Archive for the 'i love la' Category

Shake shake shake!

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on July 29, 2008
in :: bro ::, :: dad ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, i love la and joz = dork
. 9 Comments

Shake Shake Shake!
Shake your booty!

(Is that song stuck in your head now?! You’re welcome!)

I was working from home when today’s 5.4 Chino Hills earthquake struck. The building shook suddenly and I thought the earthquake was over, until a rolling motion followed shortly thereafter. When the shaking started, I looked over at Yoshi (we were both in the office) to see if I was just imagining it or not. Once I got confirmation it was an earthquake (and things weren’t toppling down on us), I was like “I’m going to blog this before anyone else does!” And so I made this post at LA Metblogs WHILE THE ROOM WAS STILL SHAKING. Damn, I’m hardcore. Either that, or my survival instinct loses to my blogging instinct.

I’m just glad I wasn’t on-site at my client’s location at the moment (like I was supposed to be). I’d have been up on the 18th floor of a high-rise building. Having been through more minor quakes on the 20th floor at my old job, I know that I don’t like the swaying of tall buildings, and I especially dislike the creaking noises the building makes during and after a quake.

Anyway, right after I posted and checked the USGS website for info, I tried to call my Mom because she was much closer to the epicenter than I was (her house is approx 15 miles away). I have 3 different cell phones with 3 different carriers and none of them were working. So I picked up my land line and called Mom’s land line. It was just a relief when she answered the phone and I heard her voice.

I asked if everything was ok, and she said, “I tried to call you and your brother but the cell phones aren’t working. I was drinking coffee and it spilled all over the place and something fell on the piano and dented it, but I’m ok.” Then she described what she heard and felt: a loud boom followed by an intense shaking and then some rolling. She said that she was trying to wipe up the coffee but then when the shaking continued, she decided to grab her purse and run for the door (she was already near the front door). But as she got there, the shaking stopped.

I was just glad to hear that she was fine and she said, “The only thing that happened here is that the piano got dented, but it’s ok. It was already dented.”

Yes, our piano was already dented? Yes. It was caused by a JozQuake™ several years ago.

The joke is that it first got dented by my fat ass. If only it got dented because I had buns of steel. But no. Here’s how it really went down…

One day I was backing up around the piano (beep! beep! beep!) and I misjudged where the piano was behind me (also, I misjudged how big my butt was). I backed right into the upright piano. BOOM!

There was a big scholar’s rock being displayed on top of the piano which began to teeter and totter precariously when I hit the piano with my ass and started the JozQuake™.

My Dad was behind me and saw the toppling the scholar’s rock begin its journey in the general direction toward my oblivious backside. Dad tried to catch it but it was a pretty big rock and it wasn’t quite close enough to me to actually hit me so he thought better of it and let it crash onto the piano, rather than potentially hurt himself in the process. (I know you’re thinking, “It’s just a rock.” But let me just say, my Dad collected only the most beautiful, high quality, and expensive scholar’s rocks so this rock was undoubtedly worth well over several hundred dollars. Let’s not mention how much the piano cost.)

My Mom saw all this happen from across the room at yelled at me not to get hit by the rock while simultaneously yelling at my Dad for even thinking about catching it. (How my Mom can yell so many things at so many people at the same time still amazes me.)

Lucky for me, the rock did not hit me and ended up on the ground. Also lucky for me, the rock was undamaged, too. But the same couldn’t be said about the piano, seeing as it just got hit by a giant rock. DOH!

I assumed my Dad was going to be mad at me and my carelessness… for almost breaking his rock (he LOVED his rocks) and possibly my back, and especially for denting up the piano, so I apologized to him right away.

But instead of being mad, he kind of laughed and said to me, “It’s OK; just as long as you’re OK. Now every time I see the dent, I’ll just think of you.”

My Dad is the bestest!

PS - For those who are wondering, the Bro is fine, too.

Memorial Day Weekend 2008

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on May 27, 2008
in :: bro ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, General, i love la, joz = dork and travel
. 4 Comments

Since December of last year, I’ve gone on an out of town trip an average of twice a month. You would think that for a long weekend, I would want to go on a trip, but that would be wrong. I hate traveling during holiday weekends, when everyone else is traveling.

I had a lot to catch up with around the house; general chores and stuff. Yoshi is usually the one who cleans and stuff around the house (since I am so horribly bad at it), but I figured that I should pitch in so long as I had some “extra time.” Also, I made a mess of the kitchen, so cleaning some of the more awful messes (especially ones I cause) are really my responsibility. I should have made an appearance at Darleene’s birthday party on Saturday, but I since I am almost always using the excuse that “I’m never home” so I don’t have to clean, I figured leaving for a party on cleaning day wasn’t a good idea.

By the end of the evening, I was tired of being home all day, and I whined my way into having Yoshi go to the movies with me. We ended up stopping by the drugstore to buy a stash of candy, grabbing a quick bite of pizza, and then watching “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” at the Century City AMC*. Boy, that is a long movie! It’s a good thing I looked at the running time (2 hours, 20 minutes!) before the movie started. I decided not to drink anything until the movie was almost over so I wouldn’t have to run from the film doing the pee-pee dance.

