NEW PHONE

I've finally joined the rest of the 21st century and got a smart phone!  I decided to go droid, though I thought long and hard about getting an iPhone and didn't know how I'd like what I got, I love it.  Granted I'm coming from a flip phone with a cracked camera that couldn't save the crappy pictures it could take to the micro SD that didn't work..... but yeah.  So far my favorite apps/games are the fx camera (which includes toycam, poloroid, fisheye, symmetricam, and Warhol settings), alchemy, angry birds, google maps, and this app that converts mp3s to ringtones, but I'm currently taking suggestions.

andrea's hardest day of "work"...

What's the most awful thing that you can imagine you'd have to do at work? No doubt it is no where near as miserable as what Andrea had to do the other day - spend the day at the Warner Bros. Studio hanging out with marketing and advertising people from companies like PlayStation, Mattel, Disney and Universal Music, and wrapping up with a studio tour!

Among the torturous things she was put through, she had to check out some of the vehicles they store on the lot from movies like the Matrix, Austin Powers, Harry Potter, and Batman Begins/ The Dark Knight

All of that was bad enough since she doesn't really like movies, but when you think about how much she HATES television you realize how horrible it was for her to have to go to the Friends set, and the (drum roll please) THE SET OF CHUCK!

Since taking pictures of working sets were outlawed, the only pictures of the Chuck memorabilia she was able to get was an image of a nerd hearder (like one of the Geek Squad's Geekmobiles) and a poster with a 'fro-ed out Chuck, which looks crazy if you've ever seen the show.

Poor Andrea!

Since she was going to be having such a bad day I didn't want to have fun and make her feel like she missed out, so I just adventured around the Burbank-North Hollywood area and went to a taping of Conan.

Sorry, since Andrea had the camera to document anything WB was going to do to her in case we had to take them to court for abuse I have no proof of any of this, except for this stuff that doesn't necessarily mean that I was on the show or that they belong to me (if you look REALLY hard in the video clip of when Conan comes out at about 1:05 or so, you can see me! I'm on the right side of the right most aisle above a light wearing a black hoodie and my black and white stripped shirt that I'm wearing in the Halloweenie post, third from the curtain in the first row in the balcony section [whew, try saying that 3 times fast]).

Clearly we are not enjoying our time here and cry ourselves to sleep every night.

:'(

First Friday - Venice

After my first whole week of work at my brand spankin new job, getting off work around 1 b/c of half day Fridays, we went to Costco (of course- Andre's favorite store) and THEN Andre sweetheart darling decided to surprise me as to what we would do with our evening - I had no idea what I wanted to do, so after looking around online at stuff he though I'd like he said he knew where we were going and we were off.


WELL... we ended up not finding where we thought we were going (which I later found out was Santa Monica to go to Urban Outfitters and some other shops) HOWEVER just as we were about to give up and turn around we saw a van on the side of the road with a huge fish like the one in the teaser trailer for Rango on top and a buttload of people.  


Naturally, I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about  so we found a place to park, came back and found what must've been about 10 or more food trucks plus the Timmsmobile.  After being there for a while we figured out that it was all for First Friday in Venice and there were also little boutiques and galleries open which we perused after getting acquainted with the food trucks - first things first afterall. Now mind you, when I say food trucks I'm not talking about super greasy tacos and hot dogs where there's a hairy chested guys in wife-beaters inside cooking as they smoke cigs and talk to their pet roaches (this was pretty much my vision of food trucks), I'm talking about fancy little eats that happen to be conveniently on wheels instead of in a brick and mortar storefront. I mean, maybe there were a couple of taco and hot dog places but even those seemed special and fancy and yummmmmmy.  


Andre decided to get his Frysmith on where he got the Rajas Fries (Fire-roasted poblano chiles, caramelized onions and shawarma-marinated steak with Jack cheese and cilantro).  I wasn't too hungry so I just had a couple bites but i did get dessert : D I couldn't help myself when I saw this sweet ice cream sandwich place inspired by architecture called Coolhaus.  You can choose your own combination of several kinds of cookies and gourmet all-natural handmade ice creams to make a masterpiece Haus with cookie floor and roof and ice cream walls.  I tried the Brown Butter w/Candied Bacon ice cream, the Pistachio Truffle (fungi not chocolate) ice cream, and the Orange Chocolate Cointreau but ultimately got the Brown Butter w/Candied Bacon on Snickerdoodle. It was heavenly. 

After enjoying our treats we wandered over to the Timmsmobile where there was a game to win stuff!  It was essentially a bean bag toss into Mr. Timms mouth to win a t-shirt and poster.  I was SO close (you had to get 3 in a row in - I got the first two in and missed the 3rd) but Andre the Awesome won when it was his turn but either way everyone got their very own Mr. Timms (super special fish), a Mr. Timms Coinpurse, and a Mr. Timms magnet. 

Chachkis in tow we then wandered around the Shops and Galleries, especially enjoying the Elephart gallery where we got free farting elephant air fresheners (don't worry they weren't farting elephant scented - unless elephants fart cherries). After getting to the car, we decided we were so glad we found this and had way more fun than we probably would've at UO and whatever other shops were around there (although upon doing some investigative research it is supposed to be a shoppers paradise so we'll probably HAVE to go back sooner or later... oh shoot).

andrea's big day

now that we're here, it's time for the whole reason for coming!!! with that in mind we bundled andrea up and shipped her off to her first day at work.

anyone would be lucky to have such a cute little worker, but only a company like neutrogena could be so fresh and so clean clean enough for her.

not only are those boots stylish, they kept here little toes warm and comfortable as she trekked all over the neutrogena campus with all the new co-ops, and who can't be happy about that? (shout out to amanda for donating such fashionable footwear!)

going going back back to cali cali

it's now, of course, the beginning of the year. this means we just moved to fabulous, sunny, LA! new years eve was spent rocking out to the far east movement and the other festivities that were part of the rockin' new years eve countdown. i think i would have rather gone to see authority zero play in tempe, but this was pretty fun too.

the trip to la la land was only semi-eventful, and on a road trip the less eventful the better! when we were still about an hour ir two out side of los angeles we were greeted by rain, woo hoo! later, as we were closer, assisted by the wonderful signs provided by the department of transportation in california i missed a turn on the freeway and ended up getting a little tour of south central la.

when we finally got to the apartment it was still raining, but luckily we parked in an underground structure and were covered from the car to our front door so nothing got soaked.

after we were done unloading the car

we decided we should probably eat for the first time since our pancake breakfast send off (sponsored by andrea's grandparents! :D), so we went to the wonderful in-n-out burger by LAX (where we've heard is a great place to eat your food and watch the planes take off and land - and can now tell you that it's both true and fun).

i have to give a shout out to al gore for inventing the internet! if it wasn't for him and his marvelous invention, we wouldn't have been able to find a thing, but we were able to quickly find a chipotle, costco, and all the other important destinations required for survival.

so here we are now soaking up the sun and ready to live it up in the city of angels.