The internet consumes me.

Alright, I realise it's been a while since I've updated, but I figured I'd give people time to sift through the massive posts below before I overwhelmed them into oblivion. The posts not the people.

So a lot has happened since then I guess. Things like OP and I having long-winded discussions on the difference between irony and coincidence. Ultimately I've decided that irony involves a situation of opposites, and coincidence involves a situation of similarities. For example:

Irony
-----
A shipboard scene of reconciliation and hope for an estranged couple ends with the camera pulling back to reveal a life preserver stencilled "SS Titanic".

See how the situation results in the opposite of what you expected (instead of happy, it was sad)

Coincidence
------------
The Sun is 400 hundred times the diameter of the Moon and nearly 400 hundred times farther from the Earth. Thus the two bodies have almost exactly the same angular size when viewed from the earth; this gives rise to the characteristic appearance of solar eclipses, when the moon 'fits' exactly over the sun's disc.

Notice that the situation involves similarities?

You can thank Wikipedia for those examples. Wikipedia is the God of internet sites...you should check it out if you've never heard of it. Just ask it anything...seriously...type in your favorite hobby and I bet you'll be amazed at what it tells you...
What else is new...I believe Soda is winning in it's war against Pop. Godspeed soda...godspeed.
http://www.popvssoda.com/

Here's a link that Ron sent me, it's a video of an absolutely BRILLIANT idea. Two guys challenged each other to see who could make the worst mix-tape, the loser (person who made the less-worse-mix-tape...cause that makes sense) would have to carry around a boombox crankin' the tunes of the worst mix-tape made. GENIUS.

I found a picture of a bumper-sticker I saw while we were moving across the country. I thought it was quite an adorable sticker considering the situation it depicts.

Last week Brenna and I watched the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. Although it wasn't nearly what the books were, the "so long and thanks for all the fish" song was freakin' awesome. Sometimes I dance to it in my underwear.

The standard American toilet flush is 1.2 gallons. Apparently any less than that and it's not enough power? The Australians have been using a far superior solution for a while now, their toilets have seperate buttons for pee and poo, which determine the amount of water that the toilet will use to flush with.

'insert racist Australian joke'

Ok, don't mind if I do.

Q: Why is an Australian lover like a wombat?
A: He eats roots, shoots, and leaves.

Australian foreplay - "Brace yerself Sheila."

Q: What do you call an Australian with a sheep under one arm and a goat under the other?
A: Bisexual.

Moving forward....

Dan S. sent me a great link of Spam. It's great because it's about Spam. It is also Spamformative.

Alright, so that's about it for the week.

Psych.

Actually I had one very eventful day, followed by mini-eventful days. They are bitesize and delicious. No you can not dip them in frostine, nor spread cheap cheese on them with a red stick.

The day that kicked it off was...Wednesday I believe. I was called in for a job interview at some place out of 80 places I applied to so far. So I drove there, with my shirt and tie, looking hot as a motha WATCH YO FACE!

They seemed impressed by my 1337 h@X0r sk1llzzzzzzz so they called me in for a second invterview, and to help them find mp3zzzzzzzzz. ME TOO!

(I bet OP is the only person that laughed at all at that last bit. Possibly Ron and Erik, but...doubtfull. For them I type the following: Kai's mom. Well...now I guess I owe Kai one...Chillitens.)

So the next morning when I went to leave for the 2nd interview I decided to take the metro instead, but first I had to move my car for street sweeping.

Wouldn't you know there was a note on my car, in form of index card, and it read as follows:
















Well Sue...I'll be sure to get back to you. As will lots of drunken random people who read my un-censored blog.

So yeah...I could just tell my day was gonna be weird...cause when things like that happen in the morning it tends to dictate your outlook on the world for the day.

Hence I noticed this sign on my walk to the metro. Eli, this one goes out to you, you asbestos regulating foo.


As I walked further I thought to myself, "My god is that plant eating somebody?" as I got closer the person took form and it was BRENNA!














Just kidding. That part never happened.

I did pass my favorite bar in Long Beach though!














The "House of Hayden" is a bar that pays tribute to the best place to party under Earth, Hell. I'll get pics of the inside sometime, it's kinda creepy...with a not-so-creepy pool table. My favorite part about it is definately the door with green lights...I love huge wooden doors, and I love green, so...ya know...



















It just seems like the address should be 666 though, which coincidentally (not ironically) is the amount of money left on my Walmart Gift Card my parents sent me ($6.66 is left after I used it).

So I eventually made my way to the train/subway station. Now, this ain't no NYC metro system people, probably because earthquakes tend to hurt things that operate underground. So this is what we have to work with out here


My home is near the bottom of that blue square. I was traveling to the upper left part (Hollywood).

Here's a map of the "blue line" so you can see how many streets it crosses....which isn't too many I guess


So I purchased my $3 day pass (yeah, it's a lot cheaper than NYC), in case I got lost...well not lost, it's hard to get "lost" on a subway system that linear, so I guess it was in case I missed a stop. Had I wanted a one way ticket it would have been $1.25. Either way, this is the glory hole that dispenses such tickets


So I made my purchase. Now, you know the metro system is pretty simple based on what I've told you. In case you STILL aren't convinced that the metro could possible be that simple...because you're some sort of asshole that doesn't believe what I'm saying...here's a picture of the platform I was waiting on


and NO, there aren't tons of people on the other side of me, you're just saw all the people- this is the other side of me


CHOO! CHOO! Here comes the train!!!


ALLLLLLL ABOARD! Next stop- Compton.

Just kidding...that's in 7 stops...and trust me, that place ain't no picnic. I'll get pics of the ride next time I'm on it...it's very depressing. There's a lot of ghetto housing, and I'm serious when I saw ghetto. There's a lot of houses that look like they're going to fall over, TONS of spraypaint "tags," and a whole lot of shit just laying around in people "lawns."

