We return to Paradise

Paradise is not a word I would use to describe Australia, though a US associate of mine who recently spent some time here chose that word to sum it up and while we are excited to be back here... mostly to catch up with Norman he he, the ride home from the airport was a kinda sobering one. Can't tell you how kick ass it was to get off the plane though. We left the hotel at 2PM with a 6PM flight on the cards. Well, we didn't get off at 6PM, and we found that pretty much all our US flights were delayed in some way or another, so it was nothing new there.

We were pretty happy to get out of the cold too. Our last days in NYC were spent freeeezing and it was really quite uncomfortable. To come back to overcast conditions here was a little less than overwhelming, but not unexpected. I've lived in Melbourne since 1984 and expect nothing else ha ha.

The commencement of our return trip also involved me getting into an argument with the guy at the first screening port at JFK. Michelle bought a snow globe and due to its fragile nature I wanted to take it with us on the plane. Same wiht our illustrious portrait from Central park. For those unaware, the US have some particularly idiotic policies about liquids going through the scanners. Well they wouldn't let me keep the snow globe, and I got quite T.O'd about it. Life goes on...

Fortunately when we got to LAX, we had a very fast change over, but we still ended up sitting on the tarmac for a goats age. At least we could self medicate on the LA-Sydney flight, but this was not without peril. We got KILLER seats, but Michelle felt really unwell for a considerable part of the flight and considering how anxious we were to get home, and how long it was taking this occurrence really didn't help things.

We sat on the tarmac at Sydney airport for another 75 minutes before that flight left and finally got to Melbourne. My sister and our nieces were there to collect us and it was nice to see familiar faces. Mikaela who is 4 was soooooo excited to be at the airport I'm amazed she could contain herself. We had soooooooo much luggage it was almost comical, but we really bought a lot of stuff and had a kick ass time doing it.

Feeling quite delirious just now and our house is an absolute bomb site... tomorrow is another day. Norman is going crazy complaining all the time, but looks in good shape. He's also extremely woooly compared to when we left him. Not sure what that's all about, but perhaps his carer can shed some light on that when she drops the keys around.

And with that, our journey is complete. Check back for further adventures...

Best Cupcakes Ever!

Loads of destinations, but not quite the overwhelmed day we anticipated, we kicked off with a highly anticipated return to the Union Square market. It was good, but not as grand as we remembered. Still, we managed to find a few artifacts of interest and once we found ourselves overwhelmed by the bountiful amounts of craft that infest this market, we set off to visit to the Staten Island ferry. It was extremely cold and windy, and having seen the statue of liberty up close and personal before, we were keen just for a look from the upper deck of the ferry terminal.

Though turkey day was a glorious 64 degrees, the days that followed were more in the 42 area and the wind was nigh on unbearable! Made things a little difficult to be sure.

From there we went to Bleeker and W11th for one of our must go to destinations - Magnolia's cake store. Anyone au fait with Sex In The City will know this store's legend and you can find this place pretty easily... it's the one with the queue of freezing people around the corner. The store itself is really humble and the prices were so insanely cheap. I was all geared up for a $5 per cupcake spend, yet they were a meagre $2 a piece. And talk about a kick ass cup cake. Wowser! Didn't see Carrie Bradshaw in the cue, but Michelle pointed out that she is in fact an actor and probably gets a closed door walk through of the store when she's in the market for cakes.

Took in some great slices for lunch, though I don't know how long we can sustain that sort of diet. It's fun to eat and when compared to australian pizza, the comparison is that there is no comparison. To elaborate, I'll never eat Australian pizza again! Lard bucket crap that it is!

Due to the writers and theater strikes in the US, some of the shows that were not affected, were also afflicted by legions of people and as a result our attempts to see Xanadu were foiled. Not the end of the world; we went off in pursuit of a film, but massive queues made this seem like a chore and after trawling around for a while on the sub freezing streets of NYC, we decided that enough was enough and sought refuge in our hotel room.

Our journey is almost at an end. Hope Peach remembers us he he he.

