i am waiting on kristen to hand over her plethora of photos from the "alter egos" birthday party before making a big post. but the party was fun! it was a hit. i got really drunk. tinna and her bf have come and gone. and yesterday i had jury duty. and tonight i moved shit to the new apt. i'm tired and not ready to make a proper post. more later.
sick!!! bahhhhhh!!!! i can't be sick for my own party!! this is terrible. need to get well. i left work early today to go home and sleep. was good to sleep but still feel sick. and it's not like full on sick where i'm coughing all day and sneezing. it's like achy body and sore throat. no fever or anything. ugh it's so annoying. wtf?!!?
on another note. we started painting our new apt. i have to say, i'm not surprised it didn't go smoothly but i don't know why i thought it would. i was freaking out. alex is not a good person to paint with. i'm far too anal. his way of doing this is driving me insane. but we'll push on and get it done and it'll be ok after we buy some "touch up" paint to cover all the mistakes. ugh!
ugh it's been AGES since i posted. i'm very bad. very very bad. i was finishing up all my project stuff for class. then coachella hit. and now today is my birthday! so much stuff. the class ended well. gotta shoot the vodka project. i think it turned out nicely. not as beautiful as i'd have hoped but nice. the first project, UPGRADE, is now showing in the art center gallery! my prof really dug it and got it into the gallery. i went to the grad night open house and took a couple photos of it up.
it's up next to all the other packaging stuff. i think it looks nice. i'm scared it's going to fall apart. it's not really meant to up for 14 wks which is how long it'll be up there. we shall see. might have to do some makeshift pasting for the real photo shoot. i'm a bit worried....
coachella was decent but not amazing. not that many people i knew went, rightfully so due to the lineup, and i saw some good acts but nothing that just blew my mind like in previous years. a quick roundup:
cloud cult
i had never heard of them but listened to a few clips and liked it. they are really good live. i need to check out more of them. rock + strings is usually a good combo for me.
liars
ehh. not my style. a bit too screamy for me.
para one
good dance shit right there. good beats. i was totally into it.
surkin
segued right after para one. makes sense since they do shit together a lot. he really gave it his all. he looks like a little kid too. but DJs like a man. hahaha
tvotr
ok. i LOVE tvotr. and i've seen them a few times now. and i have to say, they don't do well on a large outdoor stage. their sound gets all jacked up and you can't appreciate it. it's just not good.
fleet foxes
AMAZING. perfect setting. they went on as the sun was setting on the outdoor stage. they sounded fucking brilliant. and they were definitely my favorite set of the day.
band of horses
nice and pretty with a rockin side. what i expected from them. good set to follow fleet foxes.
chemical brothers
i missed half the set but saw the last half which i would assume would be the best because they are DJs and usually that shit builds. but from what i saw, it wasn't all that spectacular. kind of run of the mill. i mean i don't love the chem bros or anything but i expected a bit more. i wonder if they played star guitar at all and i just missed it. i'd like to have seen that song live.
mstrkrft
apparently they were going to do some crazy holographic thing but they were total asswipes to the art director and so he pulled the plug on it and we were left with some kick ass light beams and a screen/stage set up thing but in the end the douchebaggery surrounding me was too much to handle. i left about an hour in. i just couldn't take it anymore. the music was decent and i was having a good time, especially when they played "bounce," but i had to split. i don't think i missed all that much from what i heard.
i also saw the last bits of MIA's set. i don't like her but damn her set was weird. all the day-glo and the screens and people going on stage. nutso. she played paper planes which is the one song i go nuts for of hers but it didn't sound spectacular. oh well. and i totally missed out on seeing TRV$/DJAM set because they went on against fleet foxes. everyone that saw them said they tore the roof of. so i'm kind of sad i missed it but i would have been really sad to have missed fleet foxes at sunset. so whatever.
alex and i drove back after napping in the car for like 30 min while waiting for the traffic in the parking lot to die down. we hit the road (after a stop to get red bull) around 2am and got home around 4:30am after stopping in the middle to take an eye rest break. goddamn i can't handle this driving super late at night. it's just too much for me and alex can't drive at night cuz of his eyes. so yea. ugh. not good. but we made it back so all is well.
today is my birthday and i got lots of well wishes from many people. feels good to be loved. andrew at work made me this ridiculous image:
it's a simpson's type avatar maker. so ugly. and the font. and the colors. and my age is wrong. so much about it. but that's what makes it amazing because knowing andrew, it was all very intentional. anyway, alex is making me dinner right now. rick and neil are apparently on their way over. alex got me awesome birthday gifts. i had the birthday cake milkshake i wanted. and all is well. this saturday is the big party. we are theming it "alter egos" where people have to create a new identity based on the random name tag name they draw from a hat. i'm stoked. it should be crazy and very interesting.
today i achieved another crowning moment of triumph! this needs a bit of backstory as i have yet to even touch on this subject since it all came about so quickly.
