They Used My Haiku!

So, every week the Rotten Tomatoes movie review show on Current features a "movie review haiku" submitted by viewers and this week they used mine! Check it out!

More Embedded-- Help Me Win!

So the EMBEDDED premiere was last night, I watched and thought everything looked great! It was a very cool show and I'm excited for the rest of the series. If you missed the show, you can catch it on current.com/embedded or on Hulu.

To promote the show, Current is having a contest called "Embed Embedded" where you get points for posting a special video and every time someone watches it. Since Facebook doesn't count, I'm posting mine here, and it would be great if all you blog readers could help me out! The contest tracks every time someone either watches the video or takes the video from where you have posted it and posts it somewhere else. For the more tech-savvy among you readers, please take this cool video of Silversun Pickups and post it as many places as possible. For everyone else, just push play! It's a cool little acoustic sing-along clip of Silversun playing their song "Panic Switch and encouraging you to sing-along (our graphics guys did an awesome job with the bouncing ball, so props to them). Enjoy!

What's Falling From The Sky?!

First precipitation in Los Angeles, and it only took two months! They're predicting snow in Ithaca, but here in LA, all anyone's complaining about is the rain. It's not ever real rain by the way, barely a drizzle, but it's enough to throw everybody off their game. The normally bad traffic is now TERRIBLE, the streets which have been caked with oil are now like a Slip n' Slide, and everything's flooding, thanks to a city structure unequipped to handle more than a few inches of water. I'm actually enjoying it though, never thought after three years in Ithaca I'd actually want to see rain, but it's refreshing to have a change. It can't be sunny ALL THE TIME. That's just boring.

Mos Def "Quiet Dog"--Embedded Preview!

Posting this clip to promote EMBEDDED, which premieres tomorrow night at 11 on Current TV! Check it out!

Couples Retreat

This past weekend, Callie and I exercised some of the nice perks that interns get and went to see a free screening of Couple's Retreat down on the Universal lot. Very cool to be there on the weekend, we got to park in one of the executive garages and walked around the empty lot. Production lots on the weekends are like schools during the summer time, empty and quiet and being there just feels wrong. Thankfully, we found the screening room without too much trouble (callie had been there for a CSI screening) and got our seats just as the movie started. One of the best parts about seeing a movie on the lot, NO PREVIEWS. The movie was just OK, typical Vince Vaughn schtick, Bateman was good and Kristen Bell (my dad's favorite TV detective) was cute as usual, but it got long in the middle and didn't really pay off. Long story short, free was the way to see it. Fun times on the lot.

Turnovers and Launches: Internship Update

A few weeks in to my internships (actually, at the midterm point which is pretty nuts to think about) and things are really heating up. The assistant in the office with me at Simon West left to go be the assistant for the head of LakeShore entertainment, and in the fast-paced turnover that left us with a temp for a few weeks, I have basically undertaken full assistant duties for the days when I am there. It is much more stressful and consuming than before, but it's a great feeling to know that I can do the job, and it will be a great asset on my resume as I look for work in a few months.

Over at Current, this week marks the LAUNCH of the music dept.'s brand new show EMBEDDED!! This is a big deal for everyone in the office, as our launch has been pushed like three times already, everyone is excited to start getting stuff on the air. You can check out EMBEDDED SITE for sneak peeks and bonus clips, and make sure to tune in this Wednesday, October 14th on Current TV! The premiere episode features our production crew following Mos Def as he tours around Japan, and future episodes will highlight Ben Harper, The Decemberists, Thievery Corporation, Common, and Silversun Pickups, as well as feature many other great artists and bands. Be sure to check it out!

Celeb Sighting #9: Mr. Monk Gets a Salad

Ran to the Paramount Cafe the other day, because the boss had a late meeting which went over the normal lunch hour and I had to make it there before lunch service was over. The place was almost empty (as were the soup tureens), but I did get my latest celebrity sighting. As I waited in line to get soup and salad, I noticed the guy in front of me looked very familiar. when I looked again, I realized it was Tony Shaloub! He was getting his food with a group of what looked to be kids or young relatives and a few adults and was looking for trays to put their stuff on. After he found some (resourceful detective that he is), he almost offered me one, before realizing that I wasn't with his group. Very cool sighting, and probably my most "up close and personal" one so far.

