Kickin' and Screamin'

Christmas weekend was decent. But the part about getting into a heated argument with my little brother after church and hitting on a semi-attractive woman 22 years older than me in Spanglish wasnt.

I spent those two days of it at two of my friend's house. I didn't receive alot of stuff this year other than a $75 Macy's gift card and a $50 check from my pops, but I liked watching my friends, their kids and nephews and nieces getting excited and watching their reaction as they unwrapped the presents they got. I also watched two films on TV during that weekend at their place: Horrible Bosses on DVD and A Game of Honor on my homie's Showtime On Demand. When Horrible Bosses came out during the summer, I thought that it was gonna be a piece of shit film with forced played out jokes and light bland acting. Plus I didn't like the concept of it as it came out during a time when people didn't have a job with bosses to bitch about, and those fortunate with jobs can't bitch about their bosses on their Facebook status. That was all before I watched this movie. After it finished playing, my opinion was different cause that entire film was funny as hell.

They should've made Jennifer Aniston a cameo in this flick and her acting in the movie is different as a minor cast member instead of taking lead roles as in other film. The plot of Horrible Bosses is slightly similar to Office Space, another earlier film that Aniston was also in, which relates to those fed up with their everyday jobs and the managers that signs their checks.

A Game of Honor is a documentary about the behind the scenes leading up to the annual traditional Navy-Army college football game that was played earlier this month (the same game that my homegirl Tina and I watched at Yardhouse in Newport Beach which I last blogged about). Its amazing and mind-thumping to see the new students at the US Naval Academy having to go through the intense disciplinary lifestyle and saying goodbye to their parents during the orientation. I got re-fueled alot more about responsibilities and respect from watching that documentary, from having to go defend and represent your country after finishing the requirements at the academy, as well as doing what it all takes to win a football game with your team members and showing your respect to those who gave you what you have from having to pull a lot of work and sacrifice just to put you were you're at in a fortunate position, just like the troops and soldiers have done for the past 225 years . If you're into the Armed Forces or know anyone who's served in the military and likes football, then this is a excellent film to check out. Major super props to the those in the Air Force, Marines, Army, Navy and the Coast Guard for doing so much work. I've been to military bases at Port Hueneme in Oxnard, El Segundo, Las Vegas, Sacramento and San Diego and just watching those in uniform had me thinking all the time, in a way similar to being in the same room with a traditional elder who's been alive for over so many years (at least 85) and still has perfect health. That's something you can't argue or debate about. Its untouchable. Forget money or politics in this, those are people just making lives better, and they're set for life for doing that. Again, thanks to those using their time in the military bases and the De La Torre's and Galvez's for the hospitality not just during the holiday weekend, but this entire year as well.

Another thing that was been happening throughout the holiday weekend was the release of the Air Jordan XI Concords colorway. In the last post I said that the release for this sneaker was gonna be wild with fights breaking out, AND I WAS TOTALLY RIGHT. Many people who've never collected expensive Nikes as a passion were surprised to see this occuring just for a basketball show, yet they fail to realize the whole meaning behind this shoe, not just because Michael Jordan wore it to win his fourth ring. It was the first (well second after the rare Nike Sky Force thanks to legendary east coast sneaker connoisseur DJ Bobbito Garcia from Its The Shoes) to have Patent Leather on a basketball shoe as well as carbon fiber on the bottom which has never been done before. Also, this was the first Jordan sneaker that Michael wore for his first full season in 1995 back from his first retirement. Ahmad Rashad debuted the XI's by wearing them during the Bulls playoff game against the Orlando Magic that summer before the Bulls 72-10 season on National television, which started the longevity buzz for the shoes, and in the finals during the 1995-96 season, the Chicago Bulls won their fourth title on Fathers Day that June, and it was significant for Michael cause this was the first championship that he won without his pops James Jordan to witness it, and there's a photo of him on the floor in the locker room that displays that moment. The XI's are Michael's personal favorite shoes, which makes it the most sought out Jordans of all time. That release from last Friday was nothing new. Everytime the XI's have been released (such as the Cool Grey XI from last year and 2001 when Jordan was in the Washington Wizards, the Space Jams XI re-release in 2009), there is always reports of chaos and fights in the shopping malls, but the Concords XI was another backlash.

The whole damn news media was in this all over the world. I knew that there was gonna be some shit that was gonna happen, but NOT LIKE THIS! Damn, there were fools who hid inside the malls just to get this shoe, with lines formed with over a THOUSAND PEOPLE, and I'm surprised many of them have the cash to get those sneakers, yet they complain and whine about fuel prices and not obtaining a job? Shut the fuck up man. And I'm saying to those who buy the shoes just cause its hot and everybody else will wear them with no knowledge of the origins of the shoe, or Air Jordans in general. What made this shit go to another universe was that some kid lost his life for those Concords and that's where the negativity come in. Yes, they were being sold for $180 which is a lot. As a sneaker enthusiast, I'm not surprised about the price. Its all about supply and demand. The hottest shoe plus greater interest in them from the consumer generates unimaginable profits for Nike, Brand Jordan and the resellers. Now because of this mess, Jordan Brand is being viewed by non-sneaker enthusiasts as "a company that creates expensive basketball shoes that people will die for", literally. There were lines EVERYWHERE, which shows just how serious the Air Jordan XI Concords. I didn't intend on getting a pair since I paid majority of my emergency savings to help pay for my little brother's rental car but, shoutout to the people who got them and have been planning on copping those XI's for the past year. To those who've never worn or owned a pair of Air Jordans such as those not earning income or the newsmedia, talk about something else and quit expanding the negativity for the Concords. They're just shoes, and don't be surprised if the same shit happens when the Columbia XI's get released next year, the shoes that Jordan wore at the 1996 All Star Game in San Antonio that year.

Well, all this talk about the Jordan XI's bring me back to my days of smelling a brand new pair of fresh Nikes. That's pretty much the main reason why my photography business name is JustForSneaks Ent. I created it during the summer of 2006 when I was creating a screen name for my account on NikeTalk, an underground sneaker forum. The JustForSneaks Ent. name (originally JustForSneaks07) came from a DVD that came out around the time of my high school graduation called Just For Kicks, which is a documentary about the sneaker culture and the history behind it and how popular it became over the years. I took that name and switch the word "Kicks" with "Sneaks" as a synonym. The 07 was for the following year 2007 and the Ent. part of the name is short for either Entertainment or Enterprises, or both, two of my core focuses. During that time was when it was fun and awesome to buy shoes and to get reactions from them by other people. I once got a remark from my 12th grade Goverment teacher when I wore my Zoom Kobe 1's to class, and he said this during class. Great feeling. Now I hardly buy sneakers, and I haven't got a pair in two years. But then again, the recession and the price hike of Air Jordans overshadow the reason.

I've always been into shoes for a long time. Started out with a new pair of Payless shoes twice a year in elementary, then Adidas and Converse from 8th grade to the middle of 11th grade. I never liked Nikes during the 90's until I saw Michael J. Fox rock the OG 1985 Nike Bruins with the red swoosh and of course the Air Mags in the Back to the Future trilogy. I though I was shit out of luck when I realize that Nike stopped making those since they came out of in the 80's but I saw that the Nike Dunk and Air Force 1's has been brought back for people to wear again during high school, and they were similar to the Bruins since they were also from the 80's and have a big ass swoosh on it. When I saw the price for them at Foot Connection next to the Red Robin at Northridge Fashion Center in 2002, I was upset and of course my parents wouldn't copped them for me since my allowance game was weak as hell. I got my very first pair of Nikes in March 2005 for my 17th birthday, which were the Nike Franchise Low. This is what it looks like...

Unfortunately, this was the only photo I have wearing them when I was in 11th Grade. I was shooting a short film at the Kennedy High school track field with the Canon ZR80 DV camera during my filmmaking days back in June 2005 during the last week of school. My friends and I spent the entire last day of school editing it. By the way, the blue Fruit of The Loom Shirt and Puritan Khakis were both less than $15 from Wal-Mart, plus the shoes which were $35 from the JCPenney at the Fox Hills Mall my aunt got for me totals to $50. I bought a pair of Air Jordan basketball shorts for $50 in 2007 once.

I'll probably make a separate blog about all the shoes that I've gotten and give you a history about them. I don't know when that will happen but probably after I buy my next pair of shoes, which is either the Zoom Kobe VII's or the Air Jordan White/Cement IV's that they're bringing back, which ever is first. The next post will give my final thoughts of 2011 and a recap of this past year, which I'll have up by the end of by tomorrow or on New Years Day this Sunday. Thanks alot for reading alot of this.

Soirees, Scrimmages and Scrooges

Haven't been on this shit in two weeks, so lets get on with the recap since then.

So two Fridays ago I had to go to a clinic in Hollywood for a regular basic checkup in the morning. I didn't feel like being there, but since the staff was really short with only one physician with a Ph.D and a grip of patients, I decided just to go and let the bloke get his job done instead of postponing it or flake out of it. Then later on, shit got really off-beat. Just after the doctor examined me which lasted less than two minutes, one of nurses said that there's a shooting outside on Vine Street and that we can't step out. The nurse had a very thick Filipino accent and I thought that she meant that there was a film production outside the clinic since the building is a block from Sunset and Vine, just walking distance from the Arclight Parking lot and the McDonald's in front of it on Vine and De Longpre Avenue (the clinic is on De Longpre). But instead, what she meant was that there was an ACTUAL shooting, WITH GUNS. I couldn't fucking believe it. I mean, what kind of demented maniac goes off on Hollywood and starts blasting in broad daylight. Didn't he learn anything from the North Hollywood shooting at the Bank of America on Laurel Canyon Blvd 14 years ago? (I was in third grade that time in school at Colfax Elementary, which is also in North Hollywood, but two to three miles south the Valley Village neighborhood)

We then were stuck in the clinic for two hours. I was playing just about every game that I let my friend's kids and nephews download off the Android market on my phone last month during Thanksgiving, until I got tired of it. Later on, I was then told that I could leave and when I stepped outside, I was like "Damn this can't be unreal". The cops shutdown De LongPre, Sunset and Vine so that they could do their investigation on the bloke who went wild on the street. It was weird cause I didn't hear any gunshots, and the clinic was close to the scene. Maybe the wall at the doctor's office were soundproof or something. I recorded the streets that were blocked off on video with my phone. The intersection of Sunset and Vine was empty with the exception of the news vans and the LAPD. I saw a journalist from KNBC channel 4 getting ready to broadcast the story and I took like two pictures of her on my phone, cause she looked hot. Plus those at the LA Film School and the staff at Amoeba Records couldn't go anywhere for a while. I took the subway instead of driving back to the Valley.