On Sunday, I made a quick visit to see Grandma and to run a quick errand near her place before driving back to OC to spend time with my Mom. Mom had been at a friend’s funeral service in the morning and decided to get gas and groceries on the way home. I had intended to extend my cleaning streak to help my Mom around her house, but instead, she asked me for help in making potstickers. From hand chopping the nappa cabbage to folding the potstickers, my Mom let me sit on the living room floor in front of the TV (as I did when I was growing up) and fold a couple of hundred potstickers. (I watched the movie “Clueless” on TBS and then kept flipping back to CNN as they were doing live coverage of the Phoenix Mars lander.) My Mom was taking potstickers as fast as I was making them, and throwing them on to the stove as she was pan-frying them. Yum!

Joz-made potstickers

I brought a couple of batches home, foolishly thinking that I’d freeze them and save them for another day but I ended up pan-frying them myself so Yoshi and I could pig out on almost all of them for dinner on Monday night. Yum! Gyoza!

But I skipped something.

After dinner on Sunday, I took my Mom to The Block in Orange to run a quick errand and do a quick walk-through of half the mall. We stopped into Bath & Body Works and tried a bunch of fragrant lotions and stuff. My Mom had the most fun trying on the flavored lip glosses. I tried pink grapefruit. She had fruit punch, which made her lips a bright pink. With glitter. Hilarious and so much fun.

Then we stopped by the house to drop something off and headed off to catch a movie. My Mom wanted to watch “Made of Honor” (since I had described it as a romantic comedy), so that’s what we watched. It wasn’t that great of a movie, but it had its charming moments and Mom was having fun, so I had a good time. It was about 11pm when Made of Honor ended, but Mom wasn’t done yet! We walked out of the theater and she said, “Let’s see another movie!”**

“Mom, there are no movies starting at 11pm on a Sunday night,” I reminded her.

“I don’t have to see the whole movie, let’s go see something that’s already started!” she answered!

Oh yay! I was going to be theater-hopping at midnight with Mom! She headed to “Harold & Kumar,” but not wanting to have to explain any potentially gross humor to my mom, I steered her to the Narnia movie I had already seen the previous night, especially since I knew there was at least an hour of that movie left to go. We walked into as a massive fight scene was happening and since there was no context of what what happening my Mom was confused.

“WHAT is going on here with all these animals fighting?” she asked. I had to explain that the animals were the good guys and the mean looking people were the bad guys. After that, it was all good.

Of course, by the time the movie was over, it was 12:30… way past my bedtime! Instead of going back to L.A., I spent the night in OC at my Mom’s house.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I was trying to leave early, but I had accidentally popped the trunk of the car the night before and the car battery died from the little trunk light being on all night. Ooops. Luckily, no one stole any of the Cup-O-Noodles out of the back of my car while it was open all night on the street in front of my parents’ home.

Anyway, I had to go get gas, so while I was out, I stopped by the movie theater and picked up a pair of tickets for my Mom to catch a matinee of the new Indiana Jones movie. I wanted to stay, but wanted to hit the road before the mad long weekend traffic kicked in. I made it home in 35 minutes flat. Nice!

*Through my old job, I have an Annual Pass for movies at AMC Theaters, good for me + 1 through the end of this year. Sadly, the pass I had for 2007 was practically wasted on me because I didn’t have time for movies while I was in school last year. I have resolved to make VERY good use of my pass this year now that I’m done with school and while I still have a pass. I most definitely won’t be getting a pass next year.

**As always, italics means it was in Mandarin.

Question: Why should companies that want to promote their products send Joz to parties and give her free stuff?

Published
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jozjozjoz
on March 7, 2008
in i love la and joz = dork
. 13 Comments

Answer: Joz will come home with the stuff she really loves, and then take pictures of herself kissing their products in bed.* (It sounds naughty, but it’s totally not.)

Joz Loves Her New Pink Nintendo DS - 03-06-2008

That’s right. For going to a party, I came home with a new pink Nintendo DS! (I am going to name her “DSty Rose” as in dusty rose pink. Peeeeeeeeeeeenk! And yes, I am already in love, but to be fair, Yoshi has a black Nintendo DS named “DSten” (Dustin) that I would play with frequently, so it’s not like am just mindlessly playing into the marketing ploys of Nintendo. But if Nintendo wants to believe that the brain washing worked, I’m ok with that too. I guess that just means I’m easy.

My long-time friend Lindsay William-Ross from LAist was the hostess with the mostest last night at a Nintendo/BrandEnthusiast event called “A Girlfriend’s Guide to Gaming.” Lindsay was kind enough to include me on the guest list which included a bunch of kickass girls (lots from LAist) I’ve been wanting to meet for some time (years!)… like the beautiful Jayfader and Siel (GreenLAGirl). (Picture of the 3 of us coming soon!)

It’s actually hard for me to get out to events in the city during weeknights, not just because of traffic, but also because of parking. I didn’t have to worry last night because the hosts provided complimentary valet service. SCORE!

The event was held in a converted photo studio off of LaBrea and Melrose and I was greeted by the warm smiles and hugs of Lindsay… and a table full of food, snacks, candy, drinks, and wine!

Throughout the room, there were Nintendo “hostesses” who were dressed in cute little black dresses with little satchels tied around their waists. It turned out these satchels held some fun goodies for us.

