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.

It's that time of the year again! There are holiday parties happening everywhere you look. This week alone has a ton, including Buzzfeed, Aol/Huffington Post, The Verge, Gawker Media, the New York Observer, WeWork Labs, Projective Space, Refinery29 and many, many more. So go crazy and party hard--but go easy on the eggnog ;).

As you know, schools all over the city have been affected by Sandy, with some still closed to students. This Tuesday, the local tech community is coming together to put on a fundraiser (in the form of a party) for schools that have been affected by the recent hurricane. You can sign up here (the password is: helpourschools).

On Wednesday is 121212, the concert for Sandy relief at Madison Square Garden. Proceeds go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund. Performing will be Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Kanye West, The Who, Paul McCartney and many more.

And on Sunday, my friends at the Times Square Art Square are planning a Pledge a Sketch marathon, rallying 100 local artists to create 100 portrait sketches each to raise $100,000 for two worthy causes: Art Square 2013 and the NYFA Emergency Relief Fund. Here's the Artist Registration Page and here's the Portrait Order Form.

Congrats to Michael Fedyna and Wenqi Shao for winning the two free tickets Gary's Guide raffled off for the upcoming Mobile Loco conference in San Francisco on December 11. And thanks to everyone who participated!

FYI, December 19 is the deadline to apply to the FinTech Innovation Lab, an annual 12-week accelerator program run by the Partnership for New York City Fund and Accenture. They accept six early and growth-stage companies targeted at financial services customers. Last week I met some of the folks involved including entrepreneurs who've participated, and this definitely feels like a terrific program. So go apply for it. Here are some Demo Day videos from previous companies.

Last week I mentioned my urge to go on a kickass fitness regimen, and a couple hundred folks emailed me back with words of encouragement, advice and some amazing tips and recommendations regarding fitness and diet programs. Thanks!! Super grateful for all the support and will keep you guys updated on my progress. The suggestions were varied and diverse and included The 4 Hour Body, Slow Carb Cookbook, P90X, Parsely's The Startup Diet, Insanity, David Teten's Fitness and Productivity in the Office, Natural Organic Method & Movements, Animal Walk Exercises, Healthy Smoothie Recipes, Change Anything, RoadRunners, Monkey Bar Gym and many, many more!

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

Women Transforming our Financial Markets Symposium
With John Frankel (ff Venture Capital), Sara Hanks (CrowdCheck), Jason Jones (HighStep Capital), Brian Meece (RocketHub), Kathleen Murray (angel investor) and others.
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 8 a.m. @ Chadbourne & Parke, 30 Rockefeller Plaza

FashInvest 2012 Capital Conference
With Daymond John (CEO, FUBU and star of ABC's "Shark Tank"), Lawrence Lenihan (founder, FirstMark Capital), Daniel Schultz (cofounder, DFJ Gotham), Chantel Waterbury (founder and CEO, Chloe & Isabel) and others.
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 9 a.m. @ Fashion Institute of Technology, 7th Avenue at 27th Street, Katie Murphy Amphitheater

10 Startup Mistakes to Avoid
With David Tisch (managing partner, BoxGroup and cofounder, TechStars NYC), Phin Barnes (partner, First Round Capital), Wiley Cerilli (Former CEO, SinglePlatform; VP, Constant Contact), Dennis Morgan (former CFO, Buddy Media) and Kathryn Minshew (founder and CEO, The Daily Muse).
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 5 p.m. @ Orrick at The CBS Building, 51 W. 52nd Street, 23rd Fl.

Bring in the Music Bring in the Funk: Music and Brand Fusion in a Digital Age
With John McCarus (SVP, Digitas), John Mitchell (VP US Sales, Spotify), Camille Hackney (SVP Brand Partnerships, Atlantic Records) and Bruce McKenzie (GM, Green Light Music).
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 6 p.m. @ 250 Hudson Street

Rebuilding Our Schools: A Fundraiser (In The Form Of A Party) For Schools Affected By Hurricane Sandy
Silent auction includes tickets to Discovery Times Square, BarkBox gift box, Warby Parker gift card, TastyBite gift basket and more.
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 6:30 p.m. @ EasyBib HQ, 12 W. 31st Street

How Content Is Changing The Way We Shop
With Alison Feldmann (editor-in-chief, Etsy) and Erin Griffith (PandoDaily).
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 7 p.m. @ Outbrain HQ, 39 W. 13th Street, 3rd Fl.

