I’ll be brief: Famima. Via LosAnjealous.

On my previous trip to the Santa Monica Pier, I drove past the LACMA. It looked interesting, and this weekend I decided to check the place out. As it turns out, thanks to Tar-jay, the museum is free every day after 5 PM, except on Wednesday when the museum is closed. So I got to check the place out on Target’s dime, which I suppose is fair after all the money I’ve spent there.

It was amazing. I didn’t go in with any preconceived notions of what the place should be like, so everything was a pleasant surprise. I was sad that my camera’s memory card, which at one time seemed more than adequate, has been outgrown. I need at least a 512 MB card to shoot as much as I want to these days.

There was whole slew of famous paintings. I was greeted by a Lichtenstein as soon as I got off the elevator. I genuinely didn’t expect to see the famous Magritte “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” painting, or any Picassos, but I did.

This was all in the modern art wing. I would’ve been happy with my trip if it had ended here, with me having spent a whopping three dollars in bus fare on the whole adventure. However, that was just the first course. The adventure continued on with the next building, all three floors of it. The Rembrandts were impressive, photorealistic masterpieces.

The floor full of Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim pieces was also overwhelming. I suppose that’s really an apt description of every floor, and the entire museum. The O’Keefe piece reminded me of my trip to New Mexico where I visited her own museum.

For the other 157 pictures, check out the Flickr set.

Presidents Day…in their infinite wisdom, our forefathers set aside this holiday so I could go snowboarding at Mount High today. Full trip report fourthcoming, stay tuned.

Update: Mount High is painfully close to LA. I say painfully because its proximity exposes it to the full force of the greater LA area’s teeming masses. I knew there was trouble when we hit traffic. Not on the freeways, but on ye little winding road a few miles from our destination. We inched along at a snail’s pace, hoping that the lift tickets weren’t ’sold out’.

“Sold out?” I asked incredulously. I was assured that this can and does happen, and this was confirmed when I called the ticket office at the mountain. The mountain had sold out at 9 AM the previous day. This information came to me as we were inching along in bumper to bumper traffic.

The possibility that we’d soon be going home defeated was on our minds. A policewoman in her car was driving slowly in the opposite direction and warning that the parking lots were full. She politely (as much as possible over a bullhorn) informed us that we were welcome to park on the side of the road and hike in. We grudgingly did this. ‘Hike’ was the operative term, since we ended up parking about a mile from the lodge.

We arrived at the place and I paid a large sum for my day’s pass. Reg, the birthday girl, rode free. The snow was very rocky, or perhaps I should say the rocks were somewhat snowy. My board bears the scars of today’s adventure, and will for the rest of its existence.

After dominating poor Mountain High East, we proceeded to board a bus and head to the Westside. The west side was…well, I’ll let the picture tell the story.

It was paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacked. I waited in line. Then I did it some more. Repeat this over and over, and you’re starting to get an idea of what I did.

Today’s forgotten item(s): Gloves. I was initially concerned, but the fact that I wasn’t cold without them put my mind at ease. There were moments when my hands got a bit chilly, but I solved this by stuffing them in my pockets. I was quite pleased with my skillz, since I was able to completely rise above the rookie need to flail my arms about to keep my balance. It really is all in the hips.

On the bright side, Mount High has a fine terrain park. In fact, the Westside is almost nothing *but* terrain park. This was great, but after my last misadventure with the table tops I’m taking it easy. Ok, so I’m a coward and I didn’t hit them at all. I did manage to give some love to a little kicker here and there, and the rails were crazy. Not that I hit them, but I gave them careful consideration..

After having my wicked way with the Westside, I headed home. On the way back to the car, we saw a chopper circling about. Finally it landed, about 100 yards from the car. Apparently some poor individual ran afoul of gravity. It’s generally a good sign that you’ve ruined your day in the snow when you see a helicopter descending from the sky to carry you to prompt medical intervention.

There are more shots of my journey to/from Mount High Ski Resort and Rock Quarry in this Flickr photo set. Also shots of the pretty smog sunsets we have down here (no sarcasm, they’re really pretty!)

Still no flying cars. Still no moonbase. However, someone finally stepped up and is delivering the futuristic desks. Thank you.

Just one thing: still using cathode ray tube monitors in the future? Really?

I don’t understand what these people were thinking, but suffice it to say I don’t think some of these ideas for what to do with liquid nitrogen are very good ones.

I was scratching my head thinking of how to decorate my room. Then I remembered The Rasterbator. My problems are solved. Well, my decorating problems are. My new problem is purchasing ink cartridges.

Go here and pick out a card for yourself. My treat.

You can also check out this cute comic.

Hey, I’m not bitter. This is bitter.

I could spew out hundreds of adjectives in a vain attempt to fully describe what happened tonight, but it’s best to let the pictures speak for themselves.

Event courtesy of The Do Lab.

Tonight was bizarre. I went out intending to stop and check out the sushi bar a few blocks from my apartment. I walked into the place expecting, I don’t know, a sushi restaurant. Oh, but this is not Kansas anymore. There were, as a conservative estimate, probably 150 people packed into the place. Since I was flying solo I didn’t have to wait, but I got the absolute last open seat in the place. In reality, Tokyo Delve’s is a crazy party spot. Nearly every one of the 150 or so people was dancing on his or her chair, dressed to the hilt, and there was sushi everywhere. I was taken aback, but decided to roll with it. I sat down and watched the chefs furiously preparing sushi at a breakneck pace. The bartender was decked out in a white shirt and black bow tie, and had a wireless mic headset. This allowed him to run all over the place singing, and most of the people were singing along. It’s truly surreal watching that many people singing “Summer Love” at the same time. I filled up on albacore sashimi, salmon skin rolls, and sake.

After that I boarded the subway to Hollywood, transferred to a bus and rode to the House of Blues. A wise-ass kid once told me that the problem with LA is that whenever you get the idea to do something, it’s a safe bet that a thousand other people will get the same idea. Tonight was no exception. The place was packed. I showed up late, but got in the door just in time to see DMC Champion DJ Craze. He was sporting a final scratch setup which kinda made me jealous. He proceeded to tear it up, and the MCs encouraged all of us in the audience to throw our hands in the air.

KRS-1 was also a proponent of throwing hands in the air. He also convinced us to affirm:

I had a brief “Huh?” moment I’d like to share. I stumbed across Consciousness Studies in Wikibooks, and thought to myself, “What is consciousness?”

Like any savvy netizen, I thought, “Well hell, I’ll Google it.”

Google Search -> “define:conciousness”. This resulted in: