typical tuesday

I don't know about most people, but Andrea and I had what seemed like a very ordinary day today.

I should start this all off by letting you know that our wonderful internet has decided not to work for most the day this past couple of week and we've been forced to walk all the way to the pool or visit Starbucks for the WiFi (and a chocolaty drink for somebody, of course).

Yesterday, because of our stupid internet, I had to run all the way down to the pool right before we went to an advanced screening of a movie (you know the usual). Luckily I HAD to check facebook while I was down there because Tiger Army posted that if we were in the LA area we could be in the audience while Nick 13, the lead singer, does an interview for "Complete Control Radio" (I know I normally go crazy with links, but their site is AWFUL), but we'd need to be quick because space was LIMITED. As you may remember, we JUST won tickets to see TA play, so this would be a pretty cool follow up.

'Well, why not' I said and fired off the appropriate e-mail and got the shortest response imaginable: street address, city, state (without any periods or commas of course, or even the zip code), the time to be there and directions to park on the street.

It was sent on a Blackberry, so I figured that's where we can attribute the brevity, but I was a little concerned that we may end up at the wrong place. Google Maps was showing that the address corresponded to a restaurant and I'm pretty sure they don't have radio interview at restaurants. Nevertheless we figured we'd go on a little adventure.

Fast forward to this afternoon when some ridiculous traffic got us parked along the street (a VERY busy street) about 10 minutes or so after we were supposed to get there (uh oh, they said space was limited...). Of course I had parked on the opposite side of the street from the address and of course it was so busy that we couldn't just jaywalk so we ended up getting to the restaurant (yup, it was a restaurant) about 16 minutes late.

Thankfully for us there was a guy who looked a little lost and appeared to me like the kind of guy who would be participating in this particular audience. Good sign, I thought :)

One guy we thought to ask about the radio show was a cook standing out in front of the restaurant quite officially under a huge umbrella with a table of food offering samples to passersby. When I asked if he knew about the interview supposedly going on at the address matching the restaurant he said 'I don't know about that. Do you want a sample?' It' looked good, but we were all on a mission!

We all went inside and asked the ladies behind the bar who said 'It's out back.'

...it's out back?...

At this point I was fairly certain this was either a trap or a joke. We weren't giving up this little adventure just yet, and luckily we didn't.

 Yup, we got in! And they weren't kidding about LIMITED SEATING - there were 8 audience members, including us. Of all the shows we've been to, this has been the most entertaining for me.

Added bonus:

 I wish I didn't look like a cancer patient, but we rushed out the door and I had to make a split decision: a chunk of hair sticking up, waiving hello, or wear a hat. I think I should have just let it stick up, it would have been more punk rock.

Since we were out and about and somewhat near a little eatery I REALLY wanted to try sometime I sweet talked Andrea into going with me and it was DELICIOUS!!!!!! I would have snapped a couple shots of our food (Asian Marinated Chicken tacos for me and Fish and Grape tacos for her MMMMMMMMMMMM!M!M!!M!!MM!!!!M!M!M).

Anyway, I thought I'd really sweeten Andrea up and we went to her FAVORITE cupcake place.

You know, all the stuff we do every Tuesday in La La Land.

I don't know why III: the revenge of the day

So we've got quite a bit of fun ahead of us that we're SUUUUUPER excited about.

First I'll let everyone in on what we did for our little Johnny Cash party:

• Walk the Line: the obvious guess is watch the movie Walk the Line, which we did, but Andrea and I also went on a fun little walk around the 'hood.
• Ring of Fire: made s'mores using the ring of fire produced by our gas stove.
• One Piece at a Time: played Ticket to Ride-Europe (or Zug um Zug Europa if that's what you're into).
• Man in Black: it was REALLY hard, but I was able to find all black clothes to wear.
• It was Jesus: went to church (it's a good thing this was on Sunday, otherwise this would have been a little more difficult)
• Ball & Chain: broke out the indoor bocce set Andrea won playing white elephant and got her big bad chain to mark the line we had to stand behind. I'm sure our neighbors below us loved that.

