It’s so nice and gloomy and chilly out that I had to take a walk up to Runyon Canyon this morning. I’ve been recovering from that nasty flu bug that everyone’s been getting but this morning the haze in my head cleared and I had that rush of energy the freshly undead often get, so I hit the trail. At the first tier in the canyon the entire city was almost completely invisible. I’m kicking myself for not having at least my phone cam with me but then again it would have been a lovely photo of dirt and fog. I hope mornings like this are the herald of cooler days for at least a while. Living in Hollywood without air conditioning, no pun intended, blows.Perfect morning. I could only get better if I can find a secret route between Burbank and Hollywood. Going to work takes 6 minutes. Coming home at night takes about 50. Something’s not right about that…

Shaun of the Dead opens today at the Arclight! I’m sure everyone I know is sick of me raving about this movie but last week I saw a preview at the Arclight and the Director was there for a brief Q&A and all I can say is that this movie is FUCKING GENIUS! I heartily recommend everyone gets off their collective asses go see it immediately. After-all it’s a love story!

Does anyone know if you can bring cameras into the Hollywood Bowl for concerts? I’m going to the music of the Lord of the Rings tonight and wanted to get a few shots for this here blog but don’t feel like schlepping it back down the hill if it’s a no go. Anyone?

Bad lighting, bad seating and a fubar on my end with a setting on the new lens equals bad photos. I was pretty disappointed by how my pics from last night turned out but at least you get an idea of the show, which was great by the way! I am officially a Ditty Bops fan. Check out their site. The large gay black man is not in the band. That’s Vaginal Davis. The host of the club. Who is just too damn funny.
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A shot I got at tonight’s Candyland opening at Bluespace. You are soooo jealous I can smell it ;-)

Fogarty told me about a site that tracks registered sex offenders in SoCal the other night and since it doesn’t seem like he’s ever going to post about it I tracked it down :-P The interface to this thing is archaic as all hell and don’t expect it to run on Safari. I used Firefox and it worked ok but it’s a PITA to get anywhere. But when I finally did I was floored by the results. Every blue dot is a registered sex offender. Good lord…

Registered Sex Offender Locator

Why don’t I feel safe when I see cops this big? Is this guy from the KrispyKreme division? That poor motorcycle.

I am really bummed I missed the convention on Sunday but this made up for it. I’ll remember it every time I walk by his star. Safe journeys Scotty…

More of my photography can be found on my photoblog if you’re interested.
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I was waiting in line to pick up the tix for today’s showing of Hero at the Arclight when around the corner comes none other than Nicole Kidman! She was there with some dude but was standing no more than 3 feet from me. I’m not usually a mark for celeb sightings but it was Nicole fucking Kidman at the Arclight! C’mon. That’s pretty damn cool. I didn’t realize she was 7 feet tall. Big girl but damn if she doesn’t have a tiny little ass that would fit on a butter plate. My m4d ph0t0g sk1llz failed me and I was too stunned to whip out the phone cam. I would be a bad paparazzi. But a decent human being I guess ;-) The only idiot who bothered her was an employee who ran after her to get an autograph on a napkin. I hope she was summarily dismissed then shot. That’s uncool for the staff to bug celebs like that. All she wanted to do was come see a movie.

I was sittting in my room when I see and smell smoke at my 3rd floor window. Not something one is looking forward to in an already busy as hell afternoon. Next I see huge chunks of ash coming down and it’s time to panic. I grabbed my camera and hit the street looking for the source.

I couldn’t see it thruough the smoke but the source was directly out my window on the corner of McCadden and Yucca. Some nitwit set a bank of palm tree’s on fire!

They’re still spraying the damn thing. It must have flared back up again. I can see massive amounts of foam being thrown into the air at this point but I thought it better to blog fast than overstay my welcome. And not to mention I already got a snootful of that foam I was so close. Ya know this was the same corner I took the photo of the cops on horseback. Wonder if this was a freak horse manure incident? It’s also cool the pics are on the blog and they’re still spraying the damn thing ;-)

Click on thumbs for larger images.