But to cheer me up before I get to that part of the ride, I get to see the "Mc Shuttle" on the 5th stop on the way. It's a McDonalds with an awesome looking playground, that has a space shuttle on the top of the tubes the kids play in. It says "Mc Shuttle U.S.A." and under that it says "Pilot Ronald"

It's pretty funny to see, but it did make me seriously contemplate how long it's going to be until McDonalds puts a sponsor logo on a spaceship...I bet we're not too far from seeing stuff like that. Hell, look at NASA right now....eeeeeee.

Anyways, I finally got off at Hollywood and Vine, which is probably the best subway station I've ever seen in my life. You step off the train and see














shitloads of film cans all over the walls and ceiling. Upstairs there are ENORMOUS projectors and cameras on display too.

So I walked one of the many "Hollywood Stars" sidewalks to my interview...fine I'll get pics of those next time too.

I went up for my interview, basically I sat down and they told me they wanted to hire me.

The hard part was that the night before, when they had called me to come in again, they asked me to consider if I was willing to sign a 10 month contract.

So here's the low-down on the whole thing I guess:
--------------------------------
It's a not-for-profit "production" company, that wants to hire me as an editor, for $15/hour, no benefits.
My job would be a lot of scanning still images, then importing them to Final Cut Pro and making videos out of them, along with credits, titles, etc. and a little graphical work (photoshop, and quark).
It seems like the job would be pretty tedious, and there really isn't any room for growth (financially or educationally-i'd be alone most of the time). The only big advantage is that it's near the metro system, so I could take the train to work every day.

I was thinking this might be a good job to start with, but I would keep looking for a different one in the mean time, one that would pay around the same, but have benefits and positions above mine that I could advance too (like jr. editor to sr. editor, etc.), along with a more high tech enviroment, and people that would criticize/teach me as I work.

I'm afraid that if I did take this job, it would hinder my search for the one I "ideally" want, as well as get in the way of job interviews, etc.
-------------------------------------------

So when they asked if I could sign the contract I said no. It just didn't feel right. the only reason i would have taken it was to have some money while i look for a better job, so being tied down for 10 months would have really defeated that...

But saying "no" wasn't enough. They actually pressured me trying to get me to sign it. They kept saying things like "But it's an easy job, it's easy for you to get to, you'd have your own office and you can wear whatever you want" and "Why did you get on the subway this morning if you weren't interested in this job." They also kept changing the terms, and how long the contract would be, and I kept saying no. It actually got to a point where they said "Eventually you're going to get a job where you have to sign a contract you know?" and I pretty much sat forward and yelled, "I'm not signing a contract! STOP it."

So they handed me my resume and made comments on how they really wanted to hire me, and it's going to be tough finding someone else with a resume as strong.

So as I was getting ready to leave when they asked if I'd be willing to work as freelance help then, until they do hire someone else. I figured, sure, I might as well make some money and put them on my resume.

So for the next 3 days I worked there, and it seems like I'll be going in and out of there for at least a month.

Hopefully I made the right choice, I know I'm going to regret it if I don't find anything in a long long time...

I can safely say that their equipment is a little shady, since they were a non-profit org., and it was effin' up the whole time I was there, not really something I'd want to deal with when Im trying to edit ;)

So here's hoping the next job interview is soon, and goes much better....and a lot less weird.

Ok, so when I finally left that interview, I walked down to the subway to go home, and this dude started following me. You know how sometimes you can just "feel" someone is following you. I felt it man.

So I walked further than I usually would. And he followed me. He was about 30-35, a foot shorter than me, as skinny as me, and wearing what would be considered preppy clothes in the 90's.

So I finally stopped, and he stopped RIGHT next to me, like, a foot away from me. But there weren't any people in the subway, so there was NO reason he needed to be that close.

Then he "clicked" at me. Like, made a noise with his mouth to get my attention. You know that clicky noise you make when you made a joke and nudge someone with your elbow twice in a row, quickly, THAT noise.

He did it a couple times. I refused to pay attention to him though, and just stared blankly at the wall in front of us.

So then he stomped his foot, bent down to pretend tie it, and stared at me (I didn't look, but I could see it from the corner of my eye). Since I still didn't pay attention he did it with his other foot too. I still refused to give him any attention.

So then he started pacing in front of me. Mind you, the subway is EMPTY, and there's tons of room, but he's pacing a foot away from me, RIGHT in front of me.

So now I'm about to start sweating, the adrenaline is in full motion, and my fists are balled up ready for some FACE LOVE. So now I'm just watching him pace, but now I'm staring him down, seriously ready to punch the fucker. We made a good solid 10 seconds of eye contact, when an asian couple walked down onto the platform near us, and then he walked away.

Weirdest day EVER!!!

So then I got on the train, and the young asian couple say behind me. I started to play a japanese drumming game on my PSP (that I can't really read at all, other than the basics) and the asian girl was watching me and laughing every now and then...obviously at the game.

Ok, that's it people. If you made it this far give yourself a pat on the back. I was actually going to make this a short post, and do all the pictures later, but I decided to give you the Special Golden Delux Limited Edition Directors Cut Box Set B-Roll Anniversary Un-Cut Un-Rated Explicit Lyrics update. So there's only two more things I got to say:

I miss you all. It's been a lonely first 3 weeks in Cali. The weather is great, the people here are super friendly, and there's tons to do. I don't know where all the "LA is fake" shit is comming from because I sure haven't seen it...so I guess what I'm getting at is...MOVE HERE! (or get in touch with OP who apparently wants to get everyone to reserve a plane section together ((making it very cheap to fly)) to come visit us...or Eli who I will be trying my damndest to get to come here for his Spring Break.)

The song below is fuckin' awesome. Download it and listen to it, and look up any of the events you don't know about, "children of Thalidomide" is a good one to start with. Man, I love the part where he screams "JFK! BLOWN AWAY! WHAT ELSE DO I GOT TO SAY!"
-------------------------------
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television,
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom,
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new Queen,
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana good bye

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it but we tried to fight it.