Happy Turkey Day

So today is Turkey Day. Known more commonly as Thanksgiving, Michelle and I were planning to go to the Macy's parade, but after a late night last night, we decided to experience the parade on the TV instead. And boy are we glad not to have gone to the parade. 3 million people congregated in Times Square and the parade was quite very gay.

We started the day with lunch at our new fave dining place - Pax. Sounds like a disease it's true, but a really fine fresh food dining experience. Good for any meal of the day too. Look out for it next time you're in NYC.

Skipping back to last night, we met up with our Parisian pal Gaetan, who I have not seen for close to 5 years. He hasn't changed too much and it was really cool to catch up with him. We had dinner for the third time at our restaurant on 8th st and once again, managed to get in some shopping. Picked up a CBGB's tee for Norman and a cool bib for Melinda's forthcoming baby. Good times.

After a few beers, and a great dinner, we headed over to Times Square to check out Gaetan's appt. He dished up some quite revolting French liquer type stuff (Anisi - which sounds suspiciously like anus) while we chatted with his photographer flat mate and from there we hit Rudy's bar for some truly toxic drinks. It sounds like a great idea being served overwhelmingly alcoholic drinks, but in truth, it's not so good. they just splash liquor into a glass and colour it with some soda. Even on the rocks, it still tastes like metho, and well I don't roll like that he he. After diluting it with lots of coke, we went off to the Virgn Megastore to get the Seinfeld DVD Box Set (wowser!) and inspired Gaetan to check out Circa Survive. I found the new DHG album, and well life doesn't get much sweeter. We came home and watched TV till 3am he he.

Gaetan is working for a French firm based here in NY and his office building is on 57th and 5th and faces over the park. You want to see this view. Unbelievable!!! We met him on 42nd st and he was kind enough to take us up to his building to view the park from something like the 38th floor. Spectacular!!!

We have bought so much stuff while here we needed to buy another suitcase. We're trying to curb our purchases because if we stay on this rate of buying, we'll need yet another case. And that's assuming we can fit everything we have into 3.5 suitcases + backpacks we have. After we parted ways with Gaetan we got ourselves a slice from a truly necro pizza store (though the slice was fine!) and picked up a new suitcase. After a trip down to chinatown, we worked out way back to Times Square for dinner. what luck! We found another Pax. Ate another slice for dinner and from there, we took a night time view from the Empire State building. Though by day it was around 63 degrees today (almost t-shirt weather) at 8pm up on the 86th floor, it was about 50 below and blowing a gale! We couldn't stay too long... would have definitely frozen to death!



We finished the night with a deluxe Pax Pumpkin styled cookie and watched 12 seconds of the Jets vs the Cowboys game. We're integrated into the US way of life for sure he he he.


Tomorrow we plan to get up and at 'em by 10am and we're hell keen to hit the market at Union Square. It hasn't been open yet and tomorrow is the first day. We may remember it as being better than what it was, but time reveals all. Also on the cards is a trip to the Magnolia cake store for a Sex In The City acclaimed cake and hopefully we'll go and see Xanadu on Broadway. Pretty pumped for that. There is also maybe a chance that we could go to a Cabaret show, though not 1000% as to whether that's on this Friday...

Till we return.

J & M

Jason and Michelle On Ice - Coming Soon to DVD

Like many youth groups before us, Michelle and I thought it would be a great idea to go ice skating in Central Park. And you know what? It was kick assssss.

But before we delve into that, we need to skip back to Monday nite/Tuesday morning. The time is 3AM (NY time) and the wife and I are still awake. Big deal I hear you say. That we had to be up and at 'em at 6.08 AM is where this gets complicated. We managed to get out of bed, organised and a mile down the road by 6:45 which was impressive to say the least. Tired as hell, the bus destined for Washington DC set sail at 7:15 and we had a 3 hour journey to the nation's capital.

