i don't know if i'll ever break down and buy a pair of boots. it's that season again and there are tons of various boots in the stores. and i always sort of glance around but never decide on anything. i think this is because i (sub)consciously know that the boot i select will never live up to the boot i want:
united nude -- eamz boot
i bet i blogged about this last year when i was looking for boots but hell, i'll blog again. seriously, this boot is right up my alley. i mean i already own a pair of pumps with that same heel from this company. but those i got on sale for $85 when they normally cost like $190 or something. and this boot i cherish from afar costs like over $350 i think. it's hard to say exactly how much it costs because you can't buy it online anywhere except from the company itself which is in england. and they have a store in NYC where i think you can buy the boot. but all i know is it's damn expensive. too expensive for me. i have to cap off my boot price at $200. anything more just seems absurd for the amount of times i would wear it. this mean this boot will probably never be mine. but i do love it so. *sigh*
it's the weekend before halloween and i'm sitting at home at 1:30am writing a blog entry instead of being out and about at parties. why? because i was too lame and lazy to think of any costume ideas and therefore refuse to crash any parties in regular clothing. so alex and i spent last night watching transformers and eating indian foot that we had delivered and tonight we went out to see michael clayton. a fine substitute for halloween parties in my book. i personally liked transformers and think all the naysayers are just judging it too harshly. it's a movie about kids toys. what do you expect? if you accept it for what it is, it's really a fun little movie. on the flipside, michael clayton is very serious and adult. and it's also really damn good. it's funny because i totally did not want to see that movie when i saw the preview. sure i love george clooney but i am not a big fan of the suits and lawyers "action/thriller" genre. john grishem? pass.... so i didn't want to see this movie but it got really good reviews and alex wanted to see it so i gave it a go just because i like clooney. and it turned out to be really good and i would recommend it to anyone provided they are looking for a heavier film. no fluff here. anyway i don't want to give any plot details away so just go see it for yourself.
the week in itself was quite long for two reasons.
1. car issues
2. learning flash
the noise in my car came back. after i paid $750 to "fix" it, it came back. now i don't know if what they "fixed" was actually broken and was not the cause of the noise yet can produce such a noise or if they just lied to me but either way the noise came back and it was a headache to get it to go away again. but it's gone now. i hope it doesn't return. i fucking hate mechanics and i hate dealing with that shit. it's such a fucking headache.
at work i've started learning flash. like flash beyond what i already knew. i had to work on a microsite this week and it got me working on timeline control with i don't really know about. calling to movieclips in different levels and such. good stuff. just hard to wrap my head around all at once. but i'm learning shit which is awesome. just what i wanted. now i'm starting a full website. i doubt it will be just me on it but it's good to know there someone out there who is willing to take time to show me shit and allow me to take company time to do it. it's a bit daunting to start a site when you don't totally know what you are doing but it's awesome as well. i'm excited to learn more in the coming week or two. it's just mentally exhausting. but that's ok. i've got to learn this shit somehow!
ok so in my flurry over the PPT i forgot to mention the randomness at the cha cha lounge on friday. it was as if the past decided to just sneak up and be at the bar that night. totally fucking random.
the one to arrive was vera. she used to hang out with some of the people on my floor freshman year and consequently pops in and out of my life every so often. she's annoying but doesn't realize it and she means well. so it's hard to really truly fault her. she's totally oblivious to who she is. if that makes sense.
second on the scene was graig. "greg like craig" as we refer to him. he was friends with dylan and he's creepy. he's nice but weird. basically after dylan and i stopped dating graig decided to wholeheartedly befriend me with the intentions of trying to pursue me. he knew i liked dan and thought that he was similar to dan in looks (ie. tall and skinny) and thought that this would translate well. but it didn't. it doesn't work that way. and so yea. that was just weirdness. i haven't seen him in years and i happened to turn around and saw a guy that looked like him sitting across the room. but i wasn't sure it was him so i just continued on. turns out it was him. others knew and lawrence called him over later on. so we chatted a bit. he's still oddly weird. gah!
third person to randomly show up was marjiolin. andrew's friend from the netherlands. lovely girl. though she came here for 3 months right when andrew and i broke up so it was terribly awkward and we barely hung out. she's here for a month staying at his place again, so i think we might all get din dins soon.
fourth person was ray. rick's old roommate. he came saturday night to rick's bday thing but was totally just randomly there on friday. he came with victor (fifth person) who was also a cinema kid and i dyed his hair once back in san fran since he's also from there. i haven't seen either of them in ages so that was cool.