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev,
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron,
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev,
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

CHORUS

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather, homicide, children of Thalidomide

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia,
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo

CHORUS

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land",
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,
JFK blown away, what else do I have to say?

CHORUS

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock,
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline,
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan.

"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz,
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law,
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't TAKE it anymore!

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

"We Didn't Start the Fire" -Billy Joel

(one of my history teachers had a poster of those lyrics on his wall in middle school)

We are Electric Eel Shock. Who are you?

So the other day was crazy. CRAZY crazy. I'm trying to get some stuff done and we get a phone call. A CRAZY phone call. Brenna answered it and was just talking, as she usually does when she's on the phone, and then a little into the conversation she says, "Well this is a total surprise, we had no idea any of this was going on!" and turns to me and says, "We're getting sued by Bell Vista!" (our last landlord in Buffalo, the ones we just left)

So put yourself in my situation, jobless, stressed out, and trying to adjust to a new home. Getting sued is one of the last things you really wanna put up with.

So the whole situation started out real weird. Brenna started to get snappy with the guy on the phone, which I've learned doesn't get very far through past experience, so she handed it to me to take over. The key to being successful is really just kissing a whole lotta ass. It's cool though, I just go on the internet and flame people and try to be as abnoxious as I possibly can.

Heh, actually I hate those people...I don't do that at all. I just type long posts that no one reads. But yeah, kiss ass. Then when you need to vent it all out someday you can just go to Wal Mart, get yerself some shotguns and ammo, and just break loose.

Kidding. Jeeze, why you gotta take everything so serious.

I dunno, I guess I don't have a problem with kissing ass as long as the other person isn't a total asshole. I do prefer to ream people a new fucking hole when they deserve it though.

So I get on the phone with Bill. Bill is actually a pretty nice guy. He pleasantly explains to me that I have the opportunity to settle within 48 hours, and I'll only have to pay 85% of what I'm being sued for, or I have 30 days to decide if I want to go to court or not, but risk paying a lot more if I lose.

Worst multiple choice ever.

So before any more can be said I politely interject with, "I have no idea what is going on. Can you start at the beginning?"

Bill is quick, and before I can saw any more he makes points. He makes points quick, like it's his job (hah!...cause it is...), which are pretty much the following:

-You didn't pay last month's rent
-They tried to contact us multiple times via mail the last 3 months
-The landlord is acting through him, at Creative Solution's Collection Agency
-We can settle in 48 hours, blah blah, same stuff as above
-If I don't plan on settling he advices I get an attorney
-My credit will have a mark in it until there is a settlement, permanently if I loose the case
-I can call Bell Vista but the only comment they will make is on the validity of the collection agency
-Everything I say on the phone with Bill is recorded, collection agencies are heavily watched by the law, including the attorney general
-If Bell Vista gave him false information I am free to counter sue in excess of $5000

So yeah. You know. Not the best way to start the day. But after talking to him a lot (he was a REALLY nice guy) and asking tons of questions every time he stated new information it came down to the following:
Bell Vista had never tried to contact us, and that I would be more than willing to hire an attorney to counter sue because I know for a fact that they will NOT be able to produce first class mail reciepts with mine or Brenna's signature on them PROVING that they had given us previous warning (as required by law). Oh, I might add we were not even on a lease with them to begin with, it was terminated when they bought the property from our previous land lord ;)

The fact of the matter being though, I have no desire to fly back to Buffalo for a manditory testimony in court. As well as I have no desire to sue anybody because this is all clearly a mistake that should be easy to settle.

I explained to Bill that no one has gotten in touch with us, and that I apologize for all the confusion he must be going through.

Bill then explained to me that Bell Vista is a large company, and they would not be risking a counter-suit if they didn't think that we belonged on a lease with them. That when our previous lease was terminated, and we were presented a new lease, even though we didn't sign it and the wording appeared to us to not bind us to an agreement, in legal-ease terms it probably did bind us anyways.

So my next step was basically explaining that the only reason we never even paid a lost month's rent was because we weren't sure if they had our security deposit or not, and were trying to get in touch with them. Before we left Buffalo I had called and left voice mails to their office multiple times, and never recieved an answer. I figured if we owed them money they'd let us know, otherwise they could apply our security deposit (a full months rent) toward the last month that we didn't pay.

He said he wasn't aware that I tried to contact them, and that they had my security deposit, and that I should call them and see what I could find out, and that he'd call back.

So I call Bell Vista. They are very confused when my first question is to confirm the validity of the collection agency, but finally I'm put through to a woman who kinda knows what's going on. She rudely says, "We don't deal with clients, we don't have the time, that's why we hired an agency to deal with them. So please just talk to them."

Instead of flipping out...I wanted to so bad...I calmly explain to her that I think they have our security deposit and that's the only thing I need to verify. So she says they do, and asks what the whole situation is.

Oh? Now you care?

So I explain it to her and she says that more than likely they can make the exception of putting the security deposit towards what we owe them (what Brenna and I figured they'd do anyways). I guess state laws (in most states) prevent landlords from using security deposits for anything other than repairs, to protect the tenants. I was not aware of this, but it certainly cleared things up. (Bill told me about this later, cause Bill's the man.)

Bill called while I was on the phone with Bell Vista, so I had to call him back. I said, "Hey Bill, sorry to bother you but I got ahold of Bell Vista."

His response, "No problem man! I'm here to serve!" I could TASTE the wink.

So I explained to him that they had our security deposit...then he called them real quick, talked to some dude, and called me back.

So you know what ended up happening after an hour of craziness? We figured out that I had to pay them a full months rent, and they would send us a security deposit check. So...I have to pay them $625. Then they have to send me a check for $625. BUT that security deposit has gained interest since we gave it to them...so we're getting $625.40 back. We're making $0.40 off of all of this.

