Out of all the places in the O.C., Dana Point has to be the most upscale, elite destination for savvy-ass rich people who happen to make at least a quarter of a million dollars as their annual income. That place is so fucking nice, that I can't even emphasize more on the word "fucking nice". Right by the beach, it shits on Malibu and Playa Del Rey as a place to reside on the shore, yet its as similar as Santa Barbara which is also the same driving distance. The last time I went to the south part of the O.C. was back in 2006, when my pops and I went to the John Wayne Airport for his business trip to Philadelphia, and this was back when The O.C. was still on TV. I've been to the northern part of Orange County several times. Hell, my uncle and I were there the day before to pick up his new toy: the Sony HVR-HD1000U professional DV camera. We bought it off from some guy in Garden Grove FOR A MOTHERFUCKING STEAL OF A LIFETIME!
Initially, the camera retails at $1,800 and you can get it for street value at around $1,400 to $1,500, but shit, we copped it for $900 FLAT. There were absolutely no catch, no bullshit, and no problems with the camera, looks totally brand new. Apparently, you don't see to many filmmakers and small video productions using that model that much. To me, its a great, underrated camera that shoots in full HD at 60 fps and has dozens of manual controls that you'd see in the other higher end Sony professional video cameras. After that then we drove to Samy's Camera in Santa Ana, and trust me, their service was shit. The one on Fairfax is the one I only go to majority of the time and this Samy's Camera isn't a three story building like the Fairfax one. The other reason we went is that its closer to where we just bought the video camera at Garden Grove so that my uncle can get some tapes and other accessories. The place is really compact and all there weren't that many employees and staff for assistance. It felt like we were waiting for a table at the Cheesecake Factory or something. So after my uncle got what we needed, we then drove to Battery City next to the Beverly Center to get some extra batteries, knowing that the camera was gonna take up alot of juice while shooting in High Definition. Ironically, the Samy's Camera that I typically go to is just a mile east of Battery City on Third Street, but whatever, we already went to the one at Santa Ana. Then later, we drove to Glendale to 1) Avoid the rush hour traffic 2) to buy some CD's so that my uncle can use them for a slideshow and 3) to show him the Glendale Galleria since he said he's never been there before. We killed time there by eating Panda Express, in which that location was the first ever Panda Express to open in greater Los Angeles, and for him to watch me scope on some fine Armenian women shopping there. Remember, he lives in Lancaster and the Antelope Valley Mall is the closest to him.
But back to the birthday party at the Ritz Carlton. I thought its lasted fairly long since many Nigerian events go on till about 3AM just like the many shows and parties that I've been going to every week this year. Just took a good amount of photos and shot some video with the Sony HVR-HD1000 as well. My uncle told me that we were gonna have to sleep over at a hotel in Orange County before we got there. At first, I thought that we were gonna stay at the Ritz, but because the rooms were all book and being that its pricey as fuck for one night, we decided to go to another hotel close by. We then LITERALLY drove around the OC in the middle of the night looking for a decent hotel but every single place was booked, including the ones on the Pacific Coast Highway. Hell, we even killed some time during our hotel search by driving around Newport Beach looking for Kobe Bryant's house (I'm not kidding, we actually did that but got bored out of it after 5 minutes) The streets were very quiet, meaning there were absolutely no cars at all on the PCH and on the freeways. About two hours later, we found a hotel room at a Holiday Inn Express in Garden Grove, out of all fucking places since we were there two days before, and my uncle managed to get the last room there. Reason being is that there were a group of tourists who were here on vacation to go to Disneyland which is like 20 minutes from the hotel and they booked the entire hotel months in advance, as well as some of the other hotels that we went to.
So we checked in at 4AM, got to our rooms and rested. The next day I had some free breakfast that the hotel provided, answered some text messages and watched some SportsCenter and Superbad. Right when I changed to Superbad, they were showing the Liquor store scene where Seth Rogen and SNL's Bill Hader as cops confronting Fogel and questioning him about his McLovin ID. For those that don't know, that Liquor Store is the same liquor store on Victory and Western Avenue in the Burbank/Glendale border. Majority of the films that you've seen have been shot in the Valley, and I've seen some of those movies being made in the 23 years that I've lived there. At around 11AM, we checked out and then stopped at Frys Electronics in Fountain Valley to see if we can get some more accessories, but we walked out with no accessories. Later, we went to this Nigerian woman's apartment, who we saw at the party the previous night, to take some engagement photos since she's getting married next week and we're covering that wedding. Her fiance isn't photogenic, so I just took photos of her and her two kids. After that then my uncle took me back to my pops crib and then took off to his place in the A.V.
For the past week, there have been news stories saying that one of the Riverside council persons legislated to split the state of California into two different states: one being the original California and South California, with Orange County, Riverside County, Kern Country and other counties being annexed from California to be part of the new state. Los Angeles County won't be part of the secession to the new state since its close by to the other counties. In other words, when they make a children's jigsaw puzzle of the projected 51st states of the USA, then the pieces for both Californias will look odd as hell instead of its usual banana shaped piece. It sounds like a ideal plan, but unfortunately, I don't see that happening at all, regardless on how much serious debt, education and other financial problems California has currently. If that does happen, then those in the OC and San Diego will have to go back to form scores of line at the South California Department of Motor Vehicles to get new license plates and state Identifications for the new states. Plus, I assume that we have to pay state toll fares in order to go to Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival or Disneyland Resort, which the counties that they are in are at South California. What much worse is that the United States flag will have to be realigned to 51 stars. The president and the government might have to find Betsy Ross' ancestors to make the supposed new flag. At the end of the day, that shit won't pass anytime soon.
Alright, well I would write more, but I have a busy ass weekend in video editing and playing with my uncle's iMac again to look forward to, which won't involve driving outside the Valley to the Westside and Los Angeles. The roads will be pure hell as they would say, but I'm gonna try to get some photos of the 405 freeway being empty to see if its all just hype that the media keeps saying. Maybe the citizens of the Valley and Los Angeles should take notes on how Orange County keeps their roads empty, before they have to pay the state toll fares to cross the state boarder whenever the secession DOES happen.
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