July 2008 Archives

I got offered and accepted a temp-to-hire position as an Executive Assistant at Herbalife.  The job is in Century City (not far from where I go to church) and pays pretty well.

I'm pretty stoked.

Yay for regular employment.

Temp gig this afternoon and tomorrow.

Not much but every little bit helps

Well the job hunt drought continues.  I went into another branch of one of the temp agencies to see if maybe that would help.  My gut tells me that they don't have much going on either.

Last night I went over to a friends place for a dinner & movie party.  This was a few of the folks from our regular dinner group...plus a few other friends of the hosts.  It was a great time of food, wine and conversation.  Something I really needed for sure.  We watched a documentary about struggle for the South Central Farm (official site here) here in LA.  The movie was called The Garden.  The film was good, though definitely biased towards the farmers.  It's still crazy to see the aerial shots of the site when the farm was active compared to what it is now.  I actually remember passing by the site while on the light rail to Long Beach a few weeks ago, though I didn't know that's what it was at the time. Now its just a fenced off plot of dirt, seems pretty silly.

The biggest excitement of the week had to be the 5.4 magnitude earthquake this morning.  It happened at 11:42am.  I was sitting at my desk and all of a sudden the room started shaking.  It took a few seconds to comprehend that it was an earthquake and by then it was pretty much over.  Nothing fell over, not even the books i have stacked on the floor against one of the walls of my room.  It definitely got the blood pumping though, and was the talk of the news for the rest of the day.  They've been saying that this is a wake-up call for Southern California, which hadn't experienced a earthquake of this size pretty much since the devastating Northridge quake in 94.  The "big-one" is still coming geologists stressed.

It was a pretty crappy week in the job search department.  I applied to a bunch of positions, but didn't hear a peep from anyone.  Most disappointing was the wine store position that I applied for.  Oh well.

I tried to get into a free screening of The Dark Knight at USC on Thursday, however not much of the wait list made it in for that one.  So I ended up riding my bike over to the Arclight Hollywood and to see a show Friday afternoon.  The build-up to the movie was completely over the top, and therefore expectations were quite high.  The movie didn't disappoint.  I think pretty much every one of the main actors did a fabulous job in their roles.  Sure, Heath Ledger is getting the bulk of the press in light of his passing, but he also did a pretty fabulous job reinventing a character played brilliantly by Jack Nicholson in the first Batman movie.  Both Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhardt were great as Batman and Harvey Dent as well.  One of my friends thought it might have been a little long, and I can see that position, but I didn't mind the length either.

Sunday I went and saw the Independent Shakespeare Companies performance of Twelfth Night at the Barnsdall Arts Park in Hollywood.  Basically, its free Shakespeare in the park, Th-Su, during the months of July and August.  It was fun, and I think I'll go again, though with a picnic dinner this time.

After spending the morning job searching on Monday, I decided to take a little diversion and do some more exploring of LA.  So I got a Metro Day Pass and hit the rails.  This time I took the train to Universal City and went up to Universal City Walk.  Basically its just a collection of stores and restaurants just outside of Universal Studios.  Touristy for sure.  After walking around the City Walk, I decided to head back into Hollywood to catch a movie.  I was initially thinking about seeing Wall-E at the El Capitan Theater (owned by Disney), however the movie had already started by the time I got there.  Luckily, Hell Boy II was playing across the street at the Chinese Theater.  Check one more touristy thing off the list...See a movie at the Chinese Theater.  Like the first Hell Boy, it was directed by Guillermo del Toro.  A great movie as well, and not as dark and sinister as The Dark Knight.

Despite not really having any money, I've had a decent enough week.

Tuesday through Thursday of last week, I had a short-term temp assignment at the corporate offices of the Metro YMCA.  It was a nice little break from the joblessness, and its especially nice to have some money coming in this week.

Saturday, I went for a short hike in Topanga State Park.  On the way back out of the park, I even hiked barefoot for awhile.  It was nice.  When I got home, I took the bus downtown to catch the evenings show at Grand Performances series at the California Plaza.  The artist was Rachid Taha a French-Algerian artist, most famous in the US for a Arabic version of The Clash's Rock the Casbah.  There was a small dance area, packed to the brim, with many French and Arabic speakers around.  I had a blast dancing.