What the fuck. WHAT THE FUCK.

So to do all this legally, Bill has to transfer our conversation to a machine that will record our agreement. So he tells me, "Hang on Derek, I'm going to put you through to the office below us, you'll hear a click, and then I'll be back on the phone." I was like...what? are you running downstairs...what is going on?

So I hear the click, and it's Bill again. Apparently there's a machine in the office below him that records us, he could of explained that...it would have seemed less weird.

So he goes, "This is Bill with Derek Heck, say hello please Derek." uh..."Hello."

After we finish the agreement, and he charges my account for the rent amount, and states that he agrees that they will be sending our security deposit within 30 days, he says they'll send a reciept and settlement papers saying that neither Bell Vista nor the collection company can ever file a suit against us again. FINALLY some good news.

Goddamn that was weird.

So later that day we met up with Mike, this dude that's helping me find work and stuff. He's a producer/editor that knows lots of executive producers and stuff (yesterday he let me use his equipment to cut my demo reel on). One thing I remember talking about with him was how horrible reality tv was. He was telling me how his friend is the executive producer for "Nany 911", and when the kids DON'T misbehave they feed thems tons of candy and sugar to rile them up. I didn't think it was possible to hate reality tv any more, until that point.

After that we drove over to Hollywood to see The Bloodhound Gang! WOO! It was pretty wild. Brenna and I sat on the sidewalk waiting for the doors to open...and it was a sidewalk with stars on it. It seemed....surreal. We were seeing Bloodhound Gang in Hollywood...how weird is that?

Bloodhound put on an incredible show, the did mostly really old songs, so I was lovin' it :)

The opening bands were cool too. The very first band to open was OPM. I didn't even recognize the name, but after a few songs I was telling Brenna how it seems like they might be able to make a record deal. Then they started playing the beginning to "Heaven is a Halfpipe" and I was like, HOLY SHIT! HOLY HOLY SHIT! IT'S THOSE GUYS! I REMEMBER THEM FROM 10 YEARS AGO!!!

So I called Eli and left a message on his answering maching telling him that OPM just played "Heaven is a Halfpipe" and Bloodhound was gonna be on later. It seemed appropriate.

After OPM was Program the Dead. Probably the worst band I've ever heard/seen in my life. I don't even want to talk about them. After them was Electric Eel Shock, they were fuckin awesome. It was Japenese metal band. The opened with "Iron Man" and in-between all of their songs they'd play parts of "Iron Man" it was hilarious. At the beginning, they pointed to the crowd and started screaming "BASTARD!" and then they'd point to someone else, "BASTARD!" and they kept saying it to everyone, then they just broke out into screaming BASTARD! and wailing on their guitars. It was hilarious. Then they'd say "Yeah Ros Angeres!" It was great. They also did shit like "We. Are. Erectric Eer Shock! Who are you!?!" and they'd keep saying that. Then the lead singer was like "Oh oh, I know. I know everyting. I am RRRRRock. God. We are Erectric Eer Shock! and you! you are Erectric Eer Shock!!!" and then they'd rock out again.

Alright, it's almost time to watch Lost. Here's some schtuff.

kerBLOG!!!

At night when the sun sets, every night, there are monks that walk on our beach. They wear bells that jingle, and they have shaved heads. They don't talk, because they can't. They just smile at you.

kerBLOG!!!

I just got my new business cards in the mail. I'm a tool! But hey, they were free at vistaprint.com

kerBLOG!!!

Every other night or so Brenna and I jog 5 blocks to the park and workout. It has pull-up bars and crunch benches and stuff. I don't intend to get "pumped up wit ahhhnald" (you know, my governor! haha...hahahaha...he's my governor), I just want to stay in good shape, not be winded next time I have to run to a mile marker when our truck blows a tire. Maybe get my six pack back. Then we jog the beach on our way home.

kerBLOG!!!

My desktop has both temperatures of Buffalo and Long Beach. So far Long Beach is always about 10 degrees hotter than Buffalo. It's very consistent.

kerBLOG!!!

The libraries here actually have funding, and books. Which is funny, because in Buffalo they were closing them to save money...That thought alone makes me feel like I'm crying after sex. It's just...a weird thought. Why would libraries EVER, EVER lose funding?

Alright, I'm out. Piece essay!


(normally I say "Piece" instead of "peace" and instead of "esse" as in spanish guy I'm saying "essay"...it's a phenetic masterpiece!"

Brender

The title, if you missed it in the last post, refers to a notorious formula written by the prestigious Dr. Sasha Goldenburger (yes that is a real last name...) which states that:

if a + b = c
then c = a + b
therefore a + b = a + b
or a + b == b + a
let a = "brenna"
let b = "derek"
brenna + derek = brender
echo "brender"
brender

Speaking of burgers.


That would be an amazing burger place near us. I actually stole that picture from someone on the UB forum, but I'll be damned if I don't love Makers Mark whiskey as well. If you've never had it, you should, it's a hell of a lot better than Jack Daniels.

So yeah, I guess Kate posted about In-N-Out Burger before, but I'll re-iterate. They're menu (I'll get a pick some day when I'm there) consists of the following:

Burger
Cheeseburger
Fries
Drink

Which actually makes sense considering how clean they're trying to keep their food. You see, at first I didn't want to go there since I gave up fast food, but they are outside that category (kinda like Mighty Taco...but even more-so), they only use organic/local grown bread and veggies, and non-frozen/no-preservative local grown meat. How cool is that? And it's crazy cheap...like Mighty Taco.

So they slice the potatoes right in front of you in a peeler/slicer hand-cranked machine, but I wouldn't know because I've never seen them do it. Jerks. And all of their burgers have thousand island dressing on them...like a Big Mac...except better. Oh wait, I'm sorry...Big Mac's use "special sauce" what was I thinking.

