Was it just me or was "How to Train Your Dragon" extremely good? I didn't really have any intention of seeing it, but when I awoke from a short catnap in front of the TV to a 'First Look' feature on the movie I figured it was worth my time. That short little half an hour of interviews with the actors and developers really sold me. The concept alone was great. Kind of around the lines of living in fear of something that you don't really know or understand so you naturally assume things (which in this case were negative ideas) to fill in that void. Which in turn, you loose that fear because you made it become familiar to you. Interesting right? Or did I just completely confuse you. It's obvious that I'm not the best person to explain this brainy stuff, but ask my psychology professor from college. He nailed it spot on, and for someone like me to understand it is impressive. Anyways, yes the movie was great (especially in IMAX 3D). Oh and did I mention I saw the cutest couple when I was walking out. These two guys, probably around my age or a year or two younger, holding arm in arm. So damn cute! You can tell they were in total bliss, especially towards each other. It was all in their eyes...

And talking about young love; I am so excited for Justin on Ugly Betty. His first boyfriend! Yay! That kiss was filmed so perfectly. You could feel that slight first kiss awkwardness in the scene, mixed with the adrenaline rush from not really knowing what's going on but still going with it kind of a thing. Yeah, loved it. So sad the show will be coming to an end. Watching Betty blossom into this strong confident woman without losing herself or who she is in the process is so empowering. She is seriously an inspiration... or as Hamburger would say a 'thinspiration.' Hopefully my 'betty' transformation will come too :)

In other news, I finally found those damn Korean chopsticks I have been bitching about for months! You see, I ate at this Korean restaurant (Genwa to be exact) and feel completely in love with their chopsticks. It's metal, so it has great weight to it when you use it, and their flat which gives it a modern feel. So I went to Koreantown this past weekend (or K-Town as the locals here call it) and went looking for it. It was my first time shopping in the district so I figure I would try my best to blend in with the locals because of my unfamiliarity with the area and such. WRONG! No matter what I wore I would not have blended in. It was one of those elephant-in-the-room moments. **Ugh gosh I knew I should have called in a buffer. Anyways, I had no luck finding them. I found a few that were similar, but it just wasn't the ones I wanted. So I just called the restaurant a few days later and flat out asked where the heck they buy their chopsticks from. I gave my entire sob story of trying to find them to this woman (whom I'm sure didn't understand a word I was saying) just to make sure she knew how, lets face it, crazy I was about these things. I got the location from her and I was there an hour later. After digging a bit through piles of chopsticks of all different types, I finally found them. I was so excited to use them that night that I bought myself some BBQ chicken from Whole Foods. Ooooh was ono... and my wrist looked so handsome when I used them :)

Why Hello my fellow Angelenos!

I'm sitting here at C.Bean on the Promenade waiting for Baby J to finish his 30k checkup. Before I left this morning, I could have sworn this place looked like it was only like a 20 minute walk from the dealership on the map, but boy was I surely mistakened. It took like a good 45 minutes walk to get here so I'm thinking it was more than a mile and a half. Good thing I wore my Runyon shoes.

In any case, this past weekend I've been slightly sick. At first I thought it was my allergies (springs an ugly season for me) with the usual symptoms of a runny nose, itching throat, and a mild case of deafness but it just worsened as the days went on. The clear snot turned pasty neon green and the body aches came. Yep, it was then that it became clear. So please excuse me as I constantly blow my nose in these oh-so-painful c.bean napkins made from 100% recycled fiber, containing 30% post-consumer material. Maybe the guy next to me might have some tissue. "Umm... excuse me would you happen to have a Puffs double strength plus aloe tissue by any chance? No? Well thanks anyway..."

So on my merry walk here this morning, I just so happened to pass by the Santa Monica College. **As a side note, it extremely pickling how you can drive on the same street on a daily basis and not know what the heck you're driving by until you actually take the time to walk it. Try it, it becomes an entirely new experience with some of the greatest finds.** In that instant, I heard gram's passive-aggressive voice in my head. Just a few weeks ago (when I was trying to get my taxes done and calling her like every 5 seconds) somehow in our conversation she slipped the idea of going back to school.

---------------------------------

"Gram, I don't understand a thing I'm looking at. What the heck do all these numbers mean? You know, the guy on the phone said all I have to do is follow the easy step by step instructions but nothing makes sense to me! **UGH this tax thing is so frickin ridiculous!"

"You should consider getting your masters degree to keep yourself busy for the time being.."

"Uuuhh... no thanks. I'm done with school. Plus, in my profession, you can only go so far with the in-school education. Everything you learn (after the basics of course) is out in the work field."

"Well, I'm just saying you should think about it..."

"Wait are you hinting at something?!!"

"Oh no, but with your job situation and all..."

