The Fifth Year in July

Independence Day was yesterday. I didn't like it.

I was at my crib in Sylmar during the whole 4th of July, and that shit was annoying. Drunk excited fools were blowing off Fireworks, Roman Candles, M80s, cherry bombs, and other explosives since the afternoon. Yes, fireworks went off during the daytime. As I said on my Twitter, It felt like being at an episode of World Wrestling Entertainment's Monday Night Raw with all that noise and explosions in the sky. If you've been to driven past Sylmar at least once, you'll see some people riding horses on the streets (in fact, its the only city in the San Fernando Valley where people ride horses on the streets legally) and on the Fourth of July yesterday, shit, them horses were scared as fuck and started galloping like crazy. Thank God nobody fell of and had a Christopher Reeve moment (that's how he got paralyzed for life until his death). The only thing I like about this holiday is the history of it, from when Washington gained its own Independence (hence the name) from Britain and had a ballistic Revolutionary war that started the formation of the United States of America. I'm very fortunate to live her my whole entire life.


On one of my posts last month, I explained that I just got a full time gig at Galpin Ford washing Mustangs and Lincolns and other Ford related vehicles. Unfortunately, I just resigned from working there and I was just there for a month. Reason being is that I got another job at the Topanga mall as a studio portrait photographer for Bezold Photograhpy. I applied for Bezold Photography a month before I started working at Galpin. I thought they threw my resume away or something cause I got an email from the manager saying that he wants to interview me. So I went to the interview, which lasted 5 minutes. All I had to do was just set  the exposures on the camera and demonstrate how to activate the strobe lighting. Went by quick. I got there five minutes late and I had some sweat on my forehead when I met the manager. After the interview was over, I then kept thinking that he may not hire me and that there might've been about 20 other experienced photographers that he could've chosen instead. All that nervousness disappeared after I got an email saying that I was hired and that I was gonna start on July 1st.

I'm not gonna lie, but I was happy as fuck after I read that.

That was the only best thing about that day. There were other shit that happened on June 29th which made Friday the 13th two weeks early.

-Katie Holmes filed for divorce from Tom Cruise. She could've been set for life from all the royalties that Tom Cruise made in his films. The worst part is that Katie Holmes also requested full custody of their daughter Suri Cruise in the divorce suit. As a person like myself who grew up next to Hollywood and has experienced two divorces from my parents (true story), this sucks. Well the part with Tom Cruise not seeing his daughter, but everything else about this divorce case is nothing in Hollywood.

-Lauryn Hill get sent to jail for not filing income tax returns. Shows that some musicians aren't that crazy rich. Very sad to hear a talented artist who won a shit load of Grammys back in the late 90s gets thrown into this mess.

-Adele announces to the universe that she's gonna be a mom. Good for her expecting a kid which was unexpected to the rest of us. The bloke who piped her is 12 years old than her.

-Lamar Odom returns to Staples Center. Not as a Laker again, but as a Clipper again. Now those games are gonna sell out and the tickets will increase in value. No surprise if his wife is getting scored on by Clipper Darrell in the Staples Center crowd.

-Magic Mike premieres in theaters. Fuck, no thanks.

-Instagram servers crashed from the storms in the east coast that messed up their server base there. Yeah, alot of scene kids and spoiled chicks with iPhones weren't able to take photos of their dinner at some restaurant or a landscape sunset taken at a place that I've never heard of for a few hours, and that caused them to loose their patience. Not just instagram, but Netflix was out as well. I don't even have Netflix so I can't speak on that. Anyways, it got resolved over the weekend and now its working. It weird cause I used to talk so much shit about instagram for the past two years but now after they launched a Android version of it last April, I then forgot everything I said about it and then got completely addicted to it. Then Mark Zuckerburg and Facebook's corporate ass bought it out for motherfucking 2 Billion dollars. With that being said, follow my black ass on instagram. Screenname: justforsneaks07

-Erin Andrews quits ESPN. I had the privilege to see her in person early last year at The Grove, and she looks better on TV. Her stint on "Dancing With The Has-Beens" and that peephole incident made her exposed as not just a sports reporter. I even blogged about her three years ago. http://justforsneaks07.blogspot.com/2009/07/my-dearest-rachel-nichols.html

So like I said, I'm glad I got to finally do what I like every weekend. Its crazy to actually say that my stint at Galpin Ford was shorter than Kim Kardashian's previous marriage to gay-ass Kris Humphries. But let me tell you what's actually longer than that fabricated marriage.

Myself joining Facebook (my first profile) five years ago- July 1, 2007

Myself joining Flickr- July 1, 2008

Myself joining Blogger (this site)- July 1, 2009

As you get older, you start to look back and notice how much time has went by from when you started on whatever you're currently focused on. I remember when I first launched "Random Shots" on Blogger (I originally had it hosted on iWeb back when I owned a Macbook in 2008), times were somewhat different. Barack Obama was just getting used to the White House. Now his term is gonna be up in 4 months. Michael Jackson just passed away a few weeks earlier. Now they're still doing tribute shows and his Physician Dr. Conrad Murray is locked up. The Lakers at the time just won the NBA title and Kobe Bryant won his fourth ring. Now the Miami Heat won the NBA title and Lebron James won his first ring. My little sister just finished her Freshman year at Kennedy High School then. Now she's about to start her Freshman year in College next month.

