Shake It

thank god for Garfield Minus Garfield to get my mind off things

currently listening to: Sam Sparro, Black and Gold

oh my god! the Bloc Party new song "Mercury" sounds like shit! geez!

so I have a couple of new favorite obsessions in my life that I would like to sing about. my first obsession is with vintage stores. who knew used clothes could be so exciting, cheap, and fun?! for me the thrill comes from scoring that unique find or look. and because what I wear is always changing on a whim, cheap, trendy clothing is a must. it was only appropriate that I was introduced to vintage goodness on Melrose Avenue, since it has been THE place for me to hang this summer. the stores I discovered include Wasteland, American Vintage, and Crossroads. I'm still on the lookout for good vintage stores, such as Buffalo Exchange and American Rag Cie, so keep a heads up for future posts on adventures to these stores

I guess I'm experiencing yet another major style shift. okay, I'll confess. I used to be into a little store called Abercrombie and Fitch. god. I would spend a lot of money at that store because I thought it was "cool" and "mature." looking back on the trend it was even a bit embarrassing because I would try to own as many different zip ups and t shirts and jeans as possible. yikes. and then I...stopped. I guess the overpriced sweatshirts and the huge ABERCROMBIE letters across the chest just got to me

UPDATE: today Los Angeles and the Southern California area experienced a 5.4 magnitude earthquake (initially reported as a 5.8, downsized to a 5.4). I was in the Pasadena office when I felt it and was like fuck it's an earthquake! all the workers got super giddy because being structural engineers we work a lot with preparing for earthquakes. everyone prairie dogged their cubicle and was like "IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!" it started out with a sharp jolt, followed by a longer, more powerful vibration. immediately I went onto the USGS website, and sure enough, fifty "refresh" clicks later, a huge dot appeared. the news wires went nuts, the phone lines were jammed. I was lucky to send out a quick text to my brother telling him to let my parents know I was okay

it was fairly interesting to see people's reactions. a lot of the coworkers immediately began checking for structural damage. we found one wall panel had been knocked askew, and peered into the building. we discovered the column in the office was not properly seismically braced. hah hah. for some people, this was their first EQ experience, and it definitely unnerved them. they were very excited, nearly hysterical. as I hail from the also earthquake prone Bay Area, I was nonchalant about the EQ. it was pretty exciting and made the day more interesting, as it happened right before lunch. we felt a small aftershock afterwards, which was nice. the most amusing part for me was the countless status updates on facebook: "-- just experienced their first earthquake!" "-- is safe from the earthquake!" "-- felt the earthquake!". holy fuck, it's not that big of a deal. unimpressed

so there's a 1:20 chance that a major earthquake will strike in the next twenty four hours and a 1:100 chance of it happening in the following week. hooray for tectonic stress releases in the form of seismic energy

anyway I'm actually tired from blogging. I'll continue bitching about clothes another time. since you know, that's all I ever talk about anyways

Mr. Pitiful

if you can't tell from the date, this is the Dark Knight weekend. I've already seen it twice. and the only other summer movies I've watched are Iron Man and Wanted. it is quite a good movie. arguably the coolest part of the movie is the use of sonar from cell phones and such to create a map for Batman to scope the vicinity. it's fucking echolocation! another way to tie Batman to the bat animal. and yes, Heath Ledger was amazing as the Joker. it's so hard to believe that under all that is an Australian young man!! also extremely underrated was Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent / Two-Face. I know all the attention's been on Batman and the Joker, but AE nearly steals the show with his own transformation

I watched the movie twice. the first time was at the Landmark theatre at the midKNIGHT showing (har har). it was super swanky, and most of the crowd were young hipsters. EVERYONE had an iPhone (seriously? is it really that cool?). I sat in the fourth row from the front, so it was a ridiculous three hours. before the movie even started, they had a movie worker "announce" the movie, which I found utterly pointless. the audience cheered and clapped when HL first appeared on the screen, then whenever there was a new twist, and when his name appeared in the credits. definitely the first time was to get the storyline out of the way, and for me to think about things for a bit. the second time was at the uber-ghetto UV theatre. the people next to me were downright nasty for a no good reason ("we don't have to answer to anyone!") and some idiot family brought their baby, which of course cried through the entire three hours. ugh. but I enjoyed watching the movie both times very much

unfortunately the midnight showing left me with a mere four hours of sleep, so I was very tired the next day at work. but I was able to work through it

the weekend I didn't really have an agenda, so I went to the Glendale Galleria and Americana again. I kept buying frozen lemonades and slurpees. they're cheap and tasty! probably loaded with more sugar than I would need for an entire weekend, but that's the tradeoff you get for such deliciousness. I bought....a lot of clothes. I went back to Melrose Avenue, but this time I hit up the famous Wasteland. Wasteland is a vintage used clothing store where people bring in their old clothes and receive cash back. because it is LA and it is located on Melrose, all the clothing is riduclously trendy and heavily labelled. I found a NEW zip up jacket for eighteen bucks that I had seen at the USC Library (the on campus designer store). I also swooped on a zip up hoodie. I also found some amazing old school style, but I had already made some earlier purchases at other stores, and thus refrained from them. I was extremely impressed though with the clothes because it is very similar to the stuff I am trying to project. I am DEFINITELY going to check out this place again; it's amazingly cheap and you score some seriously good stuff. when I was making my purchase, the hipster cashier kinda sneered at me because I asked if I needed to wash the clothes (how was I supposed to know! I've never bought vintage!), but then he laughed at me when I threw my ID at him. sigh

there was also a huge Urban Outfitters sale of an additional fifty percent off sale items and I found the right shoes of some attractive sandals, but couldn't find their left counterpart, so I was extremely disappointed. and speaking of shoes, I think my beloved gladiators are finally wearing down; I wore them all day Saturday and was hobbling when I made my way upstairs back home. I don't know how I got so addicted to shoes this summer!

Leavin'

currently listening to: Jesse McCartney "Leavin"
currently reading: Seabiscuit
currently watching: Los Angeles Dodgers

go blue! so I watched three home Dodger games in last week, one against the Atlanta Braves and the other against the Florida Marlins. the first night the pitcher Kuroda throws a near perfect game - a one hitter shut out, with the hit coming in the 8th inning. it was an amazing athletic feat. it was also pretty cool to check out Dodger Stadium for the first time. I was pretty impressed with the venue. the second night I went with the company, and that was another similar yet different experience. everything was paid for, I still sat in upper reserve (aka nosebleed), but the Dodgers lost. then on Friday I went to another Dodgers game and it was a nice warm evening with a fairly large crowd but they lost again

I've also been having fairly shoddy car woes. this last week I raked up near four hundred dollars on my car. fifty dollars went to a parking ticket because I apparently parked during street cleaning (I suck at life - I moved it to avoid the street cleaning but moved it into another street with cleaning at the same day and time). and then I needed an oil change, but when I went to the store they said I needed to change my brakes and everything else, thus costing me even more in repairs

work's been pretty steady. I'm enjoying it. I'm also keeping up with the gym, so that's nice. I recently switched my routine from an inclined speed walk to a full out 35 minute run on the treadmill. my feet muscles have started to act up again. but I definitely feel like my legs are a lot more toned now

mmm there's nothing else I can really post on this public blog, so I'll leave it here for now