Tag Archives: los angeles

Anime Expo 2011

Today I went to Anime Expo hosted by the SPJA in Los Angeles, CA. This year marked the TENTH year in a row that I’ve attended the convention! (See some of my other posts about it.)

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Me at Anime Expo 2011!


For the past few years I’ve just been going to the exhibit hall and this year was not much different. I bought Final Fantasy Anthology, which contains Final Fantasy V & VI; Final Fantasy Chronicles; a Super Mario chess set; some stationary and of course, an official Anime Expo shirt! Overall I had a really good time, but it’s probably the last year I’ll go. I haven’t been as into anime/manga as I used to be; and plus, content is so much more accessible with the prevalence of the internet. And I don’t really relate to most of the attendees anymore, since I’m no longer a teenager! I had fun these last ten years, but I’m ready to hang up my hat, especially since moving to Riverside… it’s not such a close drive anymore!

My best friend and I at Anime Expo 2001.

Thanks for the memories, AX!

Click on the link to see more pictures from this years’ AX: Continue reading →

Upcoming Summer Shows

Selena Gomez, Huey Lewis & The News, Band of Horses, Lykke Li, Neko Case, The National, Sharon Van Etten

Selena Gomez, Huey Lewis & The News, Band of Horses, Lykke Li, Neko Case, The National, Sharon Van Etten

I’ve been buying tickets like a crazy person for the past two months in preparation for all of the great shows happening this summer! In the past I haven’t cared too much about going to concerts; tickets always seemed too expensive (and I still definitely feel this is the case for the likes of Britney Spears and Lady Gaga). But now that I’ve been listening to more alternative and indie-rock type music, I’ve really enjoyed going to shows to see my favorite bands like Band of Horses. This summer I have so many shows lined up, I can’t wait to see them!

  • Jul 24 – Selena Gomez & The Scene at the Orange County Fairgrounds – OK this one is a little embarrassing, but I can’t wait! I love Selena Gomez! I think she’s really cute and I like her songs. I’m not above listening to pop music and she’s one of my favorites. I’m taking a couple of my tween cousins with me and I think they’ll really enjoy it. Her new album comes out Jun 28. Visit her website to see her latest music video for “Who Says.”
  • Aug 3 – Lykke Li at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles – I was a fan of Lykke Li’s “Little Bit” EP and she recently released a new album, Wounded Rhymes. I’m loving “Sadness is a Blessing” so far. My brother and I are going to this show together, we saw Band of Horses at the Greek last year, too. Great Venue.
  • Aug 7 – Huey Lewis & the News at the Orange County Fairgrounds – Another embarrassing one! But my Dad said he wanted to see Huey Lewis, so I bought him tickets for his birthday. My mom, brother and I are going to go, too. Hey, it’s hip to be square! They had a new album, Soulsville come out last year, so I imagine this tour is to promote that.
  • Sep 8 – Band of Horses and Kings of Leon at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, CA – Apparently Band of Horses is opening for Kings of Leon during their tour this summer, so my brother and I are going to go see them. I couldn’t really care less about KOL, but my brother likes them, so we’ll go together (Are you sensing a trend? I go to basically all my shows with him!). It helps that this show is pretty much in my brother’s backyard, so we won’t have to travel too far. Tickets haven’t gone on sale yet, but I’ll be all over them when they do! I haven’t been to this venue yet, so I’m pretty excited.
  • Sep 11 – Neko Case, The National and Sharon Van Etten at the Hollywood Bowl – The show that started them all! This was the first one I bought tickets for. I am pretty much obsessed with Neko Case since I started listening to her Middle Cyclone album about a year or two ago. She hasn’t been touring much lately, so when I saw this come up (I think on her Twitter?) I pounced on it. It helps that my brother likes The National (I think they’re OK) so he agreed to go with me. I started listening to Sharon Van Etten’s albums today so I can get a feel for what she’s about; I’ve never heard of her. I haven’t been to this venue either and it’s very famous, so I can’t wait!

