Well, THAT Was Fun

Normally it takes me 45 minutes to get from Santa Monica to Santa Clarita. Today, it took me 1 hour, 35 minutes.

15 minutes spent just getting ON the 405 freeway to go north, because for no apparent reason, the 10E-405N interchange was ridiculously backed up.

Then after I finally broke free of that, I got right past the last exit before you go down the hill towards the 101 when traffic ground to a complete halt.

Just under two miles and just over 35 minutes later, I finally passed the source: A flipped-on-its-side pickup truck, along with the Scion that apparently hit it (whose entire front end had been reduced to a six-inch scrunch of metal) and a Lexus that glanced off it with more moderate damage.

The whole thing closed down three of the six lanes of the 405, right before the giant mess of the 405-101 interchange. It was staggeringly awesome.

Continued Adventures With Celebrities and Fast Food

A few years ago, Martin Landau drove past me at the In-N-Out burger.

Tonight, it was Cameron Diaz at the Roller Derby enjoying a Hot Dog on a Stick (they bring their catering truck to the games and make a mint off the hungry hungry hipsters). I have to admit, it was a bit strange.

Not the weirdest celebrity sighting ever, or the most random (she was there with a friend who's directing a movie about Roller Derby), but still. Notable even in L.A. for its sheer oddity.

Gung Hay Fat Choy

Saturday I went to the Golden Dragon parade celebrating Chinese New Year with some friends, and my pictures are up.

I'm really happy with how these came out, since this is the first time I went shooting with my giant (70-300mm) lens and did manual focus the entire time.

I will say, this is the first parade I've been to in a while, and I'd forgotten how incredibly repetitive parades are: Dragon, dragon, float, marching band, dragon, marching band, Kung Fu school, dragon, dragon, marching band, dragon....

A few of the highlights (click to go to each photo's Flickr page:

Dragon Closeup

Drumming Dancers

Staring Dragon

Sword Swinger

Grr!

Wow, There ARE Mountains Here!

I was driving to meet a friend for brunch yesterday and saw a very unusual and rather breathtaking sight: The mountains behind Los Angeles, covered in snow, clear as a bell.

Here's an awesome picture of, basically, what I saw, (with a hat tip to LAist for pointing it out). Looks like that was taken a little later in the afternoon when some of the smog and clouds had started to return.

Given that this was the view of downtown from Mt. Hollywood just a couple weeks ago, (you'll note that you can't actually, you know, see downtown) I'd call yesterday's weather a substantial improvement.

I will say, as ugly and dopey as this city can be, when the smog clears up, it's really, really gorgeous here.

It Could Be Worse

I could have worked for a company that used Axium for its payroll services, since they just declared Chapter 7, leaving many creditors (including the IRS) with questions about where all the money went.

Defamer has been covering the whole mess pretty well (with "Rhymes With Shmembezzelment" being one of my favorite tags they've ever used), but the story's barely made a ripple with most of the local media.

Pseudonymous blogger Peggy Archer, who's a lighting tech and way better at explaining this stuff to non-entertainment-industry people than I am, explains both what payroll companies are in Hollywood:

For tax and unemployment insurance purposes, when we work, we are technically employees of the payroll company instead of the production company. This is not a bad thing - it cuts down on the tax-season paperwork (16 W 2 forms instead of 138) and reduces instances of in-house rubber checkitis (back in the bad old days of tiny shows run by fly-by-night production companies, one would pick up one’s check at the office and then drive like a bat out of hell to the production company’s bank to cash it while there were hopefully still funds in the account. When everyone started using payroll companies, the checks, when they eventually arrived, were usually good).

...and the worst case scenario:

...although the taxes were deducted from my checks, as of right now there’s no way to know if I fall into the happy group who had the deducted monies actually paid to the gub’mint. Since I doubt the IRS cares that I had the money deducted, they’ll probably make me pay twice.

‘Cause that’s how the IRS rolls.

As fucked as I am being unemployed, I'd be super-duper fucked if I had to somehow magically come up with my taxes twice because some douchebag embezzled all the money from the payroll company that was supposed to KEEP me from getting fucked.

My deepest sympathy goes out to Peggy (or whatever her real name is) and everyone else in this town who's about to have a real pleasant tax season because of these schmucks.