"GRANDMA! Don't be mean!"

"Well, maybe you should consider moving back to Hawaii. You know, the design industry is really building here and I'm sure I can ask around to get you a job out here. "

"You know, on second thought that schooling might be fun. I did want to take a few fashion courses to understand colors & materials better. Maybe a few sewing classes too. OH AND I did want to brush up on my photography and thought about taking some advanced courses..."

"Yeah yeah, whatevers. Aunty H. said to fill these specific numbers in the blanks and you should be fine. Don't forget to sign and date at the bottom."

-----------------------------------

Fun times. It is noteworthy and I will consider it. And it being the classes that I want to take as mentioned above. Great idea gram :)

So did anyone see Alice yet? I was counting on Hamburger Madness to see it, but that seems to be a lost cause lately. She's sooooo behind on her movies that not even netflix can save her. Lame. Work is seriously eating her alive. Not even Hirrizzle (the person who I saw it with) could even give me a worthy after-movie conversation due to the fact of snoozing off during the entire film (in her defense though, we did catch a late night. Everything else was sold out.) In any case, I absolutely loved it. Aside from the amazing cinematography, the characters were sensational. The story line was pleasant enough and that iconic blue dress...man that bitch was wearing fuckin couture the entire time. Absolutely loved the ever changing dress concept that was made to look like scraps from the original yet extremely high-fashion. Genius. I'm definitely tempted to see it again.

In other news, I am now a part-time host at the restaurant. It's sort of like a cinderella deal. I get to be all pretty once a week as a host, and then the rest of the work week I'm back to being an invisible busser. Not bad if you ask me. The manager felt (or more like me persuading him) that it would make sense to have a guy host on our gayest night of the week. Open bar Thursdays. The word on the street is, people come to our place first for the free drinks, then they walk over to Fubar to catch 'big dick Thursdays.' Rumor has it, you get a free drink if you show your dick to the bartender. They take a picture of it, post it on the wall, and at the end of the night they declare the person with the biggest dick and that person wins a prize. A very good prize from what i hear ;) So yeah, it's been a blast so far. I mean, there were a few times I just wanted to grab a rolled up newspaper and swat some of these boys on the head for being such dogs. But on the upside, I get to chat with the locals in the community and secretly check some of them out so I can't complain one bit.

Till the next post. -xoxo

...In dire need of a update. I'm on top of it :)

Just watched PS I love you. Great movie. Yeah... I had half a bottle of some random white wine and a bag of popcorn (94% fat free I promise) so I'm feeling pretty damn good right now... so good that I almost called a few old crushes. Yeah exactly, bad idea so I decided to write instead. I've learned through countless occasions that calling a guy never makes you feel better, only worse. They always give you the, "why are you calling me at this hour?" bullshit and then it becomes such a buzz kill cause then you end up arguing shit out anyways. Vomit.

So moving on to more important news, my mac laptop started up again. I swear that computer is soo fickle. Three weeks ago it didn't start up so I declared it officially dead. Then the other night, like at 3 am, I thought to myself, I should give it one more try before I turn it in to the apple store, and low and behold it started up again. So fuckin strange I swear. That computer always throws me off, but hey it works so I can't complain. Now I'm allowed to hangout out at coffee bean again. Total score.

Another thing that somehow finally got fixed was my hand-me-down couch. When I first moved to LA, the movers somehow broke it and the screw fell out or whatevers. I tried fixing it with Chrislyn on the first day here in LA, but that damn screw just did not go in. Plus, some stupid ass spring was blocking it, which totally bruised our fingers. So yeah, I've been hanging out for the past month on a broken couch, which had a 75% chance of me falling back with my legs in the air flailing around and it flapping into a bed (it's a futon) when ever I sat on it. Trust. It happened on many occasions and I was Furosha Couture like no other. It was like a frickin monster that swallowed me whole every damn time I sat on it. It was ridiculous and I seriously don't know how I actually survived with that crap. Anyways, I was rather bored the other day, and with the luck of the mac starting up, I thought that I could fix the sofa for good. Turns out, the main piece shifted down blocking the actual hole for the screw to go in. That's why when Chrislyn and I were trying to get it back in, we were only getting bruises because the piece wasn't in the proper place. Gosh, get that IDIOT stamp out and place it directly in the middle of my forehead. Yeah, so it's aaaallll good now. yay!