and lastly, the sixth random person was dave's ex gf. at least i think it was her. she sort of looked at me like she recognized me. but i didn't have it in me to approach her and ask. so i let it be. but i swear to god it was her. today is dave's birthday. i wonder if she'll contact him. i asked him if she was in town and he had no idea. i guess they haven't spoken in a long time. but i swear it was her. so fucking random.
ok that's it. that's all the randomness. carry on.
i've been incommunicado recently do to the project from hell. remember when i mentioned that powerpoint (PPT) project from last week. well...it came back, with a vengence this week. let me recount the ridiculous nature of this 2 week long, 67 hour project. yes, 67 hours for a fucking PPT!!! completely absurd i tell you!!!
so last last monday (oct 8th) i was put on this stupid PPT project for our client's mobile division. it's not important which client it is, but they are a network on regular tv and with a colorful logo. hence, they have a lot of money. this might be why this dragged on so long. the first couple of days i was on the project i was bitching to high hell because i was removed from the company xmas mailer project, which is far more exciting and interesting, to work on this bullshit PPT. but after a couple of days of bitching it just knuckled down and got right to it. i went for a somewhat corporate stream-lined look. i used a blue palette that i thought they would like. and as it were, our contact over there had positive response. there were tweaks along the way but overall it went well. on friday (oct 12) i was feeling pretty good about the project being over. but then monday rolled around and the woman at my company who was heading up the project came to me midday with a terrible look on her face. the client wanted a new punchier, more fun PPT. in essence, they wanted us to redo the whole thing. i was livid. why the fuck didn't they say anything last week?? i worked an entire week on the PPT and we never got a single peep about any sort of new direction. turns out our contact was not given the proper information by the team that is actually going to use the PPT. and that team wanted it to be more fun. UGHHHHHHHH.....and there began my second week of hell. the first week was ok. but the second week was just downright insane.
since they wanted punchy, fun, brighter slides we decided to model the new PPT deck after bravo's website since bravo was mentioned in the PPT. i took a day to work on it and in the end i was a bit too punchy. so i toned it down to some blues and greens and we sent it off. overall they liked it. they wanted to strip it down to shades of green and some greys but they dug my asymmetrical boxes and the overall feel of it. this was positive. so i kept moving forward. but then we were given a revised deck with just 9 slides. the original had 18. so i had to redo the deck to accommodate the new slides. but at least there were only 9. it looked like they had streamlined the deck. woo! umm no. the next day we found out that not only did i have to tweak those 9 i did but i had to redo the other 9 from the older deck. motherfuck. this would just NEVER END. so i redid the other 9 and sent them all over. i think that was thursday at this point. so come friday, just when i think it's going to be all over because they were liking what i was doing and whatnot, the final burst of flames come down. the woman is now frantic because she NEEDS her PPT done asap (gosh why didn't she just fucking settle with my nice one days ago?) and she isn't happy with some of the graphics in the deck.
now to explain for a moment. PPT is a terrible program for graphics. you can't draw complex shapes in it easily (or at all perhaps. i couldn't find a pen tool to save my life). therefore i did all of my shapes in illustrator. then put them into photoshop docs that were the exact size of the slides. then saved those out at jpgs and place them in as backgrounds. well along the way they decided that they didnt just want the text and logos to be editable, they wanted the shapes to be. so i had to redo everything so that each shape was it's own image. not all in one background image. and therefore any time they wanted to make any sort of graphical change, it was this tedious process because nothing was done simply. and that was because they wanted it to look nice and nice graphics are not easily made in PPT. they are imported in. well i was importing in PNG files for things that needed transparent backgrounds but the woman was insisting that the graphics weren't looking good. so i'd have to go back and change them to JPGs and whatnot. anyway, it was a fucking nightmare. but on friday i went from angry to hysterical.
the woman says that she'd like some of the graphics to be swapped out because they are degrading. so i'm given the deck and i open it up. THEY FUCKING CHANGED EVERYTHING!!! seriously, half of my work was gone from the deck and replaced with their ugly ass bullshit. they took some of my graphics and changed the color and scaled them and all this crap. so it's no wonder the graphics looked like crap. i mean wtf is wrong with these people? are they stupid? i think they are. or they were just totally frantic. regardless they had me send them some redo images. but as i was going through their redone deck i was just laughing at it all because it was totally ridiculous. where was my work in all of this? it was barely noticeable. they might as well just have done it themselves. they didn't need to hire us. they fucking redid the whole thing and it looked like crap. but yet they wanted me to redo some of the images. not all. just some. and i was telling laurel that it was like they wanted to clean up some of the puke but not all. and laurel said:
"well, see, this puke here, with the corn in it...we don't want that. but this puke over here, the tuna-melt puke...that's ok. in fact, there's a half-dissolved ibeprofin puke too here that we can keep, but please, just GET RID of the corn."