The next day, I read that they were gonna open a flagship New Era Store at the old Bathing Ape shop on Melrose on Saturday Morning, and that the first customers receive a free custom made fitted or snapback with the words "Los Angeles" embroidered on it. I used to be into fitteds from 2006-2008 and I haven't bought any since then thanks to the great recession. Would've gone and waited outside the store from 5 to 10AM to be one of the first customers, but instead I went to another store opening in the O.C. with a friend of mine. I had to go with her cause first of all, it was a year of us knowing each other. Nothing too serious or spacious. Just good friends since I first ran into her at the Kardashian Konfidental book release in Century City exactly one year ago. I've done this many times before with a lot of other female friends. And secondly, the store was at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. I driven past this mall three times this year and I've never been inside it before. Plus, I've heard a couple of myths about that place such as 50 something women who look half their age and that you can occasionally run into Kobe's wife there since she lives in Newport (I'll get into more of her later).

After 15 minutes of looking for parking, we went to the store where the opening was gonna take place. The place is called Casey's Cupcakes and Cappuccino's and its ran by this residental affluent hot chick named Casey Reinhardt. They had a ribbon cutting ceremony and unlike other ribbon cutting ceremonies that I've been to in the past, this one didn't have any excessive media press, just one photographer that they hired, which isn't me despite the fact that I did bring my Nikon N70 SLR with me. I took some shots of Casey and one with her as my friend went to go try out her cupcakes. It wasn't as big as I though it was since Casey appeared on TV. They're were about 25 women that showed up who looked like they want to spend the rest of their lives as rich single moms, and some of them brought their daughters to the event.

The mall is nice. Wasn't as I though it was gonna be, but the structure of place itself wasn't something that's new to me. Fashion Island is a lot like the Simi Valley Town Center mixed with Westfield Century City and parts of the Valencia Town Center after its expansion. I would've also thrown The Grove into the mix, but the buildings aren't that tall. The other thing about that mall is that its close by to the beach, so you can watch the sun set off to the coast from the mall. Its very cool. They were also constructing a movie theater, which is already opened right now, and after doing some research on it, the name of the theater is called Island Cinema and inside there's a five star like restaurant that you can go to before your film starts, and they serve Wine and Beer! So you can be a rich yuppie couple getting intoxicated before watching one of Steven Speilberg's two films that are out during the Holiday season, which are Warhorse and TinTin ( the OG cartoon was the shit). My friend and I then feasted at YardHouse while watching the Army/Navy college football game on their TVs, in which Navy defeated Army with President Barack Obama in attendance of course. The food at YardHouse is delicious, and this was my first time eating there. I got a pizza with some thin fries and a garden salad while my homegirl got the same thing. After that we then took some photos, including one in front of a big ass Pine Tree with some decorations on it (I don't feel like saying the word Christmas Tree). I was surprised that they have a Ritz Camera there at Fashion Island. I talked to the manager there and told him that I though Ritz Camera was bankrupt and out of business. He said that only the Los Angeles County locations are closed but everywhere else is open in a few locations. Back before I got into digital photography, I used to take my prints to the Ritz Camera in the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square where I worked that time and my little brother copped a the OG Playstation Portable that was being sold at that location. Finally we went to Macy's cause my friend had to try on some high heels. After an hour, we dipped Orange County and drove back to the Valley in LA County.

Then on Sunday, I shook over to Lee's 4 Cocktails to go watch some Week 14 games in the NFL and there were a few decent games. I was mostly interested in the Green Bay Packers V. Oakland Raiders contest, but it wasn't as interesting as the Denver Broncos/Chicago Bears game that was also on at the same time. That was the game of the week right there. Quarterback Tim Tebow getting his seventh straight win with team in a very crazy ending. Also the Sunday Night between the Dallas Cowboys V. New York Giants had very fantastic football being displayed cause the top seed for the NFC East was up for grabs that night, with the Giants taking the win. Major shoutout to the homegirl Carissa Blau for celebrating her birthday there which made the day more exciting.

Now during the rest of the week, which was last week, it felt like I already opened my Christmas gifts two weeks early. I was at The Grove taking some photos of Katy Perry launching her new fragrance last Wednesday. The event looked like it was completely over done, with a big ass stage over the fountains in front of the Pacific Theaters there inside the Grove. Plus there were a shitload of fans that showed up later. I got there early so that I can get a closer angle of her on stage but security kept moving us all the way to the back between the Cheesecake Factory and the Apple Store, and they left that space in front of the stage for the press and media. They weren't kidding cause there were several television cameras and press photographers, which I thought it didn't make sense until I found out that the event was being live streamed on the internet. I didn't really plan on being there since I saw her twice already but I had to pick up some prints at Samy's Camera and I had plenty of time to kill before the Christmas party that I have to be at starts.

Now this party that I went to, its located just not to far from Rio Vista School, the elementary school that I went to from Pre-K to First Grade. They referred to that area in North Hollywood now as West Toluca Lake. I spent the first two years of my life at an apartment just a block from where the Christmas party was being hosted at. I found out about it randomly on Twitter and after communicating with one of the people who promoted the party, they said that I can attend. I didn't know ANYBODY at this party. The people that showed up are in their twenties and they reminded me of my old co-workers at the Apple Store in Sherman Oaks just down west on Riverside Drive. It was hosted by this organization called Red Eye, where they go out to the community and give back to those who are disadvantaged and live in tough situations. The only thing I do know about this party was that The O.C.'s Mischa Barton was gonna host it, and she was a chill person to talk to. Everybody didn't go wild on her and to me, she was just a regular person. I didn't think that she would speak with a British accent since she spoke like an American on the show. But the coolest part about the party that got me by total surprise was that they needed a photographer to take photos of the event as one of the hosts, named Justin Mayo, announced after everyone showed up. I told them that I do photography right after he said that and showed him some of my photoshoots I stored on my phone. Justin them got relieved and then he sent me to another dude upstairs to receive the camera that I was gonna be shooting with. I though it was gonna be some old Canon EOS Rebel or a Nikon D3000 entry level DSLR. But instead:

THEY GAVE ME A MOTHERFUCKING CANON EOS 5D MARK II DSLR TO USE FOR THE ENTIRE NIGHT! WITH A GODDAMN 24-70MM F/2.8 LENS ON IT! HOLY FREAKIN' SHIT!!!

For those who don't follow up with photography or filmmaking that much, this camera has a full frame sensor with 21 Megapixels and it can capture full 1080p HD Video. Shit, you don't really need a flash with this camera since you can escape with fantastic low light shots in an ISO rating at least 3200 or higher. This is a top of the line DSLR that's WAY up high the bar. Plus, that camera was HEAVY. Weighed about 3 pounds with the lens adding the weight. I was holding about 4 grand worth of equipment that night and that shit is more than a recent Mac Pro tower. Photographers would give up their daughters tuition money just to get this device. Damn, I never used the 5D Mark II before and I ALREADY LIKE IT. The results are just too much, where it can save me less time in the post production in Adobe Lightroom 3. To me, this is just one of those rare ass moments, photography wise as well as social wise to party with some well raised adults my age, and Mischa Barton, who was one of the biggest TV Stars back when I was in high school. I even did a photoshoot of her with that camera that night. Jesus, and the trust that they gave me there was, for the lack of better terms, so awesome, I can't even put it to words. It was a excellent night.

That Christmas party wasn't the only rare moment that took place that week. I managed to score tickets to watch the Lakers practice and run a scrimmage in front of a crowd at the USC Galen Center that Friday. I was surprised that nobody else wanted to attend since I had a extra ticket, but fuck it, it was during a time when everyone was at work or taking some final exams. I even tried scalping it to this one girl but she backed out in the last second. To be honest, y'all missed out. For reals. I was in the front row watching the team shoot buckets and run some drills with Coach Mike Brown taking charge. Kobe Bryant came out last and when they showed his face on the video screen, I was wondering why he didn't come out with a smile or something. This was a totally different Lakers team to watch since Lamar Odom and Shannon Brown are no longer there in Lakerland. Lamar left on his behalf since he was originally involved with the Chris Paul trade to the Lakers that didn't happen, but he still wanted to be traded to a different team regardless. That entire shit got me upset, and what's more mindblowing was that Chris Paul got traded from the New Orleans Hornets to the Los Angeles Clippers, the city's other professional basketball team. Obviously, it threw off alot of people. For example, during the scrimmage, whenever Chris Paul or the Clippers were mentioned or shown on the video screen, every started booing and jeering, yet I don't blame them. But, on the positive side, the fans cheered like crazy in the Galen Center when Lawrence Tanter announced Ron Artest's new legalized name "Metta World Peace" for the first time. After the event was over, I then hit up the Burger King across USC to get some free fries since the restaurant was giving away their new cooked French Fries they introduced. It wasn't as wild as the ones they did back in the late's 90's, when the lines would be long for free fries.