I’m really excited! I’m trying not to look at any other shows to go to (definitely not thinking about seeing Bob Dylan or The Weepies at the Troubador at all) since I’ve spent enough so far but… never say never!

Concerts

How many concerts have you been to? I have to admit, I haven’t been to many. I saw a Neil Diamond tribute band with my sister (it was awesome!) and I’ve seen Band of Horses a couple of times (once at the Fox Theatre in Pomona, once at The Grove in LA). I’ve also seen Eric Hutchinson open for Blind Melon at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and Dance Hall Crashers at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. And over the summer a friend of mine dragged me to see American Idol alum Adam Lambert on tour at the Orange County fair, lol. Alison Iraheta was opening for him.

Later this month I’m going to see The Frames at the Avalon Ballroom in LA. I haven’t heard much of their music, but my sister is a fan of theirs and asked me to go to the show with her, so I am. I heard they’re very good live, so I’m excited. A couple of weeks ago The Weepies were playing at the Coach House, unfortunately I was too busy to go see them, I was so disappointed 🙁

What shows have you been to?

Hollywood, Amoeba Music, Scientology and Chicken and Waffles!

One great thing about living close to a big city is being able to easily visit the awesome stores they have there. Yesterday I drove to Hollywood with my sister, brother, and a few of his friends to hit up Amoeba Music. The place was completely awesome! They have a HUGE selection of new and used CDs and records, from a WIDE variety of genres and artists. And that’s just the first floor! The second floor has a pretty decent selection of new and used DVDs.

I dug in immediately, looking for CDs from my favorite artists that were hard to find at the places I usually buy CDs, like Target and Best Buy. I ended up finding several CDs from artists like The Magnetic Fields, Leonard Cohen, Meiko, Priscilla Ahn, Eric Hutchinson, and many, many more. I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s pretty hard to find a CD in stores if it was released more than 6-12 months ago, or it’s not on the Billboard charts. I know what you’re thinking, why not buy online? I do buy online; that’s why I already had Meiko’s album before I saw it at Amoeba. But sometimes the added taxes and shipping costs increase the cost of the CD above what I’m willing to pay. And Amoeba has a LOT of used CDs, which lowers the cost even more. I ended up walking away with The Magnetic Field’s The Wayard Bus/Distant Plastic Trees, Leonard Cohen’s Various Positions, and a tribute to Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Fan, which includes performances by The Pixies, REM, and Nick Cave, to name a few. I also got a couple of Miyazaki DVD’s I’ve been meaning to pick up, but haven’t because for some reason, they cost quite a bit more than regular DVDs. Anyway, they were Whisper of the Heart, which I rented on NetFlix recently and loved, and The Cat Returns, which I downloaded and watched quite a while ago.

My sister got a few CDs, the Hits of Erasure, ABBA Gold, and the Sex and the City Soundtrack. She joked as we were driving home, listening to her CDs, that she was turning my car into a gay club, haha. 🙂

After Amoeba, we waited outside for the rest of the party to be done shopping and I noticed that we could see the Church of Scientology’s location on Hollywood Blvd from a distance. It kinda creeped me out. It creeped me out even further when one of the guys in the party mentioned that the Scientology created CCHR headquarters, or Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights, was down the street just a little ways and they wanted to visit it out of morbid curiosity because inside there is a “museum” on psychiatry. We were all curious, so we decided to check it out. Turns out the museum is called “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” and the “museum” was every bit as creepy as it sounds. It felt like I was walking into the Museum of Tolerance, a Holocaust museum, also in Los Angeles. It had all these exhibits showing the history of psychiatry, including of course shock treatment and lobotomy. CCHR blames the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust on psychiatry. It also had an exhibit with pictures of different celebrities and little descriptions underneath the pictures blaming psychiatry for their deaths. There was also a section that showed statistics on psychiatrists; supposedly more psychiatrists than physicians commit suicide, get divorces, etc. They also showed a big wall with pictures of psychiatrists behind bars for being convicted of various crimes, ranging from a hit-and-run fatality to rape and sexual assault of patients. And of course, there was a room blaming psychiatry for the Columbine school shootings and various other school shootings. All in all, it was quite disturbing and I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Chris and his friends were irritated and angry about the museum, quick to point out the flaws of logic in the exhibits, but Teresa and I just wanted to leave.

