i have grown to love my balcony lately. it’s a nice place to sit for a moment to be outside while still being at home. add to that the fact that since mine overlooks a major thoroughfare in a big residential neighborhood, in any five minute escape to its perch, i’m guaranteed to see at least one interesting thing. tonight i saw a guy driving a car that looked right out of a video game where you get to add unnecessarily large spoilers to your fast imported car with a loud engine. i also saw two guys riding scooters together in the same lane. both were badass in their own way.

in that same eventful session i also saw a short parable scene play out. a sexy jogger girl in a red tanktop approached the stoplight and had to wait to cross and continue her run. while she hopped in place to keep her heart rate up, a much less sexy girl in a black tshirt came jogging up behind her. i anticipated the awkward moment they would share waiting together, but the light changed and they crossed at the same time. naturally, the sexy fit one took off with gusto, being trim and quick. the one in black held back, i could tell, and even crossed the parallel street on the other side so they wouldn’t have to share the same path. off they went on their separate exercise routines.

i laughed because i relate entirely to the second jogging girl. i fully respect anyone trying to improve themselves, but even though we want to be that girl in red, in fact are pushing ourselves with that goal in mind, the last thing we need is a constant reminder through it all of how much farther we have to go. and that skinny bitch probably doesn’t even have to try half as hard as we do.

so that ellis reading was slightly less fun than the klosterman one mostly because ellis is more intense and less talkative and funny, but still it was a relief in a way to see that in person he isn’t some creepy maniac who might just be writing about the murders he truly wishes he could commit in real life. of course, reading my new signed copy of lunar park might sway my opinion more in the opposite direction since he wrote himself as the main character… but mostly i’m just hoping that i’m not as disappointed with it as dom said i would be. i take it as a bad sign though that the back cover of the dust jacket only has blurbs about his other books and not this one. is that supposed to convey a ‘you’ll just have to find out yourself!’ message of mystery, instead of a ‘no one really dug this book enough to praise it’ one? because if so, i am not yet convinced.

sunset junction was pretty enjoyable saturday, even if the first few hours were a bit hot and the first few bands a bit boring. i really like carnival atmospheres though because as jessica said, people are just walking around in good moods, not in a hurry, just enjoying the day. of course, another fun part was because as josh said, ‘there were some real freaky-deaky people out there’, which was even better. they ranged nicely from the sexy fashion do’s to the nearly nauseating fashion don’t’s, which made it all the more fun to just sit on a curb with a smoothie people-watching. the rilo kiley set was pretty good too even if we couldn’t see very well, and seeing the walkmen fumble amongst technical difficulties was pretty funny, especially when they singer threw his gum at the sound guy off stage right. not sure if he actually hit him or not but boy was he acting like a spoiled rockstar.

lastly: did anyone else subject themselves to the mtv video music awards last night? sure, the stage was the most elaborate and expensive looking thing in awards show history, but am i wrong in thinking that p. diddy — i’m sorry, just saying ‘diddy’ is somehow even more juvenile than his prior nickname, and i just can’t bring myself to do it — was also the most boring host in award show history? he’s constantly pausing like we’re hanging on his every word when in fact we’re sitting here wishing he would say ANYTHING funny, interesting, or even relevant. seriously, worst delivery ever, and i’m not even sure if they bothered giving him any jokes to work with. it was difficult for me to watch, and i had the help of tivo to make it seem shorter, which is sad. how could it possibly be that crappy? or am i just disconnected from today’s youth and pining for some of the 90’s craziness mtv award shows used to be famous for?

