Sleepy & Doc

The other dwarves are out right now. 

We've been cut off from Internet access for two days now, so the backlog is pretty ugly; it'll take me another day or so to get it posted, because I'm running on very little sleep courtesy of our 5:00 am shuttle to the airport this morning. Ugh. 

Sorry there won't be much info tonight. We made it back to Seattle, so the excitement of the vacation is wearing off quickly, which means my tiredness is compounded. There'll be pictures of beaches and a report on the Sizzler near LAX tomorrow. Cheers.

I'm supposed to be sleeping

But I forgot about the blog until just now. Because I'm tired (and because you probably don't care all that much anyway), I'm going to breeze through the past two days' events in hurried fashion. 

After being yelled at by an angry tour guide (he looked something like this), we headed downtown on the subway (metro rail, whatever), feeling all big-city and whatnot. Then we acted like the terrible touristy people we are. If you haven't figured it out by now, we like taking this kind of picture: 

I've gotten pretty good at the extended-arm camera thing. As good as one can be, anyway. Of course, there are more traditional behind-the-camera shots like this one:

There are some kick-butt fries underneath that chili somewhere. This was our meal at Pink's yesterday around six o'clock. The wait was less than an hour, and everyone in line was commenting on how short the wait was. Crazy, but totally worth it. It's just a roadside stand kind of place, but they've got some ridiculous dogs made with decent chili, the fries are above par, and frankly the option of having three hot dogs, chili, cheese, and onions wrapped in a giant tortilla is pretty much a dream come true. Oh, and they've got cream soda that's to die for. 

Oh, and I'm pretty sure that hot dog picture was also an extended-arm shot while I was sitting in my seat. How about this: 

Yeah, I'm definitely not in that picture. Anna's doing her Jonah impression at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown LA. Interesting place. Across the street (practically) was the Disney Music Hall. It's really shiny. On the other side of the cathedral was this building:

Yeah, I don't know. Again, one of those things I could look up, but I'd just as soon assume it's some kind of penitentiary. 

We stayed in the downtown area for quite a while. We came across a Mexican bazaar, where I put "figure out how to make cocadas" on my life to-do list. Blah blah blah. I like pictures. Here's one of a shop in Chinatown:

The picture (surprisingly) doesn't do it justice; there are racks and racks of clothes packed together so tightly that you have to grab a handful and tear them away just to tell what you're looking at. Unfortunately it was all women's clothing; that's why Anna's in the picture, not me. But the weirdest part wasn't the ridiculous amount of clothing, the boxes of clothes stacked ceiling-high on the sides, or that everything was two or three dollars. No, the weirdest part was the half-dozen tripod-mounted speakers throughout the building. Not necessarily weird, but the guy who ran the place was wearing a microphone, and everything he said was transmitted at quite a significant volume into the store. Again, a little weird but not bizarre. Throw in the fact that he was simultaneously haggling with customers and talking with Microsoft tech support regarding his POS computer system (and making snide comments about departing customers under his breath), and you've got yourself an entertaining and squirm-inducing shopping experience. 

Pictorial highlights from the rest of yesterday include (in order): our room at the Bungalow, succumbing to the desire to see what rich people buy (in Beverly Hills, by the way, the Mercedes and BMWs are the average cars--we saw a Rolls and a Bentley at the same stoplight), a visual explanation of why I call it The Complex, a hands-on tribute to one of Spokane's own, and a nice relaxing beach scene to put you to sleep. Which is where I'm going, because tomorrow we're going to the coolest place I can think of. Cheers.

Ok, so that didn't work out. Unfortunately our combined desire for sleeping outweighed even the excitement of attending another Price is Right taping. That, and we pretty much lost our voices during the show and had some bad hot dogs. We weren't feeling well from top to bottom, so to speak. 

So we slept until a reasonable hour, had the hotel's awful coffee, and hit the metro. Among other things, we had much better hot dogs. 

Pictures and a full update to come; in the meantime we've got to head out the door to see Grauman's Chinese Theater before it's time to check out. Once out of the hotel, we'll head to Union Station and get on our train for Carlsbad. Pray that something like this doesn't happen. 

Cheers.

Just between us...

By the way, there's no photography allowed on the studio lot. 

Don't tell anyone. 

Correct Cost

We went to the Price is Right!

Wait, not that one. The American one.

We woke up before three, got out the door by 3:30, and twenty minutes later we were in line behind fifty crazy fools who woke up before we did. Criminy. It was incredibly windy, which made it feel almost like Spokane last week. For two hours we stood in the cold until the CBS staff came out and distributed tickets listing our place in line; from there we were free until ten o'clock. What do you do in a strange big city at six in the morning when your hotel is two miles away? You walk to IHOP and drink coffee for several hours. And on the way you find proof that it's not "soda":

Also on the way to IHOP, we learned that streetlights are art. Who knew?