A Hike Through Griffith Park

As part of my Continued Adventures in Killing Time, my friend Lisa and I went for a little hike in Griffith Park (a moderate one was about all my ankle could take), and I decided to use the opportunity to practice taking some decent pictures.

More on my Flickr site, but here are some of my favorites (click to go to each picture's Flickr page):

Los Angeles Weather Update

In case the fact that the national news keeps harping on it has so far escaped your attention, it's a little rainy here.

How rainy, you ask? As of about an hour ago, Los Angeles has reached phase, "Animals fleeing, two-by-two."

Phase, "Hey, look, there's an Ark floating down Pico!" should come sometime Monday.

Seriously, I fear what four straight days of rain will do to this town that freaks out when the relative humidity rises above 70%.

'Twas The Night Before Strike-mas

'Twas the night before Strike-mas, and through Hollywood
Every crew member thought, "Oy, this can't be good."

The pink slips had been rolling on in for weeks
And news only came out in rumors and leaks.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds
While parents sought Advil to quiet their heads

I was sitting inside, bundled in winter gear
Having turned down the heat to try remain austere

When out in the alley honked a very loud horn;
'Twas a Teamster in his five-ton, looking forlorn

I opened my window and shouted "Hey, yo!
It's after midnight, don't you have somewhere to go?"

He replied, "It's all from the Christmas episode,
Fake trees and ornaments, an entire truckload.

Our vendors were shut down, our office laid off;
Every light in town seems to be turned off."

I asked, "Can't you take the truck to the studio?"
He said, "Their lot's so full, it's got no place to go."

I said, "Let's take it to Les Moonves's house!
He ought to have room, that $30-mil-a-year louse."

"Or Chernin or Grey," he said, "Or Barry Meyer,
Maybe Zucker or Sloan, or Lynton or Iger.

They all make good money, even Patric Verrone,
And some guy I saw on TV named Gavin Polone."

So I pulled on my jeans and I pulled on my boots,
The Teamster and I were now in cahoots.

We charted a course towards Beverly Hills
Ready to get in a last few cheap thrills.

With some inside tipsters and Google Maps Mobile
We took on a task...perhaps somewhat ignoble.

I will leave out the name of the victim selected
But do rest assured, he was quite well connected

We were dressed all in black from our heads to our feet,
To flummox security guards we might meet.

But our worries were baseless, 'twas no one nearby
As the shadow of the five-ton darkened the sky

We pulled up to the gates and claimed a delivery
Our friend didn't know it was heavy artillery.

We hung a huge banner urging negotiations
And left the truck there, despite protestations.

A silly and juvenile prank, to be sure,
But since when have crew kids ever been mature?

We fled the scene and I whipped out my crackberry
And called us a taxi to someplace more merry:

To the party of one friend who still had a job
And hadn't turned into an unemployed slob.

We drank to our family and friends and moreover
To the hope this will end before hell freezes over.

---

Now I end with a plea for a wee bit of reason
Though it sometimes seems such a thing's out of season

Please stop the name-calling through press releases
And try to begin to pick up the pieces.

For Peace is the one thing we B.T.L.'s seek
And the return of our 70-hour workweek.

Though I've fled from L.A. for a Christmas that's white,
Merry Strike-mas to all, and to all a good night.

Many thanks to the providers of the Online Rhyming Dictionary, without which this would have been even sillier.

An Inauspicious Sunday

Two items today that together are a real great way to kick off the week:


First, last night there were some serious Santa Ana winds blowing, and my power (and the power to the rest of my block) went out. To SoCal Edison's credit, it was back on within the hour.

However, one key item in my apartment building seems to have been permanently injured by the flickering of the power before it finally died: The hot water heater.

That's right, my apartment building has NO hot water. I lived with having cold water for laundry, figuring the soap was fine for most dirt, and the heat from the dryer would kill just about everything else.

The real problem occurred when I first discovered the lack of hot water...when I jumped in the shower after I came home from the gym, and thought I was about to freeze solid.

I shower at home when I go to the gym because the showers at my gym are horror-movie level disgusting. After freezing my ass off, waiting in vain for the water to warm up, I briefly reconsidered going back to the gym. Then I decided it was better to freeze.

