Weekly Update!

This is not so much a weekly update, since I haven't put anything up for probably two weeks. Not for lack of things to post, mind you but mostly because of laziness. I could elect to do a few short posts in rapid succession, but I fear another wave of laziness would strike before I finished. Instead, I'm going to hit you with a big old bag of catch-up; so buckle up and keep your hands and arms inside the blog at all times!

We went to see "The Nightmare Before Christmas" on Friday before Halloween. Unfortunately I was led to believe that Tim Burton might be there as well, but this turned out to not be true. I tried not to let that get me down. We did get to see two of his short films, "Vincent" and "Frankenweenie" which was pretty neat. The evening started with LA's favorite game: Find a Parking Space! The rules are extensive, with signs saying stuff like NO parking EXCEPT on Sunday UNLESS passenger unloading in RED ZONE. And there's new rules for every block! Pretty much everyone loses this game, and eventually give up to find a pay parking lot that charges you, no joke, by the 15 minute block of time. Fortunately we found a pretty reasonable place under the Kodak Theatre, which is where they hold the Oscars.

Saturday was spent preparing for a Halloween party we were going to have on Sunday night. Tracy went nuts buying decorations, and very soon our apartment looks less like an apartment and more like a graveyard. Katie even modeled for a body outline outside the front door. The party was on Sunday night because Halloween fell on a Monday this year, which is among the lamest times for such a holiday. I firmly believe that Halloween should be changed to the last Friday or Saturday in the month of October. I dressed up for Halloween for the first time in many years. I was Burt Reynolds, and Katie was a pirate. We had a pretty good turnout considering everyone had to be to work on Monday. Apparently the theme for grown-up Halloween party is "sexy." There was a pair of sexy construction workers, a sexy punk rocker, a sexy fire inspector, and even a sexy Exxon worker. One of the guys came dressed as Ali G, and did a very good impression to go along. The party was lubricated with plenty of beer and a punch bowl that was liberally spiked with various alcohols. I have heard that you can tell a good party when there is enough alcohol to get someone sick or naked. In this case it was sick, but I'm glad whoever is was had the good sense to get sick on the balcony. My contribution to the party was stuffing a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans with spare bed clothes, topping it off with a mask, and leaving it by our bedroom door with a mask and a bowl of candy. He was a big hit, and continued to serve a purpose in the next few days. We named him Fernando, because I guess giving him a name made him a little less scary.

Katie and I had to retire from the party early because she had been informed only a day earlier that she would be an extra on "Scrubs" and that she had to be to the set in Burbank at 6 AM. Burbank is about as far away as the far side of Tampa from St. Petersburg, and involves a trip on the High-Speed Bobsled Ride of Death that is the Ventura Freeway. I think that stunt drivers out here are a dime a dozen because if you can survive repeated trips on the Los Angeles interstate system, than driving a flaming car off a 6 story building and landing in a pool of live alligators seems controlled and relatively tame by comparison. In any case, I got her to the set on time, which from the street looks like a nondescript old folks home. But my thrill for the day came in the form of driving through the ambulance bay of Sacred Heart hospital. Thanks to the time change, I made it back to the apartments in time to watch the sunrise over the mountains from the 12th floor. Then I immediately went back to bed. After I woke up again, I put Fernando in Tracy's bathroom and propped him up on the toilet and waited. It was a long wait, but well worth it. Beside that, it was an extremely uneventful Halloween because we got exactly zero trick-or-treaters. This was bad news considering the 6 metric tons of candy we had left over from the party. I don't think I've ever been anywhere where candy was less welcome than our apartment. I think even obesity clinics and diabetic centers are more tolerant of the average Fun Size Snickers bar. It was a tense couple of days around here until Katie and I took out the candy we wanted and sent the rest to work with Tracy.

Tuesday was fun because I started the day off by hanging Fernando in Jess's closet and playing the waiting game yet again. Also, on the way to pick Katie up from work, I swear I saw Steven Spielberg. I noticed the car before the driver, which was a new Saleen Mustang, and I guess that goes to show that money can't buy good taste.

