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.

October Month in Review

I want to get this quickly off myself first of all.

Yes I know I'm late on this but FUCK THE NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION FOR DISQUALIFYING THE TROJANS INTO THE PLAYOFFS FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS. I've said this before and I'll probably say it until they make a movie out of this shit which will never happen. Some people here worship the Lakers, some idolized the Dodgers, I'm not sure about those who devote themselves to the L.A. Kings, but for me, its all about the USC Trojans football team. Out of at least 30,000 or more schools in this country, regardless of any division, why the fuck is the University of Southern California the one taking the heat. Oh yeah, its those agents willing to feed and fuel the athletes with gifts to make them play better and feel good about themselves. Its like steroids without the steroids.

Why did I bring this up again? The game against Oregon yesterday made me very upset. I didn't see the game on TV but the only thing I saw was the score online. Shit, this was at the Coliseum in front of a national television audience. If this was 2005, either the result would be the other way around, otherwise if the score was the same, then Keith Jackson would be speechless or whatever just like the 2006 National Championship game, which I don't want to get into. The only thing you would hear after the game is the Ducks fans texting their colleagues outside the Coliseum that their drive from Eugene to Los Angeles was totally worth it. But sadly, the Trojans aren't playing for anything this year, and for some people, there's no point of watching them this year. I just watch them cause they're the only team that I actually liked for a long time. They beat the shit out of Berkley in their previous home game, which really impressed me.

Another thing that I wanna spill out is that I really dislike Halloween and everything about it. The only positive thing about it is looking at the females dressing up like whores and strippers, but its more convenient if your wife or significant other was with you in that attire, otherwise its gets dried out really fast. Again, I do not like Holidays, including Christmas. I say Christmas cause everyone views it as a marketing tool for the corporate "white collar big wigs" in the Fortune 500 companies to generate such extraordinary revenue for themselves. This person form my church said that its all about getting "free stuff", which is... in a sense, true. I wanna go to a church with somebody on that day, regardless of any christian domination and just enjoy the holiday spirit by watching and listening to the choir telling the story of Christ's birth in songs. I could care much less if I get don't anything in December 25th, cause, that's kids stuff.

Plus its amazing how they're already hyping up the holiday frenzy already since last week, and October is damn near not even finished yet. I was at the Glendale Galleria last Thursday to take photos of Cindy Crawford (who looked the freakin' same after all these years) promoting her signature skincare product at JCPenney. As I was waiting, I walked by Macy's and they already had CHRISTMAS TREES up at their fragrance department. I was like shit, why not make Christmas Day a month early? But that's already been superseded with the annual "Black Friday" shopping event, the day after Thanksgiving. I'm surprised that those traditions are still going on during the recession where the unemployment rate is STILL increasing.

I wanna touch up on that real quick. Yesterday, I saw a 60 Minutes documentary on how those people unemployed had 99 weeks to be financially taken care of by getting unemployment checks during that period until they find a stable job. But unfortunately, after 99 weeks, those people are still unemployed , and they can't get unemployment benefits after that timeframe expires. So now those people, who went to college back when compact Japanese import vehicles like Honda's Civic, Nissan's Datsun line, and Toyota's Corolla gain notoriety during the oil crisis, are not working since they are almost close to reaching their retirement milestone. The sad part is that they also can't find work and be hired cause of the younger generation, or those under 25, are pretty much dominating the entry level lower-end workforce. I don't know whether to view this as ageism, which is like racism towards age, but I've seen people who I thought looked like they should be a CEO or an exec of some company in a high rise building in Downtown Los Angeles working in places my little brother should be working at. Very sad to see this and embarrassing if it was one of your parents in those positions or worse. All I can say is that to those fortunate enough to make a decent living at the least, just be glad and blessed with what you have, and hold on to it tight. I mean, VERY TIGHT, with knowledge. Just remember where it came from and how you got it.

As for myself, the past month has been pretty much a whirlwind. More like 50/50 or 85/15. There have been some fractures in my family recently (nobody died by the way) and it got to the point where I HAD to move out. So thankfully, my mom's knows this Filipino lady who I think she worked with a while ago and she lives at a house in Sylmar and taking care of her disabled family, who are all older than me. There were a lot of rooms in that house, so she reserved one for me. I might be there until everything turns out well at my legal address, but from the looks of things, I don't even know when' I'll move back there, or how long I might live here in Sylmar. Its a weird coincidence cause the place I'm residing at right now is less than 30 seconds from my church and my friend Frank's house. Other than that, I'm doing fine here. Spent a month already here, don't have to pay rent cause lady knows my situation with not getting hired for the past two years. Plus they have a lot of great food, and I've been trying out some Filipino entree's that I've never tasted before, which is fantastic to the max.

I've been very busy like a fuckin' beast for the past few weeks also. I've been taking a lot of photos, test driving a bunch of cars and meeting celebrities. I know that sounds like the shit I've been doing every month for the past year, but this was somewhat a premium version of it. I spent a lot of time with my good friend Nicole Stetter and her friend's group Darger De Milo by supporting them in their recording sessions. Nicole had a lot of people she knew who had a number of parties and kickbacks, so I took photos of those and made some new friends/clients/acquaintances or whatever you want to call it. I can't describe all of those gatherings in detail cause there was a different one every other day which made it look like it was 2007-08 all over again. It was very fantastic, including Aftergloam (one of my friend's music group) bassist Cecilia Navaratte's birthday at Universal Citywalk. I've never thought that I would witness a party where they had a surprise proposal, a bachelorette party, and a drunk 40 something woman who would hit on me in front of her husband, who WAS COOL ABOUT THE WHOLE THING from his own words. Like I said, those events were too indescribable to put into sentences.

One of my favorite things I did this month was test driving the all new Nissan Leaf, which is the first all electric car to have absolutely no emissions whatsoever, meaning no smog checks, no gasoline, no CO2's being emitted into the air, none of that shit. It was in invite event which took place at Westfield Century City mall in Century City that was operated by Nissan of North America. We had to be schooled on the origins and the dissection of the vehicle, and it was worth capturing my attention. We even got to drive it around Century City, which made me and those who also attended the first ever people in Los Angeles to drive this car. Keep in mind that this car is not gonna be out in a year and its still going thorough some approval process from the government. To me, when I was driving it, it felt like you're driving a golf cart with options and a body around it, cause like I said earlier, this car is, as Nissan simply stated it, 100% electric with no gasoline whatsoever. Nowadays, people can care less on what kind of car you drive, whereas five years ago, you were doing it if you pushed a Chrysler 300c or a Infiniti G35 or a Cadillac Escalade. But the recent economic recession has changed a lot of people views on many financial aspects, which is why I wrote earlier that the holiday shopping hasn't changed its traditional habits. Speaking of finances, they didn't say what the price for the vehicle is, but I'm guessing its gonna be between 17 grand to $30,000 at the most. I could go on all day with this car.

Yep, its been a stressful, exciting, interesting, useful, decent, and challenging month this year. I did my best to make it full of positive energy. That's how every month should be, minus all the family drama, negative politics and bullshit. I really need to rest and catch up on the NFL. I've been missing watching some games from editing and scanning all the photos I took this month, but hey, I'm a photographer, so I have to maintain my "Ryan-Seacrest-busy-all-over-the-place" grind.

Oh yeah, major shoutout to Cadillac for letting me drive your whips as many times as you let me this month. Even though I'm a Japanese automobile person, y'all are and always will be underrated and I respect your heritage in the American culture. And shoutout to Tianna Edmonson, the drummer for Aftergloam, for hosting all those kickbacks at your place this month. Its always an experience every time I go there. Also, shoutout to Universal and AMC for re-showing Back To The Future in theaters again for two nights. I FUCKIN' ENJOYED IT! I should've brought someone with me, but it selling like crazy and I spent 15 dollars on a Large popcorn and a Large Cherry Coke (they didn't have Pepsi). Yes, 2 of those for 15 dead Washington's. I've never though I'd see this movie in a large screen, but they remastered it and made it look sharper and clearer. Plus I went home with 5 limited edition posters of the movie they gave away. I don't even know what I'm gonna do with them, seriously. Finally, big shoutout to Amber Marshall for letting go berserk in your Mercedes-Benz CLK convertible last week. Damn, I drove a lot of cars this month.