That Was The Same

After this past weekend, Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook is all like: "These fucks bought the same phone... AGAIN!"

Apparently, the new iPhones, the 5s and the 5c models, were released last Friday. Both of them replaced the iPhone 5, which is the current mobile device that I have. I watched the keynote presentation that introduced the devices and to be realistic, there wasn't that much of surprises. 

Most of the features on the phone were already mentioned and leaked out by the Apple rumor sites since the iPhone 5 was introduced a year ago. They were spilling out stuff like Apple is supposedly making a cheap plastic version of the iPhone, which incase is the iPhone 5c. Then they also said other stuff such as the next flagship iPhone is gonna come in gold. I didn't believe that part at first, but apparently, Apple did released a gold version of the iPhone 5s. In other words, about at aleast 80% of the information on the rumor sites are legit nowadays. I remember back when the late Steve Jobs was around and back during my days working at the Apple Store 5 years ago, rumor sites were just rumor sites. At that time, if they did leak something from Apple that was legitimate, then they would have to scrap that design prototye and start on a new one. It mostly coincides with their notebooks and iPods, but with their cell phones, they have to show the actual products months in advance so that the Federal Communications Commission and the government have to approve it before it sells. 

I checked out both iPhones the day after it was released and to me, they were pretty much the same as my current iPhone 5. I think the difference makes more sense if you're into fast graphics First Person Shooting games on the device now that it comes with the new A7 processor, but other than that, its still the same device. The only new feature that got me interested was the ability to shoot slow motion video on the camera app thanks to its ability to shoot video footage in 120 frames per second. That shit was tight. 

The iPhone 5c in person does look like a kids toy, and it also looks like an iPod Touch with a big ass case. I really don't see too many people using the iPhone 5c. I think they should've released that phone to lower end, affordable no-contract providers like Metro PCS or Virgin Mobile, so that it can really distinct itself from the high end, rich-looking iPhone 5s. I think what they also should've done is make the Gold color only exclusive to one cell phone company like AT&T, who were the original providers for the iPhone since day one. Yet, that won't happen cause according to Tim Cook, he and the company wants that device to be accessible and used by more people thank before. In other words, he just wants to kick Samsung's ass alot in sales and numbers now that Samsung is significantly popular and releasing a different device every other week or some shit like that. Finally, the Touch ID feature is very suspect. Imagine being passed out and your girl takes your thumb like a detective and uses it to unlock your phone, just to see all the half naked chicks that you liked on your instagram profile. It can be done. 

Would I purchase the iPhone 5s? Not right now. I'm still cool with my iPhone 5. The only think that fucked up the interest were the predictable leaks and the lack of features on the 5s. I really don't anyone should jump ship from the 5 to the 5s (or the 5c of course). Hell, the 4s is still a good ass phone, but to each it own for those who want to stay on top of technology nowadays. Time to get used to seeing alot of fake looking rich women holding the Gold iPhone 5s as if it were some fashion accessory.

So what else happened this month?

-The Los Angeles Dodgers clinched the National League West to become the division champions. Then they went adult swimming at the swimming pool in Chase Field after defeating division rival Arizona Diamondbacks to clinch the title that day. Why the hell would Chase Field have a swimming pool at a baseball field? For those rich fucks who aren't interested in watching the sport? 

-Miley Cyrus still making headlines by dressing up as a methamphetamine experiment gone wrong from an episode of Breaking Bad during one of her live performances and photoshoots. Her pops seems cool with it, I assume. 

- The video game Grand Theft Auto V released last week, which made a billion dollars just three days after it dropped. Not into video games that much anymore, but I'd rather have that game be launched at the same time as the upcoming Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 to make it more special. Now fools will be delaying homework assignments and date nights in exchange for pretending to hi-jack numerous cars by driving them off the cliffs and rivers. 

-Drake's Nothing Was the Same record came out today. Like the iPhone 5s , that album was leaked weeks before it dropped. I was playing as I typed it, and it was really decent. I liked the progression and creativity of the beats and rhythms more than the lyrics that will be re-quoted more times than the transcript of The Big Lebowski. His crew had opened up a pop up shop on Fairfax last week to promote the album, by giving away free t-shirts. I didn't plan on attending this, but I had to drop off somebody in Hollywood and I thought I check it out just for the hell of it. When I got there at around 3, the time that it was scheduled to be opened, I knew there was gonna be a long line, but NOT A LINE THAT WAS EXTENDED AROUND AN ENTIRE BLOCK.That shit was like camping out for a pair of Supreme Vans down the street or something. Majority of the kids in line came from Fairfax High School across the street. After wasting two hours with the line slowing moving, we were all informed that the t-shirts were sold out. Later on, we also learned that Drake himself made a brief appearance and everyone started going to the back and chasing the black Chevy Suburban that he hopped on with his posse. I didn't see him that day, and like I said, I wasn't planning on seeing him that day. A brilliant marketing publicity stunt pulled off well. 