I then went to a second Burger King in San Fernando to take more advantage of the free fries promotion and then I just found out that Kobe Bryant's wife Vanessa filed for divorce on my phone. I didn't see that shit coming and I WAS JUST WITNESSING KOBE BRYANT ON THE COURT IN PERSON WAY BEFORE THE NEWS BROKE! No wonder he wasn't happy when he came out during the scrimmage. I though he was set and loaded with his wife and two daughters. Fuck, it just shows that marriage is not easy at all, mostly towards the affluent notable figures. Maybe he got bored with her and they been together for a decade. I've been noticing that when some people are rich and young, they like to do things so fast that it dries out very quickly as they start to realize it. But hell, this ain't my business and Kobe may not be over it too much just as long as it doesn't affect his game play. Its gonna be tough for the daughter to deal with this now that their pops moved out of Newport Beach. And what's worse was that the Lakers lost to the Clippers during first preseason game in the Staples Center with the Lakers court on Monday Night, by almost 20 points. I was watching that game right after the power blew out in Candlestick Park during Monday Night Football between the Niners and Steelers, in which the score was 20-3 with San Francisco getting the home win and not allowing Ben Rothlisberger to make a touchdown.

So that has been my two weeks notice during the middle of December. I'm typing this from my pop's house which I've been staying at this past week. I've helped my little brother pick up and help pay for his rental car, a 2011 Toyota Corolla LE, since the bumper in his car got dented from a party he went to. Thankfully he's safe. And because I had to contribute for my little brother, I won't be able to get the Air Jordan Concord XI's that I've been focusing on since the Cool Grey XI's dropped last year, which I hated. Well, that chance is gone now. Looking forward to reading the stories about the crazy shit that might happen during this release rather than reading about those fools who's girl surprisingly spoiled them with those overhyped kicks that is worth the hype. Special thanks again to Red Eye and Mischa Barton for the party and everything else, and shoutout to Dr. Jerry Buss and the Lakers organization staff for hosting that free practice scrimmage viewing that may never happen again. Thanks for your time reading this and have fun returning your presents at Macy's or Target the day after Christmas, which happens to be my moms and little sister's 17th birthday.

Second Nurture

A post update on a Saturday? Hey, the Breakfast club had to spend the entire Saturday in detention 26 years ago.

I didn't recap my Thanksgiving weekend from last week cause I didn't feel like typing about it for some weird reason. It was just a regular occasion to me. Went to three different houses which involved alot of football watching and a lot of food, including the Turkey obviously. My friend Marlene De La Torre's daughter Yvonne gave birth to her second daughter on that Thursday as well, which made it alot more special and interesting since I was with their family for that weekend. Spend Saturday and Sunday taking photos of the newborn on film. She's very gorgeous, and I give my ABSOLUTE, ULTIMATE best to her, and her parents Yvonne and Nestor the very best in their new blessing.

Also, week 12 of the NFL was just another Sunday. Bad teams losing to good teams and Denver's Tim Tebow still getting criticized and ridiculed by football fans despite his 5 game winning streak. That bloke is still probably getting the most heat from the New York Jets fans after that insane 90+ yard drive his offense performed in the final minutes of that Thursday Night game. He might somehow get a close break from the Chicago Bears in week 14, but I have a obvious feeling that the "Tebow Time" run will shut down when they greet the New England Patriots the following week. But then again, both of those games are home at Mile High Stadium... I mean Sports Authority Field at Mile High. Remember when Sports Authority used to be known as SportMart more than 5 years ago?

That's it for now. Damn, this is the SHORTEST post I ever typed in a while. And last thing, I hope those who were affected by the power outage and the Santa Ana winds damage to their vehicles and houses around the Pasadena area this past week will get something rewarding by the end of the month. It just sucks to think about those who unfortunate and have to deal with that shit, especially around this time during the holiday season. Thanks for you time reading this.

A Back-Words Weekend Recap

I'm typing this blog post from my pop's house in Granada Hills. Right now, he's out of the country for a few days, including Thanksgiving. To you it sounds odd that one's parents won't be around to bake and cut the Turkey and digest the stuffing inside it while watching a ball game either taking place at Detroit or Dallas. I'm used to that already. Between 2000 and 2008, its mostly him or my moms who would spend the entire month of November traveling to Nigeria, and one of them would stay and have the traditional Americana Thanksgiving dinner. But since my pops got remarried three years ago, he's been hosting gatherings at his place where my relatives and cousins would swing by and I'd have conversation with them while on a full stomach.

Its been a month and a half since I slept over at the house, where I spent the majority of my middle school and high school years at while sharing a room with my little brother until I moved back from spending the summer at Oxnard in 2006. All my siblings have moved out the past few months and they haven't stopped by here in a while, and its been already over a year since I moved out to Sylmar. I got here yesterday morning before the rain started to pour like crazy and watched the Green Bay/Tampa Bay game on the big screen HDTV in the living room. I turned it off after the third quarter cause I was feeling really tired and I'd wanted to go lie down on my old bed in my old room that I haven't slept on in a while. I was gone in some random lucid inception-type dreams for a few hours. I woke up later and order Papa Johns pizza cause there wasn't anything good in the kitchen and watched Sunday Night Football while feasting on the $17 extra large pizza that I ordered, and that shit was worth it. The New York Giants were supposed to win that game but they got picked off at the end by one of Philadelphia's defense around the two minute warning, and also they had Vince Young at Quaterback since Michael Vick is out. To me, that was an upset that the Eagles won that game at Giants Stadium... I mean, Met Life Stadium (seriously, fuck corporate stadium names). I didn't watch the rest of the games during week 11 cause they were all too predictable and bland, just like this entire weekend.

Saturday was another ordinary day. Nothing really happened and a lot of people other than my pops are out of town also. Went to my church to catch the last few minutes of the sermon. When it was finished, I went to the potluck room, then went home five minutes later. I was originally gonna go with my brother to a church either in Simi Valley or somewhere in the 818 like Van Nuys or the one next to his place in Canoga, but he didn't want to get out of his bed when I called him that morning which led me going to the one near my house. The rest of the day was just editing and touching up on some photos.

Now the day before on Friday, I attended the opening day of the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show. The showrooms were all the same like last year, just with newer cars, but I didn't really care about it that much. I only attended to test drive every car that they had available outside this year. Before I did that, I ran into Tanner Foust who was talking to some of the other attendees in the Lobby. I met him last year with my homeboy Jeremy while we went to a taping of the American version of Top Gear. He did recognize me for a bit and told me that they're still filming some episode. After talking to him for a bit I went to go drive some whips.

The test drive took up a lot of my time. I drove every car they had except the Dodges, Toyotas, Chryslers (I really wanted to drive in the new 300c and the Challenger), Kias and whatever new compact car that Mitsubishi had that's not named the Lancer. Its not cause they suck, but there wasn't that much time and all the test drives end at 5PM. The whips that I did try out was all the GM cars from Buick, GMC and Chevrolet. They had Cadillac there also, but I driven their cars SO MANY times this year that I'm already used to them. They only difference was that they had the entire V lineup for the attendees to drive and I was like WHAT THE FUCKING HELL?!?! I was told months before that the V cars can only be test driven at a closed course track due to its INSANE RIDICULOUS HORSEPOWER OUTPUT PERFORMANCE that made the CTS-V the fastest American production sedan in the world. I never driven their V-series and that would've been my opportunity to do so, but I didn't wanna risk getting pulled over in downtown while burning fuel with over 550 horses. If this was at the desert or someplace completely open, then I'd drive it, but not in the city.

I did however drove the Chevy Camaro SS Transformer edition. That shit can fucking scream. I'd had TOO MUCH fun driving it. Yes, its fast and all, but that was my first time driving a Camaro. I knew the SuperSport was gonna be quick beyond my expectations. One of the funnest cars I've ever drove. I then drove some Lincolns and a couple of Fords. The REALLY stepped it up the Explorer. My parents used to have the second and third generation Explorer, and I wanted to see what the new one look like. The dashboard and the navigation panel looked like absolutely nothing than the previous models, and plus the SUV now reduces emissions and has a decent EPA rating from Ford's Ecoboost technology.

Then I made my way to the Hyundai section and the cars that they had were no fucking joke, especially the 5.0 R-spec Genesis Sedan. Jesus Christ, that whip can FLY! I also drove the Equus Ultimate sedan that has gotten a few talk since it came out and that car was the sleekest, swagged out vehicle I've ever driven since I rode in my uncle's BMW 750LI three years ago. That car has SO MUCH TECH. Cameras on the side of the cars, a control console entirely built into the back seat, a refrigerator and a fucking massage feature for the back seat. That blew my mind, hell I could've rode in the back seat instead of driving it. Shit was Birdman in a Maybach status. Finally I drove the Elantra and already fell in lust with it. I'd recommend that over a Toyota Corolla, a Nissan Sentra, a Ford Focus and a Chevy Cruze that took me away in interest until I drove the Elantra. 10 years and 100,000 mile warranty on this car? You can say no to it, real talk. I didn't drive the Sonata cause I didn't feel like it, they didn't have the Genesis Coupe to drive and I forgot to check out the new Veloster. Shoutout to Hyundai Motors for doing whatever they doing to get to change people perspectives on considering automobiles and making them enjoyable to drive and major props to the staff at the LA Auto Show for another great experience this year.

When it got dark, I wanted to eat at the ESPN Zone just a block away, but the appeal didn't seen to catch on me since there's no NBA season for now. I always go there whenever there's a Lakers game taking place across the street, but not this time. So I left and just walked over to the Five Star Bar to see Darger De Milo perform for the first time without my friend Nicole Stetter. They actually did great as an all male group, no changes to the rhythm at all. Talked and mingled with some of my friends there who attended the Five Star bar and then went home after Darger De Milo performed. I didn't stay till the placed closed like I usually do, but I was at the Los Angeles Convention Center all damn just driving and looking at cars that I'll never obtain.

I'm sure you notice that I've gone backwards in this weekend recap. I don't even know why I did that, but from looking at it, the unorthodox chronological order went from worst to best. Thanks for taking your time to read this and enjoy the Thanksgiving week.