So after coming in and having a little bite to eat, one hostess gave every guest a heavy gold charm bracelet to wear. There were four (themed) seating areas which were like modern little living rooms with modern-type couches, a coffee table and some chairs. On each table they had like 4-6 DSs sitting around and at each one there was a hostess who helped you play a certain Nintendo DS game. So I played Brain Age 2, Mario Kart, Nintendogs and Planet Puzzle League (totally addicting). (Believe it or not, even though we already have a DS in our house, I had never played any of those games, with the exception of some Nintendogs a long time ago.) After you were done playing the game (usually 15 min), the hostess would add a charm for your bracelet (from aforementioned satchel) and when you got all 4 charms you got a Nintendo DS of your own (black or pink) to take with you!!!

And, as we walked out of the door, thinking they were done giving us things, another hostess stopped us to hand us copies of Brain Age 2! Woot!

I had the greatest time and going to a party where I could simultaneously be social and anti-social and where I didn’t get yelled at for being rude by playing with my electronicals in public. (Hmm, didn’t mean for that to sound so dirty…)

THANKS AGAIN FOR INCLUDING ME, LINDSAY! And thanks to everyone who put it all together for making the night so much fun for me!

*If I do go to any parties or get any free stuff, I don’t promise kisses, getting in bed with anyone/anything, or any bedroom pictures. Basically, I make no promises… not even to go to any parties or to take any stuff!

Two quick stories.

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on March 6, 2008
in food, i love la, joz = dork and joz = weirdo magnet
. 7 Comments

It’s 5am and I am supposed to be done with my paper that is due at 6pm tonight. Let’s just say that I’m not done yet, but if I really focus, I should be able to complete it before I have to leave for work 7:45 today.

So clearly I shouldn’t be blogging.

But then again, I should have gotten more than an hour and a half of sleep last night, too. Since when do I pay attention to what I should or shouldn’t do, anyway?! (To be fair, I woke up on my own and couldn’t go back to sleep even though I allowed myself a longer nap than that.)

Oh well. I promised two quick stories.

STORY #1 (This story is for my personality twin Meeta, who probably has 10 similiar stories she could share)

This happened on Tuesday afternoon, around lunchtime.

Despite having packed leftover Thai food for lunch for Tuesday, I was my usual dorky self and left my lunch at home by the front door instead of taking it with me. (I blame it on being late to my doctor’s appointment, which was also my fault.)

Anyway, by lunchtime, I wasn’t that hungry but I was regretting not having anything to put in my mouth. I hadn’t planned on taking lunch, so I just wanted to go get something quick and come right back. I figured my best chance of not getting into any trouble was to jump in the car, find the nearest drive-thru, grab some grub, and get back to my work ASAP.

The nearest drive-thru I could find was a Jack in the Crack and so I turned into the (tiny) driveway and was met by a line of cars that wrapped around into the (tiny) parking lot. As I looked in my mirror to see if I could back up and make an escape, a car pulled in behind me and I was trapped. The parking lot was so small, there was really room for one lane of cars, so all the people parking in the lot were now trapped, too.

“Oh well, hopefully the line moves quickly,” I thought to myself.

At that moment, this tall, slender man wearing sunglasses and a business casual outfit walked out of the restaurant. He was heading toward the parking lot (which I was now effectively blocking completely) and then he walked toward my car and motioned for me to roll down my window. I assumed he was going to tell me which car was his so I could move out of the way a little.

Instead, he asked for my number.

Whaaaaaaaaa?! I’M SITTING IN LINE AT THE DRIVE-THRU AT JITB AND A GUY IS HITTING ON ME?! WTF!

I’ll admit, the guy was kind of cute, but I did not expect him to ask for my number.

“Sorry,” I sputtered. “I’m married.” (So it’s not technically true, but it might as well be and really, isn’t that the most compassionate lie I could have told him?)

“Oh,” he replied. He was going to say something else, but I cut him off. “Thanks for asking though, that’s quite flattering, but sorry…”

“It’s ok,” he smiled at me. “You’re blocking me in, by the way.”

I looked over at the direction of his car and I played innocent, “Oh? Sorry about that! I’ll get out of the way as soon as the cars ahead of me move.” And then the gods finally shined some luck down on me and the cars started moving. I started rolling up my window and he said, “Bye. See you around.”

“No, I won’t!” I thought, as I pretended to focus on driving my car forward 5 feet. I saw him pull out of his spot and try to squeeze his car past mine. As he passed me, he waved at me again and I just kind of nodded at him and looked away.

At least he wasn’t a creep and he was generally nice about it all, but when I told Yoshi about it and how I ABSOLUTELY WAS MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS and not trying to attract any kind of attention to myself, Yoshi just kind of laughed at me… because strangers are constantly coming up and talking to me (usually not hitting on me), and I am always swearing that I didn’t do anything to egg it on.

The joke is that I’m somehow “receptive” to strangers, but many people have witnessed this happening and I REALLY AM NOT BEHAVING AS IF I ENJOY TALKING TO STRANGERS.

The consensus is that I’m just a “freak magnet.” And I since I can’t explain it, I can’t really dispute it.