Back to the future fun!

Andrea and I have had some great job interviews, cool.

We got a couple pre-screening passes for Monday, double cool!

Tomorrow we're going to be in the audience for Jimmy Kimmel Live, triple cool!!

As the whipped cream AND the cherry on the top WE WON TICKETS TO SEE TIGER ARMY!!!!!! And only a few hours after I entered to win them, quintuple cool!!!!! Added bonus, they're VIP tickets- free shirts, food, backstage benefits and other junk. Come to think of it, the Tiger Army tickets are really the whipped cream, the cherry, sprinkles, hot fudge and the ice cream, plus the steak and potatoes, tall, ice-cold glasses of Dr. Pepper and the tasty rolls with butter. I would have just been happy with getting in to see them play, but I'll gladly take all the crap they want give me too.

This is going to be a great week!

Grandma's favorite Man in Black

Had he stuck around, today would have been Johnny Cash's 80th birthday. I first knew about him because he's my grandma's favorite and like most people I share the same interests as my grandma (all guys love the same things their grandmas do, right?!).

To celebrate the birthday of the pioneering rock star we have a couple of Cash themed activities planned, some of which we've already accomplished. Below is a list of song titles that served as the inspiration. I don't think you'll be able to figure out everything we did, but you could always give it the old college try.

• Walk the Line
• Ring of Fire
• One Piece at a Time
• Man in Black
• It Was Jesus
• Ball & Chain

The last song was actually by Social Distortion but they've kind of taken "Ring of Fire" and made it their own, and if anyone has a problem with me using it there's a picture of Johnny Cash that is very easy to find on google that sums up one response I hypothetically could make :)

When I get around to posting again I'll tell/show you what we did.

I should say thanks to my grandma for being so hip.

Halloweenie II

Once again it's Halloween, and that can only mean one thing - Tiger Army concerts!

Last year we made the six or so hour trip all the way from Arizona, this year it only took half an hour (what a great cause of celebration!).

Oh yeah, and  last year we had to pay; this year we won tickets for both the Friday and Saturday show (more cause for celebration!!)!!!! Many thanks to the OC Weekly.

But we should probably back up a week and start with the Halloween party we co-hosted with our neighbors. Food, drinks and chatting at their place, movie at ours.

Here we are in our very festive "costumes" (I don't know if face paint really qualifies for a costume).

The Clash got into the Halloween spirit too!

Pac Man and his ghoulish buddies dropped by

as well as some rats

and bats!

Even our candles dressed up.

We had a grand time and Andrea even fished her wish and we watched Corpse Bride.  I, on the other hand, wanted to watch Ghost Town or the Village so that's what we did the next day.  I guess, I should mention that I fell asleep part way through Ghost Town and ended up taking a three hour nap, but when I woke up we watched the Village so all is well. Andrea even got to fish another of her wishes by using my nap time to sneak in Casper.

With the party successfully wrapped up we could now focus our attention on getting ourselves all excited for Tiger Army.

Andrea tried some new fancy hairdos out because she really got into the festivities.

(Night 1 was great because we had Lee's Sandwiches before and night 2 was even better because we had Pei Wei!  For some strange reason there are no Pei Wei's in Los Angeles.  Yet another sign that LA has a lot of improving to do if it want's to amount to anything.)

This year we got to see a couple olde tyme punk bands that have been around for quite some time, the $wingin' Utter$ (from all the way back in 1987)

and Agent Orange (from 1979!).

This year we ended up missing the first opening bands, which is too bad because last year's show opener was so funny Andrea and I bring up their ridiculousness from time to time.

Of course Tiger Army put on a great show, both dressed regularly (for them)

and in "costume."

What a grand time.

I think I should mention, as it is Halloween today, that I've been eating my boogers while writing this.

I should also mention that if these were real boogers that whose ever they were should see a doctor.