so as i said, alex is going to grad school. and up until last month he had no idea where he was going. he applied to MIT, berkeley, UCLA, USC, penn, and columbia. if he got into one out of LA and wanted to go there, we'd have an issue with housing. our apt requires 2 months notice to vacate and our lease is up in a few days. therefore to leave at the end of our lease we would have had to tell them back in february. but back then he hadn't heard from a single school. so we decided we'd wait til the last possible second to decide what to do. because if we had given notice and then ended up staying in LA, we'd have to move just about now. which wouldn't have been too bad because we'd have just found another place in LA. however we'd have been biting our nails about signing a new lease with uncertainty over his schools. so we didn't want to do that. also if we were to move out of LA, then we'd have had to move out of the city around now and that's even harder, mentally and physically. so basically that wasn't a good option. so the option was to wait til the last possible second on our lease. and that's what we did. because as it turned out, alex's choices are btwn a wait-listed position at berkeley and a more than full ride fellowship at UCLA. leaning towards UCLA of course since it'd be entirely free and it's in LA. also since berkeley is uncertain and probably won't let him know til after the due date for UCLA.
so with all that in mind, we set out on sunday to look at some possible apts since we know the housing market is down. we spoke with our leasing agent (not the one who signed our lease when we moved in but our newly appointed one since management changed while we have been living here). her name is paria. she said that we could either sign a 3 month lease with no rent change, sign a 6 month with 2 wks free, or sign a year lease with 6 wks free. or we could give 2 months notice and move out but pay $200 extra a month cuz we wouldn't be on contract. so we went to look at some apts and get a feel. things looked nice out there. some nice apts. a little bit cheaper than ours. i mean we were looking at apts comparable to ours with amenities and such. we were looking at 2 bdrms because we need more space. with alex going to grad school he needs a desk too so now we kind of need an "office" so to speak. so after looking around we thought we should just sign a 3 month at our apt and move out. though we aren't really sure what the housing market will be in 3 months. prices might rebound a bit. who knows.
so on sunday we went to the leasing office to speak with paria but she wasn't there. we decided that since our apt is doing rent deals as well, we should just ask about the 2 bdrms here. so we spoke with a guy named brian who was there that day. he told us there were some cheaper 2 bdrms here. they are corner units so they had a funky shape. he showed them to us and we really dug one of them so we started talking prices. with all the deals, and rent overlap and fees and blah blah we came to a monthly rate that looked pretty good. $28 more a month than what we pay now but 2 bdrms, 2 baths and essentially a much larger space. but we wanted to think it over. it was a sunday afternoon. alex had to get somewhere. so we went back to our apt and stewed. we decided we wanted to probably take the apt but we wanted to see if they'd throw in an extra parking spot. so yesterday alex went back to the leasing off to speak with brian again about the parking spot. before he could even get to that, apparently brian rattled off about the rent increasing because they change the rent on mondays. and blah blah. he calculated it all out and came to a number much higher than before. a good $180 higher. umm, excuse me?
so alex called me and told me this. but didn't really understand the details of the rent breakdown. he was dumbfounded by how this could be. as was i. so i started doing my work. i'm not sure how this dawned on me, but i decided to look on craigslist. i was certain brian was dicking us over. trying to eek out more commission with a higher rental rate. or something assholish like that. i mean the man did essentially steal paria's commission were we to sign for that apt since she was our leasing agent, not him. he even said "well paria isn't here. but i can help you. it's competitive in here but...she's not here. and you are here and this is convenient for you." trying to like justify it all. ugh. sleezeball. i knew i wasn't that fond of him on first impression. then after alex told me about the rent increase thing, i was REALLY not fond of him. so i looked on craigslist. sure enough the apt we had been looking at was listing for LESS money on monday than sunday or any of the previous 6 days it had been listed on craigslist. so this told me that 1) the apt is NOT in high demand cuz it's been up for a week and if the market was doing better to warrant a price increase, how come the apt still hadn't leased yet? 2) the price of the apt did NOT go up. it went down. at least according to the ads. so i printed them all out. i ran some numbers. and came to some conclusions. i called the leasing office anonymously asking about the rentals. played dumb. found out that the rent was in fact what was quoted on craigslist after all the rental deals. so something was fishy about brian's numbers.
so later i called him back specifically and said i wanted a breakdown of the numbers he gave alex. dude couldn't even remember alex's name. asswipe. alex said when he came in that morning brian acted like he didn't even remember alex. wtf? ugh. anyway, so he started muttering some numbers and saying he's punching things into his calculator and he spits out a number that is just way too high. i was livid. but rather than call him out on his bullshit and say how i saw the craigslist ad and all that. i just sucked it up and said "ok well if that's the final number you can give us, then we can't do that. we're going to have to sign a 3 month and then move out." and he was like "ok. i'll let paria know so she can draw up the paperwork." bitch ass didn't want anything to do with us anymore since we weren't going to pad his wallet with a re-sign for the same amount. shuffles us back to our original girl. but paria wasn't in the office yesterday. he said she'd be in today. so when i got home i decided that i was going to go into the office today and speak with her in person with alex there. but first i'd call her and let her know of the situation.