Booked and Pinned Weekend

The three day weekend was more of that minimum D+ that you had to get in order to graduate from high school. Nothing too spectacular like my friend's baby shower the week before.

Went to Northridge Fashion Center on Friday to buy a St. John's Bay black long sleeve shirt from the JCPenney there. That shit was 10 bucks and its the only place where they sell St John's Bay products, which I've been wearing for the past two years since the Lakers won their tite against Orlando. Damn, I STILL miss the NBA. But anyway, I was about to cop the mockneck longsleeve akin to the one Steve Jobs would always wear. Only difference is that his is furnished by St. Croix and that brand sells their clothing products for over $200 at least, and his black mockneck sells for $190, real talk. I'll just leave the link here to prove my point. http://www.stcroixshop.com/stcroix/product.asp?s_id=0&prod_name=Full+Turtleneck+in+Cotton+%26+Microfiber+Knit&pf_id=PAAFICGMGMCHMCID&dept_id=3032

Tried out the mockneck, then had second thoughts about it, so instead I got the long sleeve shirt instead which is closer to the mockneck. As I was walking around and leaving the mall, I've noticed that the place is now started to get more occupied with people in high school or those in college who look like their in high school. Every thick chick and boots with leggings and every thin dude there with an overpriced snapback of a team they don't even like. Obviously the mall was packed cause it was on Veteran's Day. Plus they already had the freakin' Christmas Tree and the decorations up already. I blogged about the same thing on here about early holiday decorations last year when I went to go take photos of Cindy Crawford in the Glendale Galleria, and that was in October.

I then went to the Westfield Promenade to go pick up the Steve Jobs biography book at the Barnes and Noble there. Didn't stay long, just paid for the book with a Barnes and Noble gift card I got a few weeks ago and dipped my way home. I had the e-book version of it, but it only went up to one chapter since it was a trial. The book is very addicting and like I said before, it details Steve Jobs life very deeply and I learned so much stuff that I never knew about from the previous bios and history of the deceased Apple co-founder, and the book IS THICKER THAN THE ASS AND THIGHS OF SOME HORNY GANGSTER'S TWENTY YEAR OLD EX-GIRLFRIEND IN THE VALLEY! Right now I read six chapters already and there's alot left to go.

Later on I then hit up my friend Tina to go watch a film cause I really wanted to get rid of the AMC movie passes I got last year during the holidays. We went to one of the 3 AMC theaters in Burbank and I can't remember more than one parking garage that was literally full, with no where to park. So we managed to find parking 20 minutes later and had a tailgate like dinner at Fuddruckers right next to the theater. The place was like The Habit mixed with the environment and atmosphere of TGI Fridays, which I only went to once on my sister's 14th birthday in 2003 and I don't plan on ever going back there cause their Onion Rings fucked me up that day. And what makes Fuddruckers separate from all the other burger joints (still haven't tried Unami and The Counter yet) was that you get to pick what size patty and the kind of cheese you want and then you take your burger over to a section where the lettuce, onions, tomatoes and pickles, as well as the condiments, are provided for you to prepare, which I though was cool. After we got full, we the went to the theater, got the tickets and watched J. Edgar. That movie was alright but it wasn't what I expected it to turn out. It mostly focused on the gay overtones between Hoover and his assistant Clyde Tolson more than his 40 something year stint as the first director of the then newly formed Federal Bureau of Investigation and the chronological order of the film will get confusing for a while. The film started at 9:30 and it ended at Midnight. I didn't think it was gonna be a long ass film. After that, we left and I went back to my place.

Woke up late as usual on Saturday. My friend's band Aftergloam was scheduled to perform at this small venue right across from Amoeba Records, but the show was cancelled at the last minute sinced it rained that day. I REALLY wanted to attend and I enjoy watching the homies Tianna, Elvis, and their new members Kimi Quinn and Albert Rubalcava putting those instruments to work. What made the day much worse was that the internet/phone service was cut off from my place in Sylmar just like that for the entire weekend. I lived in Sylmar for 13 months and this was the first time that ever happened. Usually when the service is down, one of my housemates has a short cut sneaky way of getting it working, only this tine it didn't budge after we spent the day trying to fix it. But I didn't really need to upload or download anything right now. I spent the rest of the day reading the Steve Jobs book and watching some pro-wrestling DVDs with my housemate for the rest of the night until I was tired.

Then on Sunday, I went to Lee's 4 Cocktails to watch some NFL games there and to digest the unlimited Pepsi and hot dogs that was provided (thanks again Dafnee). The Niners/Giants game in the afternoon was the game of the week. Unbelievable that San Francisco is 8 and 1 with their sixth straight win and I can't say anything about the Indianapolis Colts. On top of all this, the Oakland Raiders are first place in the AFC West, something that I haven't seen in a LONG time. I didn't watch the Sunday Night Football game between the Jets and the Patriots cause obviously tom Brady knows that First place of the AFC East was at stake and didn't want his team to lose three in a row, so I knew that they were gonna win over New York.

That's the end of my three day weekend. It looked like I did alot, but in person, it wasn't that much. Now I have another appointment meeting this Thursday, so I hope this one doesn't get fucked up in the last second like it did two weeks ago. Other than that, thanks for your time reading this and have a excellent rest of the week.

Thanksgiving came early....again.

It was just another weekend for me. Mostly with friends and some excellent pro-football.

Saturday was just mostly spent at the DLT's for my friend Marlene's daughter, Yvonne, for her baby shower that was taking place. I went there for two purposes: to take photos of the event and to show support as well. As I was heading my way over there, I needed to stop someplace to eat since I didn't consume anything after waking up late as usual. I could've gone to my church for their weekly potluck, but instead, I went to this pizza parlor just up a block on Glenoaks and Roxford. The Subway there was my original choice, but since I've passed by that place a hundred thousand times for the past nine years, I decided to try out their pizza for the first time.

It was very decent. I like it, probably the best 5 bucks I spent for two slices. It was run by this Hispanic lady in her late 20's and another girl, who I assume might be her sister or cousin in high school, that's probably doing a weekend gig for some cash. Place was small with a 4 arcade machines and a regular size flat screen TV hovering on the ceiling. They were showing a bullshit episode of True Life profiling this teenage girl who has to deal with their embarrassing mom's that has very large fake breasts and some crying shit. I didn't want to watch that while I was eating in risking regurgitation, so I made the owner of the restaurant change it to the Stanford/Oregon Pac-12 college football game. This Andrew Luck kid is gonna be the talk on the sports world for the next couple of months. I won't be surprised if he gets drafted by Indianapolis next year, if he decides to not play his senior year with Stanford. After consuming those two slices and a cup of water, I then dipped out to the DLT's. Shoutout to Bella's Pizza for the quick, delicious lunch.

The baby shower for Yvonne was pretty much handled like another regular kickback at her place like before. Only difference was that it was mostly women that was in attendance, and obviously, I didn't have a problem with that. I brought a black tarp as a background for a "prom night portrait" style photoshoot that I did for everyone there, the first time I ever did that for any event I did. The stock photos actually came out well, but I might tweak them up a bit. I didn't have any strobes or studio lighting to use, just some of the light that's occupied in the house and the built in flash on the camera. My uncle is getting his SB-600 flashgun repaired. Aside from that, everything else was absolutely chill. Spent the night there and watched a bit of football as soon as I woke up from a two hour sleep, cause I drank some Pepsi the night before that kept me awake the whole night.

I didn't go to test drive some Cadillacs at The Grove on like I said in the last post, but whatever, I drove several of them in Glendale last month. They also had the annual Glamourcon event at the Long Beach Convention Center, which is a meet and greet of former Playboy bunnies from the 1970's, 80's and 90's. I could've gone, but I rather take photos of those models from the way the looked 20 or 30 years ago. Sunday was just mostly spent at the DLT's just checking out the Niners/Redskins game, which ended up with San Francisco becoming 7-1 since Steve Young was the starting Quarterback there in that ball club in the 90's. The rest of the early games were blowouts. I thought FOX was gonna air the Packers/Chargers game in the afternoon, but they showed the Giants/Patriots game that had the shittiest scoreless first half I've ever seen. I left when halftime started (thanks to Katie Galvez for the lift back to my place).

When I got back home, I wanted to rest to make up for the loss of hours that I didn't sleep, but one of my housemates was going off with his karaoke system in the living room, and to be honest, I FUCKING DON'T LIKE BEING IN KARAOKE SCENES. I can't sing for shit, and I'm glad I've never tried it in my life, ever. To avoid hearing him from my room singing every catalog more than twice for the remainder of the time (no joke, EVERY SONG MORE THAN TWICE) I shook over to my friend Frank's house just not too far from where I live. got a chance to see the final seconds of the Giants/Patriots game and damn, that shit felt ALOT like their duel in Super Bowl XLII. Brady losing at home for the first time is like him breaking his team perfect season record in the 2007 season. That feeling was just... damn, with a different New York Giants team. Hopefully, Eli Manning earned a lot of confidence from that game. I also got a chance to see the end of the Packers/Chargers game thanks to Frank's DirecTV Game Mix feature, where its every game in one screen. Resulted with Green Bay still proving why they're the World Champions by defeating San Diego in a crazy 45-38 win. The Sunday Night game between Pittsburgh and Baltimore was brilliant. A lot of defense was displayed and it was worth watching. I still think that Ray Lewis has several years left in the league, but it was a great game nonetheless with the Ravens embarrassing the Steelers fans at their stadium.

That was my weekend. Its pretty much the usual that I do every week, friends and football. Thanks as always to the De La Torre's and the Galvez's for inviting me to Yvonne's baby shower and shoutout to the young female cashier at the Burger King in San Fernando for complementing my red St. John's Bay shirt on Sunday Night. The rest of this week was emotional news so far for some African American notable figures in the news. Dr. Conrad Murrary is finally going to jail, boxing legend Joe Frazier died from liver cancer last night and now this afternoon, hip hop legend Heavy D passed away. I wasn't alive to see Joe Frazier duke it out in the ring, but I was jumping from different nursery schools in North Hollywood every six months with my little sister in the 90's when Heavy D was getting exposure then. I remember glancing on some of his videos back when BET did a top 20 video countdown every Saturday afternoon with a different guest host paying their favorite music videos back in 2005, and a few of them chose Heavy D and the Boyz. I also remember seeing him making special guest appearances in a few repeat episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and A Different World.