Lesson learned: No more fast food. (Do you remember the time I went through the drive-thru at Taco Bell?!)

STORY #2:
I could tell a much more colorful story about my dinner with EB and how we walked down to the local pizza joint last night and ordered a giant 18″ pizza and how we are plotting our next weekend trip + my graduation party, etc.

But instead I’m going to gyp you on the second story and give you a condensed version so I can get back to my paper.

The upshot: I walked out of my house without my keys and we found ourselves locked out. (Ok, technically, *I* locked us both out, but it sounded better the other way.)

By the time we got back to my house after dinner, EB had most of a giant 18″ pizza in one arm, a bag of candy and other stuff from Rite-Aid in the other arm, and I was sitting on the steps by the front door, desperately emptying out my purse in search of my keys.

Lucky for us, Yoshi happened to come home moments after I began purging the contents of my purse on to the doorstep. EB hollered out to Yoshi to come help us and open the door and Yoshi took one look at us and said, “Y’all are out of luck. I’m going in through the backdoor.”

Yoshi did not realize I really didn’t have my keys since it would have been a good assumption that we would have had to drive to go out to dinner. (We DO live in LA, after all…)

“How is it possible that you lost your keys between the car and the front door?” asked Yoshi.

“We didn’t drive!!! We walked!!!” I whined.

Then EB started in on me because before we left the house I had convinced him that the pizza joint was only two blocks away, when it was really 2 blocks one way + almost 3 really, really long blocks the other way. “See? If we had driven instead of walking that whole long way, we would not have this problem,” he pointed out.

Great. As if having Yoshi to tease me wasn’t enough. Now I’ve got EB and his giant pizza giving me grief, too. And he threatened to punish me by eating the candy he’d bought for me at Rite-Aid. (I pointed out to him that he’s allergic to some of it.)

Finally Yoshi relented and walked toward us to open the front door (and so I could put everything back inside my purse again).

And yes, my keys were sitting right by the front door.

Where I had left my Thai food the day before.

Perfect, no?

A Lovesong for Anna

Published
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jozjozjoz
on February 27, 2008
in i love la
. 7 Comments

I flew into LAX the other night (2/25) around 11pm from Dulles and when I climbed into my car to drive home after a long day of travel, my station was tuned to Lovesongs on the Coast on 103.5 KOST.

I can be such a cynic and usually think that the show and the love dedications are completely saccharine and the songs totally cheesy, but I was too weary to change the station.

Sometime shortly before midnight, a gal named Anna called into Karen Sharp, asking if she could play the ultimate cheesy love song: “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion. I lifted my arm to switch the station.

But Karen asked Anna who the song was to be dedicated to and a flood of emotion came tumbling out of Anna, who had obviously been holding it in while making the request. “My fiance Jason,” she said. “He died last week.” Jason had an aneurysm and though the song didn’t have any particular significance, she said that it felt appropriate because she wanted him to know that she would be ok without him. Karen asked what her favorite memory of him was and Anna said, “Probably a road trip we took together to San Francisco. It was the best week of my life.”

Sometimes I wonder if anyone still calls in to dedicate songs to others and yes, they do.

And sometimes a dedication will reach through and touch others who are listening, as well.

I send my best to Anna, who is somewhere out in this crazy city of LA. May your memories of Jason bring you comfort in this time of mourning.

Not just a Monday off of work

Published
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jozjozjoz
on January 21, 2008
in General, i love la, travel and yoshi
. 0 Comments

Back in the day when I used to work for Bossman, we never got MLK Day off. He believed that Dr King did not work hard so that we could have an extra day off from work to go to the beach. So in compensation for our having to work on MLK Day, Bossman would select another day to take off,

While I absolutely appreciate and agree with Bossman’s sentiments, most companies just give us the Monday off in January.

That said, after our night at the Hyatt, Yoshi and I checked out of the hotel to have a bite to eat at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Beverly Hills. After that, we headed back to the reality of home.

Ahh, home. Love it.

(Written 1/22/08)

Saturday night at home; Sunday night at the Riot Hyatt

Published
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jozjozjoz
on January 20, 2008
in General, i love la, travel and yoshi
. 0 Comments

I spent all day Saturday at home trying to take care of the list of a million things to do. I tried to clean, but I just didn’t get around to doing as much as I would have liked.

Our friend Dave came over on Saturday night to keep me company and to help me set up the projector (which still doesn’t have a name) in the living room so we could watch a DVD. We ended up watching The Muppet Movie, which neither of us had seen in well over a decade. Even though Dave dozed off during one segment of the movie, we both agreed that the movie still stands up surprisingly well.

I had to work during the day on Sunday, but I was done around 4:30pm. This was roughly the time that Yoshi’s flight came in at Burbank, so I rushed myself over the hill to go do the airport pick-up myself. Since Yoshi’s stuff was covered in cat hair, we needed to go home and unpack as well as repack for our night out (remember the free night at a hotel?).

It’s a really good thing that we did not have to stay at our place on Sunday night because I really did not make a very big dent in the cleaning that needed to be done. As such, a night out in a hotel was a nice distraction from the reality of our messy place.

