Jay-Z: The Blog Album

The Aussies have left the building.

I know I left it kind of on a sour note, but on a whole, they were really nice guests, despite not having laughed at my joke. A few hours before the Aussies left at 1:30 Wednesday night, the boys of 3260 found a little present left for us:That's the Australian flag we left them, with an 18 of Bud Light, along with a Foster's on each of the six stars, representing one of us who lives in the house. They even wrote each of our name's on the beers. Plus, on the Bud Light box, they wrote:

"G'day Americans,
Thanks heaps for having us all stay. Any time
you're in Oz and need a bed, give us a buzz.
We've had a blast. Lots of love,
Russ, Brad, Jarrod, & Ryan"

Pat was particularly touched:
So we said our goodbyes and we went our seperate ways. The house seems empty now, especially because everybody but me has a job and leaves for most of the day. I wish I was Australian. I don't know why.

Anyway, Pat had the day off Wendesday, and he was about 2,000 miles overdue for an oil change, so we had to take his car in. I followed him, assuming he knew where he was going. This was a poor decision. All I'll say is that we ended up driving on a sidewalk, and that is no lie.

Later, we went to the mall just to hang out for a while and kill some time. I bought a picture frame at Bed, Bath, & Beyond because, for a five minute window, I think I turned gay. It's been a day and the frame is still sitting on my floor. Why did I do that?

Pat and I were walking past one of those kiosks when a chesty young lady literally grabbed Pat by the arm and pulled him over. This kiosk was called "The Dead Sea Miracles" or something, and it was all skin products that apparently exfoliate, cleanse, and turn you invisible. Not really, but for the price they were asking, it should have made me look like Jude Law. She made us wash our hands with some crap, and was being very flirty, and touchey, and trying to seduce us. When it came to the point where we were supposed to purchase something, Pat explained that he has no money. Desperate for a sale she says, "How much money do you have? I'll help you out." Pat had $15 bucks on him. "That's it?!" she says. Apparently the product was around $40 dollars because it's from the "Dead Sea". My ass. Anyway, seeing that Pat was poor and therefore a lost cause, she made a quick transition to me: "How much money do you have?" I told her I have a lot of money in my wallet, but I have absolutely no intention of buying any of your products. I said this with the biggest asshole grin on my face. So then, naturally because she had a big chest, Pat rips off the sleeves of his shirt and starts with the "So, how'd you get into this business?" She wasn't having it.. She literally just shut up and shrugged and waited until we went away. It was awesome. Later I recalled that a few weeks earlier Jorge had been swindled into buying a couple expensive products of theirs. He hides it from Pat so he won't use it.

We went up to the food court and tried to see how many free samples we could get from the Asian places. We got a piece of teryaki chicken. I tried remarking loudly, "Wow, chicken and meatballs, that's an odd combonation, I wonder how the meatballs would taste." The Asians squinted at me suspiciously, which was basically them completely shutting their eyes.

Later, Pat and I joined our friend Sarah for dinner with some friends at a place called Ernie's. It's a cool little Mexican place. The only person we knew there was Sarah, but there were about seven other people there, all super-nice. It was a little awkward at first because Pat and I got there before Sara did and we had to introduce ourselves. The other people had been there a while and were a few drinks deep. When the waiter came to take mine and Pat's drink order, we both stuck with waters. Immediately they were all like "You guys aren't drinking?" We told them no. They asked why. Pat had a nice ice-breaker comment, with "I'm actually a recovering alcoholic." The chilling silence after that statement made me want to get up and run. All I said was, "Wow."

The night was pretty fun, though. A lot of people there worked in production, naturally. We talked about old school TV, mostly Family Matters, Full House, Saved By the Bell, Blossom, Clarissa Explains It All, and Step By Step. We also found out that at a karaoke bar about ten minutes away from 3260 called "Dimples", Mr. Belding sings on Thursday nights. Will I be making a trip in the near future? Yes.

So I had a long, lonely day yesterday, having no complete strangers in the house. I took the opportunity to apply for about a thousand more jobs. Today, Friday, is actually the day I'm supposed to be getting a call from Zucker Productions about that interview I had on Monday. It's already noon and no call, or e-mail. I'm really nervous about it because I want it so bad. Alright, all you blogsexuals, keep your fingers crossed for me!