Many thanks to everyone (especially the ones who read my long ass posts word for word) for always to stop what you're doing for a few moments of your valuable time just to read some of the thoughts that I type up on here every now and then. I'm still gonna continue writing some entertaining stuff on here cause that's what I like to do, and the feedback of it makes me more confident as I keep typing. Again, thank you for your time.

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)

Free Mason

In the next 17 years, Mason Dash Disick will have to deal with his "Baby Gap" pinstripe suit swagger and unique creative photoshoot concepts with his extended family like this one for Holiday Year 2010 until he becomes a legal adult. They need to hire me in the future.

By the way, Khloe Kardashian-Odom looks hot in that portrait, yet her husband had to be photoshopped in this cause he had practice at the same time. This shows that Digital Imaging is legit.

From getting what you came for, just because

Fuck, its already December, the last month of 2010.

This past few days have been absolutely crazy in terms of being busy. I haven't gotten a chance to stop and relax for a bit. I even tried to be internet sober for 12 hours last Friday, but instead, I winded up doing some work at my Pops house in Granada Hills by cleaning the yard and some interior housework. Later on, I spent the rest of the time to kill by finishing up the Toy Story 3 DVD that Pops got the week before to play for the kids at his Thanksgiving party.

After watching the film, I gotta admit, that shit was VERY funny. Yes, the ending was kinda somber for those who've seen and understand the first two films in theaters like myself, but I DIDN'T SHED A DAMN TEAR LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE DID. The film was pure comedy. Hell, I was laughing throughout some, if not, most parts of the film. Now I totally regret not watching it in theaters this past summer, especially in 3D. But at least I didn't have to deal with the fucking kids screaming and the high school dipshits talking/texting inside the theater during the screening, another reason why I don't go out to cinemas that much.

Speaking about nostalgia, Facebook is now having this weird cause where you have to post a cartoon character to raise awareness for children who are victims of child abuse. Here's the exact quote of this whole shit.

"Change your facebook profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. Until Monday, there should be no human faces on facebook, but a stash of memories. This is for eliminating violence against children"

To me, that's just an excuse to let everyone in the whole world know what guilty pleasure animated show you used to watch back in the day without being totally embarrassed. Plus the whole cause makes no sense at all. Whoever started it needs to get their ass kicked, or has gotten their ass kicked in the past which him or her create this awareness cause. I mean why cartoon characters? Why not just post up baby pictures of ourselves instead, but that won't happen because at least half of Facebook's demographic are too lazy to scan pictures. I don't like to be biased, but I've seen it happen. This thing is supposed to go on until the end of tonight, but I won't be surprised if people kept their favorite cartoon characters up after the end of this month. As much as I love to bring up the past many times, you can't always live in it in the present. Once it gone, its fucking gone.

So y'all wanna talk about animated nostalgia, all right then. Here's my throwback profile picture for this ridiculous cause that I put up for a few hours.

Original 1991 Jetsons: The Movie VHS. You can't find this videotape anywhere nowadays, except a used copy on eBay. Way long out of print. That, along with The Flintstones were one of THE BEST cartoons in the history of the world, and its a fact. They were what The Simpsons are today back when those two shows debuted, by airing on Primetime television after dinner. Hanna-Barbera owned the entire Saturday Morning industry by shitting on Disney and Warner Bros. (who were also decent) back in 60's, 70's and 80's. I did it for the hell of it just cause everyones profile pictures kept grewing on me, and to use as an excuse to not feel embarrassed. But in terms of child abuse, sadly, nobody in this world is perfect and everyone was raised differently, otherwise I'd use this unorthodox photo of Dr. Phil McGraw as my profile picture instead.

Alright, enough about my childhood before I get too caught up being stuck in the 1990's again (which I don't really mind that much). I just wanted to get that out of my mind. Twitter is doing the same shit with celebrities abandoning their updates on their profiles until the cause that they're supporting raises One Million Dollars to fight and prevent AIDS being spread in Africa and India. Now, at first, I'm all for that and shit, but did they REALLY have to go as far as having popular A-list celebrities "dying"? Haven't we learned something from 2009?

Everywhere I go in conversations, people say that so many celebrities that year has passed away than any other year. You're not supposed to fuck with death, or pretend with it. I was surprised that movie Death at a Funeral was premiered at the beginning of this year. I'm sure the movie must've been green-lighted prior to 2009, but they should've at least re-wrote the script or changed the title. Then again, its a recession since movie studios can't afford to do production all over again and controversy creates cash. Why can't each of the stars just used their millions of their own money? Or hell, even most of the bankrupt-proof corporate big wigs and that rich asshole Mark Zuckerburg just donate to that cause in which the total amount will QUADRUPLE, TRIPLE, DOUBLE the amount totaled that buyalife.org, the site running this cause, will reach. Here's one of the advertisements for this.

Looking at this really gives me the chills. Speaking of Kim Kardashian, I met her again for the ninth time last Thursday.

