Notes from the South Park Neighborhood

Thought I would drop a few random notes for you all regarding our neighborhood and what’s going on here these days.

• Robeks finally opened today. They are no Jamba Juice but I might give them a chance.
• We’ve been to Panini Cafe twice and both times the food was decent enough. Here’s the thing I don’t get though … Say you order pasta, and it comes with a salad. Well call me crazy but I’d like to eat my salad before my entree. Not at Panini though — when we requested that H’s Cesar come out first we were told it was not possible. Why?
• The temperature has been in the mid 80s the last few days, but you can always count on seeing someone dressed inapproriately for the weather. Case in point, the dude I saw on his bike yesterday wearing a hoodie and a winter jacket. I’m sure there is something of a breeze when he is whizzing through downtown on his bike but not enough to justify his fashion choices.
• Speaking of fasion … A new term has begun at FIDM and everyone is wearing their new clothes. This includes gigantic shoes - the kind where your heel is at least 3-5 inches from touching the ground in any way.
• Continuing with fashion … So it’s hot outside but you want to be fashionable. A scarf around your neck? Every day for the last three days I have seen someone wearing this.
• Urine stained sidewalks smell worse the hotter it gets.
• Quiznos and Pastagina still not open. Go figure.
• I love walking outside at night and seeing The Orpheum sign lit up.
• My body doesn’t like the heat. How do I know? As soon as I get out of the shower I take Carter for a walk - not a long walk, maybe 10 minutes. By the time I get home I need to change shirts because I have sweat through the brand new clean one I just put on to start the day.

Pet Peeves and Reality Television Go Hand in Hand

Two things have been well documented here on our blog:

1. A lot of reality television is viewed in our house.
2. Neither Carter or I watch by choice.

You can find past references here and here.

A few weeks ago I was complaining about summer programming and how there doesn’t seem to be anything new on television. This lead to us recording a million episodes of Law & Order and watching them periodically throughout the week. But something happened in the magical world of television recently, namely the return of reality shows for the summer. Here is a brief list of what makes it onto our tv these days:

• Shear Genius - I can’t even comment to be honest with you. I will spend quality time with H and watch her silly shows but this is the one I just don’t get. The contestants are not interesting and the judges are just blah.
• So You Think You Can Dance - H loves this show, I mean LOVES it. How do I know this? Once in a while she will watch a performance and then rewind it and watch it again. I’ve told you already I think Cat Deeley is the best reality television host out there based on her personality and looks but the wardrobe department puts her in some interesting outfits from time to time. Anyhow, the contestants seem cool enough, and I get to see a few cute girls dance around some stage while teenagers shout every time one of the dudes takes his shirt off.
• Big Brother - I don’t get Julie Chen. I don’t get the crazy messed up people they stuff in the house. I just don’t get this show period. What could make it worse? We currently subscribe to Showtime for the first time in our lives which means we get three hours of programming a night of the house guests hanging, smoking and talking about nothing. Just to recap here - we had four hours of original Big Brother programming on our DVR last night.
• Project Runway - Heidi is hot and it just goes to show that it doesn’t matter what you sing, if you are a singer hot chicks will like you. Nina Garcia scares the crap out of me but I could watch Tim Gunn walk into a room and say “Hello designers” all day long. The people on the show are at least interesting to watch and have some talent, unlike our friends on Big Brother who are there because …. hmmm I am not sure what goes into being selected for Big Brother.

Which brings me to my pet peeves, all of which are perpetuated on reality television. They occur in every day life, but you see them more often than not on television.

• People giving more than 100% - By definition the most you can give is 100%. Not 110%, not 125%, and not the over the top 200%. The most you can give is 100%. Period. So please don’t sit in your confessional or approach the reporter and say “Man, I just wanted to give it all I got, and I did. I gave 110% and left it all out there”. Buddy, you are lying to yourself. You gave maybe 100%, mayyyyybe, because I don’t buy anyone doing their very best in life just so they aren’t eliminated on a television show.
• Referring to yourself in the third person - There is nothing I can’t stand more than people that do this, and reality television takes it to a whole new level. On tv it happens in one of two places: (1) the confessional room when someone is giving their diary entry to the camera or (2) when someone is explaining themselves to the group. Here is an example of #1: “… I mean I’m Diedra and one of the best designers here. Ain’t nobody going to come into this house and tell me otherwise, and if they do Diedra is going to step all over them”. Seriously? What do their parents think when they see things like this. Personally it makes me cringe and look away from the television, so I can only imagine what happens when the people that changed their diapers see them acting this way in front of millions of people. Example of #2: Picture a group of contestants standing outside arguing about some insane issue … “Are you kidding me? Why would I not try to win? Huh? Tell me that! It came down to Randy, Jake and me. Why shouldn’t I win? Why shouldn’t Steve get a win under his belt?”. Ugh ….

Of course the worst thing that can happen is a combination, such as: “What you see is what you get. I didn’t come all this way to lose so you can count on Ginny giving 110% every time out there”.

• Tasteless product placement: I know someone has to pay the bills, but what happened to the good old days when they would flash a logo at the end of the show that read “Such and such provided by so and so”? Nowadays you rush your models to the Tresseme hair salon, makeup is done in the L’Oreal studio  and chefs have two hours to cook with the latest Sears Kenmore appliances.