The good thing about being alone yesterday was that I pumped out like thirty pages of mine and Jorge's screenplay that we haven't exactly been hard at work on. I'm really proud of what I did. I'm certain this will get somebody's attention in Hollywood once it's finished. Jorge came home around 10:30 last night and we worked until 3:00 in the morning. He's got the day off today, and coincidentally so do I, so we're gonna work on it big time. Plus Jorge suggested we have a joint effort in preparation of dinner tonight, which should be interesting. I'll leave you with some pictures.

From left to right: Ryan, Brad, Russ, Jarrod, Jaime Kennedy, The Rock, George Clooney.

Also, Wednesday afternoon Pat was sitting out front reading, when he caught a whiff of something that smelled like somebody had parked four port-o-potties up the street. Sure enough:

The Truth About Cats & Blogs

So I arrive home and get my keys out to unlock the front door. But as I approach the house, I notice the TV is on. I knew I hadn't left it on myself, so I figured one of the guys had come home. This was odd because it was only around 5:30, and the rest of the people in my house all return home between 7:00 being the earliest, to 9:30 being the latest. They have these things called jobs that I'm not sure you're familiar with. I'm not, but I think I want one. Maybe for Christmas.

Anyway, as I open my front door I see a stranger walking towards me. Behind him, I see lots of duffle bags. In an instant, a thousand scenarios flashed through my head... Ironically, all of them ended up being Joe Sabia's fault. The guy introduced himself as Jarrod and had a pretty thick Australian accent. As I walked in I saw two more guys who immediately got up to shake my hand. It was only then that I remembered Joe mentioning a bunch of guys staying for a couple days, though he never mentioned they were Aussies. I talked with them a bit, you know, shooting the shit, "What time did your flight get in?", "How's Steve Irwin?", "Did the dingo eat your baby?" kind of stuff, never wondering how they got in if none of my other housemates were here and I had locked the front and back doors.

I called Joe and he seemed intrigued with that very question. He said that Jarrod had called him about twenty minutes earlier stating he was at the house, but the door was locked and so he and his "mates" would just wait until somebody got home. But clearly, he and his "mates" did not wait until somebody got home, because when I got home they were hanging out watching "King of the Hill" in my living room and making themselves pretty well at home for being across the world from their own. So when I got off the phone with Joe, I candidly asked how they had gotten in. Apparently Jarrod fucking CLIMBED the back deck. This is very high and dangerous. Pat and I were locked out once and thought of attempting it, but pussied out. He's either a very good climber, or very stupid, or both. Either way, I'm lucky I didn't come home to a dead Aussie sprawled out on the concrete in my back lawn. That would have been a little more jarring.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, I get to talking, and they are all pretty good guys. I asked how they knew Joe. Jarrod says "Well, I only vaguely know Joe." I wasn't surprised. I think everybody in the world at least "vaguely" knows Joe Sabia. Apparently Joe and Jarrod had never met, they only conversed online and on the phone. Joe's roommate at BC transferred after freshman year to Berkeley, where he roomed with Jarrod. By Sabia standards this practically makes Jarrod and his two friends family. Anyway, it was good enough for me, just a little awkward. The Aussies arrived in Los Angeles that morning, it being the first leg of their trip to Costa Rica, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil for three months. And I thought me moving to L.A was an adventure.

So here I was with three Australian guys that had broken into my house. I decided to take them on a little sight-seeing, AKA In-N-Out Burger drive-thru. That was fun. They call fries "chips". I guess I should ask what their term for "potato chips" is. It's probably some other food like "poppers" or "saltines" or "ravioli". Damn Aussies, get your foods straight.

One by one, my housemates started arriving, which made things a little less awkward. DJ and Mike showed up with a couple girls and drinks to watch a Christmas movie, which happened to be the classic "Home Alone". By the time Jorge, Pat, Joe, and Dylan got home, the Aussies had invited their friend Jeff and his friend over to hang out. We had a full house. The Aussies went down the street to the liquor store and bought us beer, as appreciation for letting them stay here. It was a pretty fun evening, just hanging in and having a few beers. Crossing cultures and shit. More fun when you're buzzed, by the way.

