Hola Amigos

Change of video in the vblog space just because.

---

Today's blog is also available in Babel Fish Spanish (below)

So it's been a while since I've blogged because... There's not been much to write about! I have a fair amount of video though, and a computer and some headphones, now the only problem standing in my way of getting a v blog done is the fact that we can't seem to get our hands on a monitor... We're going to keep trying though!!!

It appears that I can't reply directly to comments as I thought I could, so I'll reply here where it's easy:
Gran and Pa: Thanks for the b'day wishes, and I'm enjoying myself tons!
"Connolly's in Numurkah": Thank you to you too for b'day wishes. I'll be in LA for most of the time, but I'll be going to Arizona at the end of September and getting back early October. We might be going to Las Vegas at some stage and we'll at least be visiting Santa Barbara which is still in California, but anyway.

So... I haven't been doing a whole lot lately. For my birthday we slept in, chatted while we watched some movie and Kristy gave me a new headphone/microphone thing (she's been making fun of my microphone at home which I use on Skype for about a year) and a block of Hershey's chocolate. At some stage we must have gotten to chatting about Tarot cards as well, and so we set out to buy some for each other (we heard somewhere that you're not meant to buy them for yourself). It was fun (and funny). The set I got for Kristy came with a bag so she made me a bag for mine and it was cool.

Later we went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. The menu in the picture is now beside my bed, I don't know if it's legal to take paper menus like that, but it fitted in my handbag so I took it. (Click Me).

Afterwards we finished making a cake we had started the day before (Click me) and while we ate it, we drank Pina Caladas (slightly illegal for me being underage and all over here, shhh) and watched "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" which was awesome. The fact that I kept forgetting that my birthday was coming leading up to the date also apparently means that I keep forgetting that I'm 19... But it all works out.

The bar of chocolate still lives... For now...

So today I thought I'd get off my butt and do something, so headed off up Lankershim Blvd to catch a metro train. The tickets are confusing and give change in dollar coins (these are apparently hated in most retail stores), but eventually I figured out what to do, and caught a train right onto Hollywood Blvd. The trains are FAST and don't have many stops. In fact, there was only one stop in between getting on and getting off, and that covers a fair distance. It was a lot less confusing than the bus system though, and train passengers are a lot more helpful than bus drivers.

So after arriving I walked up to the Chinese theatre and had a look around. It's pretty cool, there were lots of famous names etched into the ground that I recognised, along with their feet and hands. Of course, I had to take a picture of Johnny Depp's, and lo and behold who should appear but the same Jack Sparrow impersonator from the other day. This time, I managed to get a photo with him. This made me very happy. He might not be Johnny Depp, but it's close enough.

I'd also planned to go into "Ripley's Believe it or Not Odditorium", and it was a good thing I had decided to go to the Chinese Theatre first, because when I came back to it later after lunch, it was roped off in preparations for the world premiere of "Halloween" at 7:30 tonight (it starts officially on August 31 here... Still a bit early I think, but oh well)... So that's a movie to be looking out for soon in Australia! I'm still debating whether or not to go back out for it, but at the moment I'm thinking no.

So yeah, I went to Ripley's Believe it or Not thing, which was pretty cool. There was a ton of interesting stuff to see, and not all gross stuff like you see a lot of on the TV show. There were a few creepy things though, like the real skeleton of a two headed baby... I thought it was a bit odd and unsavory to have something like that on display rather than buried with some proper respect, but whatever floats some people's boats. People display shrunken heads, so I guess it's erm... A bit normal. They had a real shrunken head too. There was also a display that you had to stand on a platform to see... When you stood on it, it made sounds which I noticed when I saw two kids giggling about it saying it was scary. I asked them if it moved too as I stood on it, and then it started to make DIFFERENT sound effects and it DID start to move. The display was of a tribal type person suspended above a ravine, and after I stepped on the platform which was also hanging over the ravine, it made cracking sounds and then falling sounds and the platform began to shake. It was all very sudden and the kids screamed and I screamed and... Swore... as we all jumped off. I realised I had sworn and told them they didn't hear me... Their dad was over in the corner, I think he might have had a hernia or something because he was laughing so hard.

...But yeah it was pretty cool. Most of the stuff on display was actual facts or objects that the very original George Ripley himself collected, and there were interesting write ups on each one, it was very much worth the $12.95.