First and foremost, MAJOR thank you shoutout to my homeboy Ryan Castro for hooking me up with this again. I was gonna skip this, but apparently he managed to tag me along with him. It was a book signing event for their book Kardashian Konfidental at the Borders at Westfield Century City mall. I saw Kim there twice earlier this year, but I think they should've held this at a larger Borders like the one in Westwood just a few minutes northwest of Century City, or even the one at Northridge, or shit, even at the Barnes and Noble at the Grove, where alot of famous people go to do their book signings which take place like almost every week. The line for this event was, without reason, the LONGEST craziest motherfuckin' line I've ever seen, for a book signing. The line was so wild, that they had to make four different lines just to get their book signed. There were people who stayed since Borders closed the night prior to this so that they can be the first ones to meet her and her sisters.

When we got there, there were a lot of people in line that I recognized and remembered from previous Kim Kardashian meet and greets, lots of people. Shit felt like a class reunion. Plus I met some new people and left the mall with a lot of contacts from some hot females as usual, including Cindy Martinez from Channel 22, a Spanish television station here in Los Angeles. Damn, she is FINE as fuck, and I hate to say it but she outdid the Kardashians in looks and attention that night. There were like three media photographers at least hitting on Cindy Martinez while Kim, Kourtney and Khloe were posing for the camera as they came out. Again, another terrific night. Here are some photos.

Cindy Martinez could easily be the fourth lost Kardashian sister. I really wanna do her.

Despite what their book states, this is what made Kim and her family famous. Nothing absolutely wrong with it.

Money shot of the night.

what 1,400 people skipped class and work to stand in line for that day.

Anyway, I gotta get back to work editing more photos. I really don't wanna stop blogging and writing more posts. By the way, shoutout to the USC Trojans football team (who, according to the book that Kim's father went to school at and their family friend OJ Simpson played at, but I knew that the whole time) for creating an upset at Pasadena against UCLA last night and also by going through another unusual season. One more to go by in 2011 and after that, its back to the BCS again.

Well, I HAD to do this today

The Armenian Princess is now in the Thirty-Something club, where being an ADULT is at instead of the roaring Twenty-somethings, which is the new "teenagers" nowadays. Holy shit, Thirty years old already? I remember back when she first came on to the exposure scene with Paris Hilton, she was in her mid-twenties back in 2006. All these photos were taking by me, non-stalker, I repeat, NON-STALKER STATUS by the way, and some of these were from my paparazzi days in 2008 and others just random meet and greets.

Happy 30th Birthday Kimberly. Looks like no more crazy parties. Already celebrating right now.

Strip Down, Sales Up

Looks like Kim Kardashian is turning back to the first page of her Playboy... I mean, her "Playbook of success" in the new issue of W Magazine.

If overpriced textbooks and frequent group study dates at Starbucks doesn't fit you, looks like this is the better and more efficient route to be rich and recognized nowadays. Boys and girls, needless to say, sex sells.

Miles Austin wins...for now

Let's hope the "Kardashian Victory luck" gets his team a ninth appearance at the Super Bowl, which will take place at his hometown stadium, "Jerry's World", next year.

By the way, on Tuesday I was gonna write and post this along with the review of the All Star game that the National League finally won and making an WCW/nWo reference to Zydrunas Ilgauskas signing with the Miami Heat to play along with his former teammate Lebron James. Apparently, the site kept messing up like it had a virus or something so I decided to re-make this posting about Miles Austin dating Kim Kardashian, which sucks to me, instead of throwing in other sports to make this into a SportsCenter style posting. Plus she looks so fucking fine in these photos.

Kim Kardashian's "Tax Deductions"

This photo showed that she made the April 15th deadline. In Hollywood, and everywhere else in the planet, Sex Sells.

Pricless plugs

We got United States citizens putting their lives on the line in the Middle East right now (shout out to all those with guts out there), we're still in a recession that's slowly....again, SLOWLY coming to an end, and we have thousands of people who are getting sick from the virus that's been occurring this past year. I already heard about him suspending his account (I'm not even gonna say what account he deleted), but this didn't really need to make the front page on CNN's website. This is something you'd find on E! News or 106 and Park (not trying to be stereotypical but I'm also dark skinned). Shit, this must be a bodacious hangover from finally splitting with America Online last week for Time Warner. Bottom line, I think he should be behind bars instead of going to every major network"Exclusive" (no pun intended) interview and apologizing in different ways. I mean, come on, THE GUY FUCKING SUCKER PUNCHED RIHANNA IN THE FACE, and I met both of them last year.

Staying on the topic of entertainment before I finish, the fourth season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians premiered this past Sunday night. I thought that shit was gonna premiere in March 2010 like before, but this episode lasted an hour, whereas the wedding special (that I almost got into) last month was a freaking 2 hour movie. I might appear in like 2 episode this season cause the many times that I met Kim Kardashian recently, there's always a camera crew around her and her family. By the way her sister Kourtney gave birth to a young boy today. All I can say to her is this is what you get for turning 30. Kiss the clubbing goodbye and welcome to the rest of your life, and a second potential spinoff in the future