Now this small party brings me to the next, which was about 18 hours later when it was just me in the house again (no job). The Aussies arrived at the house with their friend Jeff and another guy who was going to be staying with us that night as well. Then two more "mates" showed up, a guy and a girl. I was alone in my house with seven strangers. I tried to talk to them, get to know them, but they pretty much just wanted to talk to eachother. Then I realized I didn't give a shit, because I was never going to see any of these people again in a day. One of the Aussies told a joke, "What did one boob say to the other boob?" and the punchline was so dumb I can't even remember it, it was like "Hey, don't be such a boob!" It was just really dumb, totally not funny, but suddenly the seven strangers erupted in laughter. I was like, alright, let me try. So I say "Hey, what did one asscheek say to the other asscheek?" Blank stares. "If we stick together, we can stop this shit!" Awkward silence, polite chuckles, weird glances at one another, tumbleweeds rolling through my living room. So at that point I was all set with the Aussies and their shit-eating "mates" and I shrank back into my room where I remained until they left for the evening.

Above: Joe and Dylan trying to make our guests feel more at home. Because I'm sure every Australian has a flag hanging from their ceilings with masking tape in the middle of the room.

The Blog-Eyed Peas

It's been about a week since I've blogged. This time, I actually have been busy. We had a visitor here at 3260 De Witt, the beautiful Ms. Leah M. Borno. Say hello to Leah.
Also, there's a new tenant here at De Witt, and his name is Dylan Chatterjee. Dylan was supposed to be off to Fiji to film for a new reality TV show on Fox. However, that got pushed back to January. Fox informed him of this about four hours before his flight. And so he immediately began moving in. Already, he has a bigger bed than me, a huge flat screen TV, and has made a kick-ass dinner for the 3260 De Witt Iron Chef contest; cornbread casserole. Dylan is from Houston, so he's got the edge with the good ol', stick to your ribs, southern cooking. Yee haw.

Everybody say hi to Dylan.
Notice both Leah and Dylan are standing in front of dart boards, each with bulls-eyes. This was at the Cat & Fiddle one night, where Dylan kicked mine and Leah's ass in darts, and Jorge conquered everybody. Good times.

So with two newbies in the house, we had a great week. As Leah put it over Thanksgiving Dinner, if she couldn't be with her family, there is nobody she would rather be with on Thanksgiving than me, Pat, Jorge, and a total stranger. However, we did make a pretty damn good meal, if I do say so myself. We had a 6 pound turkey for the five of us, which turned out to be plenty. We cut little slits in it and shoved garlic in it, put potatoes, carrots, and onions around it, poured butter and squeezed a lime over it, then basted it with chicken bouillon, parsely, and dried minced onion. Fucking awesome. We also had mashed potatoes, stuffing, green been casserole, mac & cheese upon Pat's insistence, corn, and biscuits. For dessert we had pumpkin pie and deep dish apple pie. And by the way, Leah made some awesome sugar-coated pecans to snack on while we were all cooking. The one thing I regret is actually eating everything I put on my plate, not only because I was immobile for a few hours after that, but because I have not heard the end of it by anybody who was present. You should hear the way Pat tells the story. The food is six inches off my plate and I eat it without the use of utensils. Fuck you.

So, while Leah was here, we went down to Hollywood Boulevard, up to Mulholland Drive, and around to Wisteria Lane, as pictured here (photography by Leah Borno on a moving tour shuttle):Okay, so yeah Wisteria Lane is fake. But it was cool to get to see it up close from the backlots of Universal Studios, which Leah and I journeyed five minutes from 3260 to on her last day. It was a lot of fun. If Wysteria Lane was real, I could walk to it in ten minutes from my house. Then the desperate housewives would pretend to not be home while I rang the doorbell.

CELEBRITY SIGHTING!!!

On Wednesday evening, Owen Wilson was caught canoodling by himself at Poquito Mas on Cahuenga. The "You, Me, & Dupree" star was wearing army pants and navy blue slippers, and eating tres tacos. Leah freaked out.