Afterwards, I went and had some lunch at a diner called "Johnny Rocket's" in the Egyptian mall thing. It was greasy and made me a little ill, so I began thinking it was hometime... On my way back to the train station, there was a hip hop/breakdancing street performance, which was both cool and funny. I filmed most of it (except for the part where I turned my camera off so I could be generous and give them some money... They didn't actually get much...). They said one of the guys had cherographed some music videos. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but he could do some pretty awesome stuff.

So yeah. I came back home and wrote this blog while I'm waiting for the washing machine to become free so I have some clothes to wear tomorrow... I may be going out again then, I don't know yet.

Bye for now guys! (+ Bonus photo of the outside of the computer store Frys)

----

El blog de hoy está también disponible en inglés (arriba)

Se es tan un rato puesto que tengo blogged porque... ¡No se hay mucho a escribir alrededor! Tengo una cantidad justa de vídeo sin embargo, y una computadora y algunos auriculares, ahora el único problema que está parado de mi manera de conseguir un blog de v hecho es el hecho de que no podemos parecernos conseguir nuestras manos en un monitor... ¡Vamos a guardar el intentar sin embargo!!!

Aparece que no puedo contestar directamente a los comentarios como pensé que podría, así que contestaré aquí donde está fácil:
Gran y PA: ¡Las gracias por los deseos b'day, y yo nos estamos gozando las toneladas!
"Connolly en Numurkah": Gracias a usted también por deseos b'day. Estaré en el LA durante la mayoría del tiempo, pero iré al Arizona a finales de septiembre y conseguiré octubre principios de trasero. Puede ser que vayamos a Las Vegas en una determinada etapa y visitaremos por lo menos Santa Barbara que todavía esté en California, pero de todos modos.

Tan... No he estado haciendo una porción entera últimamente. Para mi cumpleaños dormimos adentro, charlado mientras que miramos una cierta película y Kristy me dio una nueva cosa de headphone/microphone (ella se está riendo de mi micrófono en el país que utilizo en Skype por alrededor de un año) y un bloque del chocolate de Hershey. En una determinada etapa debemos haber conseguido a la charla sobre las tarjetas de Tarot también, y así que precisamos para comprar alguno para uno a (oímos en alguna parte que le no significan para comprarlo para se). Era diversión (y divertido). El sistema que conseguí para Kristy vino con un bolso así que ella me hizo un bolso para el míos y estaba fresco.

Fuimos más adelante al interior Steakhouse para la cena. El menú en el cuadro ahora está al lado de mi cama, yo no sabe si es legal tomar los menús de papel como eso, pero cupo en mi bolso así que lo tomé. (Chasqúeme).

Acabamos luego el hacer de una torta que habíamos comenzado el día antes (chasqúeme) y mientras que la comimos, bebimos Pina Caladas (levemente ilegal para mí que es underage y todo aquí, shhh) y miramos "Hedwig y la pulgada enojada" que era impresionante. El hecho de que guardé el olvidarme de que mi cumpleaños era el conducir que venía a los medios de la fecha también al parecer que guardo el olvidarme de que soy 19... Pero toda se resuelve.

La barra del chocolate todavía vive... Para ahora...

Pensé tan hoy que conseguiría de mi extremo y que haría algo, dirigido tan de Lankershim ascendente Blvd para coger un tren del metro. Los boletos son confusos y dan el cambio en monedas del dólar (éstos se odian al parecer en la mayoría de las tiendas al por menor), pero calculé eventual fuera qué hacer, y cogido una derecha del tren sobre Hollywood Blvd. Los trenes son RÁPIDOS y no tienen muchas paradas. En hecho, había solamente una parada entre conseguir encendido y bajar, y ese las cubiertas una distancia justa. Era mucho menos confusa que el sistema del autobús sin embargo, y los pasajeros del tren son mucho más provechosos que conductores del autobús.

Tan después llegando de mí caminé hasta el teatro chino y tenía una mirada alrededor. Está bastante fresca, había porciones de nombres famosos grabados al agua fuerte en la tierra que reconocí, junto con sus pies y manos. Por supuesto, tuve que tomar un cuadro de Johnny Depp, y bajo y behold quién debe aparecer solamente el mismo impersonator del gorrión de Gato a partir del otro día. Esta vez, manejé conseguir una foto con él. Esto me hizo muy feliz. Él puede ser que no sea Johnny Depp, pero está bastante cercano.