so today i called her up and first confirmed leasing options on our current place. wanted to lock that in with no funny business. after all, i had never met her. i wasn't sure of her sketchiness factor. once i locked those in, i quickly explained the situation that arose with the new apt idea and the price jump and the inconsistency with brian etc etc. also subtly letting her know of how he swiped us from her and basically was going to swipe her possible commission. she said that she would see what she could do by the time we came in to meet with her. so we got there at 2 which was when our appt was but she was meeting with the manager. we noticed that brian wasn't in the office but his cohort was. i say cohort cuz on the phone prompt for the office it says press 1 for paria and press 2 for brian or ______. i forget her name. and she was sitting in his desk today. we had to wait and in the meantime the girl asked us if she could help. i didn't want to explain it to her cuz i wanted to speak with paria. but she kind of forced herself on us so i unleashed the tamed fury. tamed because i wasn't entirely accusatory of brian but i kind of was. i said how i was confused by the inconsistency of his numbers vs the craigslist ads and how the apt had been listed for days now with no sign of rising prices but rather dropping prices. i understand that prices can change but i also understand when ads say what they say. so after kind of explaining it all she said she understood but i still insisted i wanted to speak with paria and was willing to wait. finally paria came out and we hashed it out. very nicely and calmly because paria seemed very willing to help. we showed her the paper brian gave us with the numbers. she ran some herself. being very thorough and explanatory of it all. and in the end her number was pretty good. alex asked if we could get a free parking spot to put it over the edge and she spoke with the manager and they ran the numbers. and in the end she threw in a parking spot for half the cost and the rent (with parking) is essentially exactly the same as it is now for our current apt. but it's a much larger apt. so we took it! paria was confused by brian's inconsistent numbers. the manager was as well and apologized for the mess. i think they saw the value in keeping us as tenants and also getting someone into an apt that clearly isn't leasing while vacating an apt like ours which is a lot easier to rent. brian clearly was blinded by numbers and dollar signs and in the end he lost out. too fuckin bad brian. his cohort saw it all though and i'm sure has already reported back.
but we did it! it's like the time i got the jewelry in bali for half the cost. i was super persistent, stood my ground, and i got it. god i felt so good. or the time i fought my parking ticket and got the money back after 2 appeals. this ranks right up there. i'm not really a person that likes to stir up trouble or ruffle feathers. but you cross me and there will be hell to pay. i do NOT appreciate attempts at pulling the wool over my eyes. not at all. and i'm stubborn so i don't back down easily with things i'm passionate about. like last night i was so pissy over this entire thing that it didn't even really become about the apt so much as the damn principle of it all.
now with all this said, we have to "pack" and move our shit up one floor and across the courtyard since it's on the other side of the building. an easier move but still a move. we've got to go get paint and paint walls. probably the weekend of my birthday since our move in date is the 23rd and our move out date for this apt is may 6. tinna, wanna help us paint?! haha
on a totally different note. my company hosted a party tonight. a happy hour of sorts. i was a bit concerned people wouldn't show and it'd be lame. but lots showed and it wasn't lame. so kudos! i hope it worked well in drumming up business since that was the intent. i had a good time. i hope others did too!
i feel good about tonight. i made a lot of progress. i did some freelance which was easy money and then i spent some time working on some layouts for my new portfolio site. trying to really streamline it. no flash. less pieces. just a tighter more succinct portfolio. i haven't entirely resolved the layout but i'm getting there. really taking it to the grid. pixel perfection. since i have a lot of downtime at work i've been working on the functionality of it since it's going to use some javascript. i figured out about 85% of how to make it work. i want to tweak it a certain way and haven't figured that out yet. so more work to do. but it's getting there. the goal is to plunge into building the site the moment my package design class is over. i think that might be possible. woo! need to get that new site DONE. cuz then once the site is done i need to redo the printed portfolio as well as my resume. then i'm armed and ready should i get laid off. something that is on my mind constantly given that there isn't much work to do at work. which reminds me, i need to save out the iPhone game we made.
this weekend ahead looks promising. getting eyebrows done and a pedicure because spring is upon us and it's my birthday month and i can't look sloppy! plus it's been MONTHS and months since i last got a pedicure. i let my toenail that had issues grow out properly and now it's time to get them prettied up! a bunch of us are going on a chicken wings crawl in the late afternoon/early evening as well. much like our taco truck crawl except with wings. i'm excited. i love me some good wings. the rest of the weekend i'll spend working on the final parts of my package design class and maybe fine tuning my portfolio site design. good stuff. now if we can just get through friday.
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