But here's the even weirder part, I don't think Kate mentioned this- there's a non-printed sub-menu that you have to KNOW about, but does exsist. This menu as far as I know consists of the following extra items:
Grilled Cheese (burger without the burger, but with extra cheese instead)
Dirty Fries (fries loaded with burger and thousand island dressing and stuff)

Yes, Long Beach is brimming with awesome food joints. Although it's probably hard to believe, it's BETTER than Buffalo in the food dept. There's more places to eat, and they are much more quality (see: not as much grease). Super Mex would be one of those places, as would California Pizza Kitchen and Z Pizza (once again, they only use organic ingrediants and it's the same damn price as any other pizza).

Here's a spew of shit that I've been meaning to mention. You see, I have a secret order to the way I update my blog. It's not as secret as In-N-Out's sub-menu, but it's still pretty secret. UNTIL NOW.

When I have something to say, but it's not enough to justify a new post, I add it to my secret "Draft" post- that never gets published...it remains in "Draft" limbo. Then when the time is nigh, I release all those ideas in a crazy whirlwind of kerBLOGgery.

Santa Anna- Last week it was hotter than usual (according to the locals) sticking around 90 degrees. It was nice...it wasn't hot at all. It was very nice. Apparently the high temperatures were do to "Santa Anna" winds. I wonder if she's related to El Nino...or if there's anything around here that doesn't have a spanish name.

kerBLOG!!!

I miss having rainy days. My car is absolutely covered with sand from towing it through the desert when we moved. I refuse to pay money for a car wash when I know that rain will take care of it. Every day I consider going to a wash, but every day I hold out I know the chances of rain get better. Eli...do that funky rain dance! (Eeeeeeeeeliiiiiii's commin'!!!!.....awesome song by Three Dog Night). It's weird, it's been nothing but sunny every day we've been here minus 1 day it was partially cloudy. It blows my mind that this place has 340+ days of sun a year.

kerBLOG!!!

Helmans mayonaisse does not exsist over here. It is strictly an East coast product. I was not aware of this, nor do I trust "Best Mayonaisse" apparently the West coast equivalent. Mainly because ANY product that says it's the "Best!" is NEVER the best. EVER. I dare you to prove me wrong.

O.k. fine, I'll make the exception that Hormel's "Potted Meat Food Product" (I guess what's left over after they make Spam?), which claims to be "America's #1 Choice!" on the off-chance that Justin R. even reads my blog.

kerBLOG!!!

Long Beach has cockroaches. This is weird to me. When you grow up in the country-side you never ever see one. Syracuse nor Buffalo really had these either. Now Long Beach is a very clean city (now, I guess it wasn't 15 years ago) so they're not around because it's gross and dirty and crappy like NYC

ZING! take that Erik, Emily, Kai, and whoever the hell else is there reading this

but because it's warm here and they like the weather. They only come out at night though. This is because they like the dark. If you have an apartment infested with roaches you'll notice that when you turn on the lights when you walk in it looks like the walls are moving. Those are roaches running from the light. Also, you should get a new apartment, the one you have is gross.

So Sha (a.k.a. Dr. Sasha G. from above) was warning us about stepping on roaches on our way to bars at night, when I commented about stepping on really crunchy leaves one night. Low-and-behold these "leaves drifting across the sidewalk" are actually roaches. Personally I haven't identified, beyond reasonable doubt, that any of these leaves are actually roaches. So all of the above is still based on heresay. But I do know that the first roach I see, and is OBVIOUSLY a roach, will be scooped up and kept in a jar, and be named "Leaf" in honor of my sister's wishes.

kerBLOG!!!

There was a bomb threat called in on the street next to ours, at a bus stop, last week. That was weird. I guess there was a unmarked box just sitting there, looking all suspicious and such. So everyone that lived on that street was evacuated and moved to the sidewalks of our street. I was like, "AW HELL NO! One of you is a goddamn Bin Laden terrorist from the Al Quessidilla in Iran-Iraq-Afgahn-atanomo Bay!"

Actually I didn't give a flying fuck about the whole thing.

I still haven't gotten used to the helicopters that fly around everywhere either. I saw some in LA the other day, figured they were part of a movie or something stupid like that. Yeah ghettobirds! You make the big screen!

Alright, I'm actually going to put the rest of my material in a different post. I'm afraid that these posts get too long and people are intimidated by that. They decide, "Oh shit, I don't have time to read about Derek's stupid brain rot, but I would if he wrote less."

Anyone who reads this please comment. It's easy, you hit the comment button and just choose anonymous. Type a message on whether or not you care if my posts are too long, then type your name at the end. That's it, then hit the "Publish Post" button...and type in the stupid security thing or whatever is next.

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No song today suckaz.

"No song today suckaz." -Derek Heck

7 Lane Parking Lot

!!!ATTENTION!!!
Movie links are now in red. Movies are generally pretty funny, otherwise I wouldn't waste web-space on them. Click the damn red links you stupid lazy hippy.
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7 Lane Parking Lot is my official term for highways around here.

Before I go any further perhaps I should further explain the greatness that was the day of our going away party.

Our going away party takes place on 2 Friday's ago, beginning at around 2 a.m. which is when my sister (Danielle), Brenna and I were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Danielle's boyfriend, Justin. We weren't sure if he was going to be making it due to flooding in Michigan...but as soon as we were questioning the timeliness of his arrival he was whistling at us through our living-room window.

We all go to sleep around 3 a.m. cut-to 7 a.m.

We all wake up and are freggin' tired. Justin and I go to Penske to get the moving truck and car trailer. Brenna and Danielle aggressively defend an open parking spot in front of our house for when we come back.
Upon return we feast on a Cinnabon breakfast, a.k.a. "The Breakfast of Champions."
Justin and I then proceed to load up the truck, as Danielle vigilantly sits gaurd in a recliner to makie sure homeless alchy's don't steal our t.v.'s. Brenna was off battling trolls for twine.