After considering options (although forgetting a few: I thought of a couple people I could have called later to beg for the use of their unfrozen showers), I decided to run a bath, and then boil a bunch of water in the hopes of at least making things livably lukewarm.

That worked decently, except for the fact that my bathtub doesn't really seal off too well, so there was a slow draining that caused a minor race against the clock in terms of completing my ablutions.

I still had to gut out a minute of rinsing in the ice-cold shower water, but all in all, it could have been a lot worse.


Secondly, this story went up (and continues to go up in pieces), which makes me rather pessimistic about the strike. Nikki Finke, who runs Deadline Hollywood, can be rather full of herself, but she's also usually right on the money in terms of predicting what's going to happen.

The gist of that story for those who don't feel like reading the inside-baseball account is that a large number of the moguls are willing to let the writers walk, losses at the box office and the ratings be damned.

The whole thing is shaping up to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions, although I can't imagine that either the Governator or Mayor Villaraigosa won't step in and try to smack some sense into these people, given how fiscally disastrous a strike would be for the L.A. economy.

The last big Hollywood strike, a 22 week writers' strike in '88, cost the studios alone over $500 million, and the ripple effect into the local economy was well over a billion.

I don't think it's a stretch at all to say between inflation and the significantly larger entertainment business, this strike could cost L.A. a billion dollars a month.

As for me, I'm stocking up on Ramen and canned goods and cat food, and battening down the hatches.

I'm lucky enough that I think my bosses will have enough for me to do (and enough reserve funds) to keep me at least partially employed through the end of the year. But if the strike drags on for four or five months, I don't know how long they can continue to justify paying me.

The sad thing is, I'm far better off than most. If the writers walk November 1st, most of my friends will be out of work by Thanksgiving. And accepted wisdom is if they walk then, there's no way they're back before the first of the year.

There will be some feature production, as anything that's already got a script is going to get made, but it's not going to be nearly enough to make up for the huge number of TV people who suddenly become unemployed.

I keep hearing the argument that I shouldn't stress about it because there's nothing I can do about it. While it's true that I have no control over this mess, that just makes me stress about it even more.

I tend to get more worried about things I can't control because I can't do anything about them. If I can do something, then I get up and do it and it's done. All I can do now is sit on the sidelines and hope these guys don't wind up driving this whole industry over a cliff.

Sadly, the consensus seems to be that both sides are so pissed off at each other that they don't realize they're about to do just that.

This Can't Be Good

Ah, fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

As the potential armageddon draws closer and on a day when I'm not as tired, I'll go into more detail about exactly what a strike would mean, both to the industry in general and to me in particular.

Suffice to say for now, I'm becoming very, very glad that I'm going to be in Chicago this weekend, away from the HOLLYWOOD STRIKEWATCH! madness seizing this town.

Quake 1

I felt my first earthquake last night.

I will say, I didn't really realize it was a quake at the time. There was a big jolt and then a little residual shaking, and I figured someone had just dropped something heavy on the stairs.

This is partly because the last time I felt my bed shaking in the middle of the night and thought it was a quake, I looked up I saw Chaplin vigorously licking his own ass on the other end of the bed. So I figured this was some similarly silly explanation.

There was also very little knocked over. The only thing that I recall being out of place this morning was a shower squeegee that fell from its perch into the shower.

But when I came in, everyone was talking about how they felt the quake in the middle of the night (member of the accounting team: "I thought, ah hell, am I going to have to get out of bed?").

I'm just glad the first quake I felt wasn't some huge Northridge-level quake, but a relatively lame one. Although I'm sure I'll now be shouting "QUAKE!" and sprinting to the nearest doorframe every time a big truck drives by for the next couple of weeks.

Fiscal Responsibility Sucks Ass

God DAMN it.

I stopped by Best Buy tonight to continue my ongoing research into rigging a GPS into my car by actually looking at one in person. I wasn't planning on buying anything (for reasons I will elaborate on later in the post), but then I saw two things:

1. Martin Starr, who played Haverchuck on Freaks and Geeks, among many other hilarious roles

2. Holding a Wii.

I have wanted a Wii for several months now. I'd resolved to buy one at Best Buy, as I have about $100 worth of gift cards, bringing the price down to just under $200 (including tax and a second Wiimote). And really, what else does Best Buy sell that am I not going to find cheaper online?