Do You Want Fries With That (Burrito)? Eats in LA #9

Continuing on our quest to sample every fast food we won't be able to have once we've gone back to the East Coast, the other day while down at Albertson's in Burbank (our New new favorite grocer), we decided to make a Del Taco run. I was unsure of what to get, they offer so many products, but I decided to stick as far away from the standard Taco Bell fare as possible, and ordered the Shredded Beef Tacos Del Carbon. "Del Carbon" essentially means that these tacos are served with just meat and a blend of onions and cilanto on corn tortillas (rather than standard flour).

(author's note: I did both.)

The tacos are no frills, they came wrapped in tinfoil, but they were tasty, the beef was very flavorful and the corn torillas gave nice texture. I also loved the cilantro blend, it is a taste that is growing on me in my stay out west; I noticed they even offer it as a topping at Subway. Anyway, the tacos were great, but what was weird to me were the french fries. First of all, I didn't realized that getting the meal meant you got fries, like Taco Bell I assumed it just meant an extra taco ir something but no, it was a whole mess of fries. Why serve fries at a Mexican place? If they were special fries, maybe, but these were standard, crinkle-cut Ore-Ida crap that looked straight out of the freezer. Why? Unnecssary. I will probably venture back to Del Taco at some point to sample more of their selection, but I'll pass on the meal. No Del Taco, I don't want fries with that.

Out on a Tuesday? Rebecca's 21st

A few weeks ago, our dear roommate Rebskies decided to go and turn 21 on a Tuesday. Callie and I, being the only ones of our friends able to go out for such an event, accompanied her out as designated driver, and drinker, respectively. For family and propreity reasons, most of the pictures from that night cannot be posted, but we did have an excellent time. Starting out at the Pink Margarita, where some Hollywood hipster types took about ten minutes to change Reb's "I'm not doing tequila shots" tune, we moved on to The Room, then to a scary club where let's just say we were NOT in the racial majority, and finally, a cool rocker joint called The Burgandy Room, where I knod of wish we had been all along. Rebecca had a great time, met her "long lost sister" and got a bunch of free drinks. I also had a good time, until my alarm went off at 6:30 the next morning to go to work.

((Figured this one was appropriate enough--the only one who's really identifiable is the bartender, who claimed that Rebecca was just like her sister and proceeded to give her many free drinks. Needless to say, after this, we packed it up.))

Beach "Clean Up" and Sharkeez (Eats in LA #8)!!

A few weeks ago, my roommates and I made the good intentioned, but ill-planned, decision to sign up for National Beach Clean Up Day. It sounded like a nice thing to do, an opportunity to give something back to our newfound city. The one detail we overlooked was that it was on a Saturday morning. Early. In Redondo. Not wanting to be "those girls" who bailed on their commitments, we rolled our butts out of bed and showed up...only to discover that we were the only ones (aside from the rommates of the RA who organized the event) to show. We headed out to Redondo Beach and did a good bit of clean-up work on what turned out to NOT be sandy beach, but inside a giant rocky barge on some inlet. It felt a little...not safe, but at least we were doing good. I'm not sure if this is the exact marina, but it looked alot like the rock formation behind the boats in this photo:

After about an hour of cleaning, one of the guys in our group mentioned that his cousin lived in Manhattan Beach, just a little ways down the PCH. He also mentioned that there was a breakfast place she liked to frequent, which offfered a $4 full breakfast meal on the weekend. He also mentioned that this place served free mimosas for an hour with your breakfast. Needless to say, by this point, we were already driving. We hit up Sharkeez, a nice little mexican bar, designated our DDs, and ordered our food and drinks. The breakfast was decent, especially for the price and the mimosas were good. Maybe a little too good for some of us, as evidenced by the behavior in the car as we sat on the 101 on our way back home. However, all in all: first Pacific Ocean sighting, a little do-goodery, cheap eats and free drinks? Good Saturday.