It did take us forever to get out of the door and over to the Hyatt on Sunset in West Hollywood (aka the Riot Hyatt). And as soon as we got there, we saw all the scaffolding and went “Uh oh, I hope the construction noise doesn’t start way early.” We got inside to check-in and they informed us that construction starts at 8am. The front desk offered to move us over to the Hyatt in Century City, but it ended up not making sense to do that. Plus, it turned out that construction wasn’t scheduled for MLK Day (the next morning), so we were in luck.

They put us in one of the newly renovated rooms, which was extremely nice. (I wrote a review on Yelp) It was so nice to spend time with Yoshi after being apart all week.

And for the record, no strangers attempted to enter our hotel room on this stay.

(Written 1/22/08)

Rhythms of Life with Vox & the On Ensemble

Published
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jozjozjoz
on November 4, 2007
in General and i love la
. 2 Comments

Vox Femina Los AngelesAs a former staff member of Vox Femina Los Angeles, the premier women’s choral group of our fine city, I regularly attend the concerts by this wonderful group. But I know choral music can be a hard sell, especially in this town of a million things to do.

That said, my guests and I had such a wonderful time at the Vox performance tonight, I wanted to share some of the highlights so that anyone interested might decide to catch the (final) performance on Sunday afternoon. If you like music with a great beat, world music, or taiko (drumming), then you should definitely catch this concert. The women of Vox sounded amazing; their voices blended beautifully; sometimes they were the percussion section.

On EnsembleBut the highlight of the performance was the Los Angeles based On (pronounced Ohn) Ensemble, a troupe of taiko drummers who bring a unique world fusion mix to the tradition of taiko. With musical experience ranging from centuries-old Kabuki music to jazz, rock and electronica, the On Ensemble features taiko drums in conjunction with turntable, western drum kit, bamboo flute, koto (Japanese zither), and Tuvan overtone singing.

That’s right. Turntable. And throat singing. By some really awesome taiko drummers. (Only in/from L.A.!)

I loved this performance not only because each ensemble was excellent in their individual sets, but because they came together at the end as two L.A.-based groups performing as one.

And you can still catch them downtown at Zipper Hall at the Colburn School of Performing Arts.
Continue reading ‘Rhythms of Life with Vox & the On Ensemble’

“Trick-or-Treat Goodies (our way)” - Fourth time around

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on October 31, 2007
in :: bro ::, :: dad ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, General, b-school, food, i love la and joz = dork
. 7 Comments

It’s almost 6pm, I’m late for class, I’m going to be stuck in traffic, and I haven’t seen a single Halloween costume all day (been stuck at my desk).

Aside from my Grandma being in the hospital, I’m just not in a Halloween-y mode.

But it’s becoming a Halloween tradition on my blog to recycle this Halloween story. To anyone who has already read it, I hope you’ll read it again. To any first timers, I hope you enjoy.

Happy Halloween.

Joz at the pumpkin patch in 1984. I like how my eyes are closed in this shot. (How did 20 years go by so quickly?!)When we were kids, we learned about a lot of American traditions for the first time on television or in school. Since our parents came to the United States only a couple of years before I was born, they learned about American holidays pretty much at the same time my brother and I did.

Halloween was something fun and exciting because my Mom understood the concept of “dress up” and although she claimed that she didn’t know how to sew, she always came up with costumes for us for Halloween so we could go trick-or-treating and come home with a bag full of candy that we were later not allowed to eat, since it would “rot our teeth out of our mouths.”

Since we weren’t allowed to eat the candy we got from trick-or-treating, often the strategy was to send us out early & to give away the candy that we had received earlier in the evening. We didn’t mind; that was just the way we did things.

As we got old enough to go to school (and have neighbor kids in the same classes with us), we began to become concerned about what candy was being given away at our front door. One year, my Mom informed us that our cousins were planning to come to our neighborhood so we could all go trick-or-treating together. Although this was exciting, it also meant that Mom would actually have to prepare treats in advance for my Dad to pass out while we were out.

I still remember how horrifying it was when Mom returned from the supermarket, proudly announcing that she had purchased “the BEST trick-or-treat goodies” for the neighborhood kids.

My Bro and I excited went through the grocery bags but we didn’t find any Smarties, M&Ms, candy corn, or little Snickers bars.

“What? Where? Mom?”
Continue reading ‘“Trick-or-Treat Goodies (our way)” - Fourth time around’

What happens when I wake up at 4am because it’s raining outside?

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on September 22, 2007
in General, b-school, i love la and yoshi
. 2 Comments

First, I go to the bathroom, because, WOW! That’s a lotta water out there…

Then, I wake Yoshi up and go, “Listen! It’s raining hard!”

Then Yoshi asks says groggily, “Yeah, it’s raining. Why are you awake?”

Then, I say, “Because I heard it rain and then I had to pee.”

Then Yoshi says, “Great, now I have to go, too.” And gets up to go.

Then Yoshi doesn’t return right away and I hear futzing in the office. Yoshi is taking the fan out of the window because rain was getting it wet and rain was coming through the window.

Then I go and take the fan out of the window in the den. Same reason.

Then we both go back to bed.

But I can’t sleep now, so I get up.

And Yoshi goes back to sleep.

And then I get down with my nerdly meteorological self and make a post on blogging.la about how there is a drought in L.A.