well put laurel. well put. so now that will go into my list of catchphrases. "get rid of the corn."
anyway, i hope this concludes the PPT hell. as a result of this mess, my company is not going to do PPT's for their clients anymore apparently. if we have to do one, we're gonna hire a PPT guru on a freelance basis to knock it out since no one in the office really knows how to use it well and make it look nice at the same time. i have to say that my revised punchy slides looked fucking awesome but they probably couldn't handle it and just reverted back to more corporate stylings. so sad. what a waste of my fucking time.
anyway, aside from that, this weekend was filled with birthday fun. first stacey's birthday at the cha cha lounge on friday and then rick's birthday at the redwood bar and bar 107 last night. good times all around.
WOOO! we're going to new zealand! alex and i just booked our tickets. somewhat pricey yes, but hell, you only live once! i've never been to NZ so i'm quite excited. the inner logistics are only loosely worked out but you know me, they will be concrete before we get there. i don't like leaving shit to chance. not around major holidays (xmas and new years). too risky.
anyhoo, the perfect ending to a delightful weekend. friday night was drinking with the AA folks. terribly entertaining. many people showed up to give byron a proper goodbye and he got wasted enough to nearly rip his pants off. so hilarious. lots of bitching and gossiping also went down. of course. so good times all around that night. except for when i went over to alex's afterward. i called him when i left the bar and i guess in btwn then and the time i got there, he fell into a deep sleep because he wouldn't answer my knocks, doorbell rings, or phone calls to BOTH of his phones. so so sad. and it was raining too. i was standing outside in the rain waiting for him to let me in. i tried for like 15 min hoping that continuous sound might stir him but nope. so i went home. this incident has prompted him to give me a key to his house so that i wouldn't be in that situation again.
yesterday was lawrence's birthday and he had a two-fold event. the first part was a BBQ during the day complete with his signature heart attack burgers, chips, salsa, beer, and USC football. since it had rained the night before it was nice and sunny outside as well. perfect day for a BBQ. then i met up with dave and we went on one of our cupcake adventures. this time to a place in bev hills called crumbs. it's down the street from sprinkles and i think their cupcakes are better than sprinkles. the flavors they have are much more interesting and their cupcakes are monsterous. definitely big enough to share. soooooo yummy.
then at night alex and i went to the cut and paste digital design tournement at the henry fonda. basically it a tourney where graphic designers have 15 min to complete a design piece under a certain prompt. i thought that they got the prompt on the spot and had to think quick and dirty but turns out they are given the prompts a week in advance. not as exciting per se, but still very difficult. 15 min is NOTHING for designing a piece. it sounds like a lot of time but really it's not at all. esp if you are taking photos and then importing then and color correcting them and cutting them out, etc etc. anyway alex didn't think he'd have a good time but he did! it was totally fun to watch them battle it out. the guy who one looked like a total asshole. he had these child molester glasses on and wore cut off gloves. and it's LA so we know it's not because it's cold. but he was good at his designs so i have to give him credit. i just really think he looks like a douche. who knows. maybe he's not. before the competition started i perused the various sponsors' tables, one of which was this company called x-rite. they are a color management company for lack of a better term. they do a lot shit apparently and own pantone. so if you know what pantone is, then you know what caliber this company is at. anyway, they had a color test to see if you can order all the hues on the screen to go from one to the next. there were like 4 rows of like 20 squares per row. all of slightly varying color going from like red to purple basically. anyway, i can't find it on their site to link to it here but regardless, i took the test while i was there and i scored a perfect! i have perfect color vision!!! yes, only i would care....haha
after the tourney we came back home to lawrence's birthday party. lots of people showed up including D'A and stupid dave, both of which i haven't seen in ages. good to catch up with D'A for a bit.
