This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

So, 2013 is almost here. Time to break out the paper hats, the party glasses and the annoying air horns. How are you planning to spend your New Year's Eve? At home with friends and family watching TV? Partying it up (a.k.a. getting your drunk on) at an overpriced club / lounge? Or smooshed together with the rest of humanity in the bowels of Times Square? Well, wherever you are, I hope you have fun and remember that 2013 will be an amazing year!

While we're on the subject, an advisory from our friends at Uber: Surge pricing will be in effect for NYE, people. So don't be surprised tomorrow morning when ya see the bill. In Uber's own words, "NYE pricing is not for the faint of heart! The average surge multiple will likely be 2x normal prices, but during extreme spikes it could cost you $100 MINIMUM before time and mileage charges!" The most expensive times to take an Uber? Between 12:15am and 2:45am. There. You've been warned.

This Sunday is the Tesla Spirit Award Gala Benefit Reception at the New Yorker Hotel, marking the 70th anniversary of Nikola Tesla. Tesla died on January 7th, 1943 at the hotel in room #3327 on the 33rd floor, where he'd lived for the last 10 years of his life (1933-1943). Yup, he was a fan of the number three. And in case you don't know who Tesla is (god forbid), here's the Oatmeal comic celebrating the greatest geek who ever lived.

A few months ago, at the launch of the Queens Tech Meetup (complementing existing ones in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey), I wrote how cool it would be to have a Bronx Tech Meetup. Well, guess what folks--it's finally happened! The first meeting is January 16 at 901 Hunts Point Avenue. So go check it out and show your support for the community taking shape there. Any takers for a Staten Island Tech Meetup next? ;)

Want a no-strings-attached grant of $100,000 to skip college and focus on your cool projects? Of course you do. Check out Peter Thiel and his fellowship program. Applications for the 2013 class are due by 11:59 PM, December 31, 2012. That's tonight, so you'd better hurry.

The good ol' MTA finally gave us the holiday gift we'd all been craving: Subway Time!, an app providing a countdown to the next train's arrival arrives so you can slurp down one last mojito before heading home. Took them 11 years and $228 million but by golly they did it. Now, before you get all excited, remember there are a few caveats. It only works on the iPhone (for now), it does need an internet connection, the UI is bad, it only works with a third of the subway lines (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & S) and it could take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to fully roll out. But..... it's a start! And while we're on the subject, MTA, can we haz some WiFi pleez?

It's almost the end of the year, which means everyone and their uncles have predictions for 2013. Lemme save you the time and spell it out for you: Moar cloud, moar big data, moar 3d printing, moar wearable computing, moar internet of thingz, moar collaborative consumption, apple tv (duh), moar contextual stuff, moar privacy intrusions, moar k-pop, moar grumpy cat photos (hola Tardar Sauce!), moar sexting, moar oversharing, moar mobile everything. Moar moar moar! Meanwhile, here's a video you should watch.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

Headspace: Your Brain on Music!
Showcasing the latest at the intersection of neuroscience and new media, with a focus on music. Live demonstration of a brain-controlled environment to drive spatial control of music and real-time visual effects based on the thoughts, moods and emotions of the headset-wearer.
Monday (Dec. 31), 10 a.m. @ Dolby Theater NYC, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, Main Floor Screening Room

Startup Pitch Night
Wednesday (Jan. 2), 6:30 p.m. @ Bar 13, 35 East 13th Street, 2nd Fl.

Raising Startup Capital
With Arie Abecassis (cofounder, AppStori and venture partner, DreamIt Ventures)
Thursday (Jan. 3), 6 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Explore Social Media
Thursday (Jan. 3), 6 p.m. @ Empire State Building, 350 5th Avenue, 59th Fl.

The Product Group January 2013
With Jared Raskin (manager, site and subscriber analytics, WeightWatchers)
Thursday (Jan. 3), 7 p.m. @ MTV Networks / Viacom, NYC

Village Tech Breakfast
Friday (Jan. 4), 8 a.m. @ The Smile, 26 Bond Street, #1

Foursquare Hackathon 2012: Connect all the Apps!
The best Foursquare hacks and apps will get global glory, swag and some mind-blowingly awesome prizes including ringing the NASDAQ closing bell, rocking tickets to SXSW, partying with an action figure version of yourself, or wearing the infamous Foursquare hackathon TITLE BELT!
Saturday (Jan. 5), 9 a.m. @ Foursquare HQ, 568 Broadway

Conducting User Research
With Diane Loviglio (resident mentor at 500 Startups and former Mozilla user researcher)
Saturday (Jan. 5), 11 a.m. @ General Assembly West, 10 E. 21st Street, 4th Fl.