Now it’s 7:30 and I’m tired. I might take a nap before all my meetings (group projects for school) start up today.

I’m in Tampa!

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on August 20, 2007
in General, i love la and travel
. 4 Comments

My flight arrived 10 minutes early.

It was a smooth flight but I didn’t get much sleep on the plane since the lady next to me was Ms Snoring and the guy sitting behind me was Mr Kicking My Seat. And I can usually sleep on planes, no prob. I’m probably wound up about this training since I’m not sure what to expect.

Getting to the airport last night was snappy. I called two cab companies to come pick me up, but neither could confirm that the driver would be there on time, or would get me there on time so I ended calling a car service. I hope the company doesn’t give me crap for that because technically, it’s within policy.

Anyway, I got picked up at the house at 7pm and arrived by some miracle at LAX at 7:30. I credit the driver for taking surface streets and avoiding the freeway. Yay!

Since I’d already checked in online, all I had to do was get through security. For some reason there was no one in line and I got through in a snap. They didn’t even need to check my baggie of liquids/gels! I was free to roam the terminal by 7:45! The guy who checked my boarding pass told me I was in the wrong terminal but that there was a tunnel underground that would take me to the other terminal. No worries, I had more than 2 hours to blow before take off.

I went down to the tunnel as directed and a guy in a golf cart asked me if he could give me a ride to the other terminal. I was going to walk since I had so much time, but he insisted that I let him drive me. That was a good call because I didn’t realize that it’s a loooooooong way to the other terminal. (I should have known it, but I just wasn’t thinking about it.) The ride in the golf cart saved me at least 20 minutes of walking.

When I got to the right terminal, I checked where my gate was and then I had a bite to eat. I got myself a snack for the morning (cinnamon roll; just ate half of it). And then tried to log on using my laptop and the T-Mobile hotspot. Who knew this would be the first snag I’d run into…

(to be continued… time to go!)

Wish me luck

Published
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jozjozjoz
on August 19, 2007
in General, i love la and travel
. 8 Comments

In a few minutes, a car is going to pick me up and whisk me away to the airport.

I’m taking a red-eye to Tampa which will arrive around 6am (3am my time). I’ll have just enough time to check in, shower, maybe nap & get ready to go to a training session at 9am (6am my time). I’ll be in training for two days, and then I’ll change hotels Tuesday night.

On Wednesday morning, I’ll have an early meeting; leaving for the airport at 10am to catch a noonish flight back to L.A.

I don’t think I’m going to have much time to do anything on my own time, but I have my fingers crossed that I might get to meet Luka.

Business trips suck, but wish me happy traveling.

Mini Movie Review: Bourne Ultimatum

Published
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jozjozjoz
on August 9, 2007
in General and i love la
. 3 Comments

As I mentioned the other day, my company sponsored a movie matinee at the Arclight, which was awesome. Not only did we get to cut out of work a couple hours early, they bought out the whole theater so we had a private screening where we could whoop and holler as much as we wanted without bothering regular moviegoers. In the 2+ years I have been at my company, this is the first time I’ve been able to take advantage of a daytime (during work hours) company event. I haven’t attended either of the company Holiday parties in the past two years because they were held at lunchtime on a Friday. They’ve had a number of screenings that I had to pass on because I was working. So it was really nice that I got to go (finally) to my first company screening.

I enjoyed The Bourne Ultimatum, but had some beefs about some of the director’s choices, but overall it was an enjoyable, suspenseful, action-filled movie. It’s not as good as my friends keep telling me they thought it was, so I didn’t like it THAT much.

Anyway, if anyone wants to discuss privately, find me on IM or something.

SPOILERS BELOW!
Continue reading ‘Mini Movie Review: Bourne Ultimatum’

Farewell, Hal Fishman

Published
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jozjozjoz
on August 7, 2007
in General and i love la
. 1 Comment

Hal FishmanWhen I drove to work this morning, I saw the KTLA newsvan parked and set up to tape on the east side of Vine, just north of Sunset. What I didn’t know then was that legendary L.A. newscaster Hal Fishman’s star is located at 1560 Vine Street. I also didn’t know Hal Fishman had passed away last night.

When I worked at KTLA a few years ago, I would run into various news folk as I running around the station. Hal Fishman was one of my favorite people to talk to; always well-informed, always a gentleman, always with a very distinctive point of view about the world around him.

I shall miss his presence on KTLA News.

What makes a headache better?

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on July 31, 2007
in General, food, i love la, joz = dork and joz = weirdo magnet
. 8 Comments

Ice cream at the one & only Scoops.

Today I got Guava & Lychee Sorbet: two of my favorite fruits in one ice cream. It was so good I wanted more.

I also got Strawberry & Balsamic Vinegar which was more strawberry, less balsamic vinegar.

I called in sick to work because I didn’t sleep well last night and was feeling bleh all morning. The ice cream was a real pick-me-up.

I got there when Tai was putting a few flavors out for the evening. I tried the Pineapple & Jackfruit Sorbet and thought seriously about getting another scoop.

Of course, if I continue eating Scoops at this rate, I will weigh 700 pounds and you will see me next on one of those medical reality shows being interviewed for consideration for gastric bypass surgery.

Gastric Bypass Reality Show Pyschologist: “Joz, do you know why you are the weight you are today?”