A couple hours later Amazing Surprise #1 takes place:

I'm in the truck tying boxes down with Justin and when I go to get out Kai is standing there (he lives in NYC) with a huge grin on his face. Holy shit that was awesome. (Especially since Kai's car has been impounded for a while and even if I had the slightest idea he planned on comming I would have figured he had no way of getting here)

After many hugs, smiles, and golfing hats we all continue to load up the truck when a racist fight breaks out. Apparently some black woman was letting her child run down the street and a white guy (who ended up being a neighbor we didn't know we had) called her a "monkey" for not keeping an eye on her children. The rest took place pretty fast, but somehow she was yelling at him and about six 15-year-old black kids were joining in with her (while smoking stoogies) along with a giant middle-aged black man. The white guy proceeded to call them "niggers" so they rebuted by spitting on him. His next response was to grab a MagLite and tell the 10 of them that he'd take them all on. Yeah buddy...smart.
Eventually the crowd starts to thin out, but not without a death threat to the white guy. So the white guy calls up someone on his cellphone and says, "Bring the stuff! Yeah, bring the stuff!"
A few minutes later (after everyone is gone) a red pickup truck pulls into the white dudes driveway, and a guy with a pitbull gets out, and another guy with a katana (samurai sword). Now the white dude takes the sword and puts it in his windpants.
Keep in mind that there is no one left to even fight.
The white dude then proceeds to pace around in his front yard with a pitbull and a katana stuck down his pants.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention he tried to apologize to Kai (who had NOTHING to do with the whole thing, and was just watching from our porch) for calling the other guys niggers.
Needless to say, white dude gets "Asshole of the Year" award.

After packing up most of the truck we all decide to go to Just Pizza to get the best pizza known to man, the 3 Cheese and Steak pizza.

The details to this adventure are vague to me now, but they involved us trying to order pizza from the woman at the counter, and her telling us we had attitude. It made no sense. Brenna was asking for a "white pizza" which was listed on the menu, and the woman at the counter didn't understand what it was, so apparently that made us rude. After she finally got the order straight she couldn't swipe my credit card correctly (it wasn't the card because the damn thing worked fine, and still does) so she asked another customer behind us to make their order ahead of us. While preparing that customers order she talked about how rude we were as if we weren't even there. So when she finished I asked if I could have my card back (before she could figure out how to actually swipe it correctly) and she asked, "Do you want your card or the pizza?" So I asked again for my card. She tossed it to me and told all of us that we needed to learn manners.
This is odd because no one (out of the 5 of us) really said anything at all the whole time. So we went to a different Just Pizza...

We get back to our house with delicious pizza in hand, and Amazing Surprise #2 takes place:

Kevin pops in out of nowhere (he lives in Ohio). Kevin is one of my best buds from growing up, so you can imagine the crazy awesomeness of this surprise. Wups! Don't poop your pants yet! There's more surprises in store!

So we all hang out and just kinda joke and talk and stuff until around 8 p.m. which is when the party is supposed to start getting under way. Well, it took a little while to kick off, but that's ok because we had Amazing Surprise #3 to keep us occupied!

Dudley showed up (from Rochester) with a Garbage Plate from Taho's!

Now don't get me wrong, I was very, VERY happy to see my sister/Justin


Eli


Nick

and Poker-Matt come to the party by this point, but in order to recieve an "Amazing Surprise" ranking two criteria must be met:
1) Travel from outside of Buffalo with the sole intention to attend our party.
2) Comming to the party with no previous indication that they would be in attendance.

At this point certain rules started to take shape. Three memerable ones were 1) If someone pushed the play button on the robotic skeleton of an Easter toy, it would play the Chicken Dance song, and everyone was required to break out into chicken dance

2) If someone even mentioned or hinted at the funnel that Eli brought they had to funnel their drink, no questions about it

3) was if someone could guess the flavor of Dorritos that were taped to a fake ficas tree they got to keep the whole bag, the secret answer was "Booler Ranch."

So a little after Dudley came Penny, and her posse showed up,

everything past that was a blur. Ron and Carrie showed up

followed by Kate and Sean (now proud parents of a batch of Sea Monkeys!)

and Jon and Andrea.

I know that out of nowhere Amazing Surprise #4 the old Caz Crew (mostly from Fredonia now) showed up.

which led to a lot of interesting games of "Who's in the closet with Cazenovia!?!?"

giving everyone from Cazenovia "rasberries" (here's an amazing video of Nick getting one)

and cuddling in pillows.

The crew was followed by a few more peeps, including Jon


Brian and Stephanie


Ben (or, at least the back of his head)


"Beck"


Mauricio and his woman


and The Invisible Man.

and the entourage of "Wilk 5" buddies (from UB) which included Matt


Pat


Marnie


and the last, but definately not least, Amazing Surprise #5 Steve!

Then of course we ALL know who was the last to come, Mr. King of Fashionably Late, who opperates in his own time zone- OP!!!


All of this seemed to lead up to the last event of the evening: Ron giving Kate her Birthday Lap-Dance

which turned into Ron and Kai giving Kate a lapdance (hey, at least Kai wasn't naked)

all of which infuriated Kate, who got angry

kicked over the "Drinking Jenga" tower

and ruined the party.

Actually, I'm just running out of pictures and getting impatient about telling the rest of my story.

Moving forward to the next day.

Kai left early in the morning, as did my sister and Justin. Brenna and I spent the next day packing up what little left there was to pack

and having one last BBQ with Ron, Carrie, and Eli.

The day after that we did some more packing related stuff, I played a days worth of video games, including Alter Beast, with Eli (probably the one thing I'll miss the most about moving to Long Beach, since we've been saving the world together since we were kids...goddamnit, now I'm starting to get sad) and went out to dinner with Kate and Sean, and Jon and Andrea.

