Dine LA is here. And the list of participating restaurants is both overwhelming and droolworthy.

You best believe that I will be tuning in. Much to the chagrin of my Persian-American friends, I am stoked beyond embarrassment for Shahs of Sunset, the new Bravo/Ryan Seacrest-produced docuseries. Click to watch 2 minutes before the series debuts in March.

Tiki-tiki-Tom-Tom. For the Parks & Recreation fans.

In case you were wondering what to get me for my birthday. This!

If Mitt Romney is considered hotter than Newt Gingrich… does that even matter?

When the Pope tells you to pipe down and listen for a change, it’s hard to ignore.

In his message for World Communications Day released yesterday, he noted that in this age of social media and online connectivity, all too often we are talking instead of listening, being thrown information instead of becoming engaged with it and not making enough room or time for a silence – whether in thought or otherwise – that is all too necessary to focus on truly important questions: “The process of communication nowadays is largely fuelled by questions in search of answers. Search engines and social networks have become the starting point of communication for many people who are seeking advice, ideas, information and answers. In our time, the internet is becoming ever more a forum for questions and answers – indeed, people today are frequently bombarded with answers to questions they have never asked and to needs of which they were unaware.”

I find myself around this all the time. As great as it is to know that Twitter near broke when the Giants scored that crucial field goal on Sunday and that social media activity spiked when President Obama had his stand-up comedy moment during last night’s State of the Union address with the “spilled milk” joke, but all too often I find myself asking, “What do I do with this information?” and more selfishly, “What does it mean to me?” Where is the line between strangers just throwing up thoughts in 140 characters or less and an actual conversation? It is contingent upon my participation? Like the Pope says, questions in search of answers.

Today is my birthday and if there is one thing you learn with each passing year it’s that less is more. One great, expensive coat is better than a dozen cheap scratchy ones; the one best friend you can call up in the middle of the night trumps 60 Facebook friends; one delicious meal is better than 10 items from the dollar menu. Actually, I might be unsure about that last one.

The same, I have found, goes for social media, but it’s a little more complicated. While I pride myself on being dedicated to my social media presence through this blog, my style blog, Twitter, Facebook, Formspring, Polyvore, LinkedIn, Vimeo, and Google+, just keeping up with my stable of passwords is exhausting, never mind making sure that I’m keeping up with everyone else’s online life – I have my own frakked Internet identity to deal with! Integrating these accounts with each other seems a bit self-defeating: I use Twitter for news, quips and observations on the fly; Facebook to send messages to fans; Polyvore for collages to post on my Tumblr… you get the picture. “Less” isn’t necessarily “more” if it means mitigating your reach, but “more” also means fracturing your attention towards a million outlets in order to keep up. And with a new social media network popping up what seems like every other week (or, frankly, every other day), it’s hard to not wonder just what it’s all for. The more connected we are, the more disconnected we become with each other and, to an extent, ourselves.

What the Pope doesn’t directly talk about in his message but what I think he might be implying is that with the bombardment of information and answers to questions we have never asked, we have to ask ourselves what that information means to us when we receive it. Unfortunately, what we care to know and know about these days isn’t really a matter of our choice. Furthermore, we should make decisions about whether we hang on to the information we get and let it take up what I like to call “mental bandwidth” or do we just process it in the moment, let it go and leave time and room for a true dialogue.

Which isn’t to say I don’t love social media, apps and being plugged-in all the time. I am an information junkie, which is partly why I do what I do in the first place. Twitter is my most frequently checked source for breaking news; I text, email, watch videos, leave messages on Facebook through my smartphone all day long. Part of my morning ritual involves brushing my teeth while listening to Morning Edition playing on my iPad. That woman with the oversized sunglasses, walking-and-texting in the Target parking lot? That’s me, the multi-tasking pedestrian you almost backed into with your car. Oops.

Social media is here to stay but I believe the way we use it is still evolving. To make it more meaningful and less noisy, maybe we should resolve to curate the conversation instead of adding to the Bad First Date Syndrome that plagues so many channels, with its endless stream of one-way talking-tos. And then let’s make sure we relish the sound of silence. After all, the Holy See is asking it of us and who am I to say no to the guy who has G-d on speed dial?

Living in Los Angeles, I spend an inordinate almost ungodly amount of time in my car. This makes my choice of music during the traffic trances – and there are many – crucial. Lately, I’ve been listening to this random collection of Hawaiian music from a CD I nabbed one day at Starbucks. It includes one of the most beautiful renditions of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” as interpreted by Jake Shimabukuro, a ukulele virtuoso. Let him pluck his way into your heart and let yourself achieve aural satisfaction below.

5 Web Comedies to Watch in 2012. What, no love for Dicki?!

Could small breasts be making a comeback? The case for natural knockers by one of my favorite fashion commentators/insiders.

I could really watch this all day and be happy. I have too many “favorite” Ron Swanson moments (the resident curmudgeon Libertarian on the totally underrated Parks & Recreation on NBC) to name just one, but among the standouts is from a past episode when Swanson, drunk on Tom Haverford-backed liquor Snakejuice, does, well. Just click on it. SFW.

