This week for Office Hours we talked to Richard Rosenblatt, a board member of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, a co-lecturer at the Anderson School of Business and a UCLA alumnus. In other words, a true Bruin (kind of): “I studied law at USC only because UCLA law school rejected me,” he told us, laughing.

Rosenblatt is also one of Fortune’s “Top 50 Smartest People In Tech,” and received the runner-up spot to Steve Jobs for “Smartest CEO.” How did he go from racing scooters around Westwood Village to being an extremely successful CEO? We attempted to figure it all out by picking his brain about his time at UCLA.

Can you tell us a little bit about the class you teach or how you stay involved with UCLA?

I have taught with Peter Guber over the last few years in the film school and last year in the business school. We focus our courses on the intersection of technology and media and teach through a Q&A format centered around well known knowledgable guests. Our guests have included tech luminaries, such as the CEO of Twitter, to traditional media personalities trying to expand digitally, such as Carson Daly. I lecture because the students inspire me with their energy, brains and overall enthusiasm to be successful.

What were the most memorable parts about your time at UCLA?

Westwood was a super happening and busy little city. I was excited to be in the middle of it and my tuition was only $400 a quarter back then. I also remember having a red motor scooter that my friends and I would race around campus in the middle of the night. (He laughs).

How about campus life?

In my day, the lottery determined if you were admitted to a dorm and I was not. I lived off campus and definitely am sorry I missed the dorm life. I co-founded Alpha Epsilon Pi on campus and loved it a lot. I made amazing friendships. I met my wife at a fraternity party and we never looked back. We were engaged 18 months later and now we’ve been married for more than 20 years. She has kept me in line all these years.

You were involved with Myspace. How do you think social media affects students differently today then during your time at UCLA? Maybe you would have met your wife over the Internet instead of at a party!

Social media is the most amazing communication device ever created and changes everything. No one even had cell phones so you had to set specific times and places to meet people or be tethered to your phone at home or – God forbid – we used pay phones. Now, you can constantly meet new people, keep in contact with your friends and share photos and information day and night. It’s like a college within college.

How did you start your first business from campus?

I worked for a small paper called the Village View, the Daily Bruin’s competition, when I was a sophomore. I was selling ads over the phone for whatever price the advertiser would pay. I realized that my clients needed to expand their business beyond our little paper, so my wife and I started a new business. The new business, in essence, was a reseller of newspaper ads across the Country. We offered clients the ability to reach millions of people in every state by buying ads from us. The business grew quickly and we expanded in 1993-1994 to selling bulletin board and Internet ads.  That led to my first Internet business (iMALL), which led to the next one and so on.

Do you have any tips for aspiring entrepreneurs and students?

Yes. Be passionate. Don’t give up. But make sure you have a business model that is scalable and repeatable. Don’t focus on how much money you make, just learn.

—Casey Bradford

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This year’s spring football game focused more on the fans. The coaching staff pulled some fans out of the crowd and had them participate in simple football drills, getting the opportunity to meet and play with some of the team. After the game, certain players and Head Coach Jim Mora stayed on the field to sign autographs. Watch the clip above for highlights.

—Kate PM

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On Sunday night, Hedrick Test Kitchen was treated to a meal prepared by culinary award winners of West Adams Preparatory High School: Jose Landaverde, Maribel Sandoval and Esther Segura. Their dish, which won the Los Angeles Unified School District “Cooking up Change” competition in January, featured cucumber tomato salad, tex-mex turkey, black beans, spinach and cornbread, and a delicious pear and raisin delight. This dish will be featured in the LAUSD menu for the 2013-2014 year. Cooking up Change is run by Healthy Schools Campaign, a nonprofit based in Chicago that inspires high school chefs to create healthy school lunch menus.

Seventeen year-old chef Maribel Sandoval and her teammates were assigned by their teacher, Mrs. Redd, to come up with a healthy meal that they would want served in a school cafeteria. After trying many different dish ideas, the trio finally chose the dish which won them first place and a chance to compete in Washington D.C. in June.

