i have a job! i start on monday at a tech consulting firm where i’ll be doing front-end coding. hooray!
Archives for category: autobiographical
today i went to the west hollywood book fair. i sat in on the ‘star trek: the manga‘ panel and had my copy signed by wil wheaton, don hudson, christine boylan and mike wellman. mike noted that my name was ‘kara’ “like starbuck!” which launched us into a whole battlestar galactica – bionic woman – burbank bsg convention discussion. afterwards i bought about $70 worth of comics then saw the ‘fables‘ panel with bill willingham, james jean and matthew sturges. i got the first trade of ‘jack of fables’ and the special golden apple ‘fables’ tshirt signed and also the book fair program guide, which james jean had illustrated. after that i saw ‘readings from banned books’ at the robertson salon. gary dourdan, xander berkeley, sarah clarke, catherine dent and adrean robbins read from various controversial books in a really intimate setting. very cool.
the LA county fair was fantastic, but remind me next year to space out the fried foods a little better. in all, i had 7, meghan had 8 and josh had 9:
- beer-battered french fries
- fried onion rings
- fried zucchini
- deep fried cookie dough
- deep fried coke
- deep fried sweet corn on the cob
- fried banana & peanut butter sandwich
- fried bacon-wrapped jalapeno filled with cheese (i didn’t have this one – i was busy eating my pork chop on a stick)
- fried avocado & tomato (i guess this was sort of gross so i didn’t try it either)
other fried foods available included frog legs, snickers, s’mores, oreos, waffles, artichokes and apple fries, which i really wanted to try but by that point i just couldn’t eat any more fried food. john and maria went and i got to meet their friends david and naomi who were awesome too. next up: halloween horror fest at the fairplex. woo!
addendum: on the way to the LA county fair after what seemed like hours of driving:
kara: where are we?
josh: pomona. orange county.
kara: …that can’t be right.
update: photos
last night i went to oktoberfest with meghan and some of her grip friends from ‘zoey’. it was a great time – those guys are hilarious – but the whole situation was slightly odd since i had just been to germany. old world is in huntington beach and looks remarkably like the places i saw around the alps (except for the spanish tile roofs); there were painted buildings, lederhosen to buy and a german-speaking band. i sort of had a ‘bizarro-world’ feeling the entire time i was there, but it was easy to forget about it and have a good time. especially after austin explained ‘the spiderman’ and jacob was coerced into his 3rd mystery shot.
today pat and i went to beverly hills to the gagosian gallery to see tom sachs’ installation space program. it was pretty cool – a really tongue-in-cheek look at the apollo moon landings…or how to fake them. it’s going until october 13th, so if you’re in LA you should check it out!
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see the whole set at flickr
i passed my CA written driver’s test with flying colors. my ability to temporarily absorb then regurgitate information remains unsullied by time. thank you united states public school system – thank you.
so guess what was released today? the serenity collector’s edition. guess what i bought today? correct. and guess who came over so we could watch all the new special features? that would be pat.
god we’re nerds.
thursday clayton and i drove to sherman oaks and walked around the mall – maria was working there that day so we stopped to see her too. afterwards we went to meghan and josh’s and played the wii. thursday night, clayton’s cousin james came into town for the weekend. friday we got up early and maria made a great breakfast. then we saw ‘superbad‘. it was even better than the trailers let on. after the movie we visited the griffith observatory – it was fantastic! the building is beautiful and the exhibits are really eye-catching and engaging. we got to touch meteorites, see evidence of cosmic rays in an alcohol vapor chamber, and watch a tesla coil spark! next time we go we want to visit at night and see the planetarium show.
friday night ryan was in town to play a show in los feliz – part of a music festival thing. he spent the day driving down from san francisco and got held up by a terrible accident and then, no joke, saw a car driving down the freeway at 50 mph…on fire. anyway, i drove to pat’s in west hollywood and we hung out there for awhile and had a couple beers until ryan arrived. then ryan left for his show and pat and i went to forty deuce for the jazz burlesque show. it. was. awesome. the dancers were amazing and the band was really good. after the show we went to the dresden and listened to marty and elayne play with some amazing guest vocalists. ryan met us after his set and we stayed until closing. on the way back to pat’s we stopped at in-n-out and picked up some delicious burgers. by the time pat and i got to his apartment, ryan was already there and camped out in the blanket nest he sleeps in at the foot of pat’s bed. we ate, watched adult swim, ryan passed out in all his clothes, and that was goodnight.
saturday ryan had to go to a recording session, so pat and i spent the morning…uh…and afternoon…lazing about and watching cartoons and terrible sci-fi movies. and i do mean terrible. that night maria, clayton and i had some sushi for dinner and turned in early because we had to get up early the next day to go to…
the beach! sunday we drove to west hollywood to pick up maria’s friend from st. louis, elaine. we went to famima!!, the best convenience store ever, and picked up stuff for lunch. we drove out to malibu and set up camp at zuma beach. it was a beautiful day – the beach wasn’t too crowded and there were a lot of dolphins. we stayed for a long time – about 5 hours – then drove home, stopping on the way for my second in-n-out of the weekend. clayton and i both got sunburned – the lesson: reapply often and remember to get the sunscreen everywhere!
after in-n-out and some coupling, i left home to meet pat at the movie theater. we saw ‘stardust‘ which has the most surprising robert de niro performance…ever.
this week? not much planned. hopefully hanging out with meghan before she goes on another shoot, definitely watching some ‘serenity’ special edition dvd extras with pat. i really have to study for the california driver’s test too – i guess it’s actually pretty tough and i need to get a new license before my trip in september because my illinois one expires on my birthday. getting my new bank account taken care of would probably be good too. also is my car registration expiring? hmm…gotta reorganize the kitchen too. good thing i made those blueberry lemon muffins today – might need the fuel!
yesterday turned out to be pretty awesome, and all on accident. i made cupcakes friday and there were still a lot left after clayton’s brother and his gf’s visit on saturday/sunday. so, yesterday afternoon i texted meghan that there were some cupcakes over here and she’d better come quick if she wanted any (before pat beat her to the punch and ate, you know, all of them). meghan called, she and josh came over, we played with the dog a bit and then maria offered to cook dinner for everyone. we all went over to the korean market in glendale and saw some pretty great packaging (must take camera next time) and a lot of octopus tentacles. maria made some rice cake soup and bulgogi and there were a lot of korean sides including some shredded squid and a root vegetable with a weird name.
after we’d stuffed ourselves we drove to meghan & josh’s in sherman oaks so they could grab jackets and jeans. we piled into josh’s rav4 and drove to malibu creek state park and watched the perseid meteor shower. we parked just outside the park gates and laid out a blanket on the service road (a powerpuff girls blanket – shockingly not mine). we all squeezed onto the blanket and looked up at the sky for almost an hour. there were a lot of small meteors a few big ones that lasted a long time and even a fireball, which looked like the space shuttle blasting across the sky (but far away) or a really firey firework before it explodes or a giant bottle rocket. it was fantastic.
the day started with maria and i lazing about watching hbo and reading trashy magazines and ended up, without any planning at all, at malibu watching a meteor shower. so far los angeles is great.