My Move To LA

One of the many perks to my new job is interaction with high profile clientèle. Today I was fortunate enough to meet the man who was the lead in one of my favorite childhood movies: Hackers. I won't say his business with the firm but I will say he was a very nice man indeed.

Hooray cool job!

Los Angeles has some of the best weather in the world. A few days before we got here it got up to almost 120 degrees but since our arrival it hasn't topped 88 and it hasn't dropped below 65. I took the scooter to work this morning at 9:30 and it was perfect 75 degree scooter weather.

We are really loving life in our new ethnic enclave! Fortunately, here in Koreatown most of our neighbors are Spanish speaking so I get to practice my Spanish while befriending our building mates but as the name suggests Koreatown actually does have a lot of Koreans. Go figure!

The neighborhood is rich with culture as nearly every shop and restaurant has Korean signage, most are also accompanied by a rough English translation like the Salon down the street that reads "magic hair straight sale" or the store around the corner that says "cosmetic underwear". There are also many signs with no English on them at all but as beautiful as all the Korean signs are this can be a little intimidating for non-Koreans. We decided to quell our fears by jumping right in! Given our choice of going into a restaurant that read "Chinese Food" under the Korean sign or going into the small place next door with no English at all we decided what the hell...

the menu was no more English friendly than the sign outside:

Our server was very forgiving and though she didn't know more than a few words of English herself she got us through dinner nicely. The menu was quite extensive from what we could tell but she only gave us two options: barbecue or soup -- either because she thought that was the only thing two Americans would like, or those were the only English words she knew. We went with barbecue, Dominic had pork and I had beef. Our meal came with a variety of exotic sides and some very sticky and delicious rice. The ice cold beverage, I assumed was water, was actually some kind of tea, not bad but a little surprising at first. Overall our experience was very pleasant and though I'm not sold on Korean barbecue just yet I am totally in love with our new hood.

So, if you ever find yourself in Koreatown, Los Angeles be sure to pack a pocket translator...with multilingual capabilities!

Today while driving to work I saw a few things one could go their whole lives without ever seeing in Denver...

On the corner of Crescent Heights and 3rd I saw a wrecked yellow Ferrari sitting on the sidewalk. I was a little worried but everyone walking around on the sidewalk didn't seem to even notice the totaled $175,000 car so I carried on with my morning. Then, not a mile later, I saw this old landscaping work truck with two clean cut white guys (who looked just like agents from the Matrix, minus the suits) sitting in it. Now, I'm not a racist or anything and I grew up with immigrants but I thought it was highly unusual that two such guys would be sitting in a truck like that in a nice neighborhood. The two guys then got out, revealing their Kevlar vests and Tomb Raider style gun belts and proceeded to the back of the truck where they opened the tailgate and began to load their gun belts with guns and ammunition. It was crazy!

At first I thought it must be my lucky day because I was about to be an extra in "The Rock II" but when a bleeding Nicholas Cage failed to jump out from behind any bushes I figured it must just be another day in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles has no shortage of crazy or shameless people. Yesterday while stuck in traffic on Wilshire Blvd because of a crazy police shooting that shut down two main arteries in West Hollywood Nicole and I witnessed an amazing act of shamelessness...

There was a large black woman (decently dressed mind you) walking down the sidewalk on our passenger side not 5 feet away from the gridlocked traffic when she stopped, stuck her hand down the back of her plus sized jeans and began just scratching (or searching?) away. Now, this would seem like enough of a shameless act in front of a few hundred stranded motorists but this woman took it one step further; she removed her hand from between her butt cheeks, put her fingers to her nose and took a nice big whiff. Then, as if to prove she actually removed something from between those big cheeks she wiped her hand on her pant leg.

It truly was a sight to be seen.

I love this city.

I was driving back to the office on La Brea from the south side of town last week when I came upon this BMW dealership in the middle of a rough area. It was bizarre but what was more bizarre was that right next door was this auto shop that was so disgusting and run down it looked as if it were right out of a crime drama. Then, sitting in the middle of the decrepit lot was a police car that someone had opened fire on with an automatic weapon. It wasn't a sprinkling of gunfire either. Someone must have pumped at least 3000 rounds into this car. It was so covered with bullet holes that if you were to see it from just the front (where most of the damage occurred) you wouldn't be able to tell it was a police vehicle. Crazy!

I stared in amazement wondering if it really was from a movie or if it was some crazy act of violence. I'll probably never know.

Holy moley was my first earthquake awesome!

The rumbling, the shaking, the pictures falling! Wow! What an experience.

5.8 Magnitude centered 43 miles away in Chino, CA.

With Kid Rock and David Furnish.

Funny.

http://www.perezhilton.com/