Eats in LA #7: Poquito MAS

The West Coast loves their Mexican food, that much is for sure, but yesterday, I got to experience what is, in my opinion, the best Mexican chain out there (yes, better than Chiptole AND Qdoba AND Neato. Well, maybe not Neato.). Poquito Mas, the "original Baja taco stand" has a local down in Burbank and is a cute little open air place with counter service and a few tables set up on a patio. They make their tortillas fresh and their burritos fresher. I had the traditional burrito with carnitas and it was off the charts. I will definitely be heading back down for MAS Poquito Mas.

First Week at Current!

Started my first week at Current TV this past week and worked a few days in my new spot in the music department. I think this internship is going to be a nice compliment to my other one, as it's a totally different atmosphere and responsibility set. Current is very relaxed (jeans to work, IM-ing to each other across the room, etc.) and the people in the music dept. seem very cool so far. Within my first hour, I got to sit in on a department meeting and learn all about "Embedded", the half-hour music show they are launching this fall (hopefully Oct. 14, but it keeps getting pushed back). I'll post more info on the show as we get closer to our launch date!

Right now, the department is all about legal clearances and post-production organization as they head towards their launch date, and that gives me a lot of cool things to do. One of my responsibilites is to research all the artists who are going to be featured on the show, charting future projects, tour dates, etc., so we can have current (get it?) info when the show airs. I also have to compile lists of concerts in LA, NYC, and San Fran to be listed on the sites and blogs, maintain the current_music Twitter account (follow us!) and this week I even got to help do some editing! Well, syncing different concert cameras to a master audio track but still, very cool. I'm loving it so far.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Chipotle

This morning I was awoken by Callie insisting that I get out of bed and go to the Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs premiere. Apparently the theater that was having the premiere has a TON of seats and to fill them all, they just let people on the street in to see the movie (and hopefully some stars). So I rolled out of bed. We got to Westwood around one, and after a brief parking garage debacle, found the theater and the red carpet!


We got very excited...until we asked a security dude when the premiere started and he informed us that is was...just about to let out. Bummer. Anyway, we scored some sweet spots on the street to celeb-spot, and that we did! As the movie let out, we hung around with the autograph scorers, a fascinating culture unto themselves, holding their huge folders full of pictures of people they have scoped and hope to get autographs from. While we didn't see Anna Faris in person, we saw her husband Chris Pratt, and saw her from the back of the SUV as they drove away right past us. We also got to see James Caan, Neil Patrick Harris, and Bill Hader! Very cool. Bill even came over to the autograph hecklers and signed some stuff. Classy dude. and VERY attractive in person. I got some cell phone pics.

(blue button down is Bill)

Very cool Hollywood experience. Rounded out with some Chipotle and it was an excellent reason to get out of bed.

Writer's Guild Emmy Panel (and Celeb Sighting #7)

A very cool perk of the ICLA program, tickets to awesome programs like the Writer's Guild Panel of Emmy nominated TV writer's on Thursday night. There were writers from all different kinds of TV and the event was hosted by Rainn Wilson (Dwight K. Schrute to you Office fans). The event was held in the Writer's Guild Theater (hope it's not the last time I'll be there!) and it was very intersting. The Q&A was a little tedious and we were all exhausted from all long day of work/classes, but it was a very cool experience. Plus, when we were waiting outside to leave, Rainn Wilson walked right by us TWICE. Pretty cool.

(crappy cell pic but there they are!)

Writers on the Panel:

• Jack Burditt (30 Rock- he was a cool dude, talked about starting out as a reader, however he just moved back to LA and is working on The Old Adventures of New Christine, so...)
• Carlton Cuse (Lost- cool guy, he had a lot of good advice)
• Andre and Maria Jacquemetton (Mad Men- a married couple who writes together, and she was the only woman on the panel, offered a lot of good insight to the world of writing)
• Damon Lindelof (also Lost- seemed like a younger guy, he was funny and had a cute interchange with the Mad Men couple about how much they loved each others shows)
• Billy Kimball & Ian Maxtone-Graham (Simpsons- these guys looked like the were characters on the Simpsons, they were also dressed alike, very metro Harvard)
• Rob Kutner (nominated for the Daily Show, but works for Conan full-time now, a very funny nerdy guy)
• Michael Sucsy (Grey Gardens, which by the way was his first EVER screenplay. he talked alot.)