Anyway, thanks for your time reading this. Enjoy the rest of Autumn. 

Driving Wild In April, Fool.

I really wish the world champions San Francisco Giants coming to town to play against the Los Angeles Dodgers on opening day today would be a big April Fools joke by commissioner Bud Selig. I rather have us play any other team this today aside from those motherfuckers.

I say that cause 1.) I really don't like the Giants. 2) The last these fucks play us on opening day.... I'll leave you to figure that out since that incident overshadowed the Dodgers season, and 3.) There's gonna be more cops than fans at the Stadium, so it looks like Magic Johnson and the rest of the Guggenheim owners are paying off the LAPD to make sure no foolishness happens, despite today.

But this season should be a good one. The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox are coming here for the first time in about three to four years since we don't play them that much and I have two vouchers to go to almost any Dodger game I want this season, yet I still haven't claim them. Looking forward to going back to the Ravine again this year.

As far a the month of March, I'm kinda glad its over. Aside from turning 25, that month has been awful for sneaker releases. The only decent pair of shoes that dropped in March was the Air Jordan XIII retro "He Got Game" edition,cause it was the same colorway that was featured in the film He Got Game since Spike Lee, who directed the film, is also an Air Jordan enthusiast. The month of March also went by quickly. Maybe its cause I've been working everyday.

Now getting into Easter Sunday yesterday, alot of places were closed. I had to take a foreign couple from the Beverly Garland hotel in the North Hollywood/Studio City border to the Santa Monica Pier which I got 60 bucks for that trip. Went I got back to the Valley, I stopped by at Mulberry Street Pizzeria in Encino to get some lunch there. As I walked in, I saw Jay Leno inside with some other bloke to my surprise. He had a old 1920's style car parked in front of the restaurant on Ventura Boulevard. It was my first time seeing him in person, but I didn't talk to him or ask to take a photo of and with him. I lost respect for Leno, aside from his knowledge of automobiles which is the only thing cool about him, after 2009 when NBC (the ones who deserved the blame) decide to bring him back to host The Tonight Show again after his successor Conan O'Brien got screwed over by the network.Otherwise, if that shit never happened, then I would've left Mulberry Street Pizzeria with Jay Leno's picture and autograph. I mentioned it before in one of my previous blogs, so check that out. Anyway, he left with his friend and when he started his car, the exhaust was loud as hell. Nobody went crazy after him, cause he was just a regular person to me.

Later on that night, I made a unannounced visit to my homegirl Amber's place to spend Easter Sunday with her and her family since I was there last Easter as well. We chilled, talked with her friends and her family members and I took some photos of her niece and nephews for them. Many thanks again to Amber, Clarisa and Alex for the hospitality as always. Here are some of the photos I took last night.

When I left to go back to my pops' house, my brother's car, which is a 2001 Ford Taurus if that matters, that I was driving all of a sudden stopped running. I was scared as fuck thinking that it had something to do with the starter cause it wouldn't ignite, and the Taurus just reached 190,000 miles. The car stopped at a neighborhood street near Roxford and San Fernando Road in Sylmar. I was ready to use my emergency savings to call a tow truck to tow it to my other place in Sylmar but then I decided to walk to the Chevron on Encinitas and Roxford about 3/4 of a mile away from where I was at and fortunately, my brother had a 2 gallon gasoline tank in the back of his car. So I walked over to the Chevron, fill up the 2 gallon tank and walked back to pour some gasoline in the car. When I started it, it then started running like normal, which was weird cause the gas reserve on empty light didn't show when I was driving and it wasn't completely on Empty in the dashboard. With the car driving now, I drove to another Chevron in Granada Hills and paid 50 bucks to fill that shit up to a full tank of gas. I guess pretty much fate decided to do some kind of practical, unorthodox April Fools prank, even thought it was a few hours early, but its all good though. 

Well, that does it for this update. Thanks for your time reading this and go Doyers. 

