The heating professionals are drilling something LOUDLY in the basement below us.
It is LOUD! Did I mention it’s LOUD?! Oh my goodness, it’s loud! I daresay it’s actually worse the the pile driver, but only because the drilling is happening RIGHT UNDER ME (whereas the pile driver was across the lot/across the street).
I can’t take it, but I guess it’s the price we have to pay so that we don’t get slowly poisoned to death by gas exhaust fumes.
MAKE. IT. STOP!
I’m going to go in the kitchen and eat something. Maybe stuff some sourdough bread in my ears while I’m at it…
well, i love the parking lots at least.
we had to pick up a bunch of stuff cuz our fridge was near to empty, and we spent a good hour at ralph’s, walking up and down every aisle. we had a list, but bought about 3029219 things that weren’t on it.
the nice bag lady (the one who bagged our groceries) decided it was ok to put each item in its own bag, so we loaded a bazillion bags into the jozjozjoz mobile. as we were pulling out of the parking space and rounded the aisle to exit, i yelled, “STOP!!!!”
jozjozjoz was most notably alarmed at my tone and the volume of my voice, because she stopped immediately. good job, joz!
i unlocked the door and jumped out, bent down and picked up the $5 bill that was on the ground.
yes!!! five bucks. score! but wait! as i picked it up, i noticed it had a friend! yes! a $20 lay underneath the $5!!!!
whoo hoo! and the money was at least 4 spaces away from any other car, so i felt no guilt about picking it up and jumping back in the car to show joz the loot.
sometimes it’s the little things that make your day a really great one.
…I’m posting a story that disturbed me today on Page Six.
I have no idea whether or not it’s true, but all I can say is that I hope Ellen is happy & that I think it’s stupid that they refer to Alexandra as her “gal pal.”
Want to venture a guess as to the part(s) of this story that made me slightly nauseated?
Thanks to outoutblogger for the heads up.
DISCLAIMER! I AM NOT A GOSSIP COLUMNIST! All I am doing is posting about a story I read today that I wanted to comment on. THIS DOES NOT MAKE THIS A GOSSIP BLOG!
WHY ELLEN AND GAL PAL SPLIT
December 13, 2004 —
TITILLATING TV stars Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are shacking up after ditching their longtime lady loves.
On Friday it was reported that DeGeneres had split with her girlfriend of four years, photographer-director Alexandra Hedison.
Continue reading ‘At the risk of being mistaken for a “gossip column” again…’
…I was removing the tags from pillows!
…after sitting down, logging in, looking at the IMs that came in while I was away, for the life of me, I can’t remember what I meant to blog about.
How sad is that?!
My gratitude is for hot water, something that I have taken for granted in the past, but will try not to do in the future.
We got a new water heater Friday afternoon. Thanks to our landlord for being on top of the water heater situation. Thanks also to all the Gas Co guys who kept having to re-light our pilot light & especially for the guy who diagnosed the problem so I could tell our landlord we needed a new water heater.
It turned out that there was a leak in our water heater which would drip water onto the pilot light. If the burner was on, it was no big deal, but if it was just the pilot, the drip would make it go out. Which is why we were getting one tank of hot water (right after the Gas Co guy re-lit the pilot) before it would cool off and we’d have to get it re-lit again.
And our landlord has a heating specialist coming next week to fix the furnaces for the rest of the building. Luckily, it’s been much warmer in L.A. this week (it was like 80 degrees today!), so hopefully we’ll have heat again by next week when the temperatures are going to dip down into the 40s again.
And you may think I’m being a big complainer about the weather here, but though 40s may be t-shirt weather in other places, it’s not here. I figure I pay for the good weather by dealing with the high cost of living, traffic & congestion, smog, and other big negatives of L.A. Therefore, I’m entitled to whine when my fingers are popsicles. Heck, I’m entitled to whine whenever I damn well please (but I generally try not to!)!