Unfortunately, Best Buy is always sold out of Wiis when I go, and they generally sell out any shipment they get within a couple of hours. Seeing Starr holding a Wii was the first time I'd actually seen one in a customer's hands. I had to know if there were more.

So dispensing with my "do not approach people whose work you enjoy" policy, I went up to him and said, "excuse me, where did you get that Wii?" And he pointed out the stack around the corner. I thanked him and fled.

Oh, that stack taunted me, I tell you. But alas, there were two problems with buying a Wii an hour ago, both of which Joel reminded me of when I called and begged him to talk some sense into me:

Problem the first: I just got stuck with a big old pile of medical bills for my foot surgery, plus my physical therapy bill is swiftly approaching $500, and it appears it will not stop there. $25 a visit adds up distressingly fast.

Problem the second: I am leaning towards moving downstairs over Labor Day Weekend, and I'm estimating the one-time expenses for that (cleaning fee, moving supplies, movers because everyone I know is out of town that weekend, etc.) at about $600.

So basically, I am broke as a joke, and even the modest sum a Wii commands with gift cards factored in is currently out of my reach. Still, I was damn tempted.

It took every ounce of restraint I have to walk away from that pile of Wiis. It is a decision I am sure I will regret in a couple months when my finances loosen up and I still can't find a damn Wii in a Best Buy.

Why I Almost Never Go To The Movies Anymore

I saw three movies in various theaters this weekend, the first movies I'd seen in theaters since Christmas. I quickly remembered why I generally wait for things to hit Netflix or HBO. The movies were:

Movie #1: Knocked Up, at the Zanuck Theater on the Fox Lot. Free.
Movie #2: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, at the Mann Criterion in Santa Monica. $10.75 + $3 to park.
Movie #3: Ratatouille, at the AMC in Marina del Rey. $9.75, since their matinee prices stop at 4pm.

The differences were instructive. #1, as it was shown at the studio, was great: No previews, no commercials, started exactly on time, had a polite audience (of entertainment professionals, so that might be biased) and had no technical issues.

But it was basically like going over to a friend's house, if that friend had a ridiculously huge home theater and refused to pause the movie when you had to go to the bathroom.

#2 was, theater-wise, the worst experience. Half an hour of intrusive commercials before the 8+ previews for Harry Potter ripoffs, which I would have resented if I was trying to carry on a conversation with someone. Which I wasn't because I'm a doofus and went alone because everyone else I knew who wanted to see it saw it Wednesday.

People constantly running up and down the stairs for more overpriced food, desperately searching for their friends in the dark when they returned. A crying baby at a show that was scheduled to get out after 11pm. For the love of god, get a sitter.

However, I will note that the picture was incredible. That was the first time I've seen something digitally projected, and it does live up to the hype. The sound was loud enough to stun a rhino, but that's pretty standard at this point.

#3 was at least better than #2, but another argument for just staying at home. The price was under $10 for a non-matinee, but that's only because the theater hasn't been renovated in years. It's like an early-90's time capsule, with falling-apart seats that bear the imprints of a thousand asses.

There were focus issues on a couple reels, and one reel had a bunch of hairs caught in the film for a few very distracting minutes. And of course, since it was an afternoon show of a kids' movie, there were several small crying and/or very loud and excited children.

I try not to be annoyed with that (as I was with the bawling baby at an 8:30pm show of a PG-13 movie), since it's part of what you learn to expect at a screening like that, but it reminded me why I prefer to watch movies in the comfort of my own home.

That, and how goddamn much it costs. Seriously, two movies for $21.50? That's more than I pay for a MONTH of Netflix's 3-at-a-time plan. It would have been over $30 had I seen Knocked Up in a real theater instead of through work.

Movie theater owners wonder why movie attendance is way down. It's pretty fucking simple: You pay way more than it costs to watch at home for an infinitely less pleasant experience. This is not rocket science.

Fleabag

It is a moment many a pet owner has had, and it's never good. You look at your pet, and you think you see something moving.

And you move some fur and you look closer and you realize: It's a flea. Your pet has fleas. Oh god, there are FLEAS IN THIS HOUSE! AAAAAAAAAAAH!