S'mores and Candle Pong

The roomies and I decided to finally put our fireplace to good use and invited the guys from f102 over for for some s'mores. After the marshmallows had been toasted and smooshed between graham crackers (with both hershey's bars AND peanut butter cups), we were all hanging out in the living room when an Oakwoods game legend was discovered....CANDLE PONG! Ok, so it's not so much a game as the combination of our ping pong balls and candle laying on the same table, but the game is sweeping the nation, or at least our apartment. I think it really has potential to be as big as FARKLE. Maybe someday we'll have an excel spreadsheet on the wall, like the guys do for FIFA....maybe not.

Eats in LA #6: Late Night with Bob and Vianny

Late night adventure last night: after a brief stint at a party which was literally entitled “Rock Out With Your Guac Out,” (I don’t think I need to say any more about that) Callie, Nate and I were craving some late night eats. So, after a long, failed attempt at getting someone to deliver food to the Oakwoods, Callie drove us down into Burbank to experience the legendary Bob’s Big Boy, one of the only places open 24 hours (I guess it’s not really a college town, but it shocks me that there is more stuff open late in Ithaca than Los Angeles).


Our server was an interesting character named Vianny, kind of a homeless Danny Zucko looking character, who (and I am entirely serious about this) made jet airplane noises every time he delivered something to the table. Yes, he did. Our BLT, Big Boy Special, and pulled pork sandwiches (respectively) were all pretty good, served the purpose of some late night eats, and allowed me to check another West Coast restaurant legend off my list. And by that, I mean Vianny. Good times.

I’m Not On Fire, But California Is

So I’m sure you’ve all been hearing about the out of control station fire currently ravaging Southern California, and just wanted to assure you that I’m not on fire. According to reports, the fires seem to be dying down, but they are so close to the Oakwoods that we can see smoke clearly from our balcony.


It was crazy to see the red glow to the west when driving home from Sherman Oaks on the 101 the other night. Sometimes I think it’s a cloud in the sky, but then I remember that there are never any clouds out here. Because it never rains…because it’s so freaking hot and dry. Love you LA!

Bowling!

Time for more ICLA program activity fun! 25 or so of us traveled down to Pickwick Lanes in Burbank for some bowling. We all got one game free and after relinquishing one of our shoes to the cheery people behind the counter, got down to business. There were serious high point showdowns (Mike and Bryan), “Reverse Grandma” techniques (Callie) and struggles to down just one pin (I won’t embarrass anyone here. Not me, definitely not me). After twenty frames and In N’ Out burgers all around, we declared it a successful and fun ICLA Saturday in Burbank.

Eats in LA #5: The Fam Takes Burbank

The parentals were out to drop Teke off at Cal Baptist in Riverside and detoured two days to stay and visit me in Burbank. It was great to see them, if only for a little while. For dinner on Friday night, we walked around the Burbank Town Center and stopped to eat in a Callie-recommended Italian café right on the main drag. They had a nice atmosphere, good bread, and each of our meals (chicken piccatta, chicken parm, and homemade house ravioli) were very good.

The next day we drove around to see some of the more touristy sights, I took them by the Pendleton Center and Paramount lot, then we cruised around Hollywood. We stopped near the Beverly Center for lunch at the beloved Souplantation and shopped a little bit. After that, they headed back to Ontario to catch their plane back from their West Coast Adventure, but hopefully will be back (perhaps for a “Big Bang” taping)!

Party in the Oakwoods!

Roomies and I decided to throw our first apartment party this past Friday. It was definitely a success and we made a lot of new friends. Everyone seemed to have a great time, though for the sake of propriety on this blog, I will avoid any further details. It’s definitely nice to be living in a fun social apartment as opposed to flying solo in the Gardens like last year. Love the roomies, love the Oakwoods!

(L to R) Jess, Callie, Me, Rebecca

First Week Of Internship #1

Started my first full week at Simon West Productions this week. It’s a small TV and film production office on the Paramount lot and I’ve really enjoyed it there so far. There are only three or four people in the office, including me, so I am very involved in the daily operations. I answer phones and emails, read scripts, and handle other administrative stuff like printing and mailing scripts, ordering office supplies and getting lunch for the boss. Some of my favorite jobs so far have included handling the guest list for an the new Night of the Living Dead launch party and watching casting footage for our new remake of The Mechanic that will be starting production this fall.