today i woke up super late cuz i was tired from the previous two nights and so i didn't go to my drawing class. though admittedly my interest in waning. it's partly because i'm not really a drawer by nature but also because the teacher is showing us all these abstracted techniques that don't render exacting or even nearly exacting images. we end up drawing these ridiculous freeform things which i would never use in the design world. i mean it's cool and all but it's just not what i wanted. i wanted to learn how to draw more accurately. and this abstracted stuff is not helping. so i'm not sure if i'll finish the class. i don't really care one way or another. i rationalized that yeah i'm wasting money but during the course of the day i did a couple hours worth of freelance work and that will amount to like half the price of the class. so i mean it's not all that bad really. whereas if i went to class i'd have had to do this work tomorrow night most likely. but tomorrow i really should start on other shit. so whatever. my backwards ass way of rationalizing shit. haha
i don't know if anyone has ever tried to call amazon but i just did and it's so weird! i went to the help section to look for my question but couldn't readily find the answer so there was an option to contact amazon via phone. so i went to that and basically it gives you this pop up menu. if you are logged into your account you simply type in the number wish you wish to be called back at and then hit call me "now," "in 5 min," "in 10 min," etc and then your phone starts ringing and it's amazon calling you! it's automated and then you get connected to a customer service rep. such a weird process. and you must keep the pop up box open or else it hangs up i think. and once you hang up the pop up box knows you hung up and says something like "thank you for calling amazon...." totally fucking weird. that's technology for ya.
ahhh so much to write about! so behind due to work. sad. i won't even get into the rage i had over this project i have to do at work. the rage is over and now it's just me trying to get the shit done. but basically i was taken off this really awesome creative in house project and put onto this billable BORING ASS POWERPOINT project. and if you know me, you know how much i loathe powerpoint. brian knows. we purposely did posterboard presentations in marketing class because we hated powerpoint so much. anyhoo....
so the weekend and the past few days have been eventful. saturday i went to my old coworker, cynthia's birthday party. she had it at the pig 'n' whistle in hollywood. they used to have these huge beds there and you could chill and drink and eat there. but now they took those away so it's just not as cool. oh well. but i had a good time hanging out with cynthia and we ended the night with her, me, and alex going to bossa nova at like 2:30am. good times.
sunday i saw the darjeeling limited and it was quite good. i love wes anderson and i didn't LOVE life aquatic the way i wanted to so this redeemed him for me. the characters are just so quirky and fun to watch. and this one is more serious and "emotional." good stuff. i recommend.
tuesday i went to see justice and midnight juggernauts at the fonda. AWESOME show. too bad the crowds in LA suck my fucking ass. midnight juggernauts are not famous here at all but james and i love them and no one was giving them any love it seemed. i was so disappointed. sure their set wasn't perfect. but they were opening for an electronica band that everyone is amped and apeshit for and they also had all this equipment set up under covers behind them so they didn't have much to work with stagewise. i still enjoyed their set and i hope to see them again when the crowd appreciates their music. i mean we had a guy wearing a fucking cape running around. teeny boppers holding glow sticks. a douchebag with a justice eiffel tower cardboard thing. i mean the trail of asswipes was endless. and it was all ages so there were kids running around. literally, children. like under age 13 i'm sure. good god. but justice were fucking brilliant. such good energy. i saw them briefly at coachella but this was so much better. i'm glad i went. i had an awesome time. and playing off my keen sense of facial recognition i think i saw shawn hatosy there. that actor guy. but i *know* i saw this guy from USC who was in my physics class and i thought was hot. ATO dan. he was in a frat and of course that makes him less of a man. haha but now he's ALL hipstered out. fucking tight, white jeans. hi-tops. plastic 80's sunglasses. the whole bit. i recall seeing him working at von dutch a few years ago as i was walking by on melrose but never did i think he'd go that far into hipsterland. maybe he was never really a frat boy at heart. who the fuck knows. some of his frat brothers were there too. i recognized their faces. why? i have no idea. again i say, i wish i could use this facial recognition to make me money or something. because it's ridiculous!!
yesterday the new radiohead album dropped. i have to give them props for being amazingly talented and brilliant. what band just bucks their record label, takes 4 yrs to make an album, sells out shows in the meantime, then quietly posts on their website that they made an album, it's called "in rainbows" and it'll be released for download in 10 days? i mean come on. fucking brilliant. they got so much press over this it's incredible. and they didn't really do anything. and the fact that they allowed people to download it for whatever price they wanted is also brilliant. and it's DRM-free so you can share it with people. i can't wait for it to come out on proper CD because in addition to all the brilliance of its grassroots "marketing" it's just a fucking great album. it sounds so mature and beautiful. i love it.