Damn, his passing got me by surprise. I was coming back from taking photos of Shakira's Walk of Fame ceremony at Hollywood and Vine today (she is VERY fine and I've fucked with her music since Laundry Service back in 8th grade), and found out about Heav's death as soon as got on the internet. I actually could've spent this last paragraph blabbering about witnessing Shakira in person for the first time and how it was the CRAZIEST Walk Of Fame that I've ever been to in 5 years, but two deaths withing 24 hours is just as bizarre as the passings I've seen vanished back in 2009. Just be blessed and thankful for your life, and give back to those who helped you got to where you're at right now. Enjoy the rest of the week.

Los Angeles: Locked Out From Its Occupations

Damn, its hard to realize that I've lived in Sylmar for one year already.

Actually more like 13 months. Prior to that, the most I ever lived outside of my parent's house was two and a half months in Oxnard during the summer I graduated from high school. It didn't last long cause of the hiked expenses and the blazed up drunk roommates I was staying with. I moved out initially cause I was having issues with my pops at the time and his wife and my brother had one of ugliest arguments I ever heard. Now fast forward a year later, my brother is no longer living there and my pops and I became cool with each other two months after I left. It felt like I got cheated out of leaving his house or something, but either way, I needed to leave Granada Hills cause in my case and where I'm from, it looks bad for anyone over 22 years without an actual, legit job to still live with their parents.

Now in this economic time, its common to see people over 25 with University degrees move back in with their parents. I don't blame them since many of them have no other option. I've talked about this subject several times in my previous posts and to this day, that topic hasn't gone anywhere. I went to the Los Angeles City Hall in Downtown yesterday to check out the Occupy LA protest that was taking place there. That was my second time going to the site since a month ago when this whole thing started. It was night time when I first went and didn't take that many photos, but yesterday, I managed to make it there around the afternoon with my uncle's Nikon D5000.

I'm telling you, the protesters turned City Hall Park into A VILLAGE! That shit looked like I was at the Coachella camping grounds taking place somewhere in Africa mixed with the Outback and the Amazon Rainforest and a refugee site in a war zone. There were like at least 500 tents around the City Hall building. The protesters there were acting like civilians with their own Zip Code. Everyone there was cool with each other and the whole protest was just too peaceful, whereas in some other cities and countries, it was pretty much the opposite. Over the past month, the Occupy LA marches and protests felt like the Los Angeles Riots being massacred with Christian Saints. Everything there was just too damn surreal. I thought the demonstration of the Occupy movement here in this city was gonna last about a week since the one in New York was already in unimaginable proportions, but its still going on and when I saw a sign there that said to Occupy the Rose Bowl parade in two months, I then realized that this will go on through Thanksgiving and Christmas, which will make homeless look totally jealous during the holidays.

Honestly I'm not really into the whole movement and I don't have any interest in all this. I just went to take photos and some video of it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIVPtm_Tifk)since this was major and most of the media hasn't been covering the real side of it, just the madness from Oakland's own version of the Occupy movement a few days ago. I lived here in this city for my entire life and I never would expect to see anything like this in person. This is something that I'll probably think will be talked about for the next 15 to 20 years at least. Not to judge, but majority of the people that I saw there demonstrating, protesting and spending several weeks in Downtown don't have jobs and there are some who gave up their jobs just to show support and express their concern over corporate greed and economic government issues among other things. Hell, I don't even know too much about the background of the Occupy movement. I spent a the past week watching videos from the demonstrations in New York and some of the marches here in Los Angeles. Crazy shit happening the past few weeks. It'll be quite interesting to see how this will end, whenever that will be.

And the Lakers were supposed to start their season last Tuesday Night. Shit, I even had the money to buy tickets for the first game of the "would've been" season. I could've seen some new hot Laker Girls, Mike Brown screaming with panic and flaunting up and down the Staples Center hardwood floor, as well as seeing a Metta World Peace jersey in person and free Tacos. Obviously, the NBA lockout is an absolute waste of time. Mostly talk and discussions and shit. I don't remember too much of the previous lockout 13 years ago cause, surprisingly for a black guy like myself, I wasn't into the NBA that much (the only players I knew then were Shaq, Kobe when he was just barely legal, Jordan, Pippen, Barkley and Penny Hardaway from their signature sneakers they dropped in 1998). Its no surprise that the league isn't aware of not only losing hundreds of millions of dollars from this mess, but losing the fans interest and patience for the sport of professional basketball. I wonder what current NCAA basketball players are thinking about this? Maybe they probably are considering for playing overseas since they pay more or exercising their basic fundamentals of the sport by becoming an assistant coach for pay at a private high school Basketball team in Indiana, the Hooiser State. I bet the blokes from TNT's Inside the NBA are bored with their lives right now. I wonder how this will impact the sales for Kobe Bryant's next signature shoe, the Nike Zoom Kobe VII, since we won't see him performing in those sneakers for a while. For now here in Los Angeles, its mostly Kings Ice Hockey, a USC or UCLA college game which will go by quicker and the NFL three nights a week (Thursday night games start next week) at some local bar with DirecTV.

Alright, got a busy weekend to look ahead on. Gonna be covering a babyshower on Saturday and to test drive some more Cadillacs on Sunday with some Football at a bar again. Thanks for reading and a happy 23rd birthday to the Arlene and Darlene Arias, as well as old foolish-ass Sean Combs.

Wild Card-inal Sin Weekend

Thank God in Heaven that October is finished.

It was a D minus month to say the least, but I really don't need to explain more about it cause its already in the past.... well, except the last 5 days of it that I'm going to recap right now.

My weekend actually started on Thursday Night. I went to the DLT's cause my homegirl Tianna Edmonson of the band Aftergloam was throwing a kickback at her place for the first time in, like forever. I remember when that was frequently common around this time last year. She was showing an double feature of a Halloween episode of Freaks And Geeks and this z-list 80's horror flick that I never heard of. I was about to watch it with her, but instead, I found myself watching Game 6 of the World Series between the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals inside my friend Marlene's living room. That game was FUCKING EPIC! The Rangers were two outs away from winning the big dance, both at the ninth and tenth inning, but David Freese and the freakin' Cardinals worked the ass off to demand a Game 7, which they did get the following night. But the whole entire game itself was back and forth in terms of scoring. EVERYONE was talking about it the next day on Facebook, Twitter, the sorry-ass media, and even those who've never watched a Major League Baseball game before. Game six that night reminded the whole world why that sport is still a respected interesting tradition and past time in this country during the middle of the year, cause a lot of people underlook Baseball since they think that there's not that much action and the game takes forever to go on. For me, I've always like that sport, and I used to play it more than Basketball (surprising from a black guy) and Football when I was in Elementary school. But in all honesty, its more of like a social thing when you attend a Baseball game and bonding with you families or friends just to anticipate a surprising homerun.

The next day, I went to the Five Star Bar in Downtown Los Angeles to watch my good friend Nicole Stetter play with her band Darger De Milo for the final time. I was at her very first show, which literally lead to a lot of stuff for me. Been a while since I attended the Five Star Bar. They were showing Game 7 and it was NOTHING like Game 6, cause the Cardinals had the upper hand over the Ranger throughout the whole game which lead them to their 11th World Series title. The last time they won was 5 years ago, when I was taking Broadcasting classes with Mr. Alan Sacks (who's runs a production company that produced Disney Channel films like The Color of Friendship and the Camp Rock films) at Los Angeles Valley College in 2006. I really didn't like both the Rangers and The Cardinals, but for this series, I didn't want the Cardinals to win. I didn't hear the sound from the game cause there were other bands that were performing for the crowd. While I was waiting for Darger De Milo to go on, I spent the time talking with some homeboys and females that I usually see at the Five Star Bar, and I was reading the preview of the Steve Jobs biography as an e-book from my phone.

So far, after reading the first chapter that was only available as a preview, this book dissects the late Apple co-founder's history, even before he was born on how his actual birth parents met, as well as his adopted parents as well. It really made me wanting to read the rest of the book and you're an Apple enthusiast like myself, I totally recommend buying the book. Its addicting and the way Walter Issacson published the paragraphs with so much detail is something you can't miss reading, profiling Steve Jobs' life that nobody else knows, and there were some stuff from reading the first chapter that I never knew.

Now back to the Five Star Bar. As Darger De Milo is about to set up and get ready, I see the homegirl D'Ana Spencer in the building dressed as a hot attractive vampire (it was costume night at the Five Star) and greeted her. The last time I saw her was back in April, which was also at the Five Star Bar. I knew that she was gonna show up, so I gave her an 8x10 of her that I shot of her last year. I was originally going to give her on her birthday last December, but I didn't make it to her dinner party cause I was at Valencia test driving Toyota's new lineup of cars for the 2011 model year. She let me use Nicole's Canon Rebel DSLR to take photos of the band performing, and I didn't plan on covering that night. My homeboy Joshua, the Hear Gallery's and Five Star Bar residential house photographer, was also doing work as well, but it tough for us (myself specifically) to get some decent angles from the front of the stage since the crowd was piled up on the floor. That's no surprise since I used to take photos here alot earlier this year. After their performance, one of the Hear Gallery's other flagship bands, Moondog Orchestra, was the final act and then spent time with the homeboys Frank and Shane, who DJ'd the event, after the show.