It’s very surreal to be working on a movie lot with so much history. I still kind of walk around every day feeling like I’m trespassing, even though I have my photo ID that lets me in the gate…


Our office is in the old Dressing Room building and it’s in a cute little area that looks like a college quad (and was actually used as such in the new NBC show “Community”). The building is all offices now, but it used to be the dressing rooms of all the old Paramount stars (Cary Grant, etc.) which I think is very cool.


It’s an awesome experience and I am loving it so far!

KARAOKE TIMES! (AND Celeb Sighting #6!)

One of the quintessential ICLA programs I was most excited for was karaoke at Dimples, and we finally made that dream come true last weekend. Six of us jammed into Mike’s rental Ford Focus and headed down to met up with a bigger group of IC kids who had tried to get in before the 8 p.m. underage cutoff. We hung out and watched our fellow students sing, got down to “Get Low” and then got the cherry on top of the sundae that we’d been told was the Dimples Experience. Principal Belding from “Saved By The Bell” showed up and SANG KARAOKE. It was awesome!



Karaoke fun, another great nostalgic celebrity sighting, and I also got a blinking lei necklace from Captain Morgan himself. All in all, good night.

Celeb Sightings #4 and #5!

First day at Simon West (more on that later) but my time spent on the Paramount lot has been chock full of celebrity sightings so far. I guess that shouldn't be suprising, I mean it's a movie studio. In Hollywood. Still, the Lancaster girl in me still does a double take when I see somebody famous, and so, I feel it is worth reporting in the blog. Passed Erik Christian Olson on my way to get lunch at the cafe. And while I was back at my desk eating said lunch, Mike White walked by my window. Also, my office is right next to Lorne Michael's. This town is awesome.

Internship Update!

Two interviews today, one with Current TV and one with the CSI writers room.


Current was up first at ten am, off of Highland on Lexington Ave. Got my first taste of real LA rush hour traffic (sooooo much fun) and had some problems finding the place (there is NO SIGN that says Current anywhere on the building. Literally. None.), but after that it was smooth sailing. The internship is with the Music Department, I'd be working primarily with the production team behind "Current Music" a new half-hour show they are debuting this fall. The show follows one artist per week as they give the audience a taste of their lives, and also features break-out segments of up and coming bands and artists. A few currently in the works are Mos Def and Ben Harper.

As an intern I'd be helping them with pre- and post-production, as well as doing administrative stuff, handling expense reports, and my personal fav, compiling "The List" every week. The List is a comprehensive list of all the bands performing in the area each week, along with artist info, openers etc. Combine this with Callie's cousin who can get free tickets, and this semester is shaping up to be very musical. And awesome. I was offered the internship on the spot, though I said I wanted to wait to hear back from CSI. The girl I interviewed with was great and used to be an intern herself, so it looks like there is great room for advancement!




After that, I headed over to Universal City, to interview with the CSI writers. It was cool to see what a writer's office suite looks like in big time TV and it was a nice laid-back atmosphere. The group of people who interviewed me were super nice and relaxed. They asked questions about the show and writing I had done. Unfortunately, they were looking for an intern who could commit to five days a week and with my other internship already locked down, that wasn't something I could do. On the bright side, they offered the position to my roommate who is most likely going to accept, so I can still tag along (hopefully).

All in all, good day. I'm glad I didn't have to choose between the two offers, and though I would have loved to be in a real writers room, it would have been hectic along with my other writing class, and my schedule will work much better with the Current position (which I am psyched about!). Another plus, the CSI head guy told to shoot him an email if I ever need a job. I think I made one of my first official industry "connections." Nice.

Eats in LA #3 and #4: Frozen Pho-gurt

Also yesterday was another LA experience, what we in the apartment like to call "Everything's Pho-K," the philosophy that all Vietnamese restaurants with "Pho" in the title are delicious. Ok, so maybe it's just Callie's philosophy. None the less, the four of us packed up and headed to downtown Burbank to get ourselves a little taste of Pho City. $7 gets you the "Noodle Soup Bowl" which is a bowl of broth and rice noodles bigger than your head (no exaggeration) which comes with your choice of meat, meat by-product or vegetarian meat subsitute. Callie got the chicken, and I went for meatball. It was good, the broth was flavor ful and the noddles were good too. The meatballs were pretty gristly (don't know what I was expecting with a Vietnamese place, but there you go) but I tried Callie's chicken as well and that was really good. The other roomies got more standard dishes: Shrimp with Broccoli and Lemongrass Chicken and they were both reported to be good, albeit a little spicy.