Tesla Spirit Award Gala Benefit Reception
Marking the 70th anniversary of Nikola Tesla. Organized by the Tesla Science Foundation and endorsed by HRH Prince Philip of Serbia. Event will include a number of prominent speakers, dignitaries, artists and others who will receive this year’s Tesla Spirit Awards.
Saturday (Jan. 5), 6 p.m. @ New Yorker Hotel, Grand Ballroom, 481 8th Avenue

More events on the horizon...
A Conversation with Adaptly Founder Nikhil Sethi on Jan. 7 @ General Assembly East
#BARK Presents: New Year New You | What Can We Learn From Brands That Pivot on Jan. 8 @ Yotel
Invasion of The Hackathons: Creating Unique Opportunities for Entrepreneurs on Jan. 8 @ NYU Poly
January 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Jan. 8 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
NJ Tech Meetup 32 on Jan. 10 @ Stevens Institute Of Technology
Investor Feedback Forum on Jan. 10 @ Microsoft
Startup GC Panel #2 on Jan. 10 @ General Assembly
Startup Dinner on Jan. 10 @ Central Cafe (TBA)
Enterprise Technology Meetup on Jan. 15 @ Cooley
1st Bronx Tech Meetup on Jan. 16 @ Majora Carter Group
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 9 @ Hearst

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! And Happy New Year! :)

(Source: Warby Parker)

PERFECT TEN. Last Wednesday Time Inc. brought together editors from many of their news properties to bestow upon us the "10 NYC Startups to Watch." Only in the startup picking game since lat year's Internet Week, Time Inc. has already picked winners like GroupMe, which was purchased by Skype for a supposed $85 milion.

The startups that made the cut for 2012 are Adaptly, a social advertising platform; Art.sy, the Pandora of art; Codeacademy, an interactive self-paced tool to learn to code; Enterproid, a mobile platform to segregate work from personal information on a single mobile device; Fab—you already know what Fab does; Fancy Hands, a provider of virtual personal assistants; Loosecubes, a matchmaker for workers and workspaces SideTour; a community marketplace for booking and hosting adventures, Stamped; a five-star-only mobile rating app and Truth Art Beauty; an online platform where users can custom-create skincare blends.

FOUNDER POWER. This Friday Women 2.0 is hosting their New York Founder Friday at 16 East 34th Street. Featured founders Cheryl Yeoh of CityPockets and Eloise Bune of GraciousEloise will begin speaking at 7 p.m. but the event will kick off at 6 p.m. with an introduction by Matt Wolfrom of Makovsky and Company, the event's sponsor. Founder Friday is free, and open to people of all genders, unlike the LOL-inducing "Jews against the Internet" rally, which is $10 and closed to women. Unfortunately, Founder Friday is already at capacity. Add your name to the wait list and cross your fingers.

RALLY IN THE ALLEY. The Association for a Better New York Foundation and Mayor Bloomberg honored the city's technology leaders in Union Square last Thursday including Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley, Greycroft's Alan Patricof, ideeli CEO Paul Hurley and NYTM cofounder Dawn Barber. The Lew Rudin Founder's Award went to New York City deputy mayor for economic development Robert Steel.

MEDIUM MAYHEM. Shelby.tv sat squarely at the intersection of social media and video and last week they began making strides to kick to competition down the block. At The Next Web 2012, cofounder Reece Pacheco unveiled Shelby GT, currently operating in private beta. "Rolls," a tool for organization, curation and the sharing of videos by way of tweets, Facebook posts and other social platforms, make up the centerpiece of this latest social video iteration. Request a private beta invitation to the virtual viewing party here.

DESIGNBOX. Last week LayerVault, an online, unlimited storage space for design files, underwent a redesign adding color extraction and an ability to measure mockups. The "Github for designers" has also introduced "Wormhole," a way to search art files visually by highlighting different design components. That recent shell-out for CS5 might feel a little worse now.