Afterward we walked to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles off of Gower and Sunset. It was so good! I was suspicious about the pairing of fried Chicken and waffles, but my suspicions were put to rest after that visit, haha.

Anyway, that was my Sunday and even with the scary Scientology excursion, it was really fun. I wish I had my camera. 🙂

Writer’s Strike

I don’t know if it’s the same everywhere else in the world, but today in LA the big story is the Writer’s Guild of America strike. For now it will only affect somewhat live shows, most of our beloved sitcoms and scripted TV shows (probably) have enough episodes written ahead of time to weather the storm. Movie studios have plenty of scripts waiting to be produced. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of most of the late night talk shows (well, not enough to watch them regularly) and the like, so I don’t think this will affect me. But hopefully it doesn’t last long enough to prevent new episodes of my beloved The Office from airing! 😛

Party at Vanessa’s!

I went to {Vanessa}’s a couple weekends ago and we had a BLAST. It’s so fun having a girls’ night out with no boyfriends around. 😀 (Don’t worry baby, I still love you. :loveeye: )

I drove up after going to the Discovery Science Center with my friend Kim for extra credit in our Geology class. I got there kind of early though, so I decided to drive around nearby Beverly Hills for some sightseeing. I soon realized that all parking is metered and I had no quarters. 🙁 You can see some lovely pics I took from the car behind the cut, haha.



There’s a bad view of city hall. It looks like a church or something.


Looks like a park, right? No, it’s just their sidewalk.


OMG I WONDER IF PARIS WAS THERE.


The Mormitron is about to take off! Just kidding. That was invented one time when I went up to Vanessa’s and Mike F., Vanessa and I were driving to Shoppingtown when we passed the LDS Temple. We remarked it looked kind of like a space ship about to take off, and hence Mormitron was born.


The Mormitron Temple for the LDS peeps! With Mercedes driving in front, ohh irony.

I finally managed to mosey over to Vanessa’s after an hour or so and we ran over to Rubio’s where I managed to offend some black people after I mentioned that I don’t care about the black people suffering in Africa to make my diamonds. Don’t worry though, Kanye West does. (By the way, I was completely kidding and I am seriously offended by the atrocities being commited in Sierra Leone). Then we dashed back to the dorm and decided to get our drink on while waiting for her friend Liam to call us so we could go to a party. We watched Annie Hall in between shots of vodka and sips of Smirnoff Ice. We also took some pictures!



My cheeks have the lovely glow of one who might be intoxicated.


If alcohol doesn’t make you happy, something is wrong. Luckily, Vanessa is normal~!


Could my hair be any more sexy and flowy?


Uh oh, Vanessa is entering her angry drunk phase! Run!


“Please drink me, I am just waiting to be consumed!”


LET’S TAKE A PICTURE OF DOING SHOTS TOGETHER! Oops, sit up Erin, Jesus you’re not that drunk yet.”


Duck lips makes an appearance!


“Fucksing HELL, hhhow d’you fucking WORK thiss FSUCKING ‘mote?!”


Alcohol = world peace.


Boobs need hugs, too!


YAY! Liam called Erin! Let’s get more alcohol and go PARTY!

