Last(?) trip to Berkeley for a while

This week I was in Berkeley for work, and I realized that sadly, I might not be back up there for at least several months!

It was great to see everyone! I was also glad I could pop into some of my favorite eateries and watering holes before I left, too, because as many as you know, there's no place to eat and drink like the Bay Area. During the week we had several at the Mallard, a burrito at Picante, a yummy breakfast at Bette's, a chicken taco at Tacubaya, lovely seafood dishes at Kirin, and delicious yellow curry at Ruen Pair.

Best of all, during my visit my rental car was upgraded to a convertible Mustang! The weather was perfect (75 and sunny) and left me with lots of good memories to take with me when I move to AZ in four short weeks.

Smitten Kitchen

My friend Cliff just told me about this site! The photos are like food porn, and the recipes look simple and delish!

La Vie en Rose

This weekend I saw La Vie en Rose, a biopic of Edith Piaf, who many considered the 'voice and soul' of France during her short life in the mid-20th century.

The film is lovely, and sad, and stitched together in a non-linear way. The film gives an impression of her life, focusing mostly on the tragedy she overcame through singing. If you like Billie Holiday, you will love Edith Piaf, and this film is a great introduction to her music.

New Beastie Boys CD - instrumental?

The Mix-Up releases tomorrow on iTunes, and presumably in stores as well. From what I'm reading it sounds like it's another collection of instrumental tracks - like The In Sound from the Way Out but all new material!

If you are jonesing for a preview and you happen to be in L.A. tonight, you can check out a couple of listening parties around town. Oh, and get some free ice cream while you are at it!

Save indie publishers!

More evidence that publishing should be a non-profit venture, subsidized by our tax dollars (books not bombs!). The need to make a profit is killing the best of the indie best:

Ironically, PGW -- the largest American distributor of independent publishers -- was by all accounts having its best year ever, and the financial troubles of AMS, a corporate giant that mainly distributed to wholesalers like Costco and Sam's Club, brought it down. AMS filed for Chapter 11 on Dec. 29, a result of being unable to bounce back from SEC and FBI investigations into its advertising accounting practices -- which led to three executive indictments -- and a class-action suit on behalf of its shareholders. As Horowitz points out, "It wasn't the indie distributor; it was a big, old-fashioned corporation with accounting problems."

(Note: I reference a Salon article above, which may require watching a wee lil' ad to read the whole thing. Believe me, it's worth watching the little flash animation to get to the article.)

Happy Hour Friday (11): Non Sequitur Edition

After an unfortunate and unplanned hiatus, Happy Hour Friday is back!

First, a thanks: Amber, thank you for reminding me of this delicious concoction! Next, is there a better latin phrase than "non sequitur" to address the fact that I'm posting this on a Wednesday? Mark? I know you are lurking around there somewhere! Post a comment, mister!

Shandy
Take a pint glass.
Fill it half-way with a light beer (I recommend Corona, but Hefeweizen or somesuch would also do).
Fill the rest of the glass with bubbly lemonade.
Sit outside in the sun and enjoy.

Downtown L.A.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm in L.A. this week - and my hotel is great! These are pics of my room.



Nerd alert: I also discovered that I'm across the street from the "Credit Dauphine" building, the fictional bank that Sydney Bristow worked at in Alias. Here is a pic:

My 100th post!

I've been a bad blogger lately, distracted with law school stuffs and moving stuffs to be posting amusements here on this site. My apologies!

I'm in L.A. this week and will have pics of my hotel and the environs tomorrow for ya. Amber visited me last night and we met up with Joanne in the Larchmont neighborhood and had a delicious Italian dinner at La Luna. There was at least one, if not two, celebrities at the restaurant who were familiar but we couldn't name them. Afterwards, Amber and I had some drinkies at the revolving cocktail lounge at my hotel. The drinks were stiff and sweet (just like we like 'em!) and the 180-degree view from the 35th floor at night was amazing.

Anyhoo, more on the way, including the return of Happy Hour Friday this week!

XO!

Blogging with video...

As a test, and also just because, here is a video I took with my camera on the drive to Phoenix a couple of weeks ago.

"PHX Rail Food"

"Silverbear" commented on one of my posts about visiting Phoenix... and I finally checked out his blog. It's great! He posts reviews of restaurants, diners and cafes along the light rail line from Phoenix to Mesa!