CLOTHES BUY YOU. New York fashion ecommerce company Ruby Ribbon got a $3 million go ahead from Trinity Ventures to launch, sell and market a fashion line "exclusively through social commerce." The company plans to connect to customers on a highly personal level through a national network of stylists who will introduce customers to Ruby Ribbon products at private social functions and in their homes. Ruby Ribbon has been operating stealthily, without so much as a landing page, until today.

PURCHASEST. Ever come across something on Pinterest that you wanted to buy? Well now you can! Sort of. The Fancy wants to treat your eyeballs like a lady while and your wallet like... well pretty much how everyone else treats your wallet. "Everything you see on the site is for sale, or can be for sale, in a function that operates like Groupon in reverse," a press release said. "If someone posts something that develops a huge following -- merchants can come online to sell that item and meet the demand." Fancy just hit half a million users and has big name backers like Square's Jack Dorsey and Facebook's Chris Hughes.

WARBY DARKER. Online prescription eyewear retailer Warby Parker just launched a new line of snazzy prescription sunglasses. At $120 they're a little pricier than their non-polarized counterparts.

COMMUTE. Spotify is on the hunt for a senior product manager with at least five years of experience to drive user revenue. App management platform Appboy wants to add a developer to its small team to provide the server backend for mobile client SDKs and the developer dashboard.

The new Behance

HOP SCOTCH. New York City based Next Jump, a company that strives to better match consumers with businesses, has raised over $500,000 to bring technology into more than 750 classrooms. The campaign, which started late last year, funds projects submitted through DonorsChoose by shoppers on OO.com, Next Jump's discounts and deals website. The initiative has already impacted the lives of 85,000 NYC students, most of them in needy public schools.

TARGET MARKET. PeerIndex, the social influence marketing platform, has raised nearly $3 million in Series A funding led by Antrak Capital. NYC resident and former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer also invested in the round. PeerIndex, whose CTO is New York tech evangelist Sanford Dickert,  seeks to identify "influential individuals" on social media and "facilitates sampling interactions between brands and these influencers." Sounds effective—but kind of creepy.

TECHATHON. "April's" New York Tech Meetup is on March 27 at NYU's Skirball Auditorium with News.me, The Birdy, SpotlessCity and HotM-FakeGirlfriend.co confirmed to demo. The event will once again be streamed to New Work City and General Assemb.ly. Get your tickets here.

REHANCE. Behance relaunched yesterday and, boy does it look good. Now users will be greeted with a new landing page and an "explore" tab that allows users to filter their search based on medium, equipment used, creative field and location. Of course, they've also added a Facebookesque "activity feed" where other people in the Behance network can share and curate other work they like. With the goal of removing obstacles between artists and projects, the Behance platform aims to make showcasing and promoting creative work easier and more efficient. It allows for syndication and integration into ProSite, a Behance owned custom portfolio building platform.

SELL, SELL, SELL. Fab really doesn't need any more publicity—the company announced their three million member milestone at the London Web Summit—but we thought we should at least point this out: in under nine months, Fab has sold a million items. That breaks down to 2.6 sales a minute.

START 'ER UP. Business Insider's Startup 2012 Competition is coming up on May 3. Ten lucky startups will present to a VC panel for a chance to win $25,000 in cash and $50,000 in services. Applications close March 30.

CRAIN BRAIN. Do you know of a business that's over three years old with less than $100 million in the bank? If so, it's eligible for Crain's New York Business Top Entrepreneurs competition. The winner will appear in a May issue of Crain's. Enter your favorite (or your own) startup here by March 23.

DATA RESTRAINT. As a part of its Data Transparency Week, the Wall Street Journal is inviting developers to a code-a-thon to create "web tools that promote data transparency and control." Entry is free and $500 travel stipends are available, but the event is "open only to qualified participants," so if you don't know your   from your href just stay home. The event is April 13-15. For more information and to apply, click here.

TURN YOUR HEAD AND CASH. Startup accelerator Blueprint Health wants to help entrepreneurs improve the wellness industry with a three-month long startup bootcamp program and $20,000 of seed capital. Qualifying startups will have access to a shared work space, mentorship and angel and VC investors. Apply by June 8 here.

PUTTING UP WALLS. Banters, the platform devoted to saving life's quotable moments, just rolled out the site's newest feature: walls. Just like Facebook, Banters walls allow anyone to contribute but privacy controls give the user the option to approve quotes before they're made public.