There's something else I need to comment on, and it's a more serious matter. On Hollywood Boulevard, we witnessed something disgusting. It was one of those crazy religious fanatics preaching about how we're all gonna die if we don't accept God into our lives. He was on a megaphone and yelling at people as they walked by. As if this weren't enough to repel even the most devout Christian from loving God, this is the display the person was standing next to:

Okay, let's address a couple things here. First of all, there is a fake (I hope it's fake) dead body laying on the Walk of Fame (notice the stars in the sidewalk). As if this is going to do anything but mildly disturb and offend people. As if somebody is going to say "Well, there's a fucking morbid sight. Let me accept Christ right now!" Fucking crazy idiots. What statement were they trying to make with this? What does this dead body covered in a white cloth say besides "We're crazy and you should feel even more estranged and weary of our religion than you did before you saw this fucking crazy display. We might as well smear our shit all over the Walk of Fame and say that we're marking our territory because we're that fucking shit-crazy." Second of all, the sign above the picture says "You are headed towards death, like the Titatnic's passengers." ..................... What? What the hell does the Titanic have to do with anything? You know some shit-crazy asshole was like "Hey... I got this cool picture of the Titanic. Let's use that in our ludacrous shit-show magical insanity tour." What kind of bullshit scare tactics are they using, saying that if I do not accept Christ, I will somehow find myself trapped in the bottom of the North Atlantic ocean after my ship collides with an iceberg? "You are headed for death like the Titanic's passengers." Get the fuck out of my face. Trying to recruit people to your faith through fucking scare tactics is low. Instilling fear into people so that they will ignorantly attach themselves to a religion is, in my opinion, enough to get you a ticket straight to Hell. Quietly practicing your own faith is one thing, shouting on a megaphone on a crowded street about the Titanic with a dead body in front of you means you are the craziest person alive. Get a life. Oh, and Pat got a picture with him:I guess the other thing I should mention is that I had a job interview today in Santa Monica at Zucker Productions. Jerry Zucker wrote "Airplane!" and directed "Ghost", which was actually up for Best Picture. He created "Police Squad", which the Naked Gun movies were based off of. He also directed and produced "Rat Race" and "First Knight". The job I was interviewing for was that the "runner", which is basically office work, photocopying, phones, filing, etc., as well as grocery runs and supply runs. But the awesome part is, I will be reading and writing coverage on scripts, passing or recommending them to the production company, as well as taking part in conversations about story and casting and whatnot. This is an awesome opportunity to do start out low but still do something creative with my time here. I love it. I hope I get the job. I think I did well, but he said he'd let me know at the end of the week. Let's all keep our fingers crossed, eh?

CELEBRITY SIGHTING!!!!!!!!!!!!

At the Hollywood & Highland outdoors shopping center, the fat guy from Borat was caught canoodling with an older woman. It was weird because I have seen the movie "Borat", in which there was a scene with this man completely naked, and a too-close-for-comfort shot of his testicles. Gross!!!

That's the Hollywood sign way way way way way in the background there. Leah, I miss you!!!!!

It's a Blog Eat Blog World

Yesterday, I had an epiphany. It is very rare that I have an epiphany. Actually, come to think about it, if you are having epiphanies like every day, then there is something wrong with you. A constant stream of epiphanies kind of cheapens the whole concept of what an epiphany is. The last time I had a genuine epiphany, I came to the conclusion that sometimes death can actually be a sweet release, and given the situation, tempting. Coincidentally, this was while watching "Kate & Leopold".

Anyway, this particular epiphany was kind of helped along by my good friend Joe Sabia. Perhaps he is not holding a grudge about me grabbing the bigger room before he had a chance to. But all is fare in love and war at 3260 De Witt. While sitting on my ass all day, again, and hoping somebody would call me about a job, I was casually chatting with Joe over this new program called "Instant Messaging", sometimes confused with "e-mail" by my parents. Joe, of course, was at work.

oh i gotchya (11:57:28 AM): why dont you fucking go to a production company and demand an interview

oh i gotchya (11:57:32 AM): but thats too in your face for you isnt it

oh i gotchya (11:57:52 AM): ooooooohhhh!