About 15 mins in, we hit Jersey and I gotta say, I was pretty excited. Never been to Jersey and never truly expected to go, I can't say it was everything I hoped it to be, but it was quite very OK. We took a rest break across the border in Delaware and that too was quite very OK. We got some great souvenirs there too and ate some truly bizarre scroll things called Cinnebon's. Not the ideal breakfast fare, but we both lived to tell the tale. They have Coke Zero here, so good times all 'round.

Eventually we got to DC and saw all kinds of cool stuff. From the Korean and Vietnam war memorials, to the Abe Lincoln memorial/statue, the white house, The Capital Building, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and some other stuffs. It was actually really cool and though we virtually had to run from site to site it really inspired us both to want to return for a more in depth visit in future.





The Korean War Memorial was pretty amazing as was the Abe Lincoln statue. It's so incredibly overwhelmingly massive. The statues and memorial pieces in this area are phenomenal - truly without peer.

The Smithsonian Air and Space museum was killer too. A host of air and spacecraft, missiles and more. See photos for more. We got to touch a moon rock and have plenty of cool pix taken with all sorts of famed craft. Having seen first hand some of those makeshift crafts that have allegedly been on the moon, you could easily find yourself a little more aggressively aligned with the conspiracy theories surrounding those landings.

Speaking of conspiracies, there are some bonafide 9/11 conspiracy theorists that exist right across from the White House. They hang out there with a host of propaganda, biblical quotes and video screens, demonstrating to all those who gather that they believe the events of 9/11 to be a government conspiracy. It's kinda weird that people like this and Conchita who has been holding a vigil across from the white house since 1981 are in fact more interesting than the famed 1600 building. 66% of the White House is underground, and the yard definitely needs some work.

The busride back was a little suck-ass though. It took over 6 hours and we were well and truly T.O'd by the time we got back to Manhattan. I for one would do it again though. DC was cool, we got to enter 5 different states and my 'Where Have You Been' Map is looking dyn-O-mite!

Rising around midday today, we wasted little time in getting ourselves down to Central Park for some ice skating. Many will be aware that there is an outdoor rink in the park and yeah, it's pretty cool fun. The skates hurt like hell and it's probably impossible to spend more than an hour doing this activity, but it was quite serene and if you're someone like us who can find fun in pretty much anything, then this will be right up your alley.

When leaving the park, we decided to have a charcoal sketch done of the pair of us. I look a little weird, but Michelle looks red hot! Some amazingly gifted talents sitting outside the park doing sketches for people. I'm pleased we got one made for sure. I won't post a photo of it here, it will be part of our home gallery that can be viewed upon appointment.

At the moment, we're just hanging out watching a little bit of TV and soon we will head out for a spot of shopping and dinner with a friend.

It's Turkey Day tomorrow, so not sure what we're gonna do, but it's kinda fun just winging it.

Enjoy the pix, back soon.

Jason

The Great Star Wars swindle...

We kicked off today with a trip to the Guggenheim museum. Pretty amazing place... both architecturally and visually. Generally it's an art museum, with pieces from a host of eras and some truly renowned artists. Unfortunately, you can't take photos there, so I can't do much of the show and tell thing, but you can look it all up on the world wide web should you care. I personally am not much of a fan of the greats when it comes to art, but it was pretty amazing to see original paintings by Kadinsky, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir etc.

I was most taken by the contemporary or modern sorts of pieces. Stark, but engaging and I really like the modern view of what constitutes art. Like music, it offers the idea that even someone as artistically challenged in the traditional sense as I am, can even engage and output art myself.

Michelle's own art installation piece.







Michelle had a nap this afternoon while I went off and did some more shopping. I've eliminated my need to return to 3rd st for any more CDs, so that's a good thing. I walked 50+ blocks today and did some CD shopping in a tidy 2 hours. If you've never been to NY, the distance that constitutes a block is not quite the same as an LA block. Word to the wise.

While I think of it, when we were in LV, Cirque de Soileil was playing literally everywhere. I love how Jack from Will and Grace called is Cirque de So Lame. he he. Been meaning to write that down for a goat's age. God knows I said it enough times while we were there he he he.