Ellis: not very scary.

i am one cultured indie cat this week. last night i went to a chuck klosterman reading for his book killing yourself to live out in westwood for some major hipster points, tonight i’m headed out to pasadena for a bret easton ellis reading for lunar park, and this weekend is sunset junction in silverlake for a rilo kiley concert. hot damn is LA happening this weekend.

the klosterman reading last night was excellent. true, i haven’t read this new book yet (got me a signed copy to flip through now though). but i adored sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs, and his frenetic and semi-encyclopedic ability to ramble on pop culture’s reflections of life translates exactly to his live presence. he just talks and talks without stopping or even pausing, and this is one clever, insightful guy. guess he deserves to be senior editor of magazines, thrice-published author and contributor extraordinaire at the ripe age of 33 with that kind of wit.

the scene there was cool too because it was only maybe 30 or 40 people tops and i felt like we were so elite in our bookish music nerdiness. not in that snobby or reclusive way of high fidelity clerks, really — after all, i did get a pretty girl to go with me (and more importantly, leave with me) — but in an intimate group of culture appreciators kind of way. plus kumar from the recent eponymous white castle film was there too; harold must have been working late.

other LA kids can still catch him if you hurry, he’s doing other readings tonight and monday. everyone else, i’d say grab the book because he made it sound glorious with his description: “one part journalism on my trip to the locations of various famous rock and roll deaths. one part my wrestling with a decision between two women i was in love with who i had resolved to choose by the end of this three week road trip. and one part exploration of what it would be like to live those three weeks constantly making an effort to be fully conscious of my own mortality.” nice.

that saying about things staying in vegas is kinda pointless if you ask me. isn’t the reason you do crazy shit in an indulgent environment so that you can brag about it afterward? sure, it might not be smart to record them all to print on a publicly available (and search engine indexable) forum, but boy were there fun times last week. for my own memory though i will jot down some notes to be fondly recalled later, only in super secret code so no one else can understand.

rmmbr whn yr bss bght y tht lpdnc nd ths tqla shts? nd whn y gt bck t th htl nd GV a lpdnc t yr fml cwrkr? hly sht tht ws fnny.

but more importantly i think i made about a hundred bucks playing cheap roulette tables and drinking free beers. do i know how to do it or what?

other funny things since last i wrote:
— shaun of the dead and stella. both utterly ingenious, i have to say.
— a kite at the beach in the form of a paratrooper with a little plastic man hanging from it.
— a topless fat guy in purple shorts jogging.
— josh’s story about his two-hour battle versus an army of fed-ex customer service representatives. he lost.
— this guy dancing to clap your hands say yeah. so going to be me when they come in october.
— this story about scott stapp from creed getting his ass totally played by a bunch of funny college students.

(credit for both those last two go to james, who just started an mp3 blog and who is also radical. now i’m going to check out his radical mp3’s.

i am getting somewhat sucked in by the hbo hype machine i think. being an enormous sopranos fan, lover of curb, and follower of entourage, i can’t help but start getting brainwashed into the mindset that hbo original series are the future of television. i’ve had dozens of people tell me how much i’d love six feet under and now it’s in my netflix queue patiently waiting to be adored. and now i’m falling prey to the blood-soaked promo posters for rome that line my commute. (not literally bloodsoaked, obviously. that would be terrifying. but i do appreciate their willingness to depict ‘the streets running red with blood’ so publicly).

here’s the problem though: i’m excited about a new series and setting the tivo to record it, and i don’t even think i’ll like it. i thought gladiator was boring and i didn’t even try going to see troy or alexander. in fact i can’t think of anything ancient-timey that i really like, except maybe a general fond rememberance for childhood viewings of jason and the argonauts on cable. and academic respect due to epic poetry i guess. so shouldn’t my awareness of having been brainwashed into dedicating more of my life to hbo programming be enough to keep me from bothering?

well, maybe my sub-subconscious is secretly hoping this will be the time they get the period right. i know consciously i’m just hoping there is some plato or aristotle character in there to be all high-and-mighty about how he’s smarter than everyone and should be running the place, in between debaucherous nights spent ‘educating’ young boys. (YES i know that was greece, i’m just saying, can’t there be an oscar wilde in the cast?)

oh and also, i’m off to vegas tonight for some corporate frivolity. wish me luck at the tables, cause if the right numbers come up i could turn an easy profit seeing as how i’ll have no expenses.

over the weekend i looked down from my balcony to see a guy, who was on break from working at the jeep dealership behind our place, sitting in the alley drinking a beer on his break. and this was at 1pm, mind you. i’m not sure if that guy is awesome or if i feel bad for him.