UCLA became involved with the project because of its healthy campus initiative, which started two years ago. Hedrick Test Kitchen, which is testing meals for next year’s Sproul Dining Hall, features healthier, more sustainable items. The meals that get the most positive feedback from students will be featured on the dining hall menu for next year, said Alex Macias, assistant director of dining services. Macias said he is glad that UCLA gave the students a chance to enhance their recipes and work on a bigger scale. For the competition, the students were required to use fewer than 10 ingredients and cook the meal in six steps. The Hedrick Test Kitchen provided students with the opportunity to use foods they might not have had available in their school kitchens.

Perhaps one of the most exciting things for these high school students (besides their potential chance to meet Michelle Obama in D.C. this June) is that a PBS documentary following the competitors is set to air next June. The PBS crew was there Sunday night. Most UCLA diners seemed intrigued by the crew, but continued with their meals anyway. When asked if she found the crew to be bothersome, student Lushin Huey said she didn’t feel that the filming distracted from her dining experience.

Pick up a copy of the Daily Bruin on newsstands Tuesday for more coverage of the students’ visit to the kitchen.

What do you think about UCLA’s new Healthy Campus Initiative? Which dining hall is your favorite? Are looking forward to the documentary? Tweet us your answers @dbmojo under the hashtag #healthyucla

—Morgan Dobbins

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You might see purple, red and blue footprints on the Hill today. UCLA is celebrating the Festival of Colors, albeit a little late.

From 3:30 to 6 p.m., things will get colorful at Sunset Canyon Recreation Center. Students are celebrating Holi, a traditional South Asian festival thrown every year to mark the end of winter and the arrival of spring.

The event is hosted by the USAC Office of the President, USAC General Representative 1, INDUS, Indian Student Union, Sikh Student Association, Office of Residential Life, and UCLA Recreation.

Each year communities come together to celebrate the colors of the new season by throwing colored powder. People wear white so they are colored head to toe. There are also rituals, which include performances of Holi dance numbers, as well as plenty of traditional food, such as gujiya, mathri and malpua.

“Holi is celebrated as the triumph of a devotee. The legend depicts that anybody, how ever strong they may be, cannot harm a true devotee,” said first-year psychobiology student and UCLA INDUS member Katie Patel. ”Furthermore, those who dare torture a true devotee of God shall be reduced to ashes. Therefore, on the actual day of Holi every year, those that celebrate this festival light huge bonfires to resemble Holika’s burning to ashes.”

Hindus all around the world take part in the Festival of Colors every year and many UCLA students took part in the social gathering last year. More than 2,000 students have RSVP’d to the event this year on Facebook. But Patel said students should not forget the history behind the important tradition.

“The festival actually resembles one of the most important values in the Hindu religion of devotion. The strong religious and ritual ties make the Holi festival a very important festival in the Hindu calendar,” said Patel.

Typically, the festival is held in either February or March. This year’s Holi occurred on March 27. Because of various schedule conflicts, including finals and spring break, as well as the limited availability of Sunset Canyon Recreation Center, the celebration had to be held in April this year.

Note: Organizers are asking that participants bring a change of clothes to minimize damage to the Hill’s facilities.

Are you going to the Holi Festival this year? Comment below or tweet us @dbmojo.

—Sarah Greenwald

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One of the most challenging aspects of being a writer is just trying to find something to write in the first place. I have people ask me all the time where I come up with ideas for my stories. And the truth is, inspiration can come from anywhere. So for this installment of “The Write Stuff,” I’ll present one of my own short stories, and offer some insight on the inspiration for the story.

This story is entitled “Waiting,” and it’s an internal monologue of a man who’s just been abducted by a serial killer and we’re getting a glimpse of his final thoughts before he’s murdered (Spoiler Alert: He dies). I wrote this shortly after I saw the film Zodiac, which sparked my interest on the subject of serial killers, and I felt the threat of death against the central character would make for a fascinating story. Side note: If you ever think your story isn’t interesting, just add sex or violence. Or both. That always does the trick.

Waiting

Handcuffed. Blind-folded. Mouth gagged like a Vietnamese prostitute. Sitting, waiting for the maniac who had been living next door to me for the past six years to get it over with. Slit my throat. Blow my brains out and cover the walls with bone and tissue. Whatever sick, demented game he’s trying to play, I just want him to get it over with.