“I See Myself in Chris Pirillo’s Pocket PC.”
(I had some fun while babysitting it for a few minutes yesterday afternoon.)
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Drive safely to Seattle, Chris & Ponzi.
Make sure Wicket & Pixie get there safely, too!
We’ll miss the dinners!
I was invited to an advanced screening of Ocean’s Twelve for tonight and I didn’t realize it was tonight.
It was the only movie I was really interested in seeing this season.
Doh.
And now we’re in the same boat we were in yesterday. And the day before.
Luckily we figured it out before the service calls ended for the night and now I’ve ANOTHER Gas Co guy coming to our house before the end of the night to re-light the pilot and to see if he can figure out why the heck our pilot light keeps going out.
I don’t have the Gas Co phone number memorized yet, but I do know all the prompts I’m supposed to push to get someone to come out.
This is getting to be beyond ridiculous.
First of all, I want to say that I didn’t mean to be crabby or snotty when I complained about the service people last time. Service folks work hard and I respect & appreciate them. I just get aggravated when they don’t do their jobs and it infringes upon mine. That was the complaint I had about the lazy mail carrier.
The Gas Co guy came this morning before 9am and re-lit our pilot light. Again. I watched him do it and he suggested that I not do it by myself. He tested the safety and said that the water heater should be fine, but he couldn’t find a reason for the pilot light going out.
And then he looked all around the basement to see if there was any place a draft was coming in, but he didn’t find anything.
He did, however, find cracks in the vent header for the furnaces in our building, which evidently spills flue gases (exhaust) into the basement. And then he says that typically, those exhaust fumes go through the floor into the unit above (ours).
Great. So every time one of our neighbors have used their heat, we have slowly been poisoned with the exhaust fumes from the furnaces below.
The Gas Co. guy said that he was forced to turn off the heat for all the units in our building and leave notices for all of our neighbors not to turn it on until it got fixed. We don’t use the heater, but I know that our neighbors do.
I hope my landlord responds to his emails, because I can’t find his phone #s anywhere.
Guess what?
It’s 1am and I just figured out that we have no hot water AGAIN.
The pilot isn’t staying lit so I just called for a “priority service appointment.” Guess who will be shifting around appointments all day tomorrow to wait for the service guy again? (me)
Guess who is mad that there is no hot water again and is banging around the house in a grouchy, grumpy, pissed-off mood? (yoshi)
Guess who has to take cold showers in this chilly-for-L.A. weather? (both of us)
One of the coolest holiday traditions anywhere can be found right here in L.A. at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion every Christmas Eve: The L.A. County Holiday Celebration, featuring performances of all kinds from local talent. Performing groups from throughout L.A. County - including choirs, music ensembles, and dance companies - reflect the vibrant spectrum of cultures found in southern California.
The show, which is admission-free, is a gift from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to the community at large. Attendance at the live show, which features 1000-1500 performers representing 38 groups chosen by competitive application in a six hour program every December 24, is a yearly ritual for thousands of families. The
2004 edition will be the 45th annual. Attendance and parking are free. No reservations or tickets are necessary. Doors open at 2:30pm. Seating is first come, first served. Attendees can arrive at any time and stay as long as they wish.
If you can’t leave the house, at least turn your TV on to PBS station KCET, which has broadcast the live show since 1965. It’s some great holiday programming for your holiday festivities.
I was reminded of this great event by Musikchyck, who sings for Vox Femina Los Angeles. They’ll be performing toward the end of the 6pm hour on Christmas Eve. I’ll also be excited to see my friends at GMCLA performing in the final hour.
Here’s the roster/schedule of performers… just another one of the “only in L.A.” things that I love about this crazy place.
ONE MORE THING: Henry Winkler is the host this year! HOORAY!
My mail carrier decided not to take the two small packages I clipped on the mailbox as outgoing mail.
He obviously had to touch the packages in order for him to put all that junkmail INTO our box, but I guess he was too f-in lazy to take the mail.
