Hollywood and Vine

Last night, as I was walking up Hollywood Boulevard (to Cinespace, thank you very much; get your mind out of the gutter), I passed a small flock of tourists at Hollywood and Vine.

To me, typical scene. Hollywood Boulevard is one of those places that I spend as little time on as possible: Traffic's terrible, parking's worse, and it has an air of being the sort of place where one doesn't want to be walking alone after dark. It's just another street to me.

"Oh, look!" exclaimed one of the tourists, a silver-haired woman with a Midwestern affect. "It's the Capitol Records building!" She took out a little camera and started snapping away.

It's things like this that remind me that I live in a unique sort of place. It doesn't have the street cred of NYC, but it doesn't care about it, either.

I went into Cinespace and pushed my way through the bar crowd to the restaurant/screening area for this month's Channel 101 screening. There weren't enough ballots to go around the VIP room (which, I should add, always seems to be filled with us riff-raff), so once the lights were up I ventured out to hunt some down. I thought Jack Black was waving at me, but it turned out he was just trying to flag down a ballot -- which was fine, because if he recognizes me then I have a doppelganger who's having more fun than I am.

Jack's something of a Channel 101 mainstay, and is most likely to be recognized as Computerman or The Elegant Hunter. His level of celebrityhood in that room was slightly below that of the people who run Channel 101: Just some guy you recognize from shows past.

I wonder what the tourists on Hollywood and Vine would have thought of the scene. Not as glamorous as they imagned, probably. Hollywood is rarely as glamorous as people imagine.

I'm not one to judge, though. I haven't had much experience watching it from afar. I wish I could get that same thrill that the tourists get looking at the Capitol Records building, the Hollywood sign, the stars on the sidewalk. Maybe it's because I'm used to those that I don't feel much excitement about seeing landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge, the Capitol in Washington, or the Art Institute of Chicago. Or maybe that's just my nature.

More Things I've Learned Recently

(A non-exhaustive list, in no particular order.)

It's well-nigh impossible to explain why The Crying of Lot 49 is such a good book. The listener might as well save some time and just read it. It's short and funny.

More groups of people who rarely understand those who aren't like them, and in fact feel compelled to help those who aren't like them become more like them: Drivers of BMWs; California residents; red staters; blue staters; those who've had successful Lasik surgery; any subset of fans of any soap; those who return phone calls.

Apparently, when the viewer is under the influence of rumors and a few too many Abbey martinis, Jenny P. looks just like Christina Aguilera.

Things Which I Have Learned Recently

If you want to switch from not-soft to soft contact lenses, you must refrain from wearing your not-soft contacts for approximately one week per every three years you've worn the lenses. Let's see... I've had the contacts since 1991... three goes into 14 4.67 times... yeah, that's not happening. I'll stick with the rigid gas permeables.

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Note to anyone who has a profile up on an online dating site: If you see that your list of possible matches displays with the first line or so of your possible matches' profiles -- often cutting them off mid-word -- then yours displays the same way. Do not start your profile with anything resembling any of the following:

"So this is where I talk about who I am. Okay, I'm a h..."
"Thanks for viewing my profile. I just put up a n..."
"I'm not sure why I'm here, I hate filling out th..."
"I've done just about everything I wan..."
"Hello, ladies!! I'm happy to meet you!! I wa..."

And run your profile through a spell-check, would you?

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Housing costs a lot. I'm not seriously looking for a new place, but since I'm sending off resumes to some far-flung (yet still L.A.-area) locations, I figured it couldn't hurt to browse some ads. Yikes.

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A short list of types of people who rarely understand people who do not live like they do, and often feel compelled to help those poor people whether those poor people want it or not, in no particular order: The super-neat; the in-love; the people with active sex lives; the super-thin; stoners; Ohio residents; the habitually too-early; drivers of Hummers; non-flakes; Los Angeles-area residents.