PaulG83 (11:57:10 AM): lol if i DEMAND an interview i better be pretty well prepared for it

oh i gotchya (11:58:30 AM): and im completely serious. two separate occasions had me listening to people saying about "ins" were showing up unexpectedly to production companies doing that

PaulG83 (11:57:30 AM): plus freaking greenlight jobs never called me

oh i gotchya (11:59:20 AM): you sit around phones and mope paul, thats right i said it!!!!!!! and im gonna keep on saying it until you get in the car and show up to places and show AMBITION that thousands of other mopers DONT show because they expect people to review online resumes and pick up the phone for call backs

oh i gotchya (11:59:29 AM): im gonna be a harsh motherfucker

oh i gotchya (11:59:35 AM): im gonna push you,

oh i gotchya (11:59:38 AM): like weight training

oh i gotchya (11:59:41 AM): get off the candy!

oh i gotchya (11:59:46 AM): fuck the mice!

oh i gotchya (11:59:49 AM): get in the toyota!

oh i gotchya (11:59:54 AM): SHOW UP and say u want to talk to someboday

oh i gotchya (12:00:05 PM): keep doing that every single day

oh i gotchya (12:00:19 PM): show the twinkle in your eyes, that you're a motherfucking hardworker

oh i gotchya (12:00:52 PM): dont say anything,

oh i gotchya (12:00:53 PM): sign off

oh i gotchya (12:00:56 PM): and ACT

oh i gotchya (12:00:57 PM): ACT

oh i gotchya (12:00:58 PM): ACT

PaulG83 (11:59:58 AM): you know what

PaulG83 (12:00:00 PM): you're right

PaulG83 (12:00:14 PM): when you're right, you're right

oh i gotchya (12:01:18 PM): what thE FUCK do you have to lose by doing this

oh i gotchya (12:01:20 PM): im serious

PaulG83 (12:00:23 PM): absolutely nothing

oh i gotchya (12:01:36 PM): aND I AM NOT SAYING THIS "to be right" im saying this SO U CAN FUCKING HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BY BEING ASSERTIVE

PaulG83 (12:00:45 PM): what do i wear'

oh i gotchya (12:01:58 PM): jeans,

oh i gotchya (12:01:59 PM): nice shoes

oh i gotchya (12:02:06 PM): black button down shirt

oh i gotchya (12:02:08 PM): or some dark color

oh i gotchya (12:02:11 PM): and a hip blazer

oh i gotchya (12:02:18 PM): not like a fuckin yacht club type of blazer

PaulG83 (12:01:21 PM): i don't have a hip blazer

oh i gotchya (12:02:27 PM): buy one

oh i gotchya (12:02:29 PM): go to target

PaulG83 (12:01:30 PM): but what's hip

oh i gotchya (12:02:37 PM): pinstriped, thin black blazer

PaulG83 (12:01:49 PM): do i tuck the shirt or leave it untucked

oh i gotchya (12:02:53 PM): something from like an h+m type of style

PaulG83 (12:02:02 PM): do they have H+M in the mall?

oh i gotchya (12:03:13 PM): yeah prolly

PaulG83 (12:02:17 PM): well then

PaulG83 (12:02:23 PM): i'm gonna go seize the day

PaulG83 (12:02:27 PM): and i start with getting my haircut

oh i gotchya (12:03:36 PM): k... haircut,

PaulG83 (12:02:35 PM): good day to you

That got me pretty pumped. So I sped off to Supercuts for my first haircut out of Connecticut. Let me tell you, it's all pretty much the same. Anyway, then I was off to the mall to find a "hip blazer". The momentum my epiphany had supplied kind of slowed down here since the only blazer I found that I liked in the entire mall was at Express Men and was $230.00 dollars. I could afford that if I was employed, but apparently I can't be employed if I don't have that. It's a vicious cycle. So I ate some chicken teryaki, and went home.

I may have thrown in the towel yesterday, but once the Thanksgiving holiday is through, I'm gonna get off my ass and go places and see what I can get for myself. Actually showing up places will just put me that much more ahead of anybody else who has turned in their resumes to those places. Thank you, Joseph, for motivating me.

Also, last night I was going to pick up some ingredients for a spicy pasta dish I was going to make for dinner. Iron Chef 3260 De Witt hasn't really been a heated competition for a while now, since everybody is too lazy. But I felt like cooking up some nice pasta so I headed over to Ralph's. Who do I see when I enter the doors, but Jimmy Kimmel. I shop at the same grocery store as Jimmy Kimmel. Isn't that weird?