So I think the big question now is, "how am i 'really' doing?" A lot has changed in the past few months--finally graduating after six years, losing my job, moving to LA-- and I have to say, I'm actually doing okay. Yes, it could be better under circumstances, but I'm okay. I don't know if it's the fact that I feel like somehow everything will work out, or to be honest quite possibly it won't, but I'm just so happy to be here. Maybe it's the fact that I took a huge risk and I'm very proud of myself for evening taking that step... I don't know. It's so weird and unfamiliar not to know what I'm doing. I've always had a plan; for a very long time now. But with all the change happening, I just kind of gotta roll with it and take it day by day. I honestly don't know whats going to happen anymore, and it's exciting but scary at the same time. It was so easy to dream of my perfect future when I was still in school, but now that I'm out of it and in the real world, I kind of see things differently. I'm taken aback by it all, and feel like there's sooo much more out there than I could imagine. I mean, there's a whole world for me out there to explore. I don't know how to explain it, but it's all so different than what I expected 6 months ago.


It's pretty crazy that I don't even know anymore. The only thing I know is, is to just hope for the best. That's what I'm living by...

I'm tired now. night night.

Wow so where to begin. Well...shortly after my last blog, I lost my job. We all sort of knew it was coming, and our principles were kind enough to keep us all in the loop of where the company stood, which lets be honest, wasn't good. We had a deadline due at the end of the work week, and after that we pretty much had nothing. So yeah, it was expected on that following Monday. They cut four designers from our thinning group, and I was one of them. From 25 designers, down to 5 in the past year and half. I must say though, I'm glad I made it that far. If this was a design competition, say Top Design?, I would have at least made it to the top 5. Great way to look at things...i guess.

After that, I had to do a total reevaluation. Rearrange my priories, my goals- oh gosh it was just a mess. So my options were:

a. Find another job in vegas
b. Move to LA, settle, and find a job
c. Move back home

Well obviously option C was completely out of the question- being that I can barely pull of "local" status anymore. Option A had it's possibilities, especially since I had a lot of connections and contacts with the other big firms in town, and knew many people in the industry. But nope, I decided to go with option B. I've been wanting to move to LA for so long now- and this is obviously the time to do it. I have literally nothing to hold me back.

Don't worry, I did my usual calculations, budgets, pros & cons lists- the works. Trust.

So after I made up my final decision, the next question was, "where to even begin?" First I needed to look for a place. So I went shopping on every website possible for apartments and living arrangements. Of course, being a very particular bitch, I had an extremely small range to choose from because I wanted to be in the PRIME areas of LA. Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Venice...only the best :P With that, of course comes with a big price. It was a tough 2 weeks looking for something in my minimal budget, but in the areas that I wanted to be in. I picked my top five, made phone calls for appointments, and headed to check them out.

Sadly though, none of them felt right. So that night while staying at my friends pad, I did a little bit more research and found 5 more options that I could check out before I headed back to vegas. This time around it was WAY better. I had two great places to choose from. One was an apartment that was like a vintage 1920's Art Deco building which I absolutely loved, but location wasn't quite there. The second place was a guest house in prime location, but the place was smaller and the bedroom closet was tiny. ooohhh that's a toughie.

Well after much thought, especially on the drive home, I decided to go with option 2-- and I must say I couldn't be happier! :) I now currently live in a guest house (well more like an attic above the garage) that kind of looks like a tiny cottage, with the best landlord anyone could have asked for. He included the utilities, HD cable connection, and the internet with the rent- all which saves me about 300 a month. Plus he let me store a few things in the garage (huge help since I have so much crap) and I get to use the hot tub whenever I like. Not too shabby eh? And I designed a solution about the closet issue in the bedroom so there was no problem there. YAY!

Okay break time. I'll continue my new life story later- probably tomorrow. **kisses

So today during lunch break I was able to catch about half an episode of Holidate- Soaps new tv series. At first I was expecting something like MTV's Next- something really ridiculous with people only taking it as a joke and only wanting to be on tv as the "guy that..." But to my surprise, it was actually more than that. Granted I've only watched one episode (more like half) so I may be making assumptions and it may turn out to be a lame show after all, but it at least made it to my dvr list. What I enjoyed most was this idea of ladies switching cities, and them being hooked up with single friends of the person they switched with. It was good because it wasn't just guys they chose from a list hoping they would hit it off with with these ladies; it was actual guy friends of the girls who knew who these guys were and what they're all about. Plus, I found it rather amusing to watch the true awkwardness of first dates and how some try to make the best of the situation. Definitely took some pointers :P

Since on the topic of dating, I thought I'd take a moment and talk about this guy I met. Yay!! **while I clap and stomp. It all started at the 12:01am premier showing of Harry Potter. Earlier that day I got a text from Ika expressing how he really wanted to see the first late night showing of HP. Of course, knowing how late the movie was, I had to ask, "just how important is this to you on a percentage scale?" with my most bitchest voice possible (exactly- real bitchy.) With a high percent of 92 and a few hours later, I found myself at the doors of Rave Motion Pictures. Before walking up to an Ika look-a-like and about to make a complete fool of myself, I found the real Ika already inside waving with my pre-purchased ticket. Mind you this was like 2 hours before the actual movie was starting.

