making the rounds of LA transit

June 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Yesterday I managed to travel every rail line in the Metro rail system in a single trip. I first needed to get to Pasadena City College, where I thought I would be taking a summer class, so I biked over to Union Station and hopped on the Gold Line. Sure it takes a little longer, but I had a book to read (I've been reading Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam) so I enjoyed my time, as I always do.

Errand done at PCC I decided that my bike was really driving me crazy and that I needed to take it back down to the REI in Manhattan Beach. To get there it was Gold Line to Union Station, Red Line to 7th/Metro Center, Blue Line to Imperial/Wilmington, and then Green Line to Douglas. I think total trip time was right around an hour, with a good half of that on the Gold Line. It was my first trip south of Washington/Grand on the Blue Line and my first trip of any kind on the Green Line. All in all I can't say it was a bad experience, though people like to deride the Blue Line as 'Ghetto Blue' and the Green as the line that goes from nowhere to nowhere. Well, for me it went right where I needed to go and that worked out just fine.

I left my bike in the very capable hands of REI's bike service people, who are going to be installing a new rear cassette, a new chain, and new brake levers. Hopefully this will clear things up for a while. Doing a little math with the guy working on the bike, I realized that if I ride my commute 3-4 times a week (which I intend to do once the bike's behaving properly), plus through in a couple miles extra here and there, I'm looking at up to 50 miles a week. Over the course of a year that's 2k - 2.5k miles.

doh... catch up time

June 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I've not been the best at keeping things up to date over the past few days. Can't say that was intentional.

Wednesday night Kathy and I walked the three blocks or so down to the Orpheum to see Sunrise. The Orpheum has undergone extensive restoration and renovation since it stopped being a first-run movie house several years ago, and it shows. Everything looks amazing, almost to the point of not really looking old anymore. It still is old, though, and it's very cool to see what the end result for other theatres could be. Unlike the Los Angeles, the Orpheum has modern seating, which I don't know if I'm sold on or not. I think that was in large part what made it not feel old.

But who really cares what the seats are. THe place is old and grand and looks great.

Though Sunrise is a silent film, it was released with a Movietone recording of the musical score. That recording is the only music that exists for it today, or was until composer Robert Israel went through the entire film transcribing notes and finding the pieces used. On Wednesday he and a 18 piece orchestra performed a slightly rearranged version of the score during the film.

Hugh Hefner was the night's sponsor, and he and his dates sat seven or so rows in front of us. This week's Downtown News has a good article on Hef and his love of cinema. The article also mentions the censorship course he's endowed at the USC Film School. I'm enrolled in that class for the fall; though I signed up because it was Casper teaching more than anything else.

the pistons thought they had it

June 09, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Last night my roomate and I headed over to the Bonaventure Brewing Co to watch game 2. Those of you keeping score at home may remember that this was where Kathy and I watched game 4 of the San Antonio series. This time, though, it was an early game and happy hour pricing was in effect for the first hour. I got fish and chips, which were $5.95 and not the $4.95 suggested online. They weren't spectacular, but they weren't bad, so all in all I can't really complain. I imagine they'd be better from the McCormick & Schmidt's happy hour menu but having not been there before I didn't know whether they'd have the game on.

Downtown happy hour prices are something I will definitely be exploring over the upcoming months. I'm all about cheap food.

My prediction is still Lakers in 6, though it could well go 7. I think they win game 3, lose 4, win 5, and come back to close it out in game 6. We'll see, though. I could also see the Lakers winning 3 & 4, and then losing 5 because in their hearts they really want to win the championship in LA.

short dream

June 08, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I'm sitting in the apartment this morning waiting for the cable guy to come. I hate Comcast, and I hate how much cable costs, but it will be nice to get more channels than just ABC, KCAL9, FOX, UPN, and PBS. But whatever, you don't care about me getting cable...

The important thing is that I think I just had a one-minute long dream this morning. I'm pretty sure that I looked up at my clock at 8:56. Then I proceeded to dream about getting up, finding the cable guy at the door, and trying to get my teeth brushed while he went down the hall to grab his bag. And then I woke up, looked at the clock, and it was 8:58. As it all too often happens I had managed to wake up within 5 minutes of the time my alarm was set to go off for, but I'm just amazed that I could -- in the course of two minutes -- fall back to sleep, have a dream, and wake up.

ahh, good times

June 07, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I don't like to bore you with lists of the random fun queries people use to make it to my site. Enough people do that; I think you get the point. This time, though, I'll make an exception. I am currently #8 at google if you do a search for intercourse positions for overweight individuals. That's good stuff.

If you ever are bored enough to really want to see what searches bring people to my site, check out googlefun.