Because I just assume all of my readers are Sons of Anarchy fans as well. If you’re in the LA area, you should come to this.

Quite possibly the most underrated yet most essential piece of tech showcased at CES 2012… is this next-level toilet. Unfortunately, it also reminds me how tech-backwards we are here in America: These are pretty much standard in public restrooms in Tokyo.

An alarm clock for news junkies. Specifically, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me fans.

Mass retailer Target goes niche with The Shops. The “mini-store” will feature items curated from boutique shops from across the country.

It sounds like someone didn’t have a jolly good time at the TCA panel for 2 Broke Girls. That “someone” being executive producer Michael Patrick King, who came under fire for defending the borderline racist caricatures on the show and using his status as a gay man as license to write jokes about ethnic minorities. HitFix‘s Alan Sepinwall recounts.

Everybody hurts. Here is how to deal.

Fanboys and fangirls either fist-pumped with joy or slumped down in disappointment at the news that the live-action American adaptation of manga series Akira has been put on hold once again, this time reportedly because of budget concerns. The movie’s been in the proverbial pipeline for years now with a number of big stars tied to the project, including Keanu Reeves. And it’s who will get top billing that’s been a subject of controversy. The latest names include Garrett Hedlund (Tron) as the lead, Kaneda, and Kristen Stewart (like I need to put the name of the series) as his love interest, Kei. The quirky Helena Bonham Carter and Japanese actor Ken Watanabe are also rumored to join.

Now you’re probably wondering, as I did, isn’t this a Japanese series? So, well, where are all the other Asians in the cast besides Watanabe? In what universe would Bonham Carter playing a role named “Lady Miyako” not be, well, incongruous? It seems that George Takei is wondering the same thing. He tweeted last April, “Akira epic fail—all actors up for Kaneda & Tetsuo are white?” and urged followers to sign a petition demanding that Warner Bros. not “whitewash Akira.” I, for one, would not want to feel the wrath of Sulu even through the Internet. Oh, my!

But to simply pose this as an issue of whitewashing dismisses a bigger-picture problem: That Hollywood doesn’t see ethnic stars as marketable. That if you found, say, a talented accent-free actor of Asian descent to play Kaneda (Harry Shum, Jr. anyone?), everyone would run screaming out of the theater and into the one with the movie starring Reese Witherspoon and co-starring a talking dog. A movie’s bottom line, the number of people willing to shell out cash to see when it opens, how much more it would make if it’s in 3D–it goes without saying that these things matter to Hollywood. It is about dollars and cents and eyeballs; not simply race. This is why executive instincts say, “Go! Greenlight movies in which the plot revolves around a man cross-dressing as a woman!” In 3D.

In the instances when Asian actors are included in mainstream roles, the way they’re portrayed and written still reflects this rather narrow view. Take, for example, the latest uproar over 2 Broke Girls after executive producer Michael Patrick King was skewered by critics at the TCA conference this week for defending the character Han and the borderline racist jokes made on the show. Noting Broke is an “equal opportunity offender” that “[takes] everybody down” is problematic because the Han caricature doesn’t take anybody, well, anywhere. For every multi-dimensional Chin Ho Kelly of Hawaii Five-0 or hunky Mike Chang of Glee, we get a Han Lee, and that’s just the way it is?

So, back to Akira. There is probably no faster way to isolate a core fanbase than by taking such huge liberties with the source material, as it seems the live action Akira will do. It also seems that someone forgot that Akira is a beloved international series with fans who have been perfectly okay with Kei and Kaneda being Asian. So if Akira proceeds with a largely un-diverse cast, perhaps some even more dramatic overhaul is needed: not only would it take place in neo-New York (instead of neo-Tokyo), but the name would not be Akira but something with less fidelity to its Japanese roots like, say, Aaron. Change the characters’ names: “Kaneda” becomes “Kane,” “Tetsuo” becomes “Tate,” “The Colonel” becomes—well, keep that one. Make it a “loosely-based” affair, and the issue of whitewashing or not becomes a non-issue.

In order for diversity to be normalized in Hollywood and the meaning of the American experience broadened along with it, creating so-called palatable and viable movies and TV requires Hollywood to understand that the audience who spends those dollar dollar bills isn’t a homogeneous population. Hollywood would be all the richer (literally and figuratively) for it.

Only one link this week:

Surfline. If you’ve noticed some empty cubicles at work and heavy traffic headed towards the beach, you can thank the epic swell working its way along the Southern California coast. I braved the crowds today and earlier this week, chasing waves after religiously checking surf reports on Surfline. I’m no purist when it comes to knowing before I go – some surfers admonish the site’s technology for making public once little-known spots and generally adding boards to breaks that were, otherwise, pretty sparse. I, along with other younger generation surfers, take it for granted that we have this resource to help us better plan our trips out, thus saving time, gas and sanity. So, thank you and RIP, Sean Collins. Oh, and if you’re in Socal, get in that water already – you won’t regret it one bit. Well, unless you crash into someone and get bruised up and gashed. Then… you might.