There's not reality that much to say about Saturday. I don't even want to mention or bring it up. The whole 24 hours was just too dry and plain. Nothing exciting or noteworthy happened. I even walked to my church and got there at the time potluck started cause I woke up late from last night's show. When I got there, I wasn't greeted by anybody. I even made eye contact with some people and not a single response. I stood in line to get the food, and the Pastor was in front of me, didn't bother to look back. I wanted to say hi to him, but five seconds later, I just dipped the church and went back to my place. I've been attending there for almost 8 years and this had never happened before. I'm not shy or anything. I could've went up to the people myself, but I'm used to receiving attention anytime I enter the potluck room. That moment was just something else. I spent the rest of the day watching random ass documentaries on Hulu, including this one weird bloke who quit his job and sold his house by trying to be famous in 30 days by appearing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. This fool didn't have a camera crew or anything, he filmed the whole thing by himself. If he wanted to be famous, he could've took his video camera and used the money from his house he sold to make a sex tape by paying and featuring the entire strippers from King of Diamonds in Miami, and THEN he'll be famous that way in less than 30 days.

I spent Sunday mostly at Lee's 4 Cocktails in Granada Hills watching some NFL games cause I wanted to step out of the house for once during the weekend. Reason why I went there is that one of my homegirls keeps "checking in" there on her Facebook every Sunday, which makes me wanna try to see what the environment is like to watch a game there. This was my second there since the first time visiting the bar was on her birthday a few months ago, only this time, there was like 5 people in the bar when I entered at Noon, and 4 of them were females, including my friend. That's was rare for a bar on a Sunday, but the Raiders and Packers were on a bye week. More people started showing up later. Aside from losing 50 cents in 5 seconds to a game of pool after my opponent made the 8 ball sink in from the start of the game, I had a good time there. The unlimited hot dogs, interacting with some of the regulars and the Patriots losing to the Steelers on three different flat screen TVs made it worth attending Lee's. Belated birthday shoutout to Dafnee, the bartender there that refill my glass of Pepsi several times.

Finally on Halloween the next day, instead of running into pretend strippers and people dressed as the cast of Jersey Shore and Steve Jobs in West Hollywood, I shot over to Nicole's place for her little Halloween party she was hosting, and its was great to see her kids again. I was the only one there without a costume. Didn't plan on dressing but I wore my black Pierce College long sleeve shirt with my American Eagle jeans and Agassi signature Nikes, so I guess you can say I was dressed up kinda like the late Steve Jobs during his keynotes. The party was awesome to my option. There were alot of kids running around in different costumes, a lot of excellent food was made and everyone there went Trick or Treating for candy around the block. It was the first time in 16 years that I went on a Trick or Treat expedition and this was my third one in my lifetime. The first was in 1994 and my second was a year later back when I lived in North Hollywood. I didn't collect any candy, just pretty much taking photos of the kids collecting the sweets from Nicole's neighbors. When we got back, more of my friends that I haven't seen a a while also showed up and I chilled with them as Monday Night Football was showing on Nicole's living room TV at the same time the kids were consuming the candy they collected. Thanks to the parents of Nicole's kid's father for letting me test drive his Nikon D3100 DSLR with the telephoto zoom lens during the party and shoutout to Jorge and Nicole for the hospitality as always.

So that's the last few days of October I experienced. I don't need to bring up the Kim Kardashian/Kris Humphries divorce cause its not my business and despite the fact that I talk about her and met her many times, I knew that the split was gonna happen. Receiving 17 million from a wedding she wanted for television instead of a marriage, that all I gotta say. Man, she keeps changing ever since I first started to like her four years ago. And I'm glad that Frank McCourt is waving the white flag by selling the team since we no longer have to hear about that piece of shit and his overrated ass ex-wife. I really hope the next new owner doesn't fuck up the Dodgers clubhouse and doesn't rename the Stadium like New Orleans did with the Louisiana Superdome (now the Mercedes-Benz Superdome). Finally, I went to a Sonic Drive-In with my little brother for the first time last night on 15th Street in Palmdale. We were coming from my uncle's place in Lancaster and I didn't want to leave the A.V. without visiting that place. The burgers tasted alot like the ones at The Habit, but delicious regardless. I been driving by that area on the 14 freeway for the past two summers and I NEVER noticed it until last night. This is the closet one to the Valley, so I went there just to say that I went there.

Alright, done talking for now. Thanks for reading and don't shave until the end of the month (females are exempted)

Nerds are Expensive

According to TMZ.com, who is ALWAYS legit in their stories, they said that Lindsay Lohan will pose a nude spread on Playboy magazine for One Million Dollars. I wish this took place in 2005 instead of right now.

So I spent most of Friday at my pad in Sylmar talking a gang of shit on Twitter and transferring files and photos to DVDs and the previous generation iMac in my living room that I hardly use. Trying to make some space on the hard drives and the reason being is that I got two baby showers to cover next month and this upcoming weekend is gonna be so RIDICULOUSLY FUCKING crazy with a bundle of Halloween parties. I wanna get shots of females dressed like Steve Jobs in a tight black longsleeve shirt and dressed like Kim Kardashian on her wedding day last month. Speaking of which, the Armenian princess turned 31 on Friday, and she pretty much had her birthday weekend very low key this year. Typically, Kim would fly or drive to Las Vegas every year along with her close friends and family and get super wasted at Jet inside the Mirage or Tao inside The Venetian or whatever club that's out there on the strip and alot of people on Facebook or any other site would upload a photo of them with Kim as her profile picture to show her birthday support.

Then later that night, I watched some videos on the internet from this young tech savvy enthusiast wizard named Chris Pirillo. I've seen other tech geeks like Jon4Lakers and SoilderKnowsBest, but this dude is different. Watched one of his videos about 4 years ago when he did a debate comparison between social networking sites Myspace (which was the major at the time) and Facebook (which was only for college students then). Somehow, I rediscovered his Youtube page again when I was searching for a video on why Apple fans dislike Adobe's Flash on Mac OS X operating system, even though Flash is not supported on Apple's other operating system, the iOS, for their mobile devices lineup. He has over 3,500 videos on his channel, which is everything and anything on technology and I spent the entire night viewing a few of those while every young, ruthless, hormone-raged couple in the San Fernando Valley was watching a 3D remake in a theater that they wasted 45 bucks on (his ticket= $15, her ticket= $15, large popcorn =$6, his large soft drink= $4, her soft drink= $4, and extra pair of 3D glasses for her after her thick fat ass accidentally sat and broke them= $1). I can do all this without paying that much money, or not paying at all thanks to the hookup from AMC theaters, and I can't remember the last time I paid for a movie theater ticket (I did pay 7 bucks to see a double feature of films done by Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky that a friend of mine invited me to at The New Beverly earlier this year, but that doesn't count since its not a current film).

But after watching Pirillo's videos, it reminded me of how much I used to be obsessed with technology. If only he didn't showoff his girl that much, but I don't blame him. I remember spending hours playing with all the gadgets at Best Buy and Circuit City before they vanished. I also remember going to the libraries at middle school, high school and my Freshman semester at Los Angeles Valley College reading MacWorld, PC World and Computer Videomaker for the latest Sony video cameras. But it was mostly the Fry's Electronics advertisements in the newspapers that got me attracted every week. I remember the first time finally going to that place in back in 2002. My pops needed a new desktop for himself, so we went to Fry's instead of Best Buy and Circuit City cause the machine we were focused on was relatively inexpensive and that place was LARGE, WITH A DIFFERENT SALES ASSOCIATE ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE! I assumed that there were like 400 people that worked on the floor wearing a white shirt with slacks and a tie, and the female staff base was like...damn, they fine. This was at the Burbank store on Hollywood Way right across from the Bob Hope Airport. The time that we went was a week after my 14th birthday, so my pops said I can choose anything in the store for less than $20 and I got a freakin' 80's complication CD, which I played on repeat several times until the tracks on the disc started skipping. For the next several years, my moms started to become an avid shopper there whenever she needed a new laptop or a new TV or some accessories and I also started to visit the other stores in Woodland Hills, Oxnard (I lived less than a mile from that store when I lived there for the summer), Manhattan Beach and the one in Fountain Valley, each with a different theme inside and outside the store.

The next day on Saturday, I spent most of the time with the siblings by taking them to this youth gathering service at Forest Lawn that my sister's church is hosting along with a bunch of other churches in Southern California. At first I thought why would they do this at a Memorial Park when they could've done this at a hotel or something. The service was all right, but if this happened between 2002 to 2007, then I would've like it alot more since the attendees were mostly high school kids. Speaking of which, I ran into two people there from my 9th Grade class who I haven't seen since I left San Fernando Valley Adventist Academy in 2003. After that, I talked with two other people I never seen before, asked them stuff like what church they go to and what they do for a living. We only stayed for an hour cause my brother had to do an afternoon shift at his work, and then I went back to my place to get ready for a Nigerian "Marriage" I have to cover with my uncle that night.

Now the marriage rituals from my background is alot different than it is here. What they do is both parents of the couple, and some of the elders, get together to approve both the engaged soon to be spouses as a married couple. In the past, I shot many Nigerian weddings, but those ones had the traditional American ceremony. This is the first one I ever covered which had the traditional Nigerian Ceremony. The event took place at this church in Ontario where we did a birthday event there this past summer. I busted my knee cap from the edge of the stage while I was trying to get a shot of the couple sitting on the tables with their parents that was placed on the stage. Its still hurts a little bit right now, but its nothing major. The ceremony was decent, everything went well and we left at around 11 and I got home an hour and a half later.