También planeado entrar "Ripley creo lo o no Odditorium", y era una buena cosa que había decidido ir al teatro chino primero, porque cuando me volví a él más adelante después de almuerzo, era roped apagado en las preparaciones para la premier de mundo de "Halloween" en 7:30 esta noche (comienza oficialmente de agosto el 31 aquí... Todavía un pedacito que pienso temprano, solamente pozo del oh)... ¡De modo que una película a mirar hacia fuera para pronto adentro Australia! Todavía estoy discutiendo si o no ir retírese para ella, pero en el momento que estoy pensando no.

Tan sí, fui a Ripley creo lo o no la cosa, que estaban bastante frescos. Había una tonelada de materia interesante a ver, y no toda la materia gruesa como usted ve muchos en de la demostración de la TV. Había algunas cosas espeluznantes sin embargo, como el esqueleto verdadero de un bebé dirigido dos... Pensé que era un pedacito impar y unsavory tener algo como eso en la exhibición más bien que enterró con un cierto respecto apropiado, pero lo que flota los barcos alguna gente. Pueble las cabezas contraídas exhibición, así que conjeturo que es erm... Un pedacito normal. Tenían una cabeza contraída verdadera también. Había también una exhibición que usted tuvo que estar parado en una plataforma para ver... Cuando usted estaba parado en ella, hizo los sonidos que noté cuando vi que dos cabritos que reían nerviosamente sobre ella que la decía eran asustadizos. Les pregunté que si se movió también mientras que estaba parado en ella, y entonces comenzó a hacer DIVERSOS efectos sonoros y comenzó a moverse. La exhibición estaba de un tipo tribal persona suspendida sobre un barranco, y después de que caminara en la plataforma que también colgaba sobre el barranco, él hiciera sonidos que se agrietaban y los sonidos entonces que caían y la plataforma comenzaron a sacudarir. Era todo el muy repentina y los cabritos gritaron y grité y... Juró... mientras que saltamos todo apagado. Realicé que había jurado y dicho les los no me oyó... Su papá encima en la esquina, pienso que él puede ser que haya tenido una hernia o algo porque él reía tan difícilmente.

... Pero estaba sí bastante fresca. La mayoría de la materia en la exhibición era hechos reales o se opone que el George muy original Ripley mismo recogió, y había interesante escribe sube en cada, él era mucho digno de los $12.95.

Luego, fui almorzar cierto en un diner llamado "cohete de Johnny" en la cosa egipcia de la alameda. Era grasienta y hecha me un poco enfermo, así que comencé a pensar que era hometime... En mi manera de nuevo a la estación de tren, había un funcionamiento de la calle de la cadera hop/breakdancing, que era fresco y divertido. Filmé la mayor parte (a excepción de la pieza donde di vuelta a mi cámara fotográfica apagado así que de mí podría ser abundante y darle un poco de dinero... No consiguieron realmente mucho...). Dijeron que uno de los individuos tenía cherographed algunos videos de la música. No soy seguro si eso es verdad o no, pero él podría hacer un poco de materia impresionante bonita.

Tan sí. Me volví a casa y escribí este blog mientras que estoy esperando la lavadora para hacer libre así que tengo algunas ropas a usar mañana... Puedo entonces salir otra vez, yo no sé todavía.

¡Adiós para ahora los individuos! (+ foto de la prima del exterior del almacenaje informático Frys)

Wednesday out at the tarpits

Today was pretty cool. In the sense that cool can be when it's 34 degrees Celsius (94 degrees... Trying to learn the English system...), and hotter if you're cut off from the ocean by hills on all sides.

A little out of the hills I went out to Hollywood again, catching a bus using the Metro system... The first bus driver was not very nice. You have to put the exact change into the thing because it doesn't give you change... She yelled at me and just grunted at me to go sit down when I tried to get coins out of the coin return (isn't that meant to be for change usually?).

I got to Hollywood Boulevard where I was planning to catch a second bus... Only I hadn't marked on my map which side of the road it was meant to be on, and just as I realised... I missed it. No matter, it gave me some time to lunch and get excited because some people promoting Disney were out on the street: (Click me) (Click me) I was a little upset that I didn't have anyone with me today actually, I couldn't get a photo with Jack Sparrow! I'll have to wait until October when we go to the theme park itself I guess...

Eventually I did catch my bus, and off I went to the Miracle Mile, also known as Wilshire Avenue. Excitement abounds.