So this is what my summer has come to as three of the four shows mentioned just got underway …

Pay Phones in Downtown LA

Pay phones, remember them?

Before the days of everyone and their uncle having a cell phone, there were pay phones.

Prior to people walking around all day with their head blinking a constant blue pulse and looking like a cyborg, there were payphones.

The last time I used a pay phone was in the winter of 2004. Don’t ask me why I remember that, but I do. I was in a building that did not allow cell phones and I needed to make a call.

But not here in sunny downtown Los Angeles.

Pay phones are everywhere here! Within a two block radius of our place there are at least six of them, if not more. And here’s the thing — people are always using them! Let’s be clear that when I say people I mean individuals from all walks of life. Those who seems down and out on their luck … people who are speaking a language I don’t understand … people speaking the one language I do understand but would rather not hear their conversation in public …

You’re probably saying to yourself, “Hey you Canadian-Midwest transplant, don’t they have pay phones where you are from?”. The answer is yes they do still have pay phones back in Chicago and in Canada, however usually you have to seek them out in a building such as a mall or a public/government office; they are not randomly placed on a side street.

So we have the whole phone thing out of the way in the sense there are many more here in downtown LA than in other areas. Which leads to the ineviatble question …

Who are these people using them and who are they calling?

Behold - Our Amazing Machine!

My friends … this is our magic machine. It’s a washer … it’s a dryer … it’s a thing I used to get wrinkles out of clothes so I don’t have to iron … It’s half man, half amazing.

Well actually it’s the LG WM3988HWA but we don’t have to get technical. Let’s just say it’s our washer and dryer combo.

Our history with washing machines has been all over the map. Our first rental in Lincoln Park didn’t have in-unit laundry so we had to take everything down the service elevator to the ground floor laundry room. The only good part was the price - 50 cents to wash and twenty-five to dry. When we bought our condo in Lincoln Square we had a washer dryer hookup so our first major purchase two days after moving in was our stackable unit. On the day we checked out our current home the unit owner had just discovered the stackable he purchased would not work in this place and was going to donate it to charity and buy something else. Well he decided on this crazy machine and I am glad he did.

Why the excitement over a washer dryer? Probably because I do all the laundry so it’s a big deal to me. Other than that, here a few things we have come to love and hate about our futuristic clothes machine …

• It’s nice to put one load of laundry in and call it a day - no need to move wet clothes into the dryer
• Clothes come out much cleaner than a conventional washing machine, at least we notice this with sheets and socks
• If you don’t take clothes out right away they will become damp, and that sucks kids
• It takes a long time to dry a regular load of laundry.
• It’s an HE product and uses less water than a normal unit. It also doesn’t require a ton of laundry detergent or fabric softener
• Goodbye Bounce, hello aforementioned fabric softener
• It just looks cool from the outer appearance to the digital display to the little song it plays when the cycle is complete
• There are a million settings and quite frankly I can never decide what I should use.

Here is the link to the product page at LG if you are curious.

Weeneez? Hot Dogs? Apparently Not

Today was kind of a lazy Sunday; we had visitors since Tuesday and we were going to take it easy and just hang around. After getting some laundry started H decided to eat some left overs, I decided to wait and grab something when we were out on our walk. I wanted something simple and settled on a hot dog. Since you can’t get a hot dog from a street vendor without it being wrapped in bacon (don’t ask) I figured we would head up to Weeneez.

The place is called Weeneez. They sell hot dogs.

Just not on Sundays.

After walking forever in the heat we stepped inside and were immediately greeted by someone who asked if we were there for brunch?

“Brunch? No, I’d like a hot dog.”

“We don’t have hot dogs today.”

Wait a second here — your place is called Weeneez, you serve hot dogs ever day of the week except Sunday. Why? If you want to serve brunch on Sunday, or everyday of the week, I don’t care. But don’t call your place Weeneez. Why advertise hot dogs if you aren’t going to sell them?

H and I have been to the place a few times and it’s always been alright. Nothing special, just hot dogs. Not as good as Portillo’s and not as good as something you would get off the street in New York City or Toronto. But it has always been a decent dog none the less.

I’ll assume they are trying to drum up more business and tap into the Sunday brunch crowd. Our friend Skid Row Dude was there today and enjoyed it which is great! I guess I just don’t understand where they are going and why I can’t get a hot dog on Sunday.

Family, Friends and the Holiday Season

We don’t get to see our friends and family enough. Period.

That being said, we are currently throwing around ideas for visiting family during the 2008 holiday season.

Personally I’d love to get home more often than I do and with my change in careers I think it’s something I will make a concentrated effort to do.

In the past we have traveled only for Christmas; going to Canada a few days before Santa Claus showed up, spending Christmas morning with my family and then flying down the morning or afternoon to Chicago.

With us now living in Los Angeles, and airlines gouging you to death with surcharges and bag fees things are a little more tricky. One idea being thrown around our house is to travel to Canada before Christmas, down to Chicago Christmas Day and back out to LA a few days later. The other thought it spending Thanksgiving in Chicago and Christmas in Canada.

Of course the other thing we have to take into consideration is the guy at the bottom of this post. There will be some expense in either taking him with us or putting him up somewhere.