After dinner, we walked up to Yogurtiers, one in (literally) a million frozen yogurt places here in LA. This one is proclaimed to be the best (again, by Callie) because it has many different flavors at once, is all fat-free (well, the yogurt anyway), and is self-serve. I got peach and strawberry yogurt with Fruity Pebbles, white chocolate, and fresh strawberries and blueberries and it was DELICIOUS. Way to go California, you came up with a desert fad that is both healthy and creative. And also profitable, because they charge by weight and you can't tell how much you have until it's payin' time.

First Vietnamese food, check. First "noodle bowl", check. First LA fro-yo, check.

CHELSEA!

Been a while since I've updated, kind of getting into the swing of things here on the left coast. Yesterday was a lot of fun, the roomies and I went to a taping of Chelsea Lately, the late night entertainment talk show on E! We got there super early to make sure we actually got into the taping (you have to reserve tickets, but there are only so many seats in the studio), and were actually first in line! After a few hours of playing cards and eating our PB&J, we finally went through security, got our nifty little badges...
...and were seated in the audience. Despite the fact that the guest was a pre-taped package and the warm-up comic was in our face to laugh and applaud the whole time, the taping was a fun experience. The round table was good (Gary Valentine and the Sklar Bros, for fans of the show), the monologue and closing were funny, and we got to see Chuy!!! Also, Chelsea is nice enough to sign books during breaks and gave me this little souvenir for my BFF:

All in all, Chelsea Lately+Free Tickets+CHUY+signed book (-comic guy) = AWESOME!

Eats in LA #2

Today, the roommates (plus Nate) headed out to Callie's favorite food destination, Souplantation! Essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet with a health-concious West Coast twist, Souplantation is a soup, salad, baked potato, bread heaven where everything is fresh and the soups are from scratch. This month's theme was Mexico, so along with homemade cornbread and foccacia, I enjoyed Spicy Southwest Pasta Salad, Southwest Chipotle Foccacia, and my personal favorite, "Albondigas Locas" soup (translation: "Crazy Meatball"). With a twist of frozen yogurt for dessert, Souplantation is truly a delicious LA eatery.

Yes you will, Souplantation, yes you will.

INTERNSHIP!

So I have (unofficially) accepted my first internship with Simon West Productions, a small production company located on the Paramount lot! It's a really cool opportunity, only three people actually work in the office so the intern gets to do ALOT. I like it because they do both film and TV, this fall I'll be helping out as they begin production of a remake of "The Mechanic" (shooting in New Orelans!) AND wade their way through TV pilot development season! Crazy! I'll probably be working Monday and Wednesdays with them and hopefully Tuesdays and Fridays somewhere else (I have class on Thursdays). Can't wait to get started!

Family Feud! Again!

Sooo, last night among the hustle and bustle of Leno and the ensuing celebrations, I heard a few of my friends talking about going to a taping of Family Feud.

"We've kind of already done that," I protested.

"Let's do it again!" they said. "It's free plus we can see Burton Richardson!!!"

(Burton is the announcer for the Feud, who is a crackup in himself. Seriously, you'd think the dude was hosting Price is Right or...something.)

To be honest, I kind of thought we were joking, but woke up to a text saying that we got tickets! Great!....great. So we went...again. Bigger group this time, which was fun but we all kind of got split up by the PAs as they arranged the audience. It was a little sad to hear Burton make all the same jokes, but what can you do. Oh, and the audience performers were better this time. The math guy and his contortionist girlfriend get my vote for couple of the year.

All in all, more Feud fun.

Leno in the Oakwoods! (aka Celeb Sighting #3!)