That was me this morning right after I woke up. I leaned over to pet Chaplin, and when I ran my hand up the back of his head, out crawled a big, nasty flea.

I'd seen something on him yesterday but couldn't conclusively identify it, and decided to ignore it out of wishful thinking. However, having looked at pictures online, I knew this second one would be the start of a very long day.

I have to say this: God bless L.A. and its mobile everything. By 9:30, the groomers had picked up Chaplin and whisked him away for a flea bath.

Certainly not the cheapest solution, but money well spent in my opinion, since it allowed me to keep my blood on the inside of my body. I don't think that would have been possible had I tried to give him a bath.

But the real pain in the ass was the washing. When you find fleas, you have to wash...everything! Every blanket, every pillow, every single thing that might possibly harbor eggs that you can cram in a washing machine, you cram.

The problem with this is that the washer is downstairs. I'm still on the pegleg, so going down stairs is a painful hassle, involving taking stairs one at a time while clinging to the railing with whatever free hands I can muster.

I can't carry anything heavy while trying this and it's hard enough to carry anything unwieldy with two good legs, so it was damn near impossible with one. I did five loads of laundry and I thought my shin was going to disintigrate.

But I got it done, and I vacuumed the couch and the mattress and his carpeted scratching post to get any last little whatevers out of there. I also went online and ordered up some Frontline.

Chaplin came back from the groomers smelling like Mountain Fresh Tide, and substantially whiter in the white portions of his fur than he did when he left. I'm still not sure they didn't actually bathe him in detergent instead of flea-bath.

So now I'm left, in a substantially cleaner yet still somehow dirtier-feeling house, paranoiacally looking at every wee movement I catch out of the corner of my eye, praying it's not another flea.

Because I am not washing all this shit again, I can tell you that much.

Quack

Sorry, Canada.

Yay, Teemu Selane! The man with the second best name in hockey (after Miroslav Satan, who really needs to be traded to the New Jersey Devils) now has his name on the Stanley Cup.

Ah, L.A.

The next time someone asks me what it's like to live in Los Angeles with all the celebrities you can see, I am going to direct them to this page.

The writer has perfectly captured the grand "I don't give a fuck about these morons anymore" feeling you get after about a year here.

via Defamer

I Am Now Officially An Asshole

This Onion article is hilarious from beginning to end, even more so because I just finally got rid of my Treo and got almost the exact same model of Blackberry mentioned:

New Mobile-Device Purchase Makes Asshole More Versatile

NEW YORK—The new BlackBerry 8703c has allowed total shithead Robert McClain to assign more work to his assistants while he is gambling in Atlantic City.

For the record, I got the 8703e.

It's Beginning To Melt A Lot Like Christmas

Outside my office is the New York Street set at Fox, and a progression of shows have been turning the street into a winter wonderland for various Christmas episodes. It's amusing, though it's very weird that it's been going on since October.

What's probably the final one was out there shooting today, and I guess they had a lot of spare money sitting in their budget. They rented an ice truck and a big snowmaking machine and covered the entire outdoor set in real(ish) snow.

The only problem? Today's high: 77 degrees.

I felt so bad for the poor extras who were dressed like they were in freezing weather. They must have lost five pounds each just from sweating.

Only In L.A.

The picture is so beautiful all it needs is a caption:

A nude man is apprehended on the 405 freeway around noon today after he was seen running in freeway lanes near Sunset Blvd.

This idiot shut down the busiest freeway in Southern California for half an hour, tying up traffic in both directions for hours.

That's what one drunk and/or high schmuck can do to this city. God help us if Al-Qaeda gets their hands on a nudist colony.

Waiter Quiz

Take this quiz to find out whether you should be a waiter! Or, conversely, whether you were the waiter who waited on my party this evening.

1. A party of five is led to a booth designed for four, in which they will not fit. After some wrangling, they are eventually led to a larger booth in which they do fit. After this occurs, do you:
a) Watch them extra closely and provide strong service to make up for this error.
b) Serve them normally, as the waitstaff cannot control the incompetence of the host.
c) Ignore them completely for 20 minutes, only arriving to take any orders (including drink orders) until after they have had to have someone physically drag you over.