So the mission of today was of course to go to the La Brea tar pits which I had heard about from Annie S.S. I think it would be much better to go in and see as a school group (in fact there were several groups of kids on Summer camps there) or a family, but it was interesting all the same to see a lot of the fossils, and the bubbling tar pools outside. There was also some people excavating a tar pit outside, which only happens once every year when it is warm so I was lucky. I couldn't see much, but I think one of the guys was chipping out a bone. On a day like today I'm just glad that it wasn't me... They only dig up the stuff that is a bit hard, so think about trying to dig up a sealed road on a day when it's so hot that the road has begun to melt and get stuck all over the bottom of your shoes... Yeah, I'd rather not be them with my face so close to that.

It was interesting, though almost just as interesting was my discovery of vending machines selling 600 ml bottles of soft drink for only $1!!!! This is apparently standard too!!! So I sat in the shade and had my very cheap bottle of Coke before walking back to the bus stop... On my way back, about five random people started launching into conversations with me, which struck me as very odd, because that kind of thing usually happens to me only at Scout camps. People here are obviously very sociable... None of them made comments on my accent (which is still very Australian, if not a bit British sounding to most people here), which was also interesting. The conversations were all about how hot it was though, as if I didn't need reminding!!!

Then, I caught the bus back here.

The end.

The catch up

I should be more consistent with these updates, sorry for making you all wait!

I've done a few things since my last post, though no v. blog YET. I have the footage but have not edited it. I've got a lot of photos though so perhaps that'll make up for it! To stop long loading times a bit, the photos can all be found by clicking on relevant links.

First of all, here are photos from Wednesday night dinner:

A Jicama. Looks like a potato, tastes a little like apple. Goes well in salads!
Kristy cooking up a storm
Rice - A - Roni ... Just because...

Thursday 9 (after the last post): Kristy got home and we went grocery shopping for dinner... And dessert- s'mores.

There is one way to make s'mores, and one way only because if they are made another way, then they're not s'mores.

First, you heat a marshmallow over a fire (like a stove fire!!!) using a stick (like a fondue stick). It has to be melted on the inside, so catching a part of it on fire does not do it much good. The best way is to turn it and sort of brown the outside.

Once your marshmallow looks all goeey, put it onto a Graham cracker (these crackers are square, thin, and have a sweet honey taste to them.). Then put a part of a Hershey chocolate bar on top of the marshmallow (Hershey is best, but in any case it needs to be thin chocolate for it to melt properly with the marshmallow) . Then you put ANOTHER Graham cracker on top of that and you eat it.

S'mores taste very good and are very appropriate for watching the end of Ghostbusters when the big marshmallow monster comes.

Friday: After going for a good walk up the road expecting to find NoHo, this time I went the other way up the same road, which lo and behold was the right way to go if I wanted to get to NoHo. NoHo is the Arts District apparently, though it took me a lot of walking to figure out why! At one stage it branches off into two streets, and I chose the wrong one. Eventually I found NoHo and it's pretty groovy. The zebra crossings are multicoloured, people do acrobatics with big signs to advertise some apartments that have opened up for rent, and there are studios, drama schools, comedy clubs, theatres, cinemas, and agencies EVERYWHERE. It was pretty cool.

Saturday: Kristy was working at 3 on Saturday, and so taking the opportunity of a lot of time to be ready in time to go with her, I was off to the Burbank Empire Shopping Centre (where the airplane decorations are everywhere). The place has shops spread out all around and in a huge carpark, to walk from one end of the area ("The Great Indoors/Starbucks") to the other (A big office building) it takes about 15-20 minutes. OK maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is still a long way. Talking of Starbucks, not only is there one INSIDE a furniture store, but there is a second one in the food court area... But first things first.

I walked around and looked into all the shops... Targets here apparently all have mini restaurants and kiosks in them. This one also had a photo developing place and a pharmacy, with the mini restaurant being a Pizza Hut. One thing that I noticed in a lot of them was that they're already all getting their Halloween stock ready. This picture is from inside an art supply store... The white girl thing moves, her eyes light up and she makes that sort of ghost moaning sound: (Click Me)

Then, in the food court... There is... This

I had heard about Outback Steakhouse before coming, but I didn't quite believe it... Take a look at their menu (link opens a .pdf file), it's the funniest thing ever next to their door.