I will be living on the street where the light rail will run and I'm looking forward to using it. It won't be running until December 2008 but I know it's really going to change things in the area.

In the meantime, and as someone moving to the East Valley for the first time, the PHX Rail Food blog will come in handy! At the very least I'll have some ideas of where to take you when you visit me!

Ren and Karen visit!

This weekend I was lucky enough to spend some time with Ren and Karen, who took a road trip down to SoCal for some fun in the sun.

The first night they were in town, we went to Juro Cho, possibly the best sushi restaurant in my little hometown (we waited 20 minutes for a table, but after dinner I think my friends agreed it was worth the wait). It's also conveniently located at the beach, so we were able to catch a bit of the sunset before munching on their famous Do Me Roll:




The next day we drove down the PCH (known as "Highway 1" in NorCal) thru Melibu to L.A. to check out The Museum of Jurassic Technology. Wow, how do I describe this place? If McSweeney's had a museum of curiosities, this would be it. Except this place has been around longer than McSweeney's... it's great.

We popped over to Zankou Chicken in Hollywood afterwards and had what many a reviewer calls "the best chicken in L.A." The chicken falls off the bone and they serve it with warm pita, hummus and a garlic paste that is so amazingly delicious you will die.



On our way out of L.A. we drove past beautiful Grauman's Chinese theater. We would have stopped, were there not zillions of pre-teen girls lining the street for the Nancy Drew movie premiere. Bummer!

Before they headed back north on Sunday, my dad cooked us waffles! Yum!

Thanks for the visit ladies!!

Today's mail

First off, I got my Entertainment Weekly today. These boys are hot and I'm excited to check out their movie:


Then, in weird marketing news, I received this postcard advertising the new HBO show John From Cincinnati:


The card reads: "Hey Rebecca, wish you were here in Imperial Beach. Can't wait for you to join us on Sunday, June 10th on HBO. Until then, check out our pics on johnmonad.com."

Bizarro!

Driving through the desert

Thought I'd share some pics from our road trip back to CA. Let me tell you something: On the 1-10 from Phoenix to CA there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING except desert for miles. It's a trip. My fears about breaking down were in high gear!

A saguaro cactus outside Phoenix:


Sometimes there are hills in the desert. And those hills don't have eyes, per se, but do have cacti:


We drove through a dust storm at one point! It was like driving through heavy fog at times!

New Home Update!!

Oh man. Long story, but I actually will be in a different building at MidTown. That's OK, it's still on the third floor, and while I won't have that lovely big tree in front, I will be overlooking the main pool!

My building is the light-tan one that is on the left side of the pic:


Here's another view of the pool. My building is on the very right-hand edge of the pic:


Stumbling distance to/from the pool!

My new home!

Here are some pics of my new place. The exterior is my actual apartment; the interior is from a fake apartment they've decorated to give you a sense of the size of the place. The interior pics are similar the ones on the site, but I thought I'd share anyway:


My apartment is on the top floor.


Another pic, trying to show the jacuzzi and large tree nearby. There are a ton of birds that live in the tree so Franky will have lots of entertainment!

A friendly reminder: the furniture you see in this next batch of photos is not mine.... I currently don't have enough furniture to fill this place, so I'll keep you posted on couch-buying developments.


The living room.


The dining area.


The kitchen.


The pantry/laundry area, which is right off the kitchen.


The bedroom.


The office nook in the bedroom. Just past this to the right is the bathroom.

Cat Cam!

Came across this adorable site today... A little camera was put on a sweet cat named Mr. Lee and photos were taken of his adventures!

Some are really beautiful... and the captions are funny.

This one reads: "Mr. Lee is going into professional photography?!"

Knocked Up

Sami and I saw this last night in Tempe. Hilarious. So good. The same charm/humor combo as in The 40 Year-Old Virgin. You must see it!

There were a bunch of actors from the show Freaks and Geeks and it was good to see them together again. And, Paul Rudd is hot.

Enjoy.

I found a place!

Wow!

I just met with an agent from Premier Locations, an apartment locating and realty company. Their services are free to renters, and apartment complexes pay to list with them, and they help find and screen prospective tenants.

Anyhoo, given my price range and requirements I was a little worried about finding a place somewhat close to school. I didn't need to be super close, since I don't want to live next to partying undergrads. But I decided yesterday that I didn't want to have to drive on a freeway to get to school every day.