2. Someone orders a meal with no modifications, except one request for a side of teriyaki sauce, placed at the same time as the order. Do you:
a) Bring the teriyaki sauce out with the food.
b) Forget the teriyaki sauce in the confusion with the food, but bring it immediately when reminded.
c) Apologize for forgetting, then leave and not return for half an hour, completely ignoring any efforts by the table to flag you down and never bringing the damn sauce.

3. There is a birthday at this table, and for birthdays, your restaurant has a designated free dessert. Do you:
a) Bring out the designated birthday dessert and congratulate the birthday boy.
b) Bring out the designated birthday dessert, congratulate the birthday boy, and apologize for fucking up the teriyaki sauce.
c) Bring out the designated birthday dessert, refer to it as an apology for fucking up the teriyaki sauce, then leave for another 20 minutes.

4. You have dropped off the check to an obviously pissed off table. Do you:
a) Watch them so that you can grab the check as soon as they've placed it out for you to take so that they may at least leave in a timely fashion.
b) Check back 5 minutes after dropping the check to see if they've placed it out for you to take.
c) Leave for yet another 20 minutes, never to return, and when they have to flag down a busboy to take you the check with payment, have another server return it.


If you answered a) to most of these questions, congratulations, you'd make an excellent waiter. If you answered b), you're at least competent. If you answered c), you are obviously our waiter from tonight, and you're also a schmuck.

I used to be a server, so I know the difference between "We're busy and I'm swamped" and "I'm lazy and/or stupid." I don't give a shitty tip unless someone really fucks up, and this guy really fucked up. I actually had to talk the folks paying down to giving him a 10% tip.

Had it just been me, I would have given him a five dollar tip (on a meal for five at a good seafood restaurant). Enough to say "I didn't forget to tip you, I just think you did a truly atrocious job." He'd have been fired from CPK in about five seconds. I couldn't believe he was working at this place.

Needless to say, we had a word with the manager as we were leaving. It's really a shame, because the food was outstanding.

Hot Hot Hot

Here's why I'm never leaving Southern California: It was 94 here today. Today, November 11 7th! 94!

Too bad the Santa Anas are supposed to die down tonight and it'll be back the downright chilly high 60's.

God bless you, Global Warming.

Dear Morons

To the construction workers at working on that new building just east of Olympic and Bundy:

I realize that when you build a building, you have to bring in a large number of steel beams. However, I'd like to request that you do two things for me and my fellow commuters in the future.

1. Don't schedule the steel beams to arrive at 7:45 in the morning, or really at any point between 7 and 9am, also known as Rush Hour.

2. Don't have the truck carrying the steel beams be driven by someone who obviously very recently got their trucking license.

It was fun to sit and twiddle my thumbs on Olympic for 15 minutes while you tried - 12 times before I fucking lost count - to back the truck laden with beams onto the construction site.

I realize my fellow commuters weren't helping by leaning on their horns, but I certainly understand their desire to express their frustration.

Seriously, do not pull that shit during rush hour again or I will get out of my car and steal your little hand-held stop sign and beat you about the head with it.

Love and kisses,
Ellen

This Is Going To Be An Oogly Winter

First, there was yesterday's First "It's Snowing Here" Text of the Winter from someone in Chicago (Hi, Mark!).

Then, there was the giant Friday the 13th snowstorm in Buffalo.

And now, it's pouring rain in L.A. Rainy season here normally doesn't start until late January.

This is going to be a very long winter.

Amusing Things From The Interweb

Thing the first: Los Angeles apparently has the best mass transit system in the country.

Metro beat out major transit agencies in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., to win the award.

Clean-air buses, customer satisfaction and expanded service all helped Metro secure the national award.

It's a lot easier to keep customers satisfied when you have so very very few of them.

Thing the second: The most amusing headline of the day for Film School Nerds such as myself.

Thing the third: The Canadian Army vs. 10-Foot-Tall Weed Plants in Afghanistan. My favorite part is the description of what happened to troops in the area when some genius tried to eradicate the plants by setting them on fire.

BBQ!

I had my inaugural barbecue at my new place today. I bought a nice grill at Home Depot yesterday (yay Home Depot having a Seasonal Sale even though barbecuing never goes out of season here) and broke it in today.