Lining Up is For The Children

Last night while everyone in their Twenties was getting drunk off overpriced bottles of Patron and Smirnoff on Hollywood Blvd, I was just browsing though random images on the cyberspace until I came upon this image.

I guess the late Dirt McGirt was right at the Grammy's 15 years ago. Speaking of which, The Wu-Tang Clan, along with many well known and unheard of bands (excluding Ultraista which got me upset) are featured in this years lineup at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Here's what was placed on the table last night. 

Unfortunately, they don't have any holographic performances being billed on here. So instead, you can imagine your own private concert of your favorite deceased artist by tripping out on some 'shrooms and cannabis you got in exchange for your generated refrigerator filled with bottles of ice cold SmartWater. Afterall, Coachella Valley gets very hot, and this is from experience. If you don't believe me (which you should by now), here's my synopsis from the time I went there three years ago Coachella 2010 recap.

Oh and before I finish, the Los Angeles Dodgers are selling tickets for this upcoming season tomorrow at Chavez Ravine, along with a festival that will have a shitload of long-ass lines just to get an autograph from Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, and several legendary former Dodgers players in attendance that your kid or younger cousin has never heard of. I've already met former Dodgers manager Tommy LaSorda two years ago and posed for a photo with him along with the bling from the 1981 World Series that we owned against the New York Yankees during the fall classic that year. Don't believe me again? Man I'm spoiling y'all.

This is much more valuable, to me, than getting Ethier's signature for a high school sophomore. Otherwise if that moment never happened, then I could've been driving up past Elysian Park and the Los Angeles Police Academy at 5AM in my Kemp jersey and a Venti-sized Starbucks drink with me, talking to other Dodger Fans waiting to get tickets and enjoying the festivities as we all watch the sun rise while waitin' and chillin' at the Ravine.  Still can't believe that we have to play the World Champion San Francisco Giants on opening day again (I don't wanna bring up the last time we played them on opening day, and they also won the World Series the season before), which is one of the main points on why Full House sucks (except Lori Laughlin as Aunt Becky). Here's the link with more info on the event. Dodgers FanFest 2013 info

To those going there either yourself or with your girl and your families, and whatever else you got planned this weekend, enjoy it and have a safe fun time. Thanks for reading.

Happy Re-Birth Day

I don't event know how to start off this post. I mean, I know what I'm about to write, but after days of planning this, I still can't seem to write this entry like I successfully did in my previous posts.

Its wild and confusing how we receive or earn something, be it a person, place or thing (money obviously). Then unexpectedly out of no where, we no longer have possession of it, which leaves us confused as to why it was taken from us in this wild reality.

Two weeks ago was Bezold Photography's final weekend working at the Westfield Topanga. Prior to that, I've been hearing rumors from my co-workers that we might close down or move someplace else. I thought that was fabricated bullshit,  until my boss sent me an email saying that the last weekend of August was gonna be the final weekend at the Topanga mall. All right, maybe we might go to Northridge mall the following week after that once I assumed after reading the message. Well, that idea was dropped when I met up with my boss that last Friday of the month for the first time since the start of the month. He said that the Northridge mall didn't want us there cause they already have a studio portrait, so for now, Bezold Photography is on hiatus, which doesn't look good. He also told me that he has another location in Burbank Town Center, yet they already have a full time photographer there. Before I met up with him, I was hitting on this cute girl in front of entrance after I parked my brother's car in the garage. He was in St. Louis that Labor Day weekend, so I had to watch over his whip. It was going well so far and I was about to score on her, but I needed to get my paycheck from my boss so that I can try to achieve a "double play" on her over a plate of sushi for lunch at a high end Japaneses restaurant inside the mall. Well, that didn't happen cause my boss showed up 30 fucking minutes late. I got here on time as I was told, expected him to be at the kiosk already, and the girl said she had another class at Pierce College just not too far from here in 45 minutes. I really didn't want to keep her waiting, so just out of respect, I told her she can take off for her next class so that she won't be late. I would've been fucking upset if I was 5 years younger, but I've dined with unknown females many times before, so this is nothing new.