Then on Sunday, I went to the Americana at Brand in Glendale for the Cadillac Culinary Ride and Drive event that I hyped about on the previous post. Its been a long ass time since I went to the Americana. Last year, it rained during this event, but this year, it was very nice and clear. I'm telling you, y'all fucking missed out on this, cause stuff like this rarely happens. I'd rather have somebody else experience this other than myself and I went just cause I did this last year and wanted to see what Cadillac had to offer in their lineup for this model year. I drove the CTS Coupe, CTS sedan, the Escalade Hybrid, and the SRX Crossover. Nothing special, just some minor features and tweaks with their engines and packaging feature options. The comparison vehicles they had this year were the 2011 Lexus RX 350, which they had last year in the 2010 model. The new comparison vehicles were the 2011 BMW X5, which was just another Bimmer to me, and two Mercedes-Benz E Classes, the Sedan and the coupe. The E-Class coupe was my favorite car of the whole afternoon, but it would've been much awesome if they had the 5 series as the comparison for the CTS instead of the Mercedes-Benz. I was getting a video of the exterior of the E-Class coupe on my T-Mobile G2, but that shit fucked up on me! It started to freeze as soon as I was going to demonstrate the startup and acceleration so now the video is no good. That kinda threw me off for a bit but driving and flooring the Benz around Glendale without the cops in sight (thankfully) made me get over on how weak my mobile phone is starting to get.

After driving over $400,000 worth of vehicles in one afternoon like everyone else in Glendale, I went to go watch some NFL games at the Cheesecake Factory there. I ate the Americana Burger (that's not named after the place coincidentally) and it was very pleasing. But what's more pleasing is the service that I was getting that day. They only had two TVs and the one in front of me was showing CBS Sports Central with Jim Hill while the other was showing the Packers/Vikings game on FOX on the other end of the bar. I was gonna go switch and tell the bartender to move my plates and drink to the other side, but he said that he can put the game on FOX on the TV in front of me and now both TVs had the same game. While I was eating and watching the Packers overtaking Minnesota's lead to avoid their undefeated season being snapped, I was also talking to two different women in their early 40's than me about why the players get fined 5 figures for unsportsman like conduct and other unnecessary roughness penalties in the league. I actually wanted to tip the two bartenders $20 each but I had to save my cash for Steve Job's biography, the Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Blu-Ray that just came out, the phone company and other bullshit expenses.

Before I left, I checked out the new Apple Retail Store in the Americana and this store is the TALLEST I've ever been to, not wide like the Topanga store, but the ceiling is just so fucking high, that you need to get a cherry picker to change the lights on top. I'm still confused on why they opened another Apple Store when there's one just across Central Avenue inside the Glendale Galleria. They should've opened that one in the Antelope Valley Mall so that those up there don't always have to rely on the Best Buy in Palmdale or the Pacific View Mall in Ventura so that those living there don't have to drive all the way to The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks to get their Macs repaired. Just doesn't make any sense, but the store and the city of Glendale does make dollars though (alright, that joke sucked). Big special thanks to the people at Cadillac for letting me go wild on their whips again and shoutout to Patti and the bartending staff at the Americana at Brand Cheesecake Factory for the dope ass service.

Like I said earlier, this upcoming weekend is gonna be filled with a shit load of costume parties, high sugar intake, fake blood that people's kids will drink and females pretending to look like lesbian hookers for three days. Plus I'm expecting to see alot of Facebook statuses about the "scary events" like Freight Fest and Halloween Horror Nights which I never liked and never been to any of them. If you want to see real scary shit, go to West Hollywood on Halloween night. The city will shut down Santa Monica Boulevard so that anyone and everyone will parade around the street dressed up as what ever you don't want to imagine. I'm thinking of going this year cause I missed out on last years since I had problems meeting up with my ride.

ONE LAST THING. I still have the Back To The Future 25th anniversary movie posters I got exactly ONE YEAR ago on October 26, 2010 at the AMC theater in Universal City for the one night only screening of the film and let me tell you, if you like the film or know someone that likes the film religiously like I do, THEN YOU NEED THIS POSTER! I'm selling it for 25 dollars and I have 3 left. I priced it high cause it really hard to find nowadays without paying extra shipping fees like eBay. I REALLY need those gone! I also have the Pirates of The Carribean: On Stranger Tides movie poster that I have available. Those I'm selling for $20. Just let me know on the comments below or hit me up on Facebook, Twitter or anything if you're seriously interested. Thanks for taking the time to reading. Have an excellent rest of the week and act like the recession has never happened.

October's Very Owned

This month hasn't been great so far.

Aside from Steve Jobs, there have been a lot of recent passings and sudden deaths from some notable figures such as Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, Indianapolis 500 race car driver Dan Wheldon, and Muammar Gaddafi who was the former dictator of Lybia for over 40 years. Plus, you got Lindsay Lohan back in the fucking headlines for the same typical shit that isn't new to everyone else and the Occupy Wall Street protests taking place in just about every major city you can think of. It looks like that shit will be around for awhile, especially here in LA.

When I went to go check it out the first weekend that it happened around city hall in Downtown earlier this month, there was ALOT OF FUCKING PEOPLE THERE! Marching around Spring Street and first while shouting and holding all kinds of signs regarding the protest. I had my film SLR with me so I managed to take about twenty-something pictures there. The scene looked like I was at Coachella again mixed with some 1960's UC Berkley, only smaller. There were all kinds of people from different races and age camping out with tents and shit. I mean, it was just too real. I thought it was gonna last for less than a week, but to my surprise its still going on. I'm just curious to see how this ends so that its get to the point where it'll be written in high school textbooks and have several adaptations of this demonstration on novels and made-for-Television movies in the future.

As far as the Death of Michael Jackson trial, man they should just throw Dr. Conrad Murray's old guilty-expression ass in prison already! I mean, fuck, I'm tired of seeing him trying hard to look like he's on the cover of GQ inside the courtroom everyday with a different suit on. That's something Pat Riley would do on the courtside, sans the slickback greased hair while Dr. Murray's hairstyle look like he just woke up without combing. Basically, he just fucked up while he had the chance to save the life of the largest entertainer in the universe in Mike Jackson. You have to be with your patients at all times as they said in one of the hearings.

Also, they're saying that if he is convicted, that he may not be serving jail time cause of his clean record and background, but to instead serve a lengthy house arrest. Well, at least just take away his medical practice license for starts, cause that has been happening longer than two years and I totally doubt that the constant delays is just to breed publicity to the Jackson family. They did a tribute show for Michael a few weeks ago in Wales. I read that there were more stars that declined to perform than those who were booked on that night. I wasn't interested in it cause honestly, the man is dead. I respect him and everything he did in the entertainment and philanthropic aspects of his career, without mentioning his bizarre court cases and his epic TV documentaries from 2003. I would say the same for Steve Jobs since the media and tech sites has been covering his passing and what he did to impact everyone's lives in such a way so much, but I won't cause like I said in the previous post, I looked up to Jobs alot more when I was young and I was really into his products and worked at one of his company's retail store. All in all, they should just extensively stop talking about both of them just out of respect, and create unofficial annual holidays of both of them in remembrance since they made such a dynamic impact over the years.

As for me so far, well, no fun as of yet. Just one year ago at this day, I was at Howl at the Moon taking photos at my homegirl Cecilia Navarrete's 21st birthday party with my friends. That was an awesome night and so many things took place that was unpredicted and fun. Now a year later, I'm just here at my place in Sylmar typing this. Kept it kinda low key, so to say.

So two weeks ago I went to a taping of the new self-titled NBC sitcom starring comedienne Whitney Cummings. I don't watch television anymore except for Pro-Football, and I've never heard of her before, but I went for two reasons: 1) to see how an actual production for a Television sitcom is like. Now I've been to other production television tapings like the Lady Gaga performance at Jimmy Kimmel Live this past summer, Cee-Lo Green's Talking To Strangers on FUSE network, two episodes of the Amercian version of Top Gear and both the MTV Movie and Video Music Awards, but NEVER to a television sitcom filmed in front of a live studio audience, and 2) it never hurts to try something new, so I gave this program a chance. From looking at the billboards all over the Valley and seeing some of the ads on Sunday Night Football on NBC, I can tell its gonna be another over-hyped soon to be cancelled sex comedy with numerous innuendos and puns, and for giving a benefit of a doubt that night, it was.

The taping was fucking long. 7 hours to shoot just one episode. It started at 6pm and I thought that it was gonna end at 10pm but apparently it finished at midnight. It was at the famous CBS Studios Center in Studio City on Bradford just north of Ventura Boulevard, where a lot of decent TV programs get filmed at, as well as the studios for KCBS 2 and KCAL 9 in Los Angeles. My second time being there this year and the first time was for a Lakers viewing party back in April. Plus, they had this "Tom Hanks from the late 80's" looking MC who was entertaining the audience by telling them the synopsis about the show and the episode that was being filmed. He even picked on me in front of everyone for not smiling but apparently, he gave me a cheap Five Dollar "Los Angeles" t-shirt that you can get on Hollywood Boulevard. The audience was filled with a decent amount lot of women who looked and acted like they're on menopause. I sat next to a black lady who looked like Grace Jones straight from Egypt wearing Cleopatra's wardrobe and this white girl who looked like an attractive twin of Scarlett Johannson. I liked the production of the show being in progress more than the show itself, but I gotta give Whitney Cummings and her co-stars props for having to recite the script on an average of 5 times per scene (they did that ALOT, which is why the show went on for a long time).

I was supposed to be this Nigerian event party last Saturday, but I didn't show up for miss-communication reasons, and it was my fault. Feeling very upset, I went to my friend Marlene De La Torre's house that night for her husband's birthday kickback to change my mood. I originally wasn't going to attended, but I just went anyways. The kickback was fun, left a bit early though cause I didn't wanna stay out late again.

Again, it was a pretty dull month. Not as spectacular like last years. I just need to have the phone company try to get my cell phone working in progress again so that's gonna be tough. By the way, I'm gonna be going to the Americana At Brand in Glendale this Sunday for Cadillac's Culinary Challenge. I'm gonna be test driving and comparing Cadillacs and other expensive luxury cars that y'all will never get to buy unless if you're a 1980's drug dealer in Miami, a European pornstar with fake tits or a assistant to Birdman from Cash Money Records or Floyd Mayweather's shoe shiner. I went to this event last year, and the whips they have are fun to drive. I don't know if the Cadillac comparison vehicles will be the "rich stay at home moms" SUVs I drove last year like the Mercedes-Benz ML class, the Lexus RX and the BMW 5 series wagon (that one I liked cause it had the M package). Plus they have all the latest Cadillacs like the Escalade Platinum trim edition (the cup warmers and coolers on there its a MUST SEE), and every CTS (sedan, coupe, and wagon) model without the V performance in them. So if I were you and if you're a car enthusiast, I'd totally go. Cause stuff like this rarely happens and I was seriously surprised and caught off-guard that they're doing this again this year. Just hit me up on Facebook or Twitter if you are planning on going. You have to register for this, but I can get you in as a plus one to save the effort.