We had dinner at this Mexican place we came to last time. Nice, but we both had horrific indigestion after it. We decided to do some more shopping down at 42nd St... good news for some of our family members back home he he, and yeah, felt a little better to be moving around.

Are there ever enough pix of me with a beverage in my hand?

And below, Michelle and I at Times Square.















We hit Toys Are Us down at TS, and that place is ginormous! Naturally they had some star wars stuff and again, I got totally T.O'd about some of their wares. For the second time in as many days I have uncovered figures that have absolutely no relation to any of the characters in the movie. Surely the Star Wars syndicate has generated enough merchandise items and made enough billions of dollars that they don't need to invent characters and make figures of said characters. I even tried to engage some guy in a conversation about it, but he looked at me like I just stepped in from Mars. Forgive me for assuming that some nerdy looking geezer standing in the Star Wars section, looking at the Star Wars things would be in some way interested. "I don't know these movies..." he says. I don't know what's worse... made up characters, or idiots who don't even know but wish to consort with the associated goods. Did you know they never even made a figurine for the Cantina Bartender? I mean yeah, they did make one when they reissued the movies for DVD, but c'mon, that's a crock!


Here's Michelle hugging the giant Darth Vader head.

And below, I'm rockin' it with the Tusken Raider action kit. Includes a female TR and a baby TR. I know, you never saw either of those in the movies... so make that 3 made up figures... Don't let my face belie my

outrage either! It's real!

So tomorrow we're off to Washington. That's gonna be swell think. It'll definitely be a fly by nite excursion. I've heard tell it's a 5 day city, but there are a lot of lamers out there who spend ages looking at crap, so I reckon we can do it in a few hours. It's on a day tour, so it's not like we have a choice he he he.

We're meeting up with a pal of mine who worked with me a few years back. he is a Parisian who is currently working in NY, and yeah, looking fwd to that.

No more will I tell you today.

Jason

The Central Park experience

Like many fine New Yorkers, Sunday starts at Central Park. Though it sounds massive, you can actually walk around a lot of it in a reasonably short amount of time. Not to suggest that is a perk, only that it was a surprise to me.

We kicked off our visit with a horse and carriage ride which was cool. a good way to preview everything. Some very helpful tour guides hooked us up with a map and we found this hundred year old carousel the outdoor ice skating rink, the zoo in the park and of course Strawberry Fields which is across from where John Lennon was murdered. There is a memorial styled thing there and though it's a little difficult to find initially, it quickly becomes obvious as to where it is located.

Michelle got to feed a goat which was pretty funny, and though it was a pretty low key kinda zoo, it had some kick ass monkeys. Particularly this weird window licker styled monkey which reminded us of Norman. He likes licking windows etc he he.



We finished up with lunch at our new fave restaurant on 8th St and I got myself a KILLER Adam and the Ants t-shirt. Expect the unexpected!!!

We're planning to go to the Guggenheim tomorrow with a trip to Washington on Tuesday, so that's gonna be grand.

More soon.

Jason

Who in their right mind would leave Vegas?

A kinda loaded question when you think about it. Easily posed as who in their right mind would go to Vegas? And though it's a weird kinda place, the weather was awesome!!!

We arrived in New York on Thursday night after a long and tedious commute and well it's freezing here. The news report suggested that snow is imminent tonight. Good times he he.

When we last left off, we were headed to see a Vegas 'cabaret' show. I guess if the Suicide Girls' performances can be viewed as cabaret, then so can this. And the music featured at an SG show was nothing to brag about. I forget what this one was called but it was enjoyable enough and considering how tacky Vegas it, the show was more tasteful than I expected once it had commenced.

Here's a nice pic of me and Sigfried and Roy.

So we left the hotel in Vegas at 9.30AM and arrived at the airport not long after. We had an 11.26 flight and due to poor weather in NY (though we saw no evidence of that) we didn't get off the ground till a little after 1PM. Long story short, we got here to our hotel in NY at close to 10PM and we were both a little T.O'd by that. But life goes on.