The only problem was I didn't account for the COLA Flake Factor (COLA = City Of Los Angeles), and bought enough meat for both the people who said they were definitely going to come, and those who said they might be coming.

In reality, I should have bought about half of what I did, if not a third. None of the people who said they might actually showed, and then a bunch of the "Oh, Definitely!" people bailed as well.

In the end it was still quite fun, but I now have enough ground beef and hot dogs in my freezer to feed a small army, and enough beer to keep me drunk for weeks.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Shark Attack

Part of the reason I enjoy my job is that sometimes very bizarre and amusing things happen.

Most of the time, I can't write about them here because of the numerous and voluminous Non-Disclosure Agreements I've had to sign, but since the LA Times wrote about this one, I think I'm safe.

I hereby present the relevant part of the story, without further comment:

After the interview, he gets back in the golf cart. As he drives by the set of "House," he spontaneously decides to stop. He pulls into a spot that says "Parking for Hugh Laurie Only." Woods was told earlier that "House" sent over a good-luck cake. When he walks onto the set, the stand-ins who are rehearsing flip for the star.

I just want to thank everybody for the cake you sent us today.

Everyone stares at him blankly.

OK, it turns out you didn't know about it. But I want to thank you for sending the cake you didn't know about. We're going to take it as a sign of good luck. And we'll return the favor by sending you back a spinach soufflé. Just kidding. Keep up the good work. See you all later.

Outside, Woods says he wants to go to the "House" production office to thank them. His girlfriend, Ashley, who kept him in the tabloids all summer and has now joined him, says she wants to go home and re-curl her hair and change clothes for the evening's premiere party. She wins.

Back outside his trailer

Woods tells the show's crew about his visit to the "House" set. An assistant looks panicked. Woods is informed the cake actually came from the set of "Bones."

The actor laughs and laughs before he asks: Does anybody know where "Bones" is?

Try Stage 10, Mr. Woods.

Old vs. New

A brief comparison of my old and new apartments, and the neighborhoods containing them:

Time to Work
Old: 20-35 minutes, depending on traffic.
New: 10-15 minutes, depending on traffic.
Winner: New

Flooring
Old: Grody, easily stained and horrific to clean carpet.
New: Hardwood floors.
Winner: New

Kitchen
Old: Termite-infested cabinets, linoleum from the 70's, barely enough room to turn around.
New: Brand new everything, marble floor, granite countertops, decent size.
Winner: New

Bathroom
Old: Tiny, with the sink and mirror in the hall for some reason.
New: Still fairly small, but self-contained. Marble tile on the floor and in the shower, brand new fixtures.
Winner: New.

Bedroom
Old: Large room, tiny closet.
New: Moderate size room, huge closet (which I've basically turned into a storage area.
Winner: Draw.

Owner/Management of Building
Old: Extremely sketchy company that is quite possibly a front for the Russian mob (How many legit property management companies do you know that operate out of a PO Box?).
New: Single owner that people have actually seen, using a property management company with actual offices.
Winner: New

Closest Fast Food Restaurant
Old: In-N-Out
New: KFC
Winner: Old.

Closest Store
Old: Costco
New: 99¢ Only
Winner: New

Closest School
Old: Massive public high school, right out my window.
New: Language magnet school four blocks away.
Winner: New

Distance From Beach
Old: 1.7 miles
New: 2.3 miles
Winner: Old

Cat Control
Old: Cat couldn't get out of the building, could only see other cats in the building.
New: Cat keeps trying to run out the door into the neighborhood every time I leave the house, other cats come to the window and mock him until he starts yowling at them.
Winner: Old.

Tangent alert! I took Chaplin to get chipped this morning, and I found it odd to be putting a chip in him the week we aired an episode with a kid trying to cut a chip out.

Parking
Old: Gated and underground, but with a tendency for the gate to get stuck at inconvenient times.
New: Off street.
Winner: Old, but not by much.

Vertical Transportation
Old: Elevator, prone to breakdowns and squeaking like a crying child.
New: One flight of stairs.
Winner: Draw.

Bottom line, there are a few things about the old place that I'll miss, but the new place is far, far ahead in all the areas I really give a shit about. And I probably shouldn't live two blocks from an In-N-Out Burger anyway.