so everyday i battle traffic. this is a necessary evil for the "privilege" of living in LA. and everyday many of my coworkers battle even more traffic than i because they live farther. now, laurel swears by this website, mytraffic.com. basically you punch in your freeway entrance and exit (with conecting freeways in btwn if needed) and then it gives you an average "score" on how the traffic is doing from 0-10. 0 meaning no traffic and 10 meaning you want to run your car off the road because it'd be better than sitting in that godawful mess. usually i hear things like "oh i have to leave right now. the traffic is down to 6 from a 7.5 earlier." or i hear things like "crap. traffic is SOOO bad right now. it's 7.6 and rising."
so today i decided i'd look into this website and try it out myself. i didn't have to take byron home so i thought i'd see what the website said about my commute and based on that i'd either take the streets or test out the accuracy of this "mytraffic" business. so i punched in my coordinates and it said that traffic was at a 3.1 and rising. that falls into the slightly slow category. they said the average mph was 33.3 and that it would take 4 min to go from my entrance to exit points. i was utterly shocked that it could ONLY take 4 min. that just didn't seem right. but i thought i'd test it out. what the hell? i have nothing else to do really. so i timed it. i got onto the freeway (like completely merged off the entrance and into a lane) at 6:53pm. traffic was completely stopped. there was clearly NO WAY IN HELL i was getting to the la brea exit in 4 min. hell if i even get a mile in the next 4 min. as i inched along the freeway i silently cursed under my breath, "fuck this website!!" i FINALLY exited the freeway at 7:23pm. exactly 30 min after entering. 30 fucking minutes!!! i mean in the grand scheme of things, that's not TERRIBLE for a freeway in my warped sense of freeway traffic. but still, that's over 7 times the estimate of what mytraffic.com said it would be. now surely it said 3.1 and rising but i can assure you that it really should have said 7.5 and rising. cuz i was literally NOT moving for minutes at a time. and my average speed was nowhere near 33.3mph on this trip. it was probably more like 20, tops.
conclusion: i'm never using this website again. that inaccuracy could have cost me an interview or a late fee at a doctor's office or whatever.
newsflash: TOY DESK IS DONE!!!!
so i love these little miniature toys from japan. i collect them for displaying around my room. i have random toys from several "collections" all started with andrew buying them for me when he'd go to japan. but then i found the school/desk collection and i was in heaven. i was that kid who would LOVE to go shopping every august for school supplies. i dunno what it is about pencil cases and notebooks but i love it. i'm a stationery freak. so when i saw these toys i just HAD to have them. and then when i saw they were making a desk to house all the toys, i just HAD to have that. i think i blogged about this awhile back. i was collecting the entire school desk set of toys as well as other random ones from other collections to fit into the desk theme and make my desk that much more full and vibrant. well now the desk is finally done. and i was so happy i had to take a photo:
some of you may call this "junks" but i don't care. i love it. i love mini toys!!!!
gah i'm so behind on this thing. i meant to post on monday but i forgot. and look what happened. i'll be brief. alex and i went to death valley last weekend and it was amazing looking. not too hot and the sites to see were just like nothing i'd ever seen. here are a few photos of us at the various sites.
this week has been fairly chill since it's thanksgiving and all. i worked all week except thursday because miraculously we didn't have to work on the holiday. normally at least one person per team has to be in on a holiday but not this time. craziness!!! if i had known sooner i could have taken friday off and gone home or gone with alex. GAH!!!! but i had a great time with james, brian and ollie. ollie cooked a feast and we were stuffed to the max. i ate far too much pie and cheese. we made mozarrella sticks with lawrence's deep fryer. they were sooooo freakin tasty. then we played with james' new Wii!!! omg it was so fun. and alex played with his friend's back home and he's hooked. so he's gonna get a Wii! how exciting. now i can play too!
today i'm going to run some errands and work more on my website. it's getting closer to completion. thank god. then i can start on redoing my portfolio to match it. Wiiiiii!!!!