I've started drinking coffee too, it's not my favourite thing in the world, but it's not bad and they drink it A LOT here. Starbucks might be everywhere, but they're still a pretty good place to sit and relax!

Sunday: Richard had the day off and so we went to this place called Trader Joe's to do some grocery shopping. The place makes almost all their own stuff, and most of it is organic... It's pretty cool with its hippie atmosphere, but not over the top with it's health freak stuff... It's pretty normal as a store and the stuff we bought there I'd expect to buy at any grocery place.

When Kristy finished work, we all went to a place called Corral Cafe for dinner, which was pretty cool... Richard had seem some video where a ghost was following a waiter there, but there were no ghosts. Instead, the crepe I ate was pretty good as was the Oreo cheesecake!

Monday: There is A LOT of video taken on this day, and so you'll see some of the stuff I'm talking about on there.

Today was a bit of a sightseeing trip for Hollywood, kicking off by driving past the set for the TV show Scrubs before heading through Studio city and onwards to Hollywood Boulevard. After driving up and down the street and deciding we couldn't get a decent shot of the Hollywood sign or any of the stars on the footpath from the car, we parked and got out an walked in the heat.

For a while anyway. Most of the shops around there aren't that interesting... Sure there are a few clubs and such, but most were wig shops, tattoo & piercing shops, or shops for costumes or skimpy and slutty 'Hollywood style clothes' (as the shop fronts say) or Scientology buildings. After walking around for a while, we were feeling pretty hungry and so headed for the mall to place called The Pizza Kitchen. There were lots of cool types of pizza and it was good. (Click me) (Click me)
Outside was a balcony where I finally got the picture I was looking for.

The mall had a lot of other stuff too, but most notably this: (Click Me)... Apparently it's the latest craze.

And here is a photo of me in front of El Capitan, an apparently famous place. (Click Me)

There was also a movie premiere for the newest movie by the people who made The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up called Superbad being set up at the Chinese theatre... We didn't end up going to it, or seeing any celebrities around it.

While we were walking again, we were stopped by a woman with a video camera asking us if we'd like to be interviewed for a segment on the TV show Dr. Phil... With Dr. Phil not really being cool, we declined and instead went to look at Kermit the Frog's star.

And then, we saw all these celebrities! They were everywhere! Tom Hanks, Johnny Depp, Anthony Hopkins, Jim Carey, Angelina Jolie, Chuck Norris... Even Jesus!

...OK, so they were made of wax. I took lots of photos all the same. Some of them were looking sad or old, or just plain bad, but it was still pretty cool.

Part One
Scarecrow, Dorothy, The Cowardly Lion, Tinman and The Wicked Witch of the West
Tom Hanks with Wilson
Me with Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow
Charlie Chaplin
The Beatles (Yoko Ono missing from photo!)

Part Two: Scary stuff
Freddy and Jason
Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector
Betelgeuse
Elvira
Regan MacNeil from the Exorcist (Father Lankester Merrin missing from photo)

Part Three
Kristy sez: These stars are OK!
Even more easily recognisable celebs (can you name them all?)
The GovernTerminator
Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka
Katherine Hepburn and Humphery Bogart from The African Queen
Classic Stars
Jim Carey as Ace Ventura
Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy (looking not quite as he should...)
Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic
Kristy and Chuck Norris
John Wayne
Clint Eastwood
We want it noooow
Kristy tries to lift the mood at a certain supper
Spoilers for "The Passion"
Spiderman
Raphael
Leonardo and Kristy
Donatello and Michelangelo
A scene from Hook
The Men in Black
The Matrix



...Also these ones taken especially for Sean:
Star Wars I
The cast of M*A*S*H (NQR, but there you go)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Luke, Yoda and Leia
Darth Vader
Darth Maul
James Bond

We went walking some more afterwards and saw in the distance Capitol Records, and this place that I can't remember the name of... But it's near the Pantages Theatre, where the musical Wicked is currently playing... We took a photo of the roof because it's pretty cool...

Today has been pretty quiet. It's hot and so I stayed inside and cleaned up and did laundry... Tommorow, I'm planning on visiting the La Brea tar pits, woo hoo!

Day 3 and others

Well seeing that now I'm a bit more awake and have some time to myself in the house, I figured I'd do another blog. There was to be a v blog because I took my camera for a walk with me today, but there wasn't anything incredibly interesting to show. I'm kind of regretting not taking it with me in the car yesterday with the speedy drive-by tour.