Joz: “Because I loooooooooooooove Scoops. Yummmmm.”

Let’s all hope it doesn’t get to that point, shall we?

Had a wonderful time tonight at the Hollywood Bowl…

Published
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jozjozjoz
on July 26, 2007
in General, b-school, food and i love la
. 3 Comments

Since we didn’t subscribe to the Hollywood Bowl this year (too much going on; no time for social life or fun) I was expecting that we wouldn’t get up there at all.

Since I did some volunteer work a few months ago for East West Players (during my Spring Break), I got ahold of 4 free tickets for tonight’s performance at the Bowl: Sarah Chang plays Bruch (Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1).

Yoshi and I met up with Professor Eric & his lovebug (don’t know how I should to refer to Eric’s sweetie pie) at Hollywood & Highland and then caught the shuttle up to the Bowl. We spread out a blanket and had a nice picnic dinner before catching a great performance of classical music with the L.A. Phil (Brahms: Academic Festival Overture; Schumann: Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish”). The only disappointing thing was that Sarah Chang ONLY played Bruch; nothing else. But at least we got out of there pretty early so I won’t be a total zombie when I go to work tomorrow.

I have been neglecting my blog but a quick update on school (like you care). I did OK (not great) on my most recent Biz Law quiz on Monday night; just one more to go until a short summer break. I stayed late to talk to my Law prof after class. Despite how poorly I’m doing in class, I really enjoy the lectures and wanted to talk to her about a few topics. The next morning she gave me a call and asked if I would be interested in doing some research for something she’s publishing. I said that I was and have plans to stay late after class on Monday to discuss. (I know, I’m a nerd. Taking on research on my summer break.)

We (OutOutBlogger and I) spent most of the past week working on our Marketing Plan (a document that was about 65 pages long by the end of it) + the corresponding 50+ slide presentation. Let’s just say that it was a lot of work put together in a short amount of time and I am very, very grateful that OutOutBlogger was on my team. I honestly can’t say the same about the other two team members, though. Luckily, the Marketing class is now officially over and we just await our grades for the Marketing Plan and for the class itself. While I think we put together a great Marketing Plan, I’d been averaging an A- in the class up until this point. I thought that I killer Marketing Plan would secure an A… but that was until I got my final exam result. It was not pretty. I guess the class did not do well as a whole; despite us all getting 20 free bonus points to start with (everyone could choose 10 two point questions not to answer and get automatic credit on the exam), the professor gave everyone another 10% added to their score after he was done scoring everything (because everyone had done so poorly). In other words, a 70% was automatically bumped to an 80%. Let’s just say that after the 10% was added, I barely had a B. So now I don’t know if I got an A in the class; though I hope I did. I really worked my patootie off for that Marketing Plan and hope that the prof realizes it.

Saying “bye” to the Old Spaghetti Factory in Hollywood

Published
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jozjozjoz
on June 19, 2007
in General, food, i love la and joz = dork
. 13 Comments

Joz ponders what to order for this farewell lunch.Even though I actually thought ahead and brought food for lunch from home today, I decided to ditch that plan and walk over to the Old Spaghetti Factory with a co-worker for one last hurrah.

We weren’t the only ones with this idea. When the doors opened at 11:30am, there was already a line at the door. As people trickled into the lobby area, people took out their cameras and snapped some final photographs in this space. It wasn’t extremely crowded at lunch, but I assume that it will be busy tonight for dinner.

I took a few snapshots… not too many, just a few to remember the space by. We had our lunch and said “bye.”

If you can’t make it for a farewell dinner, consider the auction this Saturday… where almost everything, including the 1918 St. Louis Car Co. 28′ Trolley Car, will be sold.

For more info, check out the flyer:
http://www.facauctions.com/auctions/3/ad.pdf

Photo taken by jozjozjoz on 6/19/2007

Is it evil…

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on June 6, 2007
in General, i love la and joz = dork
. 8 Comments

…that I want to buy one of these and install it in Bossguy’s former office (where the interns have now taken over)?

h/t: scamper

Home again.

Published
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jozjozjoz
on June 3, 2007
in General, IMs, b-school, food and i love la
. 6 Comments

I didn’t make much progress on my reading today, but I got to rest most of the entire ride home since Yoshi was great enough to allow me the luxury of sleep by driving the entire way home.

Things I discovered today:
-Sugar Free Jelly Bellys: They taste good, but don’t have the same consistency of regular Jelly Bellys… making them bleh. We actually discovered this when we tried them yesterday on the way to Vegas, but I ate the entire rest of the bag on the way home and decided I could get over the mouth feel because I like the taste of them.

-I should have paid attention when the bag said “WARNING: Consumption may cause stomach discomfort and/or a laxative effect.”

-I had a stomach ache for the last hour of the drive home.

-The bag absolutely did not have the warning that was on the website: “Individual tolerance will vary; we suggest starting with 8 beans or less.”

I’m not sure how many beans I ate but it was definitely more than 8.

Oh well, I’m home now and my stomach stopped hurting.

Now to make my head hurt with this Biz Law stuff.

Craving donuts…

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on June 1, 2007
in General, food and i love la
. 5 Comments

That’s probably because I just made a post about America’s Best Doughnuts on blogging.la and I was searching for yummy looking donut images to go with the post.