The next day Ron came over to wish us fair-well and we were off in a truck loaded up with a ton of shit.

I swear it's actually packed really well. Justin and I packed about 6 large pieces of furniture and 25 boxes of stuff PERFECTLY, it's just that all the little things that got packed last are thrown on top of it all. Seriously though, we packed that shit so tight NOTHING was moved (or broken) when Brenna and I got to Long Beach. Especially the computer, wrapping it in 2 comforters (blankets) and strapping it down with twine to a recliner deemed an effective technique.

So it was the same ol' trip across the country, but this time we had Chester! He was a trooper :)

It's weird, after driving across the damn thing 3 times it really doesn't seem that big anymore. This time it still took us less than 3 days to get across, so...I don't know what people are thinkin', it's not that long of a trip to drive across.

One major change on this drive was the whole "driving a huge-ass truck that's towing a car" thing. Especially when a car drove by us and waved us to pull over in the middle of Oklahoma. So we pulled over just in case, not really sure what the person was getting at. I hopped out of the truck, not really expecting to find anything wrong, walked to the back, yup so far so good, then further back to my car, yup still good, and then around to the back of my car, HOLY SHIT.

Where is the tire?

Yeah, the back driver-side tire was COMPLETELY gone. It was a metal rim standing on the ground. Apparently the tire blew pretty violently, because it took off some of my back bumper with it. I would have taken pictures of it, but because we pulled over onto the shoulder of a 2-lane highway with a lot of semi's and cars going 85+ mph, it didn't seem like a good idea to stand in the road for that "perfect angle."

So we called AAA and they needed the mile marker we were at (since we were in the middle of bum-fuck-nowhere), the closest of which ended up being about a half mile from our truck...or at least that's how long my jog to find one seemed.

Funny story about that too. So I'm jogging along-side trucks doing 85 mph thinking about how we're fucked and there's nowhere around to buy a replacement tire, when it dawns on me that I'm probably going to get bit by a poisonous snake considering it was hot out and I was running through dry, thick grass.

So eventually some dude comes in a tow truck (oh yeah, mile 154, it's hard to forget that number now) and tows my car about 10 miles to a shop in the middle of nowhere.

They pop a used tire on it in about 5 minutes, charge me $30, and send me on my way.

In case you don't know, typically fixing a tire with a leak usually costs more than $30, we got un-describably lucky on this whole thing.

Before we left though, I asked for some duct tape to fix up my bumper...what else would you use to fix something like that? ;)


Here's some pics of another vehicle they need to do some work on...she's what we call a "fixer upper."



So we were back on our way, and wouldn't you know after 1 mile we almost got attacked by a dragon!

Freckin' Oklahoma, it's a death-trap. Thankfully that was the end of anything interesting for this trip though.

Alright, so Wednesday night we stopped in the middle of Arizona to get a hotel room so we could watch Lost. We were definately in the middle of nowhere, sandy dirt all around us, and the only thing that was kinda close to us was a KFC. So naturally we went there to get bicuits, but the retarded 16-year-olds that worked there couldn't figure the order out. So for $1.86 we got 4 biscuits and 4 apple turnovers. Whatever, I'm not gonna argue.

We watched Lost and Chester ran around in the hotel bathroom like a bat out of hell, then we all went to sleep.

The next day we got to Las Vegas and hung out at Brenna's parents new house for the day/night. Her mom came home with KFC...ok. I guess we can eat more biscuits, I try not to eat fast food (although I'd probably make an exception for DQ's tangy lime chicken tender bascuit), but I figure bread doesn't count. Then we spent some time in the hot tub, got 3 hours of sleep, and hit the road again- but this time I'm driving the truck and Brenna is driving her car (remember!? We left it there last trip. Ahhhh, we so clever!).

So we got to our new home, and unpacked for 2.5 days solid. Here's the pictures of where we live, although it will change a little soon, we have about 30 frames of cool pictures we're going to hang in the living room, along with our maps from driving across the country.

One funny antic you might enjoy, but still worries me, when we finished most of our unpacking, and were resting, it dawned on me...shit what if there's an earthquake? So I turned to Brenna and asked her if I should superglue all of our stuff down, or tie it down with twine. She told me not to worry about it. What crazy bitch!?! What about my computer!!!

I swear Earth. If you even TOUCH my computer, I will KILL you.

Without further a-do, here is our new place, in extreme detail since most of you will probably never come out here to see it:

Our apartment is the window on the 2nd floor, above Brenna's head.


If you were looking straight on at our apartment, like the picture above, and turned your head left, you'd see our neighbor's super-sweet house


and if you turned your head right, you'd look down our street.


Now lets head inside. This is what it looks like when you enter the first door to the building, it's a lobby/mail-room type entrance.


If you keep heading straight through the lobby/mail-room this is what you'd see outside that 2nd door, the stairs to our aparment are the first ones on the left, the courtyard is down further (you can kinda see it).


So if you turn your head to the left (towards our stairway) you'd see this


Before we go upstairs, lets keep walking towards the courtyard, this is where 80-million cats hang out. Brenna loves them. I figure there's so many if I stomped on a few no one would even notice. It's a win-win situation.


Past the courtyard is a gate that goes into our back alley, which looks like this


Every house has an alley behind it here. People are required to put their garbage in these alleys, and use the garages for parking if possible (by law). This way the city always looks clean, since the garbage is hidden, and you have a whole auxilary street/alley system in which to evade the cops. That's why we have so many helicopter chases here :) So if we head back into the courtyard, walking back towards our stairway (also heading back towards the entrance/lobby we came through) you'd see this, our stairs are now the last ones on the right.


Note the patio/deck thingy above the entrance/lobby we originally came through, that is our balcony. You get to it through our closet...you'll see.


So lets head up the stairs to our apartment


This is the door at the top of the stairs. Metal gated doors are typical here, I don't think it's actually crime-related because even the very very nice houses have them (same with un-necessary fancy bars on the windows).