The first part of your story is always the most important. You have just a little bit of time to grab the audience’s attention, or else they’ll get bored and stop reading. By having very forceful, violent imagery in the opening paragraph, I felt like the reader would instantly be invested in the story.

It’s funny how something as seemingly insignificant as choosing a house to live in can completely alter the course of a person’s life. When the wife and I were deciding where we wanted to raise a family, we had our options narrowed down to two choices: 364 Christmas Tree Lane and 4875 Oswell Street. Both had roughly the same price tag, both were in acceptable school districts, but we chose the one on Oswell because it had marble countertops in the kitchen. And because we chose the house on Oswell which just so happened to be next to a serial killer’s home, I got to accidentally see him drag a corpse stuffed into a trash bag into his backyard. I’m going to die because of a marble fucking countertop.

Carl, the serial killer, or I guess I should start referring to him as my serial killer, never came across as someone who could harm anything. He worked full-time as a waste management aide. His duties consisted of directing traffic at the local landfills spread out across the county. He wasn’t married even though he was 36, but that never aroused any suspicion. Maybe he was one of those eccentric guys who could never stay settled down with one woman. Maybe he had his heart broken many years ago, and he had never fully recovered. Or maybe he was gay. I never really got around to asking him too many questions about his personal life.

Last summer, I worked as a waste management aide, so I felt like incorporating it into the story somehow. Taking actual events from your own life and putting it into the story is one of the easiest and best ways to flesh out your story and make it seem real. Something as seemingly small as adding actual street names can make a story appear more three-dimensional.

There have been reports of a serial killer in our town for quite some time now. For the last few years or so, someone would go missing without any trace of their whereabouts and no clues as to what ever happened. Who would have guessed that all those bodies were being buried in the backyard right next door? But the reports of a serial killer never put Sarah, my wife, or me on edge. There’s over 150,000 people living in this town, and only nine people have been reported as being victims to the Riverside Killer. That’s the name the newspaper gave Carl. What were the odds that the serial killer would strike again? What were the odds that I would become his prey? I never did well in any of my math classes.

I can hear the muffled sounds of Carl talking to someone in another room. I was never aware that our town’s resident murderer had a partner in crime. But then again, these kinds of killers are supposed to be clinically insane, so he could just be talking to himself. Isn’t talking to yourself supposed to be a symptom of mental instability? I think I remember seeing something about it on E! Investigates.

I have a very limited knowledge of serial killers, I imagine most people do. But that didn’t stop me from trying to include as much detail as possible into the psychosis of murderers. By giving the character limited knowledge as well, and the fact that he gets his information from E! Investigates, I felt like he was a more relatable and sympathetic character. I mean, would a bad guy watch E!?

I imagine I’m in the basement of his home, but I can’t be sure. After I saw him, I dashed into my house and fiddled with the phone trying to call 911, but once I moved the receiver to my ear, I could hear that the phone had been disconnected. He came at me so rapidly; I didn’t have any opportunity to react. I wonder if he’s going to wear one of those rain ponchos like that one killer wore in that movie. What was it called? I remember seeing it in theaters, but the title eludes me at the moment.

Then, the door opens. I can hear the creaking and the gentle slam as it touches the wall. There’s a weapon in his hands; I can hear him moving it from one hand to the other. It isn’t metal, so it can’t be a gun or a chainsaw. I wouldn’t have really minded a gun, but a chainsaw seems like it would be too messy, and it would take forever to cut off any of my appendages. No, it’s definitely made of wood. A baseball bat perhaps? It could also be an axe. If he’s only touching the wooden handle, I wouldn’t be able to hear the actual blade of the axe. He clunks his weapon to the ground, sounding off a definitive thunk. The whole thing’s wood. My money is on a baseball bat. He lifts the bat off the ground and rears it behind him. I hear him cutting through the air the same way a knife would cut through butter until it finally reaches my head. I remember the name of the movie. American Psycho.

It’s important to always leave your audience wanting more instead of wishing the story would end already. That’s why short stories are excellent for learning how to tell a story. You have to adequately convey an entire story in a short amount of time.

Is there anything that inspires you to write? Got any constructive criticism for this story? Comment below or tweet @dbmojo.

—Mike Bedard

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