I like pictures. I think I'm too lazy to actually put together a gallery of any kind, so they'll just be in-text right now. It'll make my posts look longer and more impressive. 

Anyway, after you get your tickets (online), you get in line early and they give you a placeholder, then you wander off and get some pancakes, come back at ten and sit on some benches for a couple of hours, then they give you another form and check your IDs, etc. etc. Nobody cares. The point is it's a lot of waiting in lines and trying to keep Anna from peeing herself with excitement. On the plus side, we met some cool folks; after all, suffering in lines is a common and classic form of bonding. The folks in front of us worked at Kennedy Space Center for decades, and are on a trip to Honolulu from Florida. Behind us were people who happened to go to the same high school as the kids of the Florida couple. Later on we met a Master Chief Petty Officer who was from Florida Guy's original hometown. Weird. 

If anybody plans to go, take food. Don't walk across the street and pay $9.74 for two bagels and a cup of mediocre drip coffee. That guy's got a racket going on. Take some pretzels and biscuits or something. In fact, take extras. Take lots of extras and sell them to the other people in line. There's a fortune to be made there. 

Quick recap of the interior before I go to sleep: the studio is tiny, though Rich Fields told us during his introduction that it's one of the largest studios in Hollywood. Everything looks miniature, because the camera angles you see on television are perfectly coordinated. In fact, the whole crew has it down pat. The taping lasts a little more than an hour, and it's one of the most intense experiences I've ever been through. There's so much clapping and screaming that you can't hear Drew, Rich, or any of the contestants. Honestly, if you ever got on stage, you'd never be able to hear what it was you're bidding on, so it's all visual. Crazy. 

Between games, Drew chats up the audience and tries to be funny, with mixed results. Today he mostly bragged about his soccer team. We had met a couple of the people who got called down, including the girl who spun a dollar on the wheel. 

I'm not sure if I'm actually supposed to say anything about the show. So, uh, forget that. I won't talk about spinning a dollar on the bonus spin or winning a Mini Cooper showcase. Not a word from me. 

In all, it was a crazy day. We got up before three and got back to the hotel after the taping around four in the afternoon. It's really an all-day experience. Everybody around us in line said they'd never do it again. They're smart people--it's draining emotionally and physically, our voices are practically gone, we pretty much sweated through our homemade shirts, and the anticipation of waiting in all those lines nearly drove us crazy. 

So, of course, we're going back. In about six hours. Sweet dreams!

It's Early

Like, 3:13 am early. And we've been up for half an hour. 

I want to know where this guy got his mug...

Hello, Hollywood

The weekend is almost over, and I'm not sure how that happened. Saturday morning saw us at the airport, thanks to Dave waking up before nine. (Yeah, I know. Weird.) No problems at check-in, etc. Everything was normal-ish until we got on the plane. 

If you've never flown Virgin America before, I recommend it. They don't fly a lot of routes, but for our trip they were the cheapest and most accommodating (i.e. no charge for the first checked bag; unfortunately, that policy has now changed). Also, the seats are leather and every one has a screen in front of it with multiple media sources. Pretty cool. There's black-light-like lighting inside, and the crew is entertaining but not over the top. Really a pretty cool experience. But then, I don't fly often, so maybe I was more willing to buy the novelty of it than other people were. 

 See? We're happy. 

After arriving in LA, we dealt with four different accents by the time we got checked into out hotel room. The strange part is we only talked with three people. It was difficult to explain to the shuttle driver that we were staying at the Banana Bungalow without laughing. That might've made it more difficult to communicate. 

So far, the bungalow (I'm trying to decide whether to call it the Compound or the Complex; details later) has been great. Cool, colorful room, clean, a little cramped, but we don't need much. Great location. We're literally a few blocks from all kinds of things--the walk of fame starts about two blocks from the Compound. 

This one's for Dave:

We had our first experience today with public transportation in LA. It's a little different than in Spokane. For one thing, our bus was leaning a little more than this one. Pretty sure the shock was totally bad. Also, the rear door wouldn't close. Hello, Hollywood. Classy. 

It's okay, though. It still got us to the Farmers Market, where we had an awesome time wandering through the stalls & shops. There's a store dedicated to hot sauce--shelves full of the stuff. They even sell pure capsaicin. Sometimes Democrats have a little too much. Fortunately you can go to Bob's Donuts and have one of these:

And if a dinosaur donut doesn't tickle your fancy, well, we can't be friends. 

Tomorrow is the most exciting day of the trip: we're going to the Price is Right! We've spent ten times as much money and time on our t-shirts as we planned, but it's totally worth it. Now it's time for bed; we've got to be up at about 3:00 am so we can guarantee our spot in line. I'm practically giggling, and I'm pretty sure Anna's not even going to sleep. Cheers for tonight.