Yes, Liam finally called and we went and got some more alcohol. Then we went to some guy’s house, a friend of Liam’s, and hung out for a while. I don’t remember much because at this point I was kind of smashed, but I do remember:
1. We met some fool named Cosmo and I was like, “COSMO? THASS NOT A FUCKSING NAMWE!”
2. Tade came and brought some girl he met at another party who was wearing a very short skirt and possibly no underwear.
3. The car Tade borrowed kept alarming at us and we had to get rid of our alcohol just in case the police came (which they never did). Vanessa dumped hers in the bushes… I chugged mine.
4. During the car ride back, I had to pee very bad.
5. I did not make it to the bathroom but made it out of the car. Whoops!
6. I took a shower and went to sleep while Vanessa… did something. I don’t remember. I was very embarrassed about peeing on myself and Vanessa comforted me, sweet thing!

The next morning I woke up early, as usual and I drove home to spend the rest of the day in bed. I already knew what I was going to do once I got there! I was going to first put my clothes in the washing machine, then make a cup of tea, take a shower, and finally fall asleep while watching The Little Mermaid. And that’s exactly what I did.


My lovely Saddleback Mountain once I got home!

Although it was kind of an embarrassing experience, it was overall hella fun and at least I have a most embarrassing moment to share! Yay for embarrassing drunkeness stories!

Greg’s and the Huntington!

On Monday I was able to take off early, so Mike and I jetted up to Westwood, home of UCLA to visit Greg and his fiancee, Kristin. We stopped off at Tommy’s Burgers (Mike’s favorite Burger joint, mine is In N Out) for lunch and got there around 2 or so. Parking was horrendous! We hung out at Kristin’s and watched the awesomely bad Merlin miniseries. Once Greg got off work we walked down to Westwood Village and Olive Garden for dinner, then went separate ways for the evening. Greg and Kristin had play auditions to conduct at UCLA and Mike and I decided to see HairPo at the Village Theatre (soo cooool!!)

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, Mike and I eventually fell asleep on the floor together :loveeye: I don’t get many chances to sleep next to Michael, so when I do I really enjoy it. I think that may be one of the things we are looking forward to most about getting married, (besides all of the crazy SEX we’ll be having, of course!) is just being able to sleep and be together all night long. It’s hard for me to sleep much past 7 or 7:30, so I woke up and watched My Neighbor Totoro until Mike was ready to get going.

Our plan for Tuesday was to visit The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, about a 45 minute drive from Westwood. Once we got there we encountered the most beautiful gardens either of us has ever seen.


Awesome view of the LA skyline we saw on the way to the Huntington.



There’s Mike in front of the entrance.


Me in front of the first garden we visited, the Rose garden. Our favorite rose was called Tamora, it’s a peach colored rose that smells wonderful.


View of the magnificent Japanese garden.


Amazing Bamboo forest.


Mike in front of the rock garden. After this picture was taken, a squirrel ran across the rocks, lol! :faint:


Look at that bonsai tree! It bends over the edge and then goes back up, amazing.


Mike at the entrance to the lily ponds.


Aww koi fishes! Cute!


If you look closely, you can see some of their little mouths open for food. Precious!:grin:


Ahh being attacked by huge desert tree monstrosity! I can’t remember what the tree was called but it is NOT to be confused with a joshua tree! i remember that much, hehe. :angel:


Mike and a new friend, a brown preying mantis we saw at the entrance to the art galleries.

Overall we had a really fun and exhausting time. Thanks to our host and hostess for having us over. 🙂

Thanks!

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that have given me words of encouragement and sympathy. I’m really sorry for posting such a depressing post ( 😳 ) but I needed to work it out. So thanks for all the support, it’s been really uplifting. 🙂

Tonight I spent the night trying to wind down, although that’s probably a lie. All week I’ve been really lazy about school work and not wanting to get any of it done. So I spent a good 6 hours reading about The Swannell Family’s year-long trip around the world. I really reccomend that everyone at least begin reading this site, the parts about Turkey and India were really moving. It was also interesting to hear what a foreigner has to say about my country. I have to say though, the guy is OBSESSED with air quality. A lot of times it is smoggy in southern California, but also when near the beach in California, a lot of it is marine layer (fog, not smog. Fog is ground-level clouds, that’s all) that just doesn’t get burned away by the sun. At one point he remarks that the air quality has gotten worse in LA from when he visited in the 80s, and that’s just not true. It’s gotten MANY times better… just ask {Vanessa}. She lived in LA in the 80s and remembers many days when people were discouraged from leaving their homes because smog was so bad. LA hasn’t had a “smog day” since the 80s, I don’t think, because air quality is much improved. Besides, plenty of people live in LA all their lives and don’t die because of smog, although I’m sure it doesn’t help anything. 😀 Anyway, sorry for the tangent. :cheerful:

Weekend report!