We have been doing some shopping over the last two days. Finally found some decent record stores and hit St. Marks place which sadly seems to be losing much of what made it a worthwhile attraction. A guy from MySpace told me about a little underground store called Hospital Productions. He said it was down a ladder under a Reggae store. He wasn't lying... it literally was down a ladder. Never seen anything like that! Even found an Atomizer record in there. Ha, is that a good thing?

Stumbled across a great vegetarian restaurant around 3rd St yesterday and we ordered our first, and probably our only, pizza pie last nite. Even had it delivered to our room in the hotel... how cosmopolitan.
We bought some cool hand cut stencil artworks today and this cool framed print from some street vendors near Union Square, and these things are so great and so cheap! It's almost hard to take these pieces from people for such small amounts of money. Tragic that you could easily pay $5 for a cup of coffee, and $10 for a great piece of art. We also picked up a kick ass turntable bathmat from a store called Trash and Vaudeville... Great stuff!

We went down to times square tonite and had a lousy dinner. At least we offset it by a great lunch from a Thai place on 8th st today. Times Square was absolutely crazy tonite. sooooooo many people.

We're gonna head down to Central Park tomorrow. Seems a tidy Sunday thing to do. There is a musical production of Xanadu on at the moment and we're definitely gonna see that. Can't wait. That movie rules, so how good is the Broadway Musical gonna be? I know!!!

Michelle is feeling really homesick at the moment, and we are both missing Norman. Hopefully he'll forgive us for abandoning him he he.


More soon.

Jason

Viva Las Vegas!

Ha, what else would you title the Vegas blog? We just got back from dinner and seeing a tribute show that was at the Stratosphere Hotel. That has an amazing tower thing with the most mindblowing view of all of Vegas. Michelle's friend Anna arranged some vouchers for us to pick up there and we went up the tower last nite and tonite we went to a tribute show that featured Elvis, Michael Jackson, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and some country guy whose name I forget. It was for the most part quite very good. Michelle and I had a debate as to why Britney's impersonator was so incredibly bad, and I think we agreed that britney herself is so incredibly bad that an impersonator would also have to do a lousy job. So if the idea of a tribute is to be as accurate as possible, then singing in a breathy voice with a host of backing tracks and appearing for the most part to be miming is about as accurate as you can get on that front.

Elvis naturally opened up with Viva Las Vegas and he was pretty good. He bragged that he won some award for most likely to be confused with a guy that's been dead for 30 years, but we were only concerned with his song and dance. Didn't do 'Suspicious Minds' which was a shame, but they generally only did 4 tunes a piece, so you can't have it all.

Christina was a great likeness... both in voice and appearance. Lady Marmalade a highlight for sure, and costume changes galore. Can't scoff at that!

Michael Jackson appears to have had a degree of surgery and really immersed himself in the part. His dance moves were dy-no-mite and yeah, he had it going on. I guess I liked Elvis and Christina the most, but Michelle's allegiance was pure MJ. Where's the Smooth Criminal bitch?

So we arrived in Vegas at about 2PM yesterday - that was November 12th. The key word for me here is excess. Everything is way way way over the top. The strip itself is not that long and though everything seems really close, it takes forever to walk anywhere. The hotels here are so obscenely big and just seem to go on and on... One of the most overwhelming being Caesar's Palace. This has Roman statues, waterfalls, and all sorts of crazy architectures. Amazing.














Michelle had a bit of a fall on one of the escalators. It wasn't moving and she tripped because I was too busy marching to the Emperor's theme... idiot that I am. Nice wound though... sure you'll agree.
The weird thing about Vegas too is that it's chock full of mundane and ordinary people. We get stared at all day, and people are hardly shy about it either. That's one thing I really liked about LA... no one seems to care what you look like. There are some really strange kinds of people and no one seems to be bothered by it. Not the case here. Weird that such a queer sort of place could draw such a mundane sort of crowd to it. The mind boggles.

