The Grotto

I am starting to learn that when my hiking book tells me the hike is easy - it means it's easy for someone like Lance Armstrong. My hike this weekend led me to The Grotto, which is a hiking trail in mountains above Malibu. The weather was kind of weird in LA on Sunday, but it was good for a hike because it wasn't too hot. As you can tell from the pictures it was really overcast plus I was at a high elevation and being so close to the ocean, the clouds were right above me. It was pretty cool. I was actually kind of scared though because there were not a lot of people on the trail and paranoid me thought I was going to get attacked by a snake or mountain lion or fall in to the canyon. Luckily that did not happen. I met a scientist on the way back up who was in town doing research and having conferences about deadly disease outbreaks, which I thought was an interesting job until he nonchalantly said "There was an emergency in Oxnard (about an hour from LA) that I had to check out" That is probably normal for him, but I definitely took a double take. But he just kept on talking. So anyway, aside from impending doom, the grotto trail leads down to a bunch of huge rocks that were formed from a volcanic eruption (actually that is doomy, where is this volcano?). Depending on the season a creek runs through the rocks and forms water falls. There was water running through, but it wasn't high. I didn't climb a ton around the rocks because I was scared about my foot, but I would like to go back and check it out. It was like a natural playground.

This was at the top of the canyon at the ranger station. I feel like it looks really eerie.


Looking out in to the canyon.


The Canyon


A meadow that you pass through on the way down.


You can't tell from this, but these rocks were the size of freight trucks.

Wiggity Weekend

This weekend was pretty cool. Friday night I went on a mini movie marathon and saw Sunshine Cleaning and Duplicity. Both were good. Sunshine Cleaning was good, I just think it may have been missing something. Duplicity was very good. Very consistent, very Ocean's Elevenish.

Saturday I participated in Earth Hour, which was kind of interesting. You are supposed to be electricity-less for one hour. I was pretty bored and waiting until the time when I could use electricity again. I sat outside and drank a beer and read by candle light and flash light. I played on the internet until it ran out of battery. I ate dinner by candlelight. I listened to the people below me talk about the TV show - It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, which I really need to rent. I played with the cats using one of those laser beam pointer things. So I was basically playing laser cats. Ha ha. Then my roommate came home and ruined everything cause she HAD to use electricity. She couldn't wait 10 minutes? So anyway, I did all of these things in an hour and still I was kind of bored at times. I think I am just way too addicted to the internet and TV and lights.
I will post a separate entry with pictures from my Sunday hike.

This Is Just Insane

I have no idea what this is or what is going on, I think it is an old soap opera star. I do know that this is freaking hysterical. Kudos Me!

Celebrity Sighting

This week's celebrity sighting is brought to you by the psychiatrists in my building.
As I was walking out of my office, Lizzy Caplan was walking out of a psychiatrist's office. Incidentally, the same one I saw Sarah Silverman go to. I love Lizzy Caplan, however I had no idea what her name was because I only know her as Janis Ian from Mean Girls. If you don't know her from that she was also in True Blood and in a new show that is starting soon I think. It looks good. But I was pretty excited since Mean Girls is one of my faves. She looked at me and smiled and I said - "You smell like a baby prostitute". Just kidding I didn't say that. I didn't say anything actually, I just smiled back. Oh for those who don't have lines memorized from Mean Girls, the baby prostitute line comes from the movie.

In honor of this sighting I give you "Built This Way" that is in the movie. I love this song. Ironically it's written/sung by Lindsey's gf Sam Ronson. I wonder if that's how they met back in 2004.

Hiking Up to the Hollywood Sign

Today I went hiking up to the Hollywood sign. It was so cool. The trail gives 360 views of LA and it was a pretty clear day so pictures turned out pretty cool.
First of all the neighborhood that leads up to this trail is so cute. It's called Beachwood Canyon. It had ridiculously huge mansions mixed with little cottages that you would see in a little Irish village. It was very unique and diverse. Much like LA. Here are pictures from my hike.


This is in the little area called Beachwood Village that leads up to the trail. The Hollywood sign used to be HOLLYWOODLAND because it was an advertisement for the home development they were building in 1923.





This is the valley which is the side of the hills that I live in. You can see Burbank and the Verdugo Mountaint and the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance, that still have snow on them. You can't really see that in the picture.



The Hollywood Reservoir with Century City in the distance.



Downtown LA in the distance.



Downtown LA



The chain link fence that stops people from getting close to the sign.



The cameras that watch the sign. There are also motion detectors, alarms and audio warning systems. They really don't want people near there.