Incidentally, I had a bill also clipped as outgoing, but that was taken.
Lazy bum.
UPDATE: After my afternoon appointment, I chased down a mail truck and handed it my packages to a nice mail carrier who wasn’t too lazy to take my package.
Yoshi had to take a cold shower this morning because we didn’t seem to have any hot water.
Five hours later, we still don’t have any hot water and I’m being held hostage at home because I called the Gas Company to fix it & their service window was between the time that I called (10am) to 8pm.
Except for a brief appointment I have in the late afternoon, I was able to switch things around and work from home. But if those damn gas dudes come the hour I’m gone from my appointment, I’m going to go ballistic.
UPDATE: Gas guy came around 7pm and lit the pilot. It’ll take an hour or so for the water to heat up again.
It’s no Hero or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but House of Flying Daggers was definitely worth the two hours of my butt falling asleep at the Cinerama Dome at the Arclight last night.
This movie was released in China more than a year ago under the title Shi mian mai fu (literal English translation meaning “Ambush from Ten Sides” which is a much better title, but whatever). It was also released in Japan under the title “Lovers.”
I’m not a big fan of Zhang Ziyi, but I am totally into Takeshi Kaneshiro, the Japanese-Taiwanese actor who plays Jin in this movie. I went to the Sony Classics House of Flying Daggers website to grab some stills of him. He reminds me of an Asian Legolas with the bow & arrows and long hair. Hee.
Oh, and Strange Celebrity Sighting #2 for yesterday was standing next to Kelly Clarkson and her friends at the Guest Services desk at the Arclight while they were getting their tickets before heading over to Amoeba Music. She was not made-up & almost unrecognizable. In fact, if her friends hadn’t been acting weird, I’d have not even noticed her.
If you’re wondering what Strange Celebrity Sighting #1 was yesterday, it was seeing Daniel Owens (stylist from Jonathan Salon from Blow Out) at the bar at Eat Well in Silverlake as we were leaving from a blogging.la brunch. I was thrilled to meet Nanette and her beau, as well as Tammara from the new wave of folks at b.la. And always, it was much fun to see Jay Bushman, Will Campbell (& Susan) at brunch. It was a great way to start off a busy Sunday.
A subject I often wonder about… tech recycling.
…who are throwing rocks at my windows.
I usually sleep like the dead, but I kept waking up through the night due to the pitter-patter(?) of the rain last night.
One of the things I’ve been meaning to do is to clean up my blog.
A lot of people complain that the main page takes too long to load (it does) and that links are broken, etc, etc.
Additionally, since I’m using an older version of MT, I am getting spammed up the wazoo. It’s a very big problem.
I definitely think an upgrade or even a change to EE might be the answer.
I’m open to any suggestions which would make it easier for you to read my blog.
As mentioned, some of the candy survived the night, long enough for me to take a photo this morning.
Seen below, one of the two caramel covered apples, the marzipan “challah” and the “secret item…” the Spongebob Squarepants Color-A-Cookie!
How cool (though slightly disgusting-sounding) is the color-a-cookie?!
jozjozjoz in a candy store.
I have no photographic evidence of all of this, but I came home after dinner at TukTuk on Pico with a huge bag of candy & other goodies from Munchies (two doors down).
Among the stuff I came back with, a milk chocolate bar filled with soft nougat, caramel & nuts, a chocolate-coated wafer bar, a rainbow swirly-sugar-stick (with a Peanuts finger puppet), maripzan “challah”, some fruit leather stuff made out of guavas (is there a name for that?), and TWO caramel covered apples.
Oh, and I had one more sweet that I brought home that is still in tact, so anyone want to venture a guess to what that was?
Guess who forgot her jacket on the way to the office today?
I can’t believe it’s going to dip down to 41 degrees tonight and I’ll be out with no jacket.
I’m such a dummy.
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