(jay with random oakwood lady)

So, ice cream socials are fun. When you're ten maybe. After that, it just become a sad attempt at forced mingling around bowls of generic strawberry that's too pink for it's own good. We were walking to one at the North Clubhouse when alls of a sudden we see people running as fast as they can (some holding shoes in order to run faster so you know it's important) back past us towards the South Side of the Oakwoods. Realizing that there were all fellow IC kids only after they all had passed, one of us remarked that perhaps we should have asked why they were running.

As we shook rainbow sprinkles onto our sad little bowls of ice cream, we finally got our answer. Jay Leno was filming! In the Oakwoods! At the...South Clubhouse. So we finished our ice cream and booked it back to the south side. We arrived just in time to watch them film a few segments, some of which featured some ICLA students! It was cool to see their whole production close up (Jay's chin is bigger too) and Bryan Mercer finally made it onto real TV. With crabs. In a hot tub. With Jay Leno. Stay tuned...

(Jay is in the orange raingear. ICLA students, along with a
bunch of plastic crabs, are chillin in the hot tub.)

Interview! (and Celeb Sighting #2!)

Had an interview today at a small production company on the Paramount lot. I left the Oakwoods about an hour and a half early to give me enough time to fill up the tank and drive the NINE MILES on the 101s, get off at Vine St. and take it all the way down to Melrose (see? I'm getting good at navigating!). I got to drive through the actual big gate that says "Paramount Pictures" and everything, which I thought was awesome. Traffic was not as hellish as anticipated and I got there about an hour early. After following the map and ticket given to me by Cute Security Guy, I parked in what I thought was the visitor lot. I slid my seat back, and cracked open my book fully prepared to wait until ten o'clock in boredom.

Then, a big stinkin SUV pulled up a few spaces to my right. I didn't think much of it, in a city of big stinkin SUVs, but when the passengers got out, I had to make sure it wasn't anybody famous (I don't think this will ever get old). The first was a big guy, but was carrying way too much stuff, juggling a folder, Blackberry, and a few duffel bags, he was clearly "assistant". The other man however, looked a lot like LL Cool J. Oh wait...it was. I did a double take, then when he looked up at me, I dropped my eyes straight back down to my book. I have to learn to play it cool in this town, even if my PA liscence plate gives me away every time.

Interview went pretty well, I think. Mostly development stuff, but they do film and TV which is nice, and it's a small office so it seems like the intern is really involved. She said I would hear back within a few days, so, fingers crossed. I'm looking into more internships too, hoping to eventually have two, one in development and one in production, to get a feel for the scope of things. I'm still getting over being on an actualy movie lot today. As Not-So-Cute Security guy opened the gate to let me out, I thought "Yeah, I could do this every day."

The Biggest Target EVER

Went exploring around Burbank yesterday in search of Target, but mostly to practice LA driving/navigation. After a slight error involving the confusion of Victory BOULEVARD and Victory PLACE (here's an idea--just pick a new street name!), found said shopping center and what I discovered to be the BIGGEST TARGET STORE EVER. This may be employing some hyperbole, but seriously, this thing has got to have it's own zip. I tried to find a pic online to convey the magnitude, but couldn't. Suffice it to say that this was a darn big Target. I was impressed that I was able to find everything I needed without a map. Alas, no further celeb sightings. I thought they always shopped at Target...

Family Feud!

Went to a taping of Family Feud this morning! Despite an over-zealous announcer and a crazy "comedian" in line with us, it was a pretty good time, John O'Hurley is a funny guy (and his toddler son is a pretty good dancer). Eps 092, 093, and 094 should be airing in LA sometime in November, not sure about the rest of the US. Will definitely be watching ep 094 to hear Nick yell "Good Answer!" when one contestant made a fart joke. Good times.

Also, the taping was at Sunset Bronson Studios where they also tape Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown. Kinda lessens the effect when you see Judy's "courtroom" is actually a little set in a big sound stage. Oh well. This town is all about appearance.

Celeb Sighting #1

Went to Ralph's for some groceries, saw Wayne Knight (Newman on Seinfeld among many other funny roles), then on the drive back saw Ed Begely Jr. and Taye Diggs cruisin around together!

Eats in LA #1

The Great Food Debate: Delicious, famous, world-renowned In N Out Burger or unknown, desperation its-literally-the-only-thing-left-open Yoshinoya beef bowl? Tough call.

Finally Here!

The adventure begins...