i'm a movie machine. i keep seeing the new releases to try and stay on top of the game. i still haven't seen prestige or running with scissors but i did manage to catch a sneak preview of for your consideration on friday and stranger than fiction yesterday. i liked both but the latter was my fave of the two. will ferrell was so cutely mundane and emma thompson was a great lunatic writer. i loved it. i recommend highly.
other than that i did some xmas shopping which was too much for me. goddamn the stores are already so crowded. UGH. this is why i buy my shit online...so much easier. i also continued working on my website. i have more to go. it's a slow process. but it's getting there. slooooooooowly. i have yet to figure out how i want to reformat my printed portfolio. that's another headache entirely.
the shit is slowly hitting the fan at work and we are in a mad scrabble to clean it up. gah!!!!
oh it is a GLORIOUS day today. i am not usually one for politics at all but i can't help but grin ear to ear over the fact that the democrats are regaining power. thank god. finally. it's about fucking time! they took the house by a large margin and now my hometown lady, nancy pelosi, is going to the house speaker!! the first female house speaker ever. insane. i love it. the senate race hinges on virginia so i'm rooting for a victory there which would give the dems control of the senate too! and despite the governator taking a second term, nationwide governorships favored the dems. woo! AND RUMSFELD RESIGNED!!!! amazing day of victory in liberal politics. moveover, the california abortion prop lost and stem cells won in missouri! go michael j. fox. :)
oh and it's currently 84 degrees outside. yuck.
before i get into the weekend which is my main reason for posting this entry, let me just put this down for the record. it's currently 1:20pm on nov 6, 2006 and it is 95 degrees outside folks. ninety-fucking-five degrees. i mean i know this is LA but shit man. 95??? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?
ok now onto the weekend.
i saw borat on friday. i have to say, it wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. i mean i didn't even want to see it. alex made me. and so i stood in the long lines with everyone and their mother, including robin williams who was a bit behind me. the movie was funny. don't get me wrong. it's funny all the way through. but it wasn't amazing or anything. and there is this one scene which i'm sure everyone knows about because everyone (and their mother, including robin williams) was out to see the movie this weekend. anyway, that scene was foul as fuck and definitely dampered the movie. but even with it i wouldn't have really cared THAT much for the movie. get over it people. it's funny but it's not fucking brilliant!
anyway, moving on. the other two highlights of the weekend were apple picking with alex and the knife show at the el rey. apple picking was fun. there weren't that many apples but we made the best of it. here are a few pix.
we got a bag of apples, some pumpkin butter, and some apple chips. YUMMY! after hours and hours of bad 10 freeway traffic, we got back to LA in time for the knife show. holy hell it was amazing. it's hard to describe but basically there were a lot of lights, projections, and glow-in-the-dark things. they projected images on this thin semi-transparent mesh sheet that was in front of them on stage. SO COOL. and then they had projects behind them and lights and craziness. they were dressed in black outfits with masks so they looked the same. the music was awesome. everyone was dancing a sweaty mess. i loved it. google around for some images. it was amazing. all the photos i took were mostly a blurry mess of amazing light. maybe i'll clean one up and post it later.
*cue deep, swelling orchestral choir music*
it is with deep regret and profound sadness that i must publicly admit i do not like the new robbie williams album. robbie has been so good to me over the years. from "the ego has landed" to "escapology," he has taken me on a whirlwind pop tour like no other. i even considered the idea of flying to mexico to see him in concert! but a sad day has come upon us. his new album "rudebox" just doesn't live up to the robbie standards of yesteryear. i even gave it a few listens just to make sure. there is one hit song off this new album which i will cherish for a long time to come, but i look forward to his next release when he will hopefully revisit the music from his glory years and bring those good ole pop tunes. long live robbie. i still love you, and always will.
ok so i am lame. i guess i'm getting old and jaded. i skipped out on going to k-fed's record release party. and turns out he and brit were there. i should have gone. i SHOULD have gone. it would have been insane! and i missed it. i have no real excuse other than apathy. like when i got invited to the olsen twins party (before i worked for them) and didn't go. emily, don't hate me. i know you love brit, but i wasn't sure they would be there!!! oh well. another halloween, come and gone.
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