Adventures in La-La-Land, part II

[dr_tectonic]

So, Los Angeles! I finally got around to taking my pictures off the camera, except that it turns out I was totally lame and forgot to really take any. So I have a whopping 4 pics to show you.

We took a couple when we met Dave & Reid for brunch:

e_ticket and animbear at Jinkie's. Check that awesome backlighting, yeah!


And here is a picture of me, Greg, & Robb. (The only picture of the three of us at the moment.)


So anyway, like I said in part 1, after brunch and poking about, Greg & Robb went back to Valencia and I went down to Aliso Viejo to spend some time with RTRR: Robert bigsabu, Tim martini_tim, Richard redbeardedblond and Reid animbear.

We got to their place and one of the first things I noticed is that the reason I was never able to piece together a coherent model of the internal geography of their house (from seeing it in the background of a number of pictures) is that, despite the fact that the stairs have been in plenty of shots, I was assuming it was all on one floor. And in fact, it's on two. DUH!

This was on Halloween, so Tim was watching Prince of Darkness. Which was... okay, there were some good bits -- Alice Cooper does a very good scary homeless guy, for example -- but they tried to put science into it, and did not do a good job of it. The attempts at technojargon were just painful.

I feel I should also mention that Tim was dressed as Charlie Brown. Quite effectively.

But this didn't last long, because it was dinner time, so we went off to Curry House. The guys public enough fans about it that I was pretty enthused about finally getting to eat there. I was not disappointed. Japanese curry is its own thing, and it was tasty.

Anyway, afterwards it was still Halloween, so they made me watch scary movies. Which, shockingly, I actually enjoyed.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is a horror flick / mockumentary, and it does a fantastic job of being both. It is very clever! I definitely recommend it.

Trick 'r Treat is a bunch of Halloween/horror shorts. Some are better than others, but the fun thing is that they're all interwoven, so while you're watching one story, there's usually some bits from one of the other stories going on in the background.

It was a very enjoyable way to spend the evening. And their couch is pretty comfy.

Sunday I tagged along to the farmer's market and bought a devil fruit tomato. And then we drove over to Laguna Beach for lunch (Mexican -- one of those tasty little hole-in-the-wall kinds of places). I introduced the guys to The IT Crowd, and helped Tim sort through a couple boxes of old video games, and we played a game of Dominion. Lounged with bigsabu a fair bit, which was nice. Didn't get to see Richard too much, because he was busy with his new job selling cars, but he is AWESOME at it, so that's pretty cool.

Greg & Robb came down that evening to pick me up, and we got dinner at Inka Mama, which is a Peruvian restaurant. I'd never had Peruvian before, but I certainly will again, because it was super-yum! I wish we had one around here.

Then Monday we got together with Nicole (who knows me & Robb from the Peggster boards). She's all knowledgeable local history chick, so we did a sort of driving tour and she played tour guide for us. We got lunch in Chinatown:

Nicole! In Chinatown.



And then we dropped in on Julie (xfsista from the Peggster boards) after lunch. Well, after we managed to finally find her office building, which took some doing. Here's a picture of all of us, which is pretty awesome considering it was taken with a cellphone at arm's length:

Greg & Robb & Beemer & Nic & Julie



And that was the end of it, because Monday evening we flew home, and we had to allot plenty of time to get to the airport and drop off the rental car, et cetera.

It was pretty much exactly the kind of trip I wanted. Just hanging out with awesome people. (Though there are still a bunch of folks I need to see more of next time.) Of course, two days later Robb packed up all his stuff and hopped on a bus. And that's been pretty nice, too. :)

Comments

[djmrswhite.livejournal.com]

sorry to have missed you on this trip. next time!

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

For sure!

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

You guys look like you have a lot of fun.

I agree about Japanese curry. Way yummy. I lived on it when I was in Japan because it was the cheapest thing I found.

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

Also, Sabor Latino at 35th and Tennyson.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

*makes a note of it*

[k8cre8.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Sabor Latino is yummy, though, more Latin American than exclusively Peruvian.