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Our first AP write-up is on the wires. There are a few things that aren’t exactly correct in there including our stats for Blogging.La and I personally disagree with the Gawker being the inspiration for group blogging. I know I personally hadn’t even heard of Gawker until B.La was in business for several months. So pfft on that one. Anyway grab a copy and read away!

The Powerhouse is dead. Long live the Powerhouse!

DISCLAIMER: This post is being made after being at a bar for the past two hours, so please take that into account when mocking any typos or grammatical errors.

So Fogarty and I took a late night trip down to our last local dive bar, The Powerhouse, to play a few rounds of darts and knock back a few. I spent three hours at the gym today and what better way to celebrate than to go fill up on cheap beer? So we get there and lo and behold it’s NOT THE POWERHOUSE, ANYMORE! The wall behind the entire behind-the-bar area has been stripped back to its decoration-less gold-laced mirror and the taps only serve pints of Bud and Bud Light. Defiling the good name of the pint with that swill is a travesty against god and man. Bud is the Uggs of the pub world. At least there is a time and place to wear Uggs. There is no good time or place for Bud. So our normal bar wenches are gone and the place is a tomb. This is good and bad. The pitchers of the vile Natural Light (which we have called “wet shit” for more years than I care to remember) are no more. On the upside, bottles of Sam Adams are much cheaper than before! We only found out about this after we ordered a round of Jameson and were overcharged by the new barhand. What surprised us was that, when he realized his error, he actually issued a refund for the difference! Honesty in a barkeep is admirable and the roots of a long and lasting friendship. So we stuck around and played about twelve games of darts and juke-blocked the majority of the night. They still have their awesome jukebox and we owned it. Good stuff. So even though I’m sure they will slowly whittle away at the things that make it our local hangout, for now it’s still tolerable and I’ll go back. The two things that will ruin the place for me are the removal of the jukebox and the dart boards. As long as I can drink, listen to good music, and play darts, I’m good to go. But if it begins to attract patrons like the ones who were playing darts next to us, I’m gone. It started with me playing “No Feelings,” a Sex Pistols Powerhouse staple. Well, they didn’t know who it was and had to “look it up.” Okay, they’re young and dumb. That’s okay, but when they had to look up The Pogues and every other song we played, it was over. And after our last song was finished, their set began. First up? “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. Now I love Queen and have nothing against the song, but these two ass clowns were acting out the Wayne’s World version while sitting in their booth. Enough said, and we called it a night.

I’ve never been to a Star Trek Convention but I just ran across a piece of news that’s getting me to the next one. Apparently James Doohan who played Scotty in the original Star Trek series has Alzheimers and will be making his final convention appearance at the end of this month at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. So sad. But the price is right and I can’t see not going out to see this legend in action on his last appearance. There will be a huge crew there from T.o.S. as well including Shatner, Nimoy and Takei. If you’re going to go drop some comments here and maybe we can have a B.La crew attending.

Click here for more information.

Fogarty and I ran into these walking crap factories in Hollywood yesterday. We stopped them and talked to them for a minute and they said they don’t have a regular beat. They just go where Herr Kommandant orders them to go and wave the flag. Oh yeah, and drop a few tons of horse shit all over the town they’re visiting. Way to make the locals really dig ya.

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I went to see the much anticipated Directors Cut of Donnie Darko at the Arclight yesterday and thought it was wonderful. I think the additions to the film were justified and made the film better. So today when I read the review of the movie in the “Pick of the Week” section of the LA Weekly I was quite confuzzled. The review by Ella Taylor basically bashed the original as well as the new version and equated Donnie to a Columbine shooter. She also said that the new version took it from a piece about, and I quote, “suburban-angst drama to sci-fi fever dream”. Well Ella it’s obvious that you didn’t understand it the first time around and the addition of flash cards didn’t help much. It’s ALWAYS BEEN SCIENCE FICTION YOU FUCKING IDIOT! It’s a piece about self sacrifice as well and we all know that’s what the shooters at Columbine were all about. What editorial moron at the LA Weekly staffed out their “Pick of the Week” to an ill informed writer who didn’t even GET the original?