But back to my boss and the situation with my work. He was there to sell the prints for the customers who came to pick up and had their kids' photos taken the week before. One of the customers raised serious hell on us and said that one of the photos, without going into details, was pure shit. She went as far to get the Westfield mall management and two security guards, and that's what made it much worse. The manager was a female who's around my age, but acts like she came straight from a boot camp in jail with a masters degree. Damn, she went IN on my boss, who twice my age with limited English (he's from Peru but I can still understand his English) and that gave the manager more advantage over him. It was a nightmare to witness this argument, which I was thrown in as well to defend my boss. Finally, we had no choice but to give the customer the rest of her photos for free. It was just me and my boss there that day. He gave me my pay and told me that I could take off right after that shit happened. I wanted to say till 9PM to help him sell the photos to prevent another chaos taking place from the customers, but he said that he'll get through it by himeself. As I walked away leaving him there by himself, I felt emotionally fucked up inside. I'm now back to where I was since the beginning of the year, without a legit job for now again.

I had issues with Westfield's management in the past from when I worked at Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks. Because of them, I vowed never to step inside the Topanga mall and any other Westfield owned mall ever again. I had many great memories going to Westfield Topanga for the past 13 years. I even remember when that mall was just a small strip from the Sears at the south end, all the way to the Macy's at the North end (before it was a Robinsons-May). The Neiman Marcus that's there right now used to be where the old Nordstrom was placed before being currently moved to the corner of Owensmouth and Victory Blvd. I was also there on October 2006 when they debuted the new expansion stores east of the mall along with a upgraded food court (that was the first mall I ever seen where they had REAL utensils instead of plastics and glass plates in a food court) and the Apple Store there was opened that day too. I used to bring majority of my classmates from Pierce College all the time to Topanga in 2007 and 2008 just to chill and act a fool there. Working there did save my summer as opposed to washing cars everyday in triple digit heat in North Hills before I came to Bezold Photography. That was one of the many blessings I was greatful to take use of.

I could've made those last paragraphs a separate blog post, but like I said, I was emotionally drained since I stopped working there and didn't have the energy to type. Some of the things that made me feel up to my feet were going to two Dodgers games and attending Primitive's four year anniversary barbecue event since September started. Thanks again as always to the staff at Primitive, Dawn and Justene Jaro, Shay Maria, Talisa Monet, Alexis Lopez, my homeboys Frank and Zishan for making my Labor Day weekend excellent. Oh and major shoutout to the Los Angeles Dodgers organization for upgrading me and Zishan's seats from Right Field Pavilion to Field Level closer to the action and still have us keep the All You Can Eat privileges, which is something that I'll probably never see again.

To me, its still hard to believe that 11 years ago on this Tuesday that many innocent lives were taken away unexpectedly in New York City as well as the Pentagon and United Flight 93. I already wrote where I was on that day on a previous September 11th post I typed to save the time. I'm glad that everyone got through the hardship and now September 11th is a regular day again. I was expecting it to be a national holiday or something cause that shit was intense. Was very fortunate to see the Twin Towers in person on my first trip to new York City back in Labor Day weekend 2000, just a year before they were no longer in existence. Still tripping out about it right now. I remember people discussing and recognizing it up every year just like how elderly pre-baby boomers are still mentioning the attacks on Pearl Harbor in December 7, 1941, cause that shit was intense to them at their time. Even thought I'm not affected by the tragic events from that day since it took place in the east coast, I just don't feel like doing anything or going anywhere today just out of respect for those who didn't ask or request for their lives to be taken away. That's how crazy that day was, and ever since then, people's views started to change differently, as if we all got re-baptized or something.

Not only is today the day we remember people lives being gone, but on a positive mote, today is also a day for a special person that I know through a good friend of mine in Nicole Stetter who's been given and received another year in life. I first met her at Nicole's house two years ago, and she (along with my other homegirl Chirstina Campa who's birthday is in two days) was the reason why I was there for their birthday party that day. If it wasn't for that night, I can't even think where I would see myself right now. Because of her birthday party that night, I was able to establish a wide spectrum of mutual relationships with others and expand my photography with them. It was there at that night where I saw Aftergloam performing for the first time ever, and if it wasn't for that night, I would've never met Elvis Galvez and his incredible family, and I would've never met Tianna Edmonson and have attend her unforgettable last minute kickbacks in her old garage every month. Just standing next to her and having a conversation with her at a soiree is like that emotion of a pitcher after accomplishing a no-hitter during a perfect game twice in the same season (which is super rare in Major League Baseball). I don't like to see her birthday being overshadowed by a national tragedy, but the bottom line is that she's just too awesome to get to know, and she has a nice smile. By the way, I first heard about instagram from her back in early 2011. Anyways, happy 24 birthday to Annamarie Rhyne today. Here's a photo I took of her in Nicole's room earlier this year. Thank you, Annamarie.

Thanks for your time reading this, and enjoy as much as you can in life before it gets taken away without warning.