But ok. The plane trip over here was nothing short of tiring. The short trip to Auckland I could handle. I watched "Black Sheep" on the way up and it was pretty cool though a little gross at... Well most of it was pretty gross. Think the whole zombie thing where if someone gets bitten they turn into a zombie too. Well when a sheep gets bitten by one of these zombie sheep they turn into a zombie sheep. When a person gets bitten by a zombie sheep... Well... You'll have to see for yourselves. But seriously, think Resident Evil, only with sheep and a big paddock and a lot of New Zealanders saying the word 'six' (well, it was either in the movie or around the plane and airports, but I heard a lot of New Zealand accents saying six). The trip to LA started off OK. I watched "Blades of Glory" and had some dinner and then had the full intention of going to sleep.

But you will not believe how frigging uncomfortable it is on those seats, especially when you have a big butt that prevents your feet from sitting on the seat with you. Next time if I do something like this I think I'll try extra hard to get into a class with better seats. They don't even really lean back far enough to give you the impression that you're leaning back. So after about an hour's sleep on the plane, I was pretty well jetlagged. Don't even get me started on how painful the customs sheets and going through customs was. By the time I got to getting my luggage, I was so tired and such that when a baggage handler I had asked for help because my last bag seemed to be nowhere in sight was hitting on me, where I would normally be flattered I was about ready to flip him one of my fingers. But eventually I got out and found Kristy, everything was happy again. We went to a 50's style diner called "Bob's Diner" (which was OK though a little greasy!). We also went into this Pirate store which Kristy has been talking about for ages but never actually gone in herself. The Pirate store was also awesome. We got home, I made that blog entry and passed out. I did get up again for dinner, and to say hi to Kristy's boyfriend Richard, but it wasn't very long before I was asleep again. I think we watched "Dogma" because we were talking about Alan Rickman at some point too. It was a good movie but I can't remember when we watched it.

Yesterday was pretty laid back but a lot more fun than the plane trip on Tuesday. Kristy as I've learnt over the year, has insanely weird sleeping patterns and so we didn't really get moving outside of bedrooms until midday. We had a very simple but awesome breakfast (did I mention that Kristy is an AMAZING cook?) and watched some American TV (which isn't so different to Australian TV except for the ads) and a movie... And then we thought we better get moving.

Wednesday's mission was to get me a 'cell' phone, as well as look at some computers for Kristy as she's wanting to upgrade. So we drove out to this place called "Fry's Electronics" first... Apparently it's a chain like Harvey Norman, Dick Smith, etc. Except this place is GIANT. It's about the size of Myers in Melbourne. Each store has a theme too, like one has an Alice in Wonderland theme, stuff like that. This one had a 1950's sci fi movie theme, and out of the front of the building there was a huge UFO crashing out of the front of it. Throughout the place inside were green aliens in space suits, giant ants, jeeps cut in half, another huge UFO... They even had a 1950's style diner where you could sit on tables shaped like cars, and every Saturday night they put movies on a big screen above the diner counter, so it's just like a drive in. It was pretty nuts to say in the least. I also learnt that saying "50's style diner" is kind of redundant because they all seem to be 50's style.

After that we went to the shopping area where Kristy works to go to Best Buy. The area was built on top of some Aeroplane thing, and I think everything around here has a theme because everywhere outside, there were huge pictures of aeroplanes. So we got me a Motorolla (C134 or something like that for those who are interested) cell phone with an AT&T prepaid plan on it for around $22 for the phone and an extra $25 for credit that would last me 3 months. We suddenly discovered the downside of the Cash Passport, which is that you can't actually use it just anywhere, you actually have to go to a proper ATM and withdraw the money. So Kristy ended up paying for it and so I had to go get some American money and fork it over.

We went past a few more places on the way back, places like the Warner Brothers studio (with the tower that the Animaniacs supposedly live in) and the Warner Brothers Ranch, and a lot of other studios (which is amazing there are so many around here when I haven't yet been to Hollywood proper, we're on the other side of Hollywood Hills so I haven't even seen the big sign yet!). We got back and put the phone on the charger, so it could get its batteries all full and get ready to cause a lot of havoc. We made some dinner, watched some TV and stuff and generally had some fun for the evening (including having some stuff called Mochi which is a sort of rice paper thing around ice cream. The stuff we had was chocolate flavour and it was AWESOME). I took some photos including some of this weird thing that's a cross between a potato and an apple and starts with the letter 'j' which is pronounced 'h', but I can't remember the name of it so we'll leave it until I do.