Sooo... through this service I checked out Midtown On Main, a somewhat-new apartment complex about 3 miles from campus on the in Mesa near the Tempe border. The complex is located on the street where the light rail will run!! Once it's in service (late 2008) I can literally walk out of the complex and hop on the train to get to school.

They are holding an apartment for me to move in on August 1, and with the 9-month lease my first month is free! I don't have to pay rent early in order to hold the place... things are much different here than CA!

It's a large one-bedroom with a patio. The best part: it has a washer and dryer in the unit! Sweet jesus I'm excited about that!

It's a large apartment community (473 units) but it's laid-out nicely so it doesn't seem so large. There are four pools, several jacuzzis, and I'll have assigned, covered parking. There's a gym, volleyball court, basketball court, picnic and bbq areas, 24-hour security, and extra storage right outside the unit. They fully clean and re-paint each unit after a tenant leaves, and if the carpet is stained they will replace the carpet. I guess this is standard for these types of complexes, and possibly required by the city, but it blew me away. Some of you know the shitholes I lived in when I was in the Bay Area.

It's definitely a grown-up place for me and my standards, and it will be great to live there. I can't wait for you to come visit me and Franky!

Tempe Trip: The Drive & Phoenix

Hey everyone!

The drive to Tempe wasn't that bad... about 6.5 hours. Indio (near Coachella) is close to halfway, and most of the freeway on the Arizona side has a 75 mph speed limit!

We drove through east LA county at first (not too far from where the nuclear bomb detonated this season on 24). Here we are, entering San Fernando Valley:


Then, as we approached Palm Springs we came across the energy-producing windmills. There are tons of these...


Sunday was our first full day in Arizona, and we spent the morning/early afternoon driving around Phoenix. As I've mentioned before, they are building a light rail system through central Phoenix, and once it's up and running it will really improve the area.

At one point we stopped at Lux Coffeebar and it was great! Definitely where the hipsters go! They had an outside covered patio that sprayed mist to cool you off! We met a very nice young family that gave me great advice about moving to the area and places to avoid. People are really nice here. I can't stress it enough. I can't tell you how many people I just meet offer up their contact info to help me if I have questions. It's awesome.

So, the places we were seeing were listed on Craigslist, and as you know, those ads can be misleading. The most promising place had a cockroach in the kitchen. Thank god both Sami and I have a poker face!

One place was especially pathetic (and we had a good laugh about it after). The ad described a "cozy cottage" in a courtyard with long-term, "quiet" neighbors who "added security and stability" to the location. This property had three small 1-bedroom cottages on it. My sister summed it up thusly: "The guy in the front unit looks like a skinhead, the guy in the back looks like a meth head. There will be an episode of Cops there." We regreted the fact that I didn't have the guts to take pictures while we were there. I wanted to so bad. The picnic table covered in old stuffed animals was especially photogenic.

Today should be more fruitful for apartment hunting. I'm meeting with some companies who offer free apartment locating (they make money from the apartment complexes and help screen/place reliable tenants). Plus, tonight we're heading to Scottsdale for shopping, dining and movie watching. Yay!

Here are some pics of yards in Tempe. Most don't have grass so they use rocks and succulents (sometimes successfuly) to decorate their yard:





PS: It's hot. It got up to 110 yesterday. It stays that way until late in the day. But honestly, it's only bad if you stand out in the direct sun for too long, and there are so many ways to avoid doing that. The best invention ever (aside from air conditioning) is the screen you can put on your car's dashboard to block the sun. We also have a small cooler for the car that we keep filled with cold water, so we've been very good about hydrating!

xoxoxo

Road trip!

My sister and I will be driving to Phoenix/Tempe tomorrow! I'll be snapping pics and blogging from the road. Can't wait to share pics of the area, including potential apartments for rent. I may need your help in deciding the right place for me!

More later!

XO!

Happy Hour Friday (10)

Well, dolls it's Friday again. Which means it's cocktail time!

A while back I bought some dark rum for a marinade recipe. Not sure what to do with the remaining amount, and having some fruit juices around, I decided to mix a few things up and I came up with the following yumminess:

Dark Rum and Juice
Fill a Collins glass or pint glass with ice.
Fill it a third of the way up with dark rum.
Squeeze half a lime over the rum.
Top it off with orange juice.
Stir and enjoy!

PS: Passion Fruit juice would also be yummy in this.