I hate how blogger lies. They say they’re going to save a post, and then it doesn’t. Bitches.

Anyway, like I was saying, Friday I had to schedule my classes for the next semester. Only, because I got the shaft in registration times, I got the shaft in my classes. All the ones I wanted were full, so this is how my schedule looks now:

GEOG-110: Physical Geography MW 8.30AM-9.45AM Engstrom, W. N.
POSC-100: American Government MWF 11.00AM-11.50AM Stambough, S. J.
ENGL-101: Beginning College Writing MWF 12.00PM-12.50PM Instructor??
ART-101: Introduction To Art MW 2.30PM-3.45PM West, E.

So yeah, I have big fatty breaks and I shouldn’t even be TAKING English! That’s what I took the AP for! So I have to tell Santa Margarita to send them my score, and then I have to make an appointment with academic advising and tell them to cut the crap. 😛

After school, I hung out doing nothing for a long while, then Mike and I made plans to rent a movie and watch it here. So I went and rented Mallrats! the best movie EVAR. And we watched it and cuddled. ^_^

Saturday was a GREAT day! Mike had to study until 11, then he came and picked me up. We got gas and Wendy’s and were on our way for a funfilled day in LA! We hit traffic in La Mirada and it didn’t let up for a while. : But that’s okay! We finally made it to the LACMA [That’s Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which I didn’t know is right next to the Brea Tarpits, which do not look like tar by the way]! We looked at the Buddhist art exhibit for my assignment in history, then we waited for Vanessa and her friend Kelly to come, and we went into the Modern and PostModern art floors. When we were waiting outside Mike and I went into the gardens where we saw many Rodin sculptures, and a sculpture by Calder. Yayyyyy!!! It was great, I had so much fun. 😀 After that, Vanessa had to go back to school, and Mike and I decided not to leave LA yet. We went to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Kodak Theatre, which is right next door. We browsed around and stuff, it was fun. Then we headed home, where we hit the USC vs UCLA game traffic. Kill. -_- It was a GREAT day!

Sunday we went to church, and since it’s like… Thanksgiving week, the pastor wanted people to like, thank God for good things this year. So people got up and thanked God and the church and stuff, and Mike’s dad got up and thanked God that Mike is still getting better, and he thanked God for Mike’s girlfriend [me]. I was so embarrassed I turned like, 80 shades of red. Yeah. 🙂 Then after first service, while Mike and I were in Sunday school, [which was a very good one, by the way] some lady asked Mike’s mom when they’re going to announce something to the church. Mike’s mom was like ‘uh, what are you talking about?’ and the lady was like, ‘A marriage of course!’ and she was like ‘Oh, not yet,’ haha. I was like, damn people… this is California, not Kentucky… Then Mike and I studied and cuddled and he went back to school. 🙁

I don’t have school this week yayy! Today I’m cleaning my room and doing laundry and homework, tomorrow I have to work, Wednesday I have to clean the house and Teresa is coming home, and I’m also going to lunch with Ne. 😀 Thursday is Thanksgiving, Friday Mike and I might be going to Condom Revolution with Vanessa, Terinn, Brian and Byron. I don’t know if we want to go yet.

I probably shouldn’t have written that since Mike’s dad somehow knows I have a blog, hehe. Maybe I should stop posting at work during lunch. ^_^; That’s like, combining the How not to get fired for blogging and Mom finds out about blog.