Mmmmm… donuts…

Now I’ll never get one…

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on May 31, 2007
in General, i love la and joz = dork
. 4 Comments

Silver Surfer Quarters
In last Friday’s VARIETY, I caught the following headline and lead:

Silver Surfer U.S. quarter minted
Limited edition coin put into circulation

Hollywood really does mint money.

In an unprecedented marketing move, 20th Century Fox and the Franklin Mint have created a Silver Surfer U.S. quarter that has been put into limited circulation in advance of the release of “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.”

And it turns out they’re illegal. Even if they have to pay a fine, for Fox, this is great because it’s all kinds of free advertising. And people will go nuts for these hard-to-come-by coins.

They released about 40,000 quarters into general circulation, approximately 800 per state over Memorial Day weekend. Chances of any of these things landing L.A. aren’t too great, I’m guessing. If anyone does come upon one, I’d love to know how they got it.

I wanted one myself, but I’m not willing to fork over A HUNDRED + DOLLARS on eBay for something legally worth 25 cents.

UPDATE: I was looking for the follow-up article from VARIETY on this topic (the first article did not mention the illegality of the coins as that had not become apparent at that point). I haven’t seen it yet, however, I did notice that they removed a paragraph from the online story which was previously in the print version:

The U.S. Mint isn’t the only government agent getting into the movie marketing biz. Post offices across the country have begun displaying some 300 mailboxes made to look like “Star Wars” character R2-D2 as part of the 30th anniversary of the film franchise.

Of course this paragraph is inaccurate because as we know now, the U.S. Mint did not sanction the Silver Surfer promotion. And, as previously discussed on blogging.la regarding the Star Wars mailboxes, the USPS is “an independent establishment of the Executive Branch of the United States Government” (in other words, it’s not exactly a government agent).

Photo via AP Photo/20th Century Fox

I made it through another day.

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on May 8, 2007
in General and i love la
. 3 Comments

I heard about the Griffith Park fire earlier today, but I was working off-site and didn’t have a view of the fire.

Then I went to school (drove away from the fire) and didn’t catch my first glimpse of it until past 10pm. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the fire had kicked up again right around then. From the car, it looked like the whole other side of the hill was alit.

Great coverage at blogging.la and stunning pictures at laughingsquid.

Props to the LAFD for all their fine work; may this fire be contained quickly and safely.

There’s nothing like escaping from reality…

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on April 17, 2007
in :: dad ::, General and i love la
. 5 Comments

…even for a few hours.

Since yesterday, I have been engrossed with the unfolding story at Virginia Tech, taking me mentally out of Los Angeles and hurting at the though of this horrible tragedy.

As someone who still is greiving over the loss of someone close less than a year ago, I can’t help but to put myself in the place of the families who have suddenly and senselessly lost someone they love.

I decided that I needed to put reality aside for a little while tonight and decided to watch a movie (one made by a major studio), one with no shootings and explosions. So that’s what I did.

And for 2+ hours (I watched all the special features on the DVD, too), I escaped the reality of the last two days, a job I’m not happy at, and the loss of losing my Dad last year.

So this is a “thank you” to Los Angeles, indeed “Hollywood,” and everyone who makes movies. Sometimes I forget how wonderful it is to (temporarily) forget my woes.

There’s a no cross-posting rule on blogging.la…

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on April 12, 2007
in General, JozBlog News, i love la and joz = dork
. 0 Comments

…so sometimes I write about stuff I’d normally put on my personal blog and put it there instead.

Yesterday, I wrote a post about the building across the street from my office building being transformed into a giant Transformers ad on blogging.la. I’m really excited about this and even got some scoop about what it’s going to be like when it’s done.

I even posted a picture I took of one side of the building. See?

The Transformers Building is coming!

Anyway, Markland told me that my post got linked by defamer and they used my photo, too!

Short Ends: Billboardtron Transforms From Former Office Building Into Giant Movie Ad
· The shell of the 360 building at Sunset & Vine is getting a second skin, courtesy of Transformers. It’s more than meets the eye! Just like a building that was once insulated with asbestos!

Today, there was a major windstorm in LA… lo & behold the Transformers wrap on one side of the building was ripped off by the wind. Defamer posted pictures before I was able to get to it, but in this post they linked to an old post I’d written about that same building (when it caught on fire a couple of years ago).

Anyhoo, I went this afternoon to try and see if I could find a remnant of the billboard, but the smaller pieces had already blown away and been picked up.

Got a nice call from the BossMan today.

Published
by
jozjozjoz
on April 12, 2007
in General, i love la and joz = dork
. 0 Comments

Not Bossguy.

BossMan, from the days of yore.

So strange. I haven’t heard from him in years, he calls out of nowhere, say “hi” and asks me a bunch of questions and “jumps off the line to another call” right when I’m about to ask him what he’s been up to.

I’m so glad I documented the absurdity of BossMan on my blog.

UPDATE: Ahh, the plot thickens. I now know why the BossMan was thinking about me. The person who is currently in my former position gave him surprise one-week notice. I don’t think he wants me back (he can’t afford me now anyway), but he was probably wondering if I knew anyone for the job.