Anyway, the place was packed probably because of the holiday. I went around and grabbed the shit I needed, then went to the check-out area. The lines were so long that they stretched into the aisles, so there was no walking between the registers and the first aisles, just lines. You had to go to the middle of the store, look down the aisle towards the registers, and pick a line. This was tedious. While trying to maneuver past some people, Jimmy Kimmel was following my line through the breaking crowd. Then, I got caught up because some guy was pushing around his fucking kid in one of those cars. You know those fake plastic car carriages that people push their kids around in the mall so the kids feel like they're on fucking Nascar or something while their mom shops in Charlotte Russe for pantyhose? Well this wasn't one of those. This thing was the size of a fucking twin size bed, and came up to like my chest, no lie. There was no getting around this thing. They might as well have just let the kid jump in a fucking Chrysler and zoom through the aisles. As I stealthily maneuvered around these idiots, I shared a moment with Kimmel. We both looked at eachother as if to say, "This is fucking ridiculous." Then they opened up a register specifically for Kimmel, and I had to wait a half hour.

In other news, Dylan Chatterjee, the new roomie, showed up last night and since I'm the only one unemployed, we hung out and chatted for a while. He's a real cool guy. He's actually headed to Fiji tomorrow to film a new reality series for Fox on some island. He tried one of DJ's beers, and I had him make a label. It says "Hello, My Name Is... I Wish My Dad Pulled Out." Very nice. When getting the beers in the kitchen, he noticed the mouse traps around the stove. I handled that the best I could at the time, which was "Yeah, we have a shitload of mice here." Probably coulda done better than that.

Meet Joe Blog

So, one thing you guys should know is that, because our housemate formerly known as Michael moved out, his room--the biggest room in the house--had made itself available. Let me just note that Pat and Jorge's room is bigger, but it is shared by two people. Mike's room isn't as big as theirs, but the space to human ratio is far larger. My room was, while not the smallest, definitely the worst; thus it being the only one left over when I was the last one to move in back in Setptember. It was small, oddly shaped, and had two doors, one leading to the kitchen. This may seem nice, but only allowed for thousands of mice to migrate to my room and scamper over my possessions with glee whilst I slept. It also didn't have any blinds, which I attempted to remedy a number of times to no avail.

Seeing an opportunity arise upon Mike's exodus from De Witt, I politely inquired to DJ and Joe if either of them would like to take Mike's old room. They both said "No," and so I was golden. However, just before Joe left for Vegas, he claimed that he never said "No," he just said "I don't care, you can take it" which doesn't seem very different to me but one thing I know is to not get into a battle of semantics with Joe Sabia. Joe went on to mock the time-honored canon of "whoever calls it first, gets it". This is a staple in the legislation of guys, akin to "calling shotgun" or calling "dibs" on a girl. I was happy that for the most part, my other roommates stood beside me. Joe left for Vegas by saying, "I want that room, Gulyas." The words echoed in my nightmares.

Well, as you already know from my previous blogs, Mike moved out a little earlier than expected... conveniently enough, while Joe was still at The Comedy Festival in Vegas. Joe got home around 9:00 PM last night, and I had already moved into Mike's room. He took it better than I thought he would, but we have yet to see any future repercussions on Joe's part. Perhaps I've signed myself up for some bad karma though, because the second I started to load my clothes into Mike's old closet, the metal thing holding the wooden bar ripped out of the wall and now it looks like the thing is going to collapse. Figures, the second I move in, shit starts breaking.

Joe actually had a lot of good stuff to say about his trip. He learned a lot and shared all his knowledge. Seeing all these celebrities, there was a lot to learn about managers, agents, publicists, and the discrepencies between them. He learned a lot about style of communication in the entertainment industry; just how people talk to eachother for networking and not making it all seem like insencere bullshit. He also learned the definition of "a cougar". A cougar is an older woman who chases after younger guys. Apparently, a lot of these older women are managers, agents, and publicists who were there in Vegas. Joe got to witness their cat-like stalking of younger prey. Don't worry, Mrs. Sabia, he did so from a safe distance. Your boy is okay.

In other news, we got a little too liberal with DJ's "Hello, My Name Is..." stickers, but the plus side of that is we have a mysterious cabinet in our living room now that is sure to intrigue all guests:

You don't want to know what is in that cabinet. You really don't.