Sunday, I went on a hike with Progressive Christians Uniting in the San Gabriel Mountains.  We went up to a spot on the San Gabriel River, that is quite popular with the latino population of the San Gabriel Valley cities.  The sections alongside the road are a bit overused.  We hiked aways down a trail towards the wilderness area, and were eventually able to find some space without other people.  We even took a little dip in the river, which was really nice on a warm and relatively humid day.

I'm officially helping out with the 10:15 service at church now.  I'm still not that sure how I feel about church in general, but I do like this service...and its nice to be helping make it happen.  I'm in charge of making sure things are set-up before the service this coming Sunday.

Well its been a week of worrying about money again.  However, I did start a short 2-3 day temp assignment today.  Its nice at least having some money flowing in.

Besides job searching, I've watched a few movies, been to the beach a few times, and went to a pool party at a house in the valley that a friend is house sitting at (who's owner has won an oscar).

Pretty low key week.

It's the summer of 1994 and Luke has just graduated from high school.  He deals weed to make money.  He likes his shrink's step-daughter.  He pays his shrink with weed.  A twist on the classic coming of age movie.

I saw The Wackness at the Arclight last night.  It definitely brought back some memories, as I am around the same age (graduated in 95, originally class of 94).

The soundtrack is great...definitely a reminder of the times...rap that's pre- Biggie vs. Tupac. 

In the movie Olivia (the step-daughter), tells Luke that he needs to wake up.  Stop looking at only "the wackness" of life (the negative) and just focus on "the dopeness" (the positive), like she does. 

I think its a good point...but we need to make sure not to be extremely in either direction.  Yeah, its not healthy to focus just on the wackness...but likewise its not healthy to focus just on the dopeness.  Both exist...and both need to be dealt with.

I watched My Blueberry Nights last night finally.  It is Wong Kar-Wai's first English language movie. The movie opened the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, but did not see a US release until April 4, 2008.  Because this is LA, and we actually get the Limited Release movies right away, I didn't make it to see it in the theaters before it was gone.  So I had to wait until this past Tuesdays DVD release.

In the tradition of many of his other films, this is a story of love.  Wong Kar-Wai describes it as "a story of a woman who takes the long route instead of the short one to meet up with the man she loves." (from wikipedia)

The movie is still shot in the way of his earlier films, despite the break from his long-time cinematographer Christopher Doyle.  Full of sensuous colors and saturated hues.

The movie got very mixed reviews during its theatrical release...but I enjoyed it.  The story was a little disjointed at times (moreso than usual), but that may be more of a symptom of writing in a second language (even though he co-wrote with a native english speaker).  Norah Jones did a decent job acting, for her first time.  The story behind her casting is that Wong Kar-Wai had her specifically in mind for the role and had to convince her to do the role.

Here is the UK trailer (embedding was disabled for the US version):

The end of my friends visit was punctuated by a little freaking out about my lack of job and money in my bank accounts.  I placed a call into the Diocesan's insurance administrator to check the status of my unemployment benefits application, and was told that they only cut checks once a month and that is around the 15th of the month.  So it would mean that I wouldn't get a check until mid-July.  Thankfully on Thursday (the 26th), a check arrived with my first payment (which was backdated to include everything from my last day of work (May 15th).  That took a big weight off my shoulders for sure.

I signed up at a temp agency downtown.  They have mentioned a few opportunities, but I haven't been sent out on anything yet.  The person there did give me some resume tips...so I've made some updates and plan on bringing them in Monday after the long holiday weekend.

I saw the movie Wanted, on Friday.  It is directed by the same director as the Russian films Nightwatch and Daywatch.  It was pretty enjoyable, lots of action, a cool car chase, and fun with trains.  Its not going to win any major awards or anything...but it was fun and worth the $14 (gotta love weekend movie pricing in LA).  The car chase almost overtook my previous favorite car chase in a movie (Ronin Car Chase), but its more special effect created, while the Ronin chase was just driving. (Wanted Car Chase - it starts about 2:30 into this clip)

Other than that, it was a pretty slow week.  Still trying to be frugal with the funds, trying to read, trying to spend time at the beach avoiding the heat.  I got to do the prayers of the people at church on Sunday.  That was cool, my first involvement in a church service since finishing at Canterbury.  I'm really liking the new 10:15 service.  Its keeping me at Beverly Hills right now.  I might be getting more involved with this service in the near future.

...and wow, the year is half over.