Hellagoodbuy

Once again Long Beach came calling to us wanting to party.

On our outing we saw a train/museaum, and what do you do when you see a train/museum? Take a picture of course!

We also found a souvenir shop and you know you can't go to California with out getting a souvenir.  Well, you can, but you shouldn't.

I don't know if it's still "curb appeal" if it's meant to attract people that are walking around, but if there is one thing that could get us in a store it a tasty treat in the window.

Oh hello Sweet Jill's, we WILL get an apple pull apart.

So the reason we made this little trip was so we could see one of Andrea's favorite bands from many moons ago, hellogoodbye.

Oh the things I do for Andrea: what was supposed to be two opening bands and the main act all over and done with by 11 ended up being four opening bands and hellogoodbye taking the stage after midnight :(

Not only did the amount of opening bands double, but the whole shebang didn't even start for an hour after it was supposed to.  It was fun, but we got pretty tired as the party seemed to stretch on, and on, and on.  Hellogoodbye delivered the goods though and ended the set with a song people had actually heard before (almost their whole show consisted of songs off the new album, and most people know how that goes...).

Besides the bands, the venue was interesting as well.

Alex's Bar, with some of the most out of control decor - velvet Elvis paintings, skeleton band sculptures (pictured) a la the Night Before Christmas, paintings of bull fighters and luchadors, a HUGE Johnny Cash picture/poster, and fake ravens/crows lurking all over the place.  We found out later that this bar was used in the show True Blood.  Apparently vampires need to to wet their whistle too...

THE CREEPSHOW!!!!!

The Creepshow was the main reason we went to Ink-N-Iron.  I would have posted this yesterday, but as they are Canadian I felt a post about ice cream would be more appropriate for the 4th of July.

I suppose it was a natural progression that we'd like this band.  After all we've been watching the Munsters as our relax-and-get-ready-for-bed show and the Creepshow is a psychobilly/horror punk band with very tongue-in-cheek horror movie references and a similar sense of humor.  I'm not sure you'd get that from the pirate picture, but I suppose you can either trust me or find out for yourself.  In addition to their interesting visual aesthetic they make some pretty good music too.

I found it pretty amusing to watch this with the Queen Mary as the set backdrop.

Sarah "SIN" Blackwood in all her lead singer glory.

The Reverend McGinty with his electric keyboard that sounds like what else but an organ.

Matt "Pomade" Gee on percussion (not quite a "Shades" Patterson, but you work with what you get).

Sean "Sick Boy" McNab slapping away at the stand-up bass (hey look, it's the flag!).

To showcase her versatility Ms. Blackwood showcased her standing on the ground skills as well as

her standing on the bass skills.

The show was fun and we even got some pictures with the lead singer.

All in all a fun time for all.

Chris & Iron-N-Ink

Once again little Christopher has come out to play.  First we took him to Manhattan Beach so he can enjoy the breeze in his 'frohawk.

Then we took him to Long Beach

to help him get his music/car/tattoo festival on at Ink-N-Iron (the ink is for the tattoo part, the iron for the car part, the n is for the tuNes?)

As none of us have had any ink done we were a little out of place, but we all had a real good time checking out the really cool cars and rockin' out to the hip music.  This is where all the rockin' went down.

Here's some swingin' wheels.

This one's mine.

The backside.

 In case you couldn't make out the detail in the tail lights.

Chris was the eagle eye and spotted the FREE bumper cars! oh yeah!!!!

I didn't get a picture of Chris' ride, but it was similar to this one except it had a raccoon tail hanging from it and a coke bottle for the coolant reservoir.

Here's some totally random band that was decked out in some crazy body paint.

This car was amazing and had pinstriped flames.

Here's Andrea's boat because she's too cool to pick a car.

Oh yeah, then she picked this car.  So now she has a car and a boat and Chris and I only have a car :(

She's so sneaky!

And what was the main reason we came to this happenin' little shin dig?  You'll have to find out in an upcoming post!