We are staying at a hotel called Treasure Island. This place is truly awesome... both in size and in quality. Our room is amazing and we have a killer view of the strip. Honestly like nothing I've ever seen before. That's the other crazy thing about Vegas... it's so much bigger and overblown than you can imagine. And in the immortal words of Han Solo, "I can imagine quite a lot!"
We have a cabaret show on the cards for tomorrow nite, and some general touristy kinda stuff planned. Looking at more of the hotels and so forth. We went in search of the volcano at the Mirage, but we discovered it would be a 40 minute wait, and it turns out we can see it from our hotel room. So all's well that ends well. The Mirage is where Sigfried and Roy consort and there's a nice statue out front of them. Vegas keeps many a statue builder in gainful employment to be sure.

Oh, we saw authentic pink flamingos today. There's a hotel on the strip called Flamingo and yeah it has this sanctuary styled thing with real life flamingos. Awesome! It also had loads of koi fish. Like any given episode of Miami Ink he he he. That was a great one.
The sad thing about all the hotels here is the fact that they are pretty much devoted almost exclusively to slot machines and gambling. Like watching a bunch of drones droning around these sparkly machines hoping their tragic lives will somehow be improved by winning. Vegas, or Lost Wages as we heard it called is pretty well sustained by those drones, and when you see the lavish buildings and interiors it's disturbing to imagine how much money gets poured into these establishments. If you could see how busy this place is on a Monday/Tuesday nite, that in itself is an indicator of the immense draw this place has.

There's more to Vegas than gambling... like Yoda says, "...it's what you take in with you." We didn't come to gamble and are having a swell time... it may seem a little ironic that we find the gambling thing to be a little sad, but... We even hit the decks for a bit of poolside relaxation. Unexpected, but not unwelcomed.
So New York is coming up soon and we're both really looking forward to that. The fallout from LA is that I thought it was a 7/10 while Michelle rated it 3/10. I got an email from a friend of mine who summed it up perfectly... ha, he thought of it exactly what I did and as he is a bona fide American, I think his opinion is entirely the best one! Thanks Tyler!

OK, I'm off to watch this volcano erupt.


Jason

It's so cheap to booze in the US and A

8 bucks for a hip flask of Southern Comfort! Hallelujah! The wife is snoozing just now and I thought it was a fine time to post a blog!

Today we hit the Sunday Flea Market on the corner of Fairfax and Melrose and Michelle picked up some very tidy creepers for a cool $25 . I got me a Siouxsie and the Banshees tee and a book (Albert Camus' The Plague), and yeah, you're envious for sure!

We had lunch at this great Vegan restaurant, and prior to that, we went to our first and only LA laundromat. Dried our clothes for 75 cents. In your face Australian laundromats and their $6 fee for drying. Pfffft!!!

On the dinner menu, we have brownies and iced cream I reckon there will be some fries thrown into the bargain, but little else. When you've been eating lunch at 3-4PM for a week, dinner time never truly seems to materialise.

We only have one more breakfast at our fave cafe too. We need to locate that granola we've been eating. mmmmm mmmm (in Dave Chapelle styled voice). Awesome. Never again will oats I'll eat.

So we're off to Vegas tomorrow. How excitement! It's gonna be awesome and there will be pix to prove the awesomeness for sure.

Toodles.

Jason

Rodeo Drive...

Yeah, we went to Rodeo Drive. It wasn't really that exciting either. No celebrities, no stores you'd bother going into and basically a pretty sterile environment. It made me feel sad for the people wealthy enough to frequent that strip. How unbelievably boring an array of offerings. Sucked in richies he he.
















So we didn't spend too much time there and decided to eat lunch at another Vegan Restaurant down from our hotel. I forget what it was called but it was really really good! You couldn't complain about lack of Vegan eating establishments here in LA, they are not only bountiful but very very good.

Earlier, we thought we'd go up to Hollywood do get a few trinkets etc to commemorate our trip. Caught the bus... always an interesting experience here in LA...