When you open that door you are greeted by our "Hallway of Art and Track Lighting."


The first door on the right, which you can't really see in the above picture, is our Spam-Tastic kitchen


If you look in at it from the hallway


And step inside and turn your head to the right


Then turn back around to leave the kitchen, you see the hallway again through that door


So now we're back in the hallway, and looking at what was the first door on the left


This door leads to our bedroom


This is the view from the bed, note the dangerously high, really heavy, t.v. Yeah, that's my awesome earthquake alarm. I figure it'll wake us up if there's an earthquake. And crush our legs.


Back to looking straight into the room


If you turn your head to the right a little more you'll see Chester's cage, and our open closet door.


If you step in the room and look straight at the closet


and walk towards it, this is what is to the left


If we step into the closet, and turn our bodies to the left


and spin all the way around 180%, this is what's behind us


Spin back around


and open the door!


See? that's how the door in our closet gets to a balcony. No it doesn't make any sense, but at least you know what Brenna and I have been talking about now :) Here's the view if you sit in the blue chair


Ok, lets go back in the hallway we started in. Remember how if you were looking down it, the kitchen was the first door on the right, and the bedroom was the first door on the left. The bathroom is the 2nd door on the right (past the kitchen)


So lets go in


and turn your head to the right


Now we're going to go back to the beginning of the hallway, where we came in the door. Immediately to the left is a road sign


and a little ways down past that are the portraits Erik and Emily (er..."Emerik" as we all know them! Oh! speaking of which, Brenna's friend Sha came over the other night and in her cell phone she had us listed as "Brender" holy crap...we're like a west coast Emerik!) made for us


and on the wall to the right is my beloved H.R. Geiger print


Ok, lets get our bearings straight again. We are now looking down the same hallway we walked into when we started. We now know the kitchen and bathroom are on the right, and the bedroom is on the left. If we walk straight to the end of the hallway we come to the door of our living room, notice the crow that my mom gave me freshmen year of college for Halloween, it's always been placed above a major doorway in every apartment I've lived in (I wonder if my mom knows that...).


So if we walk through the doorway into the living room, we see the couch and some bean bag chairs we just got at Target (on sale! woo!)


this is what is outside the window in the picture above, I call it "Take that Buffalo!"


up-close


turn your head to the right and you see


turn your head to the left and you see


Not-so interesting fact: that entertainment center (recently purchased from Walmart) weighed over 300 lbs. and took over 4 hours to assemble (faster than the suggested 5 hours! take that instruction booklet!)

Even-less interesting fact: the coffee table on the floor actually has a dark green center, which is awesome if your favorite color is green.

Extremely interesting fact: the door behind the entertainment center actually opens with a pivot. It can't do it now because there's a entertainment center in front of it, and storage boxes behind it, but here's a clip of me playing with it before we unpacked all that stuff

If we walk into the living room, and turn around to face the doorway we came in through, you see a built-in cabinet to the right of the door (notice the pictures Franco's mom gave me a few years ago, also a staple to every wall in my apartments). Also take note of the closet that's to the left of where the entertainment center was, that's my computer cave!


If you walk towards the computer cave, this is what it looks like. Typically when I prepare to enter the cave, I pull the chair out into the living room, sit in it, grab each side of the doorway with my hands, and LAUNCH myself into it!!!


This is Command Center Omega XIII. (complete with nudie pic of Luba Licious from Leisure Suit Larry)


If you turn your head to the left


or to the right


See the black drape in the above picture? Behind that is boxes full of sentimental stuff, skis, etc. but it was crampin' up the style of my cave, so I made the black drape wall. (also the lamp in the picture above, i should have went with 75 watts, 125 is a lil' too bright...)


Oh? What's that Command Center Omega XIII? You have a weather report update for me? 72 and humid in Buffalo? and 93 and dry in Long Beach? How informative! (yes I have a toolbar that shows me Buffalo vs. Long Beach weather, it updates hourly)


Alright, well that's it for our apartment. Oh! Want to take a walk down to the beach, it'll only take 1 minute if we walk fast, or 30 sec. if we run.

Watch out for the creepy vine tree in that dude's lawn!


Ahhhh. That was a nice walk and/or run. So this is the beach that's right near us. The paved part is a running/biking trail that runs the length of the beach. There's also no BIG waves because there's a jetty out a few hundred yards to break them up for the harbor that's off to the right.


If you turn your head to the left


and to the right is the harbor for cruise ships and other large boats, along with a huge aquarium. I'll get better pics some other day.


And so concludes this posts tour of my new life in Long Beach. There was more to this update, but it's stuff that can wait. This was a pretty long post (sorry about the wait, this took quite a while to make) so go take a break, lay on the couch and stare at the swaying palm trees and listen to the birds chirping, while the gentle, warm, slightyly ocean-scented breeze blows into your apartment...oh wait...you're in NY

SUCKAZ!!!!!!
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met a man
He was a good man
Sailing and shoring
Dancing the beta can-can
Making me foreign
Oh yeah

I want to live in los angeles
Not the one in los angeles
No, not the one in south california
The got one in south patagonia

I want to live in los angeles
Not the one in los angeles
They got a bunch down in moleville
They got a bunch more still

I want to live in los angeles
Not the one is los angeles
They got one in twenty-five two five
Works just like a beehive

I want to live in los angeles
Not the one in los angeles
Counting helicopters on a saturday night
The symphony of the fair light

I hear them saying los angeles
In all the black and white movies
And if you think they star-spangled us
How come we say los angeleez?

I’ll wait in los angeles
I’ll wait in the pouring sun
No way
For not anyone
No way

I met a man
He was a good man
Sailing and shoring
He got a betatron, man
Talking that foreign
Oh yeah

I’ll wait in los angeles
I’ll wait in the pouring sun
No way
For not anyone
No way

"Los Angeles" -Frank Black