i got blisters on two of my toes from the hot sand at the beach yesterday. what the hell, it’s SAND. you’re not supposed to be able to literally burn your feet from walking on the ground. that’s messed up, right? if i didn’t enjoy the beach so much i might be mad, but i know it only hurts me because it loves me.

and i just found out today that i have a meeting at 6pm wednesday in vegas, which means i also have a paid-for hotel room in vegas wednesday night, and paid-for airfare to and from. that means no expenses to cover and any gambling gains are instant profit! danger, bank account, danger!

i wish i could say i’m going to go home and do constructive things tonight, or even just cultural things like watch the oscar-award-winning film ray from netflix, but i know full well all i really want to do is play video games and drink root beer.

not that this podcasting thing is new to a lot of people, but i know for me it took the feature being automatically added to my itunes to make it worth the trouble. now that it’s such a snap, i’m finally realizing what a great system it is. plus, i have some friends who do one that is actually worth listening to every week, and that just got me off and running.

yes, that’s right, i actually know the brilliant minds behind talk news america (TNA for short. [chuckle]). and since they’re even listed on the itunes store and everything, you can easily track them down and subscribe yourself. it’s just so simple!

they’ve got down, i feel, what podcasting should be. not a couple of yahoos babbling and playing some hit-and-miss musical selections. we’re talking a tight, weekly piece that’s under 20 minutes; well written, acted, and edited; and the best part: hilarious. it’s also the first news/humor program in public radio format — at least that i’ve heard of, correct me if i’m wrong — that can play in the satiric realm of the onion or the daily show and pull it off. in the past couple months i’ve been consistently impressed, and not only because they’re my friends, it’s just a really cool idea done well. check them out and get some good laughs on the ipod next time you’re commuting… and if you don’t get the podcasting thing don’t worry, you could just go to their site and either download the mp3 files straight up or stream them from there. so worth it.

but not to be all favortism, i’ve also stumbled upon a few of those yahoos playing music that aren’t so bad either. today i’ve been listening to tracks up the tree and getting a kick out of these two dudes. they play indie music that’s freely available on the net and are actually funny in between instead of just listening to themselves talk. offbeat instead of annoying, at least so far. tracked this one down from a link on odeo.

another hot one is radio clash, a mashup podcast from the UK that’s pretty great too. on the way home today i was listening to an episode from a week or two ago that started out with an eminem “just lose it” over polka mix that blew my mind. the guy doesn’t do the mixing but sure does track down some cool shit. this one was actually listed in spin magazine’s recent list of top podcasts, so i can’t claim too much credit for finding it, but still.

so anyway, if you’re lazy, here are the RSS links for the three shows above to just paste right into your itunes ‘open stream’ window (although it’d be more gentlemanly to visit their sites and check them out, of course):
talk news america rss
tracks up the tree rss
radio clash rss

and let me know if there are any more you like, because now i’m totally geeking out over this stuff this week.

even though i was only gone 7 days i didn’t stop for more than a few minutes at any point along there and as a result, it felt like i was gone for ages and totally drained of juice. i crashed hard sunday night and when i walked into the office yesterday morning it was like being back from summer vacation and not being able to believe you’re back in this place. except if this were school i’d have all these sweet new pens and binders, whereas here i just had an overfull inbox to catch up with. boooring. today i think i’m feeling more adjusted and overall ready to deal with not being on vacation though. i had a delicious cheeseburger for lunch and my head felt like it was on straight and securely instead of tenuously rolling about trying to make it through a whole day.

last night i played halo with my roommate and his coworker buddies that were over and completely owned them in every way, mostly because they don’t really know how to play that well. i told one of them it’s best not to stand out in the middle of the arena without moving if he didn’t want to get shot, then turned around and saw that he had fallen asleep during the game. how do you totally pass out during a video game? it’s constant sensory stimulation! that blew my mind. if i remember correctly, he woke up a minute later, moved his character to a more secluded corner, and dozed right back off. now that’s pro gaming strategy.

also, the sky here is bluer and the clouds more alive, which i like (via mobile).