This is a dog I accosted on the way out. He is so handsome. The lady holding him couldn't speak english and I think she was a little scared when I pulled out my camera.

Chocolate Party

My coworker had a birthday party with a chocolate theme. There was every kind of chocolate desert you can think of along with different chocolate alcohols. It was super sickly sweet. I made s'mores bars, which were a lot of fun and so good. There were so many leftovers. This is a picture after the party, so I will pretty much be eating chocolate crap all week at work.

I Never Said I Was Role Model

So for this St Patrick's Day evening I went to watch one of my managers sing in a band. He sings with the Harry Gold Band, which is a cover band. They did a really good job. Harry Gold owns a medium size talent agency and he is also Tracy Gold from Growing Pains father. She was there and really cute and dancing and singing with her dad's band. It's been like, almost 20 years since that show has been on and I think she looks exactly the same. Also random and pretty surreal was when they played "Help from My Friends" with the dad from The Wonder Years sitting right there.

After that I went to a Karaoke bar called The Brass Monkey. As I got there a fight was just being cleared and I heard some dude say "Sorry man, that's just the Armenian in me" Oh OK - If that's your excuse, fight away. Anyway, supposedly there were glasses thrown and it was just nutso. The DJ said there had never been a fight in there before.
Then he said - You can fight all you want in here but you still can't beat this girl:



I love her. That video and these pictures are the reasons why Natalie is one of my fave actresses. Besides the fact that she is great at acting.

This Isn't Called Foo Foo Sweet Love Boot Camp

That is a quote from Tough Love, which premiered tonight on VH1. It's of course hysterical like most reality TV shows with crazy people on them. But the funniest part about it is that Steve Ward went to my college and I am not sure how he wrangled up this TV show. He was the guy that everyone made fun of cause he was so full of himself and clearly he still is since he thinks his opinion is so valuable that he can center a whole TV show around it. I must admit, it is pretty funny when he yells at some of these super stupid woman. Well good on you, Steve Ward, good on you.

New Blog

OK based off of the blog I mentioned below - Rules For My Unborn Son, my friend Kim suggested making one for albums. Since I am obsessed with music, I thought that would be fun and clearly I am obsessed with blogging as well.
So check it out - Albums For My Unborn Kid

The New Since You've Been Gone

I love the new Kelly Clarkson album and I'd like to introduce you to the 2009 version of "Since You've Been Gone". This one is not as good, obviously, since SYBG is one of the greatest pop songs ever created. But still super fun and written by Katy Perry.

I Do Not Hook Up - Kelly Clark...

In other recent album releases:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz: Amazing.
U2 - No Line On The Horizon: Better than I expected based off that horrific Boots single and Grammy performance. I need to give it a few more listens.

So Cute

My niece posted this on her blog - It is so adorable, I had to add it here. This is just screaming for a movie deal. Behold - the next Diablo Cody story.

http://rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com/

I Love Greatest (FIll in the Blank) Ever Lists

ChordStrike lists their opinion of the greatest singer songwriter albums of all time. I think its pretty good. I think some things are missing, but all in all a decent list. There are no artist duplications. Interesting to note - George Harrison comes before John Lennon, and I like it. I also like that there is alot of chicks on there. Alot of polls seem to forget the ladies when it comes to picking best of lists. I will be listening to these at work tomorrow, because there are quite a few that I am not familiar with. That will be fun for my heavy metal listening coworkers who pretty much hate most of the music I listen to - Ha ha ha. Sucks for them. Kill yourself music all day!!!! Especially when we listen to Nick Drake who's #4 on the list.
Click here to see it all for yoself.

Hellbucks

I have officially been laid off from Starbucks. Corporate Starbucks is making stores get rid of people who only work a few hours a week. Due to the fact that I only work a few hours on the weekend, that means me.


This is both a blessing and an annoyance. I wanted to leave there - but I wanted to do it in my own time. Also I will lose my discount - which really sucks.



So I will begin the task of looking for another part time job. I had actually been doing that anyway (I applied to be a park ranger the other day - for some reason they didn't call). But I did have some promising news already, however I am not sure how much it will pay. One of the partners at my company is mainly in to promotions. Every weekend he flies celebrities out to Vegas and organizes a party for them and they pay him. So he needs someone to internet stalk for him and find out when their birthdays are, special occassions, etc... So that is right up my alley. I need to find out more info, but I think it will be fun.