Law to Venture Capital Panel
Eric Wiesen (RRE Ventures), Joy Marcus (DFJ Gotham), David Tisch (BoxGroup) and Matt Turck (Bloomberg Ventures).
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 8 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Best Practices: How to go from Concept to Millions
With Andres Blank (cofounder of Pixable, acquired for $26.5 million by SingTel) and Lucinda Duncalfe (founder of TurnTide, acquired by Symanted for $28 million).
Wednesday (Dec. 12), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern School of Business, 44 West Fourth St, Room 2-60

121212: The Concert for Sandy Relief to Benefit the Robin Hood Relief Fund
With Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin, Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Eddie Vedder, Kanye West, The Who, Paul McCartney and more.
Wednesday (Dec. 12), 7:30 p.m. @ Madison Square Garden, 4 Penn Plaza

WeWork Labs Holiday Party
Holiday party with members and friends of WeWork Labs! There'll be beer, wine, Macallan, and light food.
Wednesday (Dec. 12), 8 p.m. @ WeWork Lounge, 177 Lafayette Street

Investor Feedback Forum
Panelists include Nasir Ali (StartFast Venture Accelerator), Jay Levy (Zelkova Ventures), Paul Sethi (PKS Capital Intl) and Matthew Witheiler(Flybridge Capital Partners). Startup pitches by Consignd, Applique, Aggregift, Merocrat, Point Payments, MedStartr, autoWorkout, MMGuardian and Feelday.
Thursday (Dec. 13), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 6th Avenue

StartupBus: Accelerate NYC 2012
A six-hour intensive workshop for entrepreneurs at all levels.
Saturday (Dec. 15), 10 a.m. @ The Alley, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

NYU ITP Winter Show
A two-day exhibition of recent works by the students of ITP.
Sunday (Dec. 16), 2 p.m. @ NYU ITP - Tisch School of the Arts, 721 Broadway, 4th Fl.

More events on the horizon...

NJ Tech Meetup 31 on Dec 17 @ Howe Center Bissinger Room
Fireside Chat with Reshma Saujani Founder of Girls Who Code on Dec 17 @ AppNexus
The Anatomy of a Hackathon on Dec 17 @ General Assembly East
December NY Enterprise Technology Meetup on Dec 18 @ Cooley
Windows 8 Launch Celebration! on Dec 18 @ Microsoft
Queens Tech Meetup 5 & Holiday Party on Dec 19 @ See Exhibition Space

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

The #SandyCam awaits the action. (Photo: Screenshot)

The wind is already whipping and New Yorkers, having bought up all the bottled water and discount Halloween candy they could find, are ready to hole up in their apartment for the next two days. It's not like you can hop on the ACE and go check out the scene at the waterfront, since the subway is shut down and all.

Luckily for anyone seeking a little vicarious storm-chasing, there's Livestream. The startup has installed a camera on the roof of its Chelsea HQ and will be broadcasting the storm's transit across downtown on what they've dubbed #SandyCam.

"We just decided to scramble everybody, and they'll be working and locking in with food and maybe even sleeping in the office Monday and Tuesday," Livestream CEO Max Haot told Betabeat. Now that's dedication.

By "everybody," he means a skeleton production crew of about five people, who'll be responsible for the feed. The rest of the company's New York employees will be working from home. For his part, Mr. Haot is coordinating the efforts from afar, as he is currently stuck in Las Vegas. "I'll be safe, but without my wife," he said.

The motivation behind this last-minute effort, which wasn't even conceived until Sunday morning? "Basically, we didn't see any good coverage of [Sandy] in the media that's really, like, very interactive, simple, and 24/7," Mr. Haot explained.

Going on infrastructure alone, Livestream was well positioned to provide just that: "Our office happens to be in one of the most connected buildings, both for video fiber and also in terms of power," he said, explaining they've got backup generators on the roof in case of a total blackout. (Hurricane party at 111 Eighth Avenue?)

At the moment, the stream is merely a placid view of downtown, with a NOAA warning on endless loop and a stream of chats. But once the storm really gets going sometime later this afternoon, the excitement will ramp up accordingly. In addition to audio ("so people can really hear the noise and the sounds of the wind"), Livestream will be aggregating the best user-generated footage shot on their remote streaming mobile apps. The company is also dispatching citizen journalist Tim Poole with a specially equipped Jeep and team to shoot photos and live footage across the city, "as long as it's safe."

"That could get quite interesting, to weave that in, instead of just the static camera," added Mr. Haot.

There's a good chance the page will attract quite a few eyeballs as the weather plays out. Even with a very basic setup for last year's Hurricane Irene, said Mr. Haot, "we reached about 100,000 uniques and 30,000 concurrents during the evening, and obviously that was editorially not very compelling and not as big as this." The stream and the entire page are also embeddable, for maximum distribution.

"It could get very interesting in terms of crowd-sourced live news coverage," he said.

Well, it's not the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore being buffeted about in a blue anorak, but it'll certainly do in a pinch.