Wednesday started with a list a mile and a half long of things that Katie needed to get done. It all culminated in a trip to the California Department of Motor Vehicles to re-register her car with California plates. I don't know if they breed DMV workers in a lab somewhere, or if something about DMV work is attractive to their unique personality, but DMV workers are the same from coast to coast: mean, short tempered, and almost always not English speaking. The end result of our afternoon spent in line under harsh fluorescent lighting was that we owed the state of California almost $400 and still would not get new plates until the vehicle had passed a smog test. Gotta love state bureaucracy!

I decided to tackle the smog test on Thursday while Katie was at work. Smog testing places are extremely plentiful, and are one of those unique institutions where cost is not affected by supply and demand. As an added bonus, not only do you have to pay for the test, but you also have to pay for the computer print out that says you passed the test. It's like paying tuition and then having to pay again to get the course credit; it's ridiculous. But that wasn't the most ludicrous thing to happen that day. I took the certificate back to the DMV to get the plates. I thought I had won the Find a Parking Spot game, when I noticed that the meter I was parked in front of was out of order. I had the crazy notion to Do The Right Thing, so I backed up one space so I could use a working meter. Turns out that by backing up, my rear tire became too far away from the curb, and I got a $35 parking ticket! All I can say is that it'll be bad times if I ever meet Officer #26483 in a dark alley.

Katie and I had plans to go see "Chicken Little" in 3D on Friday night, but those plans got modified to wait until Saturday night. Even though the theater had the flexibility to allow us to come on a completely different night, they could not let us use our 9:45 tickets for the 7:00 show. We only found that out after fighting through the traffic at Hollywood and Highland on a Saturday night, played the Find A Parking Spot game, and went to the box office. So we came home, had dinner, and went back. The movie was a lot of fun, though, and we got to keep the glasses, which are green and look like Chicken Little's glasses. It was particularly neat for Katie, because she had met Zack Braff who voices Chicken Little just a few days before.

We decided to end this week by finally making it out to see the Pacific ocean. It was a sort of cold day, but we donned out bathing suits just the same. A 20 minute cruise down Santa Monica Boulevard later, and we were face to face with the Big Blue. On this particular day it was more of a grayish color, but we got to see it all the same. The sand is exceptionally fine, somewhere between the sand at Clearwater beach and confectioners sugar. Unfortunately, the water was freezing, so all we got to do was dip our toes in the ocean. And there weren't any shells to be seen, so I found a rock on the beach to sort of prove I was there. It could very well be a chunk of asphalt from the road, but I got it from the beach just the same. After our frolic in the ocean, we took a trip up the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu to see what we could see. What we could see was surprisingly little, besides the true die-hard surfers who were still out trying to catch waves, and the houses cantileverd over the side of the cliffs just waiting for an earthquake or a mud slide.

That brings us to Monday, which is the last eventful day to report on, I promise. The majority of Monday was uneventful until the evening, when Katie got tickets to go see a play called 'Macho' which was a thinly veiled mass audition by 5 potential actresses. The premise was these women would act out roles from films that were traditionally played by men; they did scenes from "Casino" and "Glengary Glen Ross" among others. The problem was that the scenes were so modified that they almost seemed written for women, which eliminated any potential shock value. The exciting part came when we realized that we were sitting next to Bobby Lee from MadTV. He was the guy who played the Average Asian and they guy who stood outside clubs in his tricked out Kia. We didn't make formal introductions because we couldn't remember his name.

That pretty much sums up what I've been up to for the past week. a quick note on Katie's 'Scrubs' appearance, which seems to have garnered a lot of interest. Officially, 'Scrubs' is not on a network. At the time of filming, NBC had not officially agreed to pick up the show, so we have no idea when to even guess at when the episode she was in will be on. Rest assured that I will let you all know, although perhaps not via direct phone connection, as has been requested.