damn, that's a lot of media in the past few days huh? the rest of the week promises all out drinking tomorrow night with the AA peeps for byron's departure. thank the lord he finally got out!! the cut and paste tourney on saturday which is this fast-paced design challenge thing. i can't wait to see it. last year i got lazy and didn't go even though i had bought tickets. but this year i'm going. it's also at the fonda so that's 2 nights at the fonda in 1 week! also on saturday is lawrence's birthday which means BBQ at my house during the day followed by a party at night. all western themed i do believe.
with all this social activity, it's no wonder i haven't gotten enough work done for freelance shit. or gone to the gym recently. gah. i need to get back on the saddle.
how did i not know that mark ronson was playing the el rey last night??? motherfuck. everyone and their mother was at that show. including robbie williams who was one of the guest vocalists on version and got up to sing the song last night. MOTHERFUCK i missed it. i'm so pissed right now.
i finally feel totally better. today i woke up and felt normal again. no fever. no hint of a fever. no sweating. nothing. felt totally fine. and all day i have been pretty good. no more real coughing or shortness of breath. finally!!!! it's only been like 2 wks. jeez. but i feel good. WOOO!!!!
the first day with no fever! i woke up and my temp was normal. the first time in the past like 10 days. hallelujah! i think i'm almost over this shit....
oh yea, i forgot to mention that my company just up and acquired another small design firm and now 4 of those people work here. this happened last week when i was sick. as you can imagine, it was a shock to the system when i came in on monday. but this is a good thing right?
alex's party was quite fun though i was totally sober (due to my antibiotics) which sucked a bit. but he had a fun time which is all that matters. lots of people came including wakerly who made a surprise visit to LA on business and showed up to the party with brian and crew. fun fun. and alex loved his cookie cake and dartboard. i knew he would. i know him too well. i also got him a nice tie and shirt which he was then able to wear to the magic castle last night. but not without major concern on my part for his sports jacket and slacks situation. i was brought to tears while laughing over the slacks he had to choose from. they were all so "dad" looking. i didn't know what to do. the shirt and tie i bought him were very modern and sleak and then his jacket and slacks were just...not. so i forced him to get some pants at h&m and they ended up looking quite nice. he got a slim fit pant and they are definitely good enough to stick into a new repertoire of clothing which i hope to help him build slowly. the jacket still needs work but one thing at a time.
now for the magic castle last night. first of all, i nearly didn't get home in time because the one day i had to stay late at work was yesterday. luckily i got out of it because it was alex's birthday and i told them that and they were cool with it. i rushed home and got dressed up and our group set out for the castle. the group consisted of me, alex, stacey, lawrence, and kristen. we were joined there by kristen's friend crystal. the castle is like and old time mansion. it's 2 levels (well, 2 levels that we can see....i bet there's tons of hidden shit). it's very antiquated looking and everyone there is all nicely dressed. first we had dinner which was a food out of a traditional steakhouse. therefore, not my kind of food. but i found a chicken dish and ran with it. and it wasn't half bad. pricey indeed, but not too bad. after dinner we walked around the castle a bit soaking it all up. we went over to the piano that's played by a "ghost" named erma. you speak to her and she plays your requests. it's quite fun. then we went into the room to see the close up magic act. OH MY GOD it was amazing. i fucking love slight of hand, close up magic. it's just so fast. and the guy was like RIGHT in front of me and i can't tell how the fuck he did any of it. i mean i know it's all misdirection and whatnot and i was trying not to fall prey but i could never figure out how he did any of it. and it just got better and better as the act went on. starting with more simple things like coins and cards to making balls come out of out his mouth and chickens appear. i can't describe it. it's just too hard to explain how amazing it was. after that show we went to see the big stage show which i actually found to be very dull. i didn't think it was that great. not that funny and the tricks weren't as impressive. i'm all about the up close shit. after the big show we went to this other room to see some more slight of hand stuff. not as up close because the room is bigger but you got the idea. this guy was just as good as the first one. sooooo fast with his moves. and he even picked me to go up and help him. so i got this great angle on it all and i STILL didn't see a goddamned thing. i thought i might be able to being so close. but no. he's too fast. and of course the whole misdirection thing. gah it kills me. i had a great time. i'm so glad i FINALLY got to go. i've wanted to go to the castle for ages and ages. so that's checked off the list now.
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