With all the Harry's, Hermiones, & Dumbledore's running amok; I started walking up the steps to the row of seats that Ika had saved for us. Slowly working my way down the isle and saying hi and giving hugs to the folks I had already known- it was then that we officially met. We did the appropriate hand shake (somewhat awkward with his soft grip and no eye contact) and grabbed a seat at the end of the group. When a few of the boys got up to grab some food, I slid over to start some small talk (I mean come on, I wasn't about to sit there and look anti...).

"So...you a huge Harry Potter fan?" I asked as I gravitated a few seats over.

"Omg, I absolutely love Harry Potter- especially the books" he said with a polite smile. In his white button-downed shirt, jeans, and doctor-like glasses (I know, total turn on **while fanning myself), we started talking about the characters and what to expect in the upcoming movie. During the lite conversation, I noticed that he never really looked at me. To be honest, It got me a little self conscious. Either I was just that unappealing to look at and talk to (I admit i wasn't looking my best) or he just had some strange eye contact problem. In any case, I asked the usual ice breaker question, "so how do you know everyone?" and he said the most uncomfortable answer ever-

"Oh, he's my ex," he blurted out while pointing to the guy next to him before I even finished my sentence. After my "most famous" awkward reaction, I tried to play it off like it was cool to hangout with your ex. Luckily, the extremely long pause of silence was interrupted by two lame-ass guys trying to steal our great seats that were open next to us. I butched it up and argued a bit, finally getting the guys to move and get a life- only to see that the other boys were returning. I tried to play it off like this was going to be MY new seat for the night, but they made it very apparent that it was THEIR seat. I did my well-I-gotta-get-going dance as I swayed my hips and arms and headed back to my original seat.

To my surprise, I started talking with this cute couple from San Fran next to me (he totally wanted to do me) for the rest of the time before the movie. As the previews came to an end, a dedicated "Dumbledore" fan (who looked more like Gandalf the white) stood up from his seat, pointed his nasty-ass wand to the screen, and yelled "EXPECTOOOOO PAAAAAATROOOOONUM" in the same manner that Harry did years ago against the Dementors. Magically, the Warner Brother's logo appeared and the adventure began.

Two and a half hours and another great HP sequel later, we were outside the theatre fighting the trampling herd of fans. While conversing about the movie amongst us ladies, some guy totally bumped into me from the back, which turned out to be him. I took this as a sign of attraction (or so I told myself that) and decided to be ballsy with the next move I was about to do...

Holy mole! What the hell have I been doing for the past month and a half? Oh wells, it's old news anyways-

Hmm... so this afternoon I went to practice again at the alley's. I'm trying to up my average at least 30 more pins so that I can qualify for the amateur league. I did okay but nothing amazing. I'm slowly picking up where I had left off- which was 6 years ago. My accuracy went down a notch but I will say my strength went up. Maybe it's an age thing? Oh wells, at least I still look "pretty" - or how the guy that was bowling next to me would put it. He's like, "I love watching left handed bowlers...you guys are always so pretty." Then he caught himself and added, "OH, because my girlfriends left hand." And I was like, "oooooohhh, thanks...huh huh," with like the uncomfortable laugh. Buddy had one too many to drink-

SO great news to announce! I found out recently that one of my favorite characters of all time in the Marvel Universe will be a playable character on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. It was announced on the first day at the San Diego Comic Con. I literally got all giddy in the office and almost knocked over all of my drawings when I found out. You see, this is how they get you. They announce the first 18 characters...and then they torture you by making you wait to find out who are the remaining characters. I was checking religiously...waiting (patiently I might add) for them to announce something new. Finally a little shimmer of light came and they announced 3 more characters at Comic Con festival. Jean, Gambit, and some random guy that I've never heard of. AMAZING RIGHT?!

I can honestly say, I didn't realize what a big deal this festival was. After looking at the pictures and watching tons of youtube clips, it seems that a ton of actors & actresses from tv shows, movies, etc- come to this event to promote they're upcoming gig. They give away a ton of swag and many die-hard fans dress up as their favorite character. Definitely worth looking into for attending next year :P

In relation to the game that's coming out; my xbox360 died. It was having some video connection problems a few weeks back where all the colors were all off and everything was green. I figured it wasn't a big deal as long as the system still worked; but then all of a sudden it went black. I took it in to game stop, thought maybe it was just the cords that were damaged, but was proven otherwise. I sold it (and a few extra remotes) for 70 whopping dollars. So lame. I was charged a service fee since it was damaged. What I'll do is save the money to buy a new console with a new trendy RED controller. OH JOY!! And it will be just in time before September 15th!

Okay it's a fact- I'm extremely tired and I can't go on. *ugh I had so much more to write. Oh well. **kisses