ADAPTING. Mike Finnegan is the new VP of client services at social media ad company Adaptly, which handles social media for PepsiCo and News Corp. among others.

SAGE WORKS YOU. Sageworks is currently hiring for a number of positions including senior software engineer and, media relations associate, junior software developer and network engineer. Check out all the available jobs here.

Mr. Wanamaker.

DIVERSITY. Black Techies Meetup is tonight. "This meetup exists because I was damn tired of being the only black person at other tech meetups," says Tumblr dev Kyle Wanamaker. "We aim to be a network of developers in NYC interested in becoming better, learning from each other and networking. Developers of all skill levels are welcome, from experienced hardcore, neckbeard hackers, to n00bs. If you want to be awesome, or more awesome, I hope you can find yourself at home here." 7 p.m., at Tumblr's HQ.

HOLIDAY GIVING. "Reqoop, an NYC-based startup that enables shoppers to share discoveries they make from brick-and-mortar stores, while they’re out shopping, and earn rewards for sharing their finds...  just kicked off a campaign to help raise funds for goods for good, a NYC & Malawai-based organization that takes excess and surplus goods, like fabrics and school and health supplies, and creates opportunities for communities in Malawi (goods4good.org). The campaign is called "Snap for Good" and it's pretty straightforward: for every style find that shoppers snap using the Reqoop app while they're out shopping in December, we will donate $1 to goods for good. We're hoping to raise $2,000."

UPDATE. General Assembly-based Bubble has made some updates to its app. "We're taking Bubbles (hashtags) and attaching them to interests to let you follow them in a different way, by discovering what everyone is sharing about that interest," founder Lee Hnetinka wrote to Betabeat in an email. "So maybe you like Dubset? Join the Bubble for it and whenever someone shares a song they're listening with the hashtag #dubset, you'll be able to discover it."

TRACKIN UR MEDIAS. "Adaptly helps companies advertise on social networks not just for clicks, but to increase engagement. Today it unveiled its new standard for how that is measured. Adaptly Momentum tracks over 160+ interaction criteria across all major social networks so its clients can measure the effect of paid, earned and owned media."

WHO IS HIRING. Charlie O'Donnell seeks an intern for his newsletter, This Week in the NYC Innovation Community, which he sends out every week. He imagines about five to seven hours a week. "It will be paid, but not terribly much," he writes. Go work at betaworks! Bit.ly seeks a "sales research associate," and News.me seeks a senior iOS developer and Python engineer.

Startup Weekend Edmonton. (flickr.com/mastermaq)

CONQUER THE WORLD. Startup Weekend just closed a partnership with the Kauffman Foundation; now it's announced a two-year agreement with Google. "Google is supporting Startup Weekend through a global sponsorship, which will not only allow for the expansion of current operations, but also enable the global roll-out of pre-Startup Weekend Google developer workshops and vertical specific initiatives in areas such as education and health."

SAVE AMIT. Seth Godin, Michael Galpert, and Jakob Lodwick have pledged $10,000 each for the first person whose marrow matches that of Amit Gupta, recently diagnosed with leukemia. Party and cheek swabbing session on Friday at New Work City.

CROWDED ROOM. "IAC (NASDAQ: IACI) announced Crowded Room, a new location-based service created to connect users who frequent similar places, have shared interests and mutual friends. The service makes socializing, networking and dating easier by digitally identifying common bonds and putting personality to the faces in a crowded room."

BIRCHBOX LAUNCHES FOR MEN. Birchboxman.com.

HIRING. The New York Times needs a front end developer, a business intelligence lead for R&D; Y Charts, which just raised$3.25 million, wants a senior developer; Warby Parker needs an operations associate.

BETAS. Unroll.me, for removing email subscriptions. GoalSay, a goal-tracking app. Rawporter.com, citizen journalism. AppQuu, Instapaper for apps.

SYNDICATES. "Any blogger can signup with tid.al to get more exposure for their posts by having them syndicated on top brands and publishers. We programatically pick the most influential bloggers and their best posts." Tidal launches with Google/Zagat (forkandtell.zagat.com) and Condé Nast (fashion.teenvogue.com).

POACHED! "NYC-based Adaptly has appointed Paul Turner as Adaptly’s new GM of EMEA to lead its expansion from New York to London. Paul comes to Adaptly from Google where he was head of EMEA for Invite Media (acquired by Google/Doubleclick last year)."