Non Photography

The picture I posted the other day of Westwood was from a photographer that I found that calls her stuff No Rules photography. It is basically taking pictures and developing pictures in a non conventional way. It has really inspired me to get back into taking pictures. Her name is Nitsa, but I don't know too much about her. Here is some more of her stuff. I am going to go read up on it at her website.

Homeless or Micky Rourke

This is what Micky Rourke wore to a really expensive restaurant, Nello, in NY last night. He is just so darn crazy.

A Day of Firsts

Last weekend a friend of mine was in town and we hung out with her friend who lives in Westwood. Westwood is the area of LA that houses UCLA so it is a lot of college kids and it such a cute neighborhood. It is a good central location as it is right next to Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, on one side, and on the other Brentwood and Santa Monica. I will definitely be looking in that area when trying to move in a few months. But I hope that I won't get sucked in to acting like I am in college again with the UCLA kids. So, anyway, I ended up doing all these things I've never done before. It was really fun.

Awesome picture of rainy Westwood Village.


First I tried heroin, just kidding. First, we went out to dinner at a Persian Restaurant that I don't know how to spell. I have never tried Persian but it was really good. I had rice and chicken kabobs which were basically grilled, tender chicken. There was this yogurt drink that was a little scary though. But my friends loved it. Persian food reminds me of a less seasoned version of indian food.

Then we went to Whiskey Blue at the W Hotel which is a part of Rande Gerber's empire of hotels and restaurants. We got there early at like 10:00 so we wouldn't have to wait in line. It was pretty nice. We got a drink and went and sat down.



After a few minutes I look over and see Lauren Conrad and Lo Bosworth sitting right next to us. LC has been someone I have wanted to see since I moved here, so I was super excited. They were with another person and at first I thought it seemed interviewish, but after a while it looked like they were friends. They talked for like 45 minutes. They weren't really drinking anything and they were dressed really cute. Pretty much how they look all the time on the show. Also - they were a normal size. Not disgustingly skinny. They just looked normal.



After awhile they got up and walked toward another section of the club/bar/lounge and LC side hugged the random girl and said "Ahhhhhhhhhh". They went in the other section, which was in the direction of the smoking section and then headed out. We stayed there for a few more hours and then went to a Hookah lounge.



I think I may have smoked Hookah once in college cause the guys in my hall smoked it a lot, but I don't really remember. The place had all these different flavors of hookah and you pick one and they put it in this crazy contraption and smoke it. It's like flavored tobacco. We had strawberry flavor. We also had some delicious hummus and another something new of grape leaves with rice in them. The place was cool - they played middle eastern music, served Lebanese beer, good food and hookah.
Then I went back to my friend's hotel in Beverly Hills, the Avalon, which was pretty cool. All in all a fun weekend filled with new experiences and star sightings.

Free at Noon

In honor of XPN's Free at Noon that I wish I was at in Philly today with Indigo Girls and Shemekia Copeland
These two ladies are awesome, and this is one of my favorite songs by them.

Romeo And Juliet - Indigo Girl...

In honor of this awesome song written by Mark Knopler (Dire Straits) I give you the Killers version.

Song for Your Gansta Ass Day

Cause I'm feeling a little gangsta - Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta - Ghetto Boys

Night Before/Day of The Oscars

Because it's taken me so long to get these up I am not even writing about it, I just want to get it up. I will say, it was pretty cool. Security was insane. And I saw Dominic Cooper (Amanda Seigfried boyfriend in Mamma Mia) at the Renaissance Hotel bar after I stalked around.












The street is closed down for what seemed like 6 blocks on the day of. They had security with metal detectors a block away, so if you wanted to go to the McDonalds across the street from the Kodak Theater, you had to have the security wand you down and look in your bag. It was pretty intense, but you never know, there's alot of crazy actors in this town that may want revenge against the system.


All in all, a very interesting experience. The feeling in Los Angeles is interesting for the awards. There are people like me who get excited to watch them and turn it in to an event, and there are people who hate them and won't watch them. Which is pretty much like anywhere else. A lot of people think they are boring and won't watch, but the people who won't watch them in LA do it for a different reason. They are usually jaded and bitter, or think the process is too political, or don't think the people nominated deserve it, etc..
For example my one co-worker won't watch them until he goes to them. My other co-worker thinks the whole thing is rigged and whatever studio bribes the voters enough gets the prize. This may be true.
But for me, I still get as excited about it as I did when I first started watching as a kid and I wish I could have dressed up as a movie and been at Karen's yearly Oscar party. Maybe after a year in this industry I can look forward to being bitter and jaded. But I hope not. I hope my childhood fascination and excitement stays with me no matter how many actors/casting directors/agents yell at me in a day.