Vega (Carmen Cortez in the "Spy Kids" films) played the role of the girl scout in "The Addams Family" scenes.
  • Jessica Hall (Sirius XM radio personality) sat beside Kevin Bacon in an iconic scene from "Animal House."
  • Nia Long from "Big Momma's House," jumped into "The Blues Brothers" car and told John Belushi, "It's 106 miles to Chicago..."
  • Chris McDonald sat on the park bench in a scene from "Forrest Gump"
  • Susan Blakely played Goldie Hawn's character in "Foul Play."
  • Molly Shea from "Sunset Tan" played Cheech's role in a scene from Cheech and Chong's "Still Smokin.'"
  • Darris Love also chose a scene from "Still Smokin.'
  • Alice Greczyn (best known for the 2005 "Dukes of Hazzard" movie) put herself into "Forrest Gump."
  • Gina La Piana (best known as Gabby Ortiz from "Days of Our Lives") took a turn jumping into"The Blues Brothers" car with John Belushi.
  • Sheryl Lee Ralph did a bang-up job of a scene from "Blacula."
  • Stefanie Powers (best-known as Jennifer Hart from "Hart to Hart") jumped into "The Blues Brothers" car with John Belushi.
  • Joyce Chow from MBN also jumped into the Blues Brothers car.

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posted by Jess Barron @ 9:26 PM
February 5, 2010 Judging with Jamie Kennedy
From October to December, the Yoostar Casting Call Tour van traveled from coast-to-coast, stopping at college campuses and malls so that thousands of people could record themselves in movie scenes to compete for a chance to win the grand prize -- a walk-on role in a 2010 LionsGate film.

We watched over a thousand of these video performances on Yoostar.com, and gathered users' input via our Facebook voting application, to choose the top 10 finalists.

Yesterday I met with fellow judges Jamie Kennedy and Jonathan Small (Editorial Director from Break.com) at Jamie's Hollywood studio to watch the finalists' videos and choose the grand prize winner and two runner-ups.

We judged the videos "American Idol"-style, and commented on each of the top 5 performances. Jamie was our Simon. He made the most entertaining and most scathing comments. I channeled my inner Kara DioGuardi. We recorded a video - showing the judging and announcing the winners - that we'll post next week on Yoostar.

In the meantime, enjoy some behind-the-scenes photos from the crazy shoot, which involved a clown, a scantily clad woman, a cameraman "Nick Nolte" doppleganger, and a stolen kidney. Just another day in LA.

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posted by Jess Barron @ 9:52 AM
January 13, 2010 Snuggie Shenanigans

For Christmas this year - as something of a joke - Chris' sister Elizabeth got us Snuggies. (Mine is a stylish leopard print.) Elizabeth has a great sense of humor, and she is the person who convinced us we should dress up as Nadya Suleman and Kate Gosselin for Halloween this past year.

Between me and the dawgs, I'm not even ashamed to admit that my Snuggie is getting some serious usage. Yes, the rest of our living room decor is solidly mid-century modern (to suit our tastes as well as the extreme mid-century modern styling of our 1969 townhome). But if you look beyond the cream-colored flokati shag rug, atop the low Italian leather modular sofa you will find one of the greatest home decor/clothing inventions of the 21st century - the Snuggie. So, needless to say, Snuggies have been on our minds. (Come to think of it, from the Radiskull and Devil doll doll (circa 2000) on my dresser, to the pair of Thinkgeek Tauntaun sleeping bags I purchased for us this Christmas, we *do* have a lot of internet phenomena ephemera around in our house.)

New Snuggie for babies?Yesterday Chris found this photo and posted it to Facebook with a link to this blog post on "The Baby Snuggie". Chris wrote: "Pure genius - It's like the Snuggie is giving birth. I know a couple of people who need this now, and some who'll need this VERY soon."

Eighteen people commented on his "Baby Snuggie" Facebook post, and Chris wrote, "Hell, you might see me carrying Jess around like this before too long." And then while we were watching the season premier of "American Idol" he was inspired to create this image which he posted to his Faceobok wall last night.

Being engaged to a creative guy with serious graphic design skills has its advantages. For example, say you want to take a picture of yourselves in an authentic Sid and Nancy pose when you're dressed up for Halloween. Or if your mom just graduated nursing school and you Chris with me in the "Baby Snuggie"want to make her a personalized "Nurse Jackie" poster. Also, he might be inspired by seeing a "Baby Snuggie" and decide that he would want to carry his fiance around inside one.

When Chris posted this picture to his wall on Facebook, he wrote:
"Jess is totally at home in our new Baby Snuggie... she can't wait 'til it comes out in the zebra pattern."

Mindy's response was, "now i know what NOT to get jess for her bday!"

THEN, Joanna (another talented graphic designer)Joanna's "Baby and Bunny Snggie" created this "Baby and Bunny Snuggie" and posted it to Facebook, with the message:
"chris, if jess ever decides to adopt a bunny you will be all set with this snuggie."

Chris wrote back, "Forget going into outer space or widening the 405, this is truly one of the best things humans have ever created... genius."

Now this "Baby and Bunny Snuggie" is Chris' current Facebook profile pic. Should I be afraid, or just give in to the lahv of Facebook and graphic design shenanigans?

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posted by Jess Barron @ 5:00 AM
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