After dinner we decided to put the recharge card on my phone so it would have some money on it. This proved a lot more difficult, starting with the fact that somehow I managed to set the setup system off in Spanish (everything here is done in English, Spanish and often French as well). Eventually, we got the money on it. So that was the first problem solved.

The second one being that although I could make calls, it didn't seem like I could receive them. We went through the system again, went around in circles for a while only to find out we couldn't really get anywhere because we needed to speak to customer service and the place was closed up for the night. About now it was reaching midnight, and soon there would be an earthquake that none of us noticed. I went back and flipped through the instruction manual to see if there were any settings I had to change. I suddenly read that I had to go through an activation process which needed two sets of numbers which were on some part of the packaging... Which I had since thrown on the bin. Which we had thrown into the dumpster/skip.

Not wanting to wait until tomorrow when there would be more rubbish on top of it, Kristy decided that we should go out, in the middle of the night, to retrieve all the packaging. Unfortunately the thing wasn't exactly full, and we were both short and the torch wasn't so great. We had a broom to help us. It seemed like a simple task, but when the bag that was holding it didn't have handles, it suddenly became harder. We managed to get the plastic casing and one of the cardboard pieces out. But there was still another cardboard piece and it had BARCODES on it. We though that this might be what we were looking for and put the plastic on the ground without looking at it. The cardboard proved to be a lot harder than the plastic casing, and it turned out that the only way we could get it would be with me holding the flashlight and Kristy using the broom (she has a height advantage over me and I was struggling to get the broom to REACH the cardboard on my tip toes). I'm better at aiming a flashlight than I thought because I was able to manage to point it in the right place when I was down the side where I couldn't see anything and just could reach up and point the thing down and hope for the best... Kristy wrote a thing on it last night for her online journal which I thought summed up the whole 'adventure' pretty well:

"...We set out for the dumpster behind my building. We quickly decided a flashlight was going to be necessary. We searched for a flashlight in the apartment and found none. I knew I had a broken one in my car, so we gave that a shot. It was in three pieces and missing the lens, but somehow it actually worked. Knowing the dumpster was nearly empty and we were going to need something to dig with, we grabbed a broom and headed back out back. After a little shuffling around, we located the package and made an attempt to hook it and pull it out. We got the first two pieces easily enough, but the third, a small, round piece of cardboard which looked suspiciously important, was much harder. I tried to sweep it up the side of the dumpster, but it kept slipping back down into corner. I tried catching it in the bristles of the broom and lifting it that way, but it would not be caught. And then (Laura) was struck with a truly inspired idea! We'd take a page out of Macgyver's book and use some chewing gum to snag the bastard!

Chewing gum is surprisingly un-sticky in real life. The first piece fell of the boom handle immediately. The second piece I wrapped part way around the eye on the tip of the handle in hopes that it would hold better. And it did. For a little while. I managed to get it stuck to the piece of cardboard right before it, again, dislodged itself from the broom handle. A few minutes late, I managed to knock it off the cardboard as well. So so much for MacGyver.

In the end, after about 30 minutes, I somehow got it onto the top of the broom and lifted it to safety."

In between there we also managed to get it into ANOTHER person's rubbish bag, and tried to use its handles to lift it out with the bag. This was working well until the bag tipped over and everything in it fell out.

...After all that, I found out this morning that the numbers I was looking for were on the bottom of the plastic casing... So we didn't even really need the cardboard. Damn you Murphy's Law.

Today I set out on a quest to be able to fix this. After spending some time on their website, I discovered I still couldn't get it to work, so I rang up customer service. After about half an hour of her confirming what I already knew, I was transferred to their technical services. I spent about an hour or so on the phone to them and got about... Nowhere. They said they'd ring back after they'd done something, but I couldn't be bothered waiting and so went out for a walk. At least I'd used the numbers on the plastic casing by that stage.

On my walk I came across a shop where Cinglular/AT&T actually sell their services. Thinking I'd have better luck in person, I went in and wasted another hour of my life. Well, not quite. We managed to get it receiving calls from OTHER cell phones, but not landlines. In the end I was told that I would have to wait 24 hours from its activation to have it fully operational...

So the moral of this story is: Buying cell phones in the USA really sucks.