Thanks for your time reading this, and lastly, major MAJOR shoutout to my old high school friend Marissa Mendoza for giving birth to twin girls earlier this month. I wish her new daughters happy and healthy successful lives. Congrats Marissa.

Never Leave Your Jobs

You know what, I haven't been on this site in like forever.

Around this time one year ago, I would write an average of about 9 to 15 posts at least per month. But since the last time I was here, which was a month and a half ago, there were way too many things that were stuck on my mind and things to do list which prevented me from typing on here. Also, I was on Tumblr more than usual, and I know it looks gay and shit, but if you're a photographer and presenting your work as a showcase to future potential clients, then its necessary to have a Tumblr account aside from re-blogging photos.

Finally among other things, the NFL season survived the "would've been cancelled season lockout" over the off-season which could've cost the league and networks MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS from ticket sales, stadium revenue, sponsorships (Bud Light, Southwest Airlines and E-Trade for example), and attendance at bars among other things. Plus DirecTV would've sucked this year. Andrew Siciliano and NFL Network RED ZONE Channel's Scott Hanson will have nothing to say and nothing to do except attempting to be like Bob Miller by calling NHL games. But I'm fucking glad the NFL is back, and its getting interesting so far this season. Hell, the Detroit Lions are playing with so much impressive confidence, as well as Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers performing as Super Bowl Champions since both of those teams from the NFC North, or as ESPN Chris Berman would say the "Norris Division", are undefeated right now.

On the topic of sports, I watched the overhyped Pay Per View boxing bout last month between Floyd "Cocky-ass" Mayweather and the 805's Victor Ortiz (805 is the area code for Ventura County, where I used to spend the summer at right after high school in 2006) with my good friend Blanca Aragon and her family and friends at their place, with a projector screen and a lot of food. The preliminary fights were MUCH better than the main event, cause Victor Ortiz fucked up by headbutting Mayweather in the fourth round and that's when shit started to fall off. Mayweather ended up retaining his title at the end after turning the daylights out of Ortiz by knocking him out cold. Like I said earlier, the fight only lasted four rounds instead of more. I felt bad for those who payed 70 bucks or more on this Pay Per View from the end result of the main event, unless if you're a serious avid boxing enthusiast who's more entertained from the preliminary fights other than the main event. Thanks again to Blanca for inviting me to the viewing.

So its been already a week since former Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs passed away. I was watching the Apple Keynote presentation video on the new iPhone 4s and then, coincidentally, found out about his death right after I finished watching the video. That shit totally got me by surprise. I mean, I knew he was seriously ill with his heath problems of pancreatic cancer, but I didn't think he would pass on already. I used to look up to him since I was in 5th grade, right after I watched Pirates Of Silicon Valley that aired on TNT that year. Prior to that, I've used Macintosh computers since I was in Kindergarten back in 1993, and around the same week, my pops brought home this Packard Bell home PC set running on Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS, so I was pretty much introduced to two different operating systems at the same time. I lost touch with Macintosh computers a year afterwards and I didn't get back into until I started the sixth grade 5 years later at Frost Middle School in Granada Hills. This was two years after Steve Jobs returned to the company and a year after he breathed life into Apple Computer again by launching the original iMac, with all the different colors on the exterior case. That was the very first personal computers that I saw that didn't have a floppy disc drive, but just only a CD-ROM tray. Damn as I type this, I can totally fond remembering messing around on one of the machines running on the old System 9 back in those days by surfing on Netscape every day at Lunch and Nutrition.

Then two years later in 2001, a shit load of changes happened with Apple Computer. First they introduced iTunes, then the Mac OS X platform which blew me and everyone else away when I first saw it. I remember upgrading every iMac at Frost (except the ones at the Library and the Magnet program) from System 9 to Mac OS X and showing most of the teachers how to use it. Later they, launched the Apple Retail Store by opening two at Glendale and Northridge that year. I was at the Northridge opening and I still have the t-shirt from that day, and I actually thought that the retail store was gonna be there for three months but 10 years later, its still there. That store was absolutely something else. I remember the old theater that used to be there where they would just showcase the different Apple products to those new to the Macs, and I remember seeing the first iPod MP3 player there that launched the same week that the store opened.

Then in 2003, my little brother got an iBook when me and my sisters wanted him to get a Windows notebook, but I'm glad he went with his instincts. We used to be all over that machine. I remember burning SO many CDs of 80's playlists that I made on his iTunes like its nothing during High School. After I graduated I made both of my parents get me the Black Macbook since I wanted to use it for filmmaking, and reluctantly, they did. It wasn't easy trying to get that model, but after we walked out the Northridge Fashion Center with it, I FELT LIKE I WAS FUCKING HIGH AS FUCK!!! This was the first year when they did the "buy a Mac, get a free iPod Nano" deal. My shit came with the Black MacBook, the AppleCare Protection Plan, the HP Photosmart C3100 all in one printer, and the black iPod Nano which I gave to the little brother. Before I sold it cause I needed money from the fuck-ass recession in February 2009, I was shitting on a lot of people with that notebook when I was taking classes at Valley and Pierce Colleges. Hell, that notebook got me the job at the Apple Retail Store in Sherman Oaks Fashion Square in 2007. Here's how that went.

During the summer of 2007, after I got ousted from getting into an argument with a rookie store manager at the McDonalds on De Soto and Vanowen (pre-McCafe), I spent the last week of June applying like crazy to different places, and this was a year before the job market sucked. I remember filling out applications at Apple Stores in Northridge, Sherman Oaks, Topanga, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and I think the one at Glendale. I went to Fashion Square one day to see a friend a mine who worked at one of the food courts, then walked around the mall and saw that the Bath and Body Works was hiring.

So I went there and filled out an application just for the fuck of it. Then a week later, I went to the Apple Store at the Glendale Galleria to 1.) Follow up on my resume there and 2.) Play around with the original iPhone that just launched. They said that they haven't looked at any so far and what blew my mind was that you can make ACTUAL calls on the iPhones on display. I called my voicemail on one of them and I got a message from the manager at Bath and Body Works for an interview. So I went to the interview a few days later, got the job there over a spoiled twenty-something female college graduate that got me by surprise since she had the advantage. Spent the entire summer there doing stock and around October was when shit started to change.

I got an email from the Apple Store in Sherman Oaks, out of all Apple Stores around the proximity where I live, only THIS Apple Store was right across from where I was currently working at inside the Fashion Square mall. Every other day I had a different interview, then the store told me that I had to be at the Mac OS X 10.6 Leopard event on October 26, which was my official start date. The problem was that I was scheduled to close at Bath and Body Works that night, and the manager at Bath and Body Works didn't know that I got hired at the Apple Store. So I told them that I needed to leave early cause of some emergency or something. Wasn't easy but I managed to get that request approved. As soon as I finished my very final shift there, I ran to the back of the Apple Store, was given a black T-shirt representing Mac OS X Leopard from one of the managers, and the rest was fucking history.

I can't speak too much of behind the scenes from working there, but all I can say was that it was interesting, including the orientation which took place at a hotel in Warner Center. I can't say which one just out of respect, but I met a lot nice people there. But working at the Apple Store was not only an amazing experience, but it made me get to be more interested with the company more, by having Ron Johnson, the former Retail Operations President of Apple Inc, always reminds us of the company's core values and purpose to serving their consumers for their products during the store meetings. For those who follow me on Twitter, you already know that I also met a lot of famous people there, and producers and writers of television shows and blockbuster films that year. I remember working the Black Friday and Christmas Eve shifts there.

I got thrown out of there in May 2008 for a number of reasons that I can't say on here. Thinking that I was gonna return that summer, it didn't happen cause the job market began to collapse and a lot of places were in a hiring freeze since most employers didn't generate much income for their business, and they had to let some its workers go because they couldn't meet payroll demands to compensate its workers. That shit really sucked after it kept getting mentioned in the news. So I was back in the same position that I was one year prior to this, applying like crazy and shit, only this time no one was accepting. A lot of my friends at the time that I used to kick it with at Pierce weren't able to meet up like we used to since the recession caused them to "not have time and too busy to hang out". I spent the rest of the year trying to maintain myself by selling pictures I took from driving to The Grove and around West Hollywood and Beverly Hills chasing rich famous people like Heidi Klum and Kim Kardashian with a Nikon D90. After that ended from a dispute with a paparazzi I worked with, I still found myself not generating any income, and I really needed cash. Plus I hired a job agent to find work for me and she couldn't get me a position at any job since the unemployment got much worse. So I had to sell my Macbook for a very low street price and it took care of me for a while and used some it to start focusing on my photography business that year.

I guess you can that I'm one of the biggest Apple/Mac enthusiasts that you'll ever meet. I know everything about the company and majority of the models that came out, including the Macintosh clones that were released when Apple Computer sucked in the 1990's. New Apple CEO Tim Cook did the recent keynote for the iPhone 4S, and I know he's a rookie and I respect him as a new leader for Apple in all this, but honestly, that shit was boring. I'm used to watching Steve Jobs presenting the latest updated iPhone every year after year, so now we're gonna have to get used to old soft-ass Tim Cook making Apple act like its the 90's again. But I don't blame nobody at Apple cause Steve's condition was not good and he HAD to step down as CEO back in June. Its been SUCH a fortunate privilege to work under his company umbrella, one of the best jobs (no pun intended) in the world.