But when we got off the bus, who do you think we'd meet? The stormtrooper let me hold his gun and I made Darth Vader do the pineapple. He was all about the point, but you can only tell Luke Skywalker that you're his father so many times yeah?

This pic is all about understanding the power of the dark side of the force, though the stormtrooper here looks more like he's posing in a metal band or something... I look bad assed he he and that's all that matters. They had the laser blaster set to safety, and I couldn't work it out during the time Michelle took this pic, so...






We stopped in to get a few shots with the Hollywood sign. You can see it in the distance. We never got too close to it unfortunately, and I dunno if you can. We were debating today the plausibility of Hollywoodland Realty removing the 'land' part of the sign when they sold the land off, or whether a mudslide did in face decimate the 'land' section, leaving Hollywoodland Realty with a edited company brand. Naturally the mudslide is far more exciting a proposition, so that's what we are sticking with he he he.
Tonite, we are going to visit our fave diner... it also happens to be the only place we don't need to get a taxi to and have something low key for dinner. We've been living it up a little, and yeah, sometimes you gotta slow the train down.

To leave you all, here's a nice pic of me by the pool.

The Nightmare Before Xmas...

We just got back from seeing The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. And it was kick ass. It was being shown at this awesome old theater on Hollywood - the El Capitan - and there was this guy playing this overkill golden organ. Phantom of the Opera and all those sorts of tunes were belted out and yeah it was a grand way to begin.

Must be the 3D season as we saw an excerpt from Terminator 2 in 3D yesterday at Universal Studios which was definitely a highlight of the trip so far. We went on this ride which was a Jurassic Park theme ride and after we got on, we noticed all these people boarding who
were wearing rain coats. Fortunately we didn't get too wet and though LA's claim is that it never rains, it was freeeezing yesterday and naturally we dressed inappropriately. Not in a way you'd get arrested, but in the way that Victorians get when they see the sun anywhere they are holidaying.
We got to see the house that Norman Bates lived in... not the one in Glen Iris, but the illustrious Bates Hotel. We went by it fairly quickly, but tried to snap a few shots as we went by. It was cool, though one of the places we wished the tour stopped an let you out to see. Chances are the majority of people get excited by seeing how Too Fast Too Furious was made, but what can you do about that?

There was a real life Quickiemart at Universal Studios which was pretty tidy, and though there was an area was cited as being the set of some fossil film called 'Spartacus' we took some pix knowing it was where the ETID video for 'Kill The Music' was shot and by that virtue, a thousand times more interesting.
The actual site where Universal Studios is located had a really tidy Mexican restaurant with some truly inspiring Margaritas.








I opted for melon, while the wife went for Strawberry. Good times! Speaking of booze, had my first Pabst Blue Ribbon today. A tidy $2.50 from our fave diner, it was everything I hoped it would be. No idea how alcoholic it was and I thought it funny that in 1896 or something like that, I won an award as America's finest beer. Chances are it was America's only beer back then he he.

We had dinner tonite at a really great Vegan restaurant. There are loads of them in the Hollywood/LA area. Kinda surprising if you believe what people tell you about some of these places, but welcome indeed! I dunno if I can ever eat another tofu burger in my life, but hot damn, the fries they dish up are kick ass!!!

Back at Universal... They also took us through some simulated sets with crashing trains, helicopters and other jazz like that. Was really cool. Floods, rain, storms, flying cars... awesome!

We managed not to see Circa Survive last night which was a shame, but we opted for a few libations over rushing back to our hotel and then off to downtown where the show was going on. With doors at 6:30, it wasn't gonna work out so well. I learned today, while Michelle was getting her hair cut, that Witchcraft from Sweden played in LA last nite too. That would have been awesome, but can't do much about a show you don't know about.

We did some shopping today, got some jeans and creepers. jeans here are soooooo cheap... awesome!

Tomorrow we're gonna see Marilyn Monroe's cemetery and I'm not sure what else. We're gonna go to a flea market on Sunday which is just up the road from us, so that will be cool.

Off to Vegas on Monday... really looking fwd to that.

Till next time.

Jason