I kept walking afterwards... The lights here are also weird. There are a few exceptions on one way streets where there is a little yellow button on the poles, but at most intersections with traffic lights, to cross the road you don't press a button and they don't make noise. You just stand there until the lights turn to red and the red hand becomes a little white running man. And you really do have to run, they don't stay like that for very long.

Eventually I made it to some place called the 99c store where everything really is literally 99c (they have one cents here). Sometimes you can get a few things for 99c, and anything that's marked higher than 99c is still 99c. So I bought some sunscreen (because it's incredibly HOT outside and I don't think I've seen a single cloud today), two bottles of water that were 99c together (the tap water here is not actually drinkable without a ton of filters) and... A Hershey bar. The chocolate was very good. I headed off back towards the apartment, but decided to stop for lunch at a little pizzaria where they sold pizza by the slice. I'm very happy that I only ordered one slice because the slice was about half a pizza. It was good, and that led me to my next dilemma which had been solved by Kristy the last time I went out for lunch at Bob's Diner on Tuesday... The tip. Unlike in Australia where you might tip if you're feeling especially generous, you tip EVERYWHERE you eat here. It's considered extremely rude if you don't leave a little extra money on your table when you leave at most places, and there's usually a sort of maths as to how much you leave. Unfortunately, I didn't know if this pizza place was one of these places. They had a jar up the front, so I assumed you paid tips there instead of leaving them on your table. In the end I just gave them my spare coins and a dollar bill and hoped that was OK!!!!

So that has been my adventure in the US up to now. Hopefully when I update next I'll have some video for you all!

Later!

I'm here!

Well hopefully some people have managed to remember the URL and find their way here...

Anyway, I'm in the USA now and I'm jetlagged and I maybe would have had some video soon but I forgot to charge the camera's battery before I left!

I'll post more when I am a bit more awake, for now I'm having (another) sleep :)

Welcome!

So, this is the blog and this is my first serious entry to it...

4 sleeps and counting. It's pretty damn exciting. With the party coming tonight I'm pretty sure nobody is reading this when it's relevant, but I don't give much of a damn and it will be interesting to see how many people I've given web addresses to will actually visit!

As you can see I have a space for v-blogs up there. It takes up a lot of space which can be annoying when you're trying to have just one entry on a page, but I can't figure out how to just have it on the main page and no others... The advantage of them being hosted on Youtube means that you don't have to wait for the whole thing to download to see the rest of the page though, so that's OK.

You might have also noticed that it's not much of a video blog... Considering there's not much of a Reni in the USA at the moment, you'll have to wait until I get there to see my beautiful speaking face on the internet. I'm sure you'll be sitting on the edges of your seats waiting for that to come up. Meanwhile enjoy this awesome video that I found.

In the meantime, I have an entry on reloading my cash passport for you all, in case you want to order souvenirs (which can be done by commenting on the entry! You can comment by clicking links underneath entries which say "0 comments") ... Or of course you might be the generous type and might like to leave a tiny donation for me or maybe for the even more generous Kristy who is putting me up for 3 months!

Last of all is a shoutout to all you people using Internet Explorer instead of Firefox... Seriously, get Firefox. The blog looks much prettier when the colours are right.

Re-loading the Cash Passport (ordering souveneirs!)

For you family and friends who would like souveniers bought for you while I'm in the USA, I'm pretty happy to just go out and get whatever you want. However, I am on a rather tight budget, and while it's not required, I would appreciate it if you paid for all or some of it!

My money is being kept on a small card called a Cash Passport, which works a lot like a debit card- I can't spend anymore money than the money I have on there. While I'm not entirely sure at the moment how re loading works, from my understanding you can do it one of two ways:

1. Go into your nearest Australia post, give them my card number, the money you wish to put on the card and tell them you would like it to be in USD.

2. Use Bpay (Biller codeL50179, CRN is my 16 digit card number). I have no idea what Bpay is or how it works, so I'd only advise this one if you do.

I have been supplied with 2 cards, with one as a backup. If you are going to load my card, please make sure you have the right number! When you ask for a souvenir I will email you back with my card number, and you can load some money on if you choose to.

The money you load on will convert to USD at the rate they are at during that particular time. They will stay at this rate. To see the current exchange rate, use this website which updates regularly: http://www.xe.com/ ...As well as the table, it has a converter for any amount you input underneath.

I will be able to use the money you load on the card within 2 banking hours.