Also, we have a new roommate taking the place of Mike so that our rent will not go up for each of us. His name is Dylan Chatterjee, from Texas. He doesn't move in for another month and a half, as he is working on some reality show that takes place on an island (how novel!) and he'll be out of the country until it's done shooting. He is however paying us for that month and a half. Also, I pray he doesn't read the "thousands of mice scampering on my stuff" part, as he will be moving into my old room.

Das Blog

I feel like I'm in my late 40's.

Remember in the last blog, I spoke about maturing simply from the process of handing out candy on Halloween instead of getting it? (I should mention that I actually did get candy, my mom sent me about twenty pounds of it, so basically I can get fat and I don't even have to walk from door to door) Anyway, I think I've aged. I am wise beyond my years. Today, a Saturday, I made a day out of cleaning the house, going to Costco, and then Ikea. Fuckin... give me a pair of loafers and a pipe and I'll be set. My youth has apparently fled from me.

Today everybody here at 3260 De Witt woke up ready to get ish done apparently. Usually after getting out of bed I'll go over to the old laptop, check my e-mail, check people's away messages for about an hour or two, and then maybe decide to take a nap. However, today I opened my eyes, leapt out of bed, and immediately ran to the kitchen to get a broom. Soon, with the help of DJ, Jorge, and Pat, the entire kitchen was rid of stains on the floor, stains on the counters, and mouse droppings. Yes, mouse droppings. And there have been reported sightings of more mice since we took our little friend out in the rice bag. This is not good.

But we didn't stop at the kitchen. For some reason we cleaned the living room and dining area as well. And we didn't stop there. We made a list of things we needed for the house and actually went out and got them. And we were excited to do this. Do you see the late-40's-esque behavior here? What the fuck is going on?

Oh so I don't think I mentioned that a while ago, DJ decided to make his own beer. After having the beer sit and carbonate in the beer bottles for the last two weeks, the beer was ready for its unveiling. Let me tell you, it's fucking awesome. And on top of that, DJ had a pretty good idea how to label the beers. At Staples he bought a bunch of "Hello, My Name Is..." stickers. He's going to make a different lable for each beer, such as "Hello, My Name Is... Tomorrow's Hangover." or "Hello, My Name Is... Last Night's Mistake". Good idea right? DJ, Jorge, and I came up with a few:
In case you can't read that too well, on the left DJ's says "Hello, My Name Is... The Reason For Your Divorce". In the middle, mine says "Hello, My Name Is... Mel Gibson's Excuse For Anti-Semitism". On the right, Jorge's says "Hello, My Name Is... Murderer." We're gonna come up with like fifty of these and it's gonna be great.

Anyway, our main purchases at Ikea were a TV stand and a nice big bookcase/shelf space thing for the living room. I don't think I mentioned that one of our housemates, Mike, is moving out. Or, he already has, rather, and he took a shitload of stuff with him, INCLUDING our George Foreman grill. He also took TiVo, our wok, lobster pot, knife set, some tools, and that roll-on Shout stuff that gets stains out. I know because I dropped some meatloaf on my shirt tonight and was very displeased to learn that the stain remover had been Michael's. I'm a mess.

Of course, the drill with purchasing things at Ikea is that you have to fucking put them together yourself, and after my debacle a couple months ago of putting together my bed, desk, and dresser almost consecutively, I was not looking forward to it. However, this time I had DJ and Jorge to help me out, so it went by relatively quickly. Of course, the fact that these pictures were taken kind of proves that I wasn't being much of a help in putting together the furniture... I was busy taking pictures. DJ expresses his distaste for that in his picture. And, if there was one person who was being less helpful than me, naturally it was Patrick Freeman Beck. No, he is not naked in this pictures, and yes his beer bottle does say "Hello, My Name Is... Judyi Dench's Glory Hole."

Some other notes about today: Joe is still in Las Vegas at the comedy festival. I guess he and his team there from HBO Labs are in a small booth or something where they interview people at the place. Today, Joe got to meet Bill Maher, Rebecca Romijn, Ray Romano, Jeffrey Tambor, DL Hughley, George Lopez, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel, the entire cast of Entourage, and a very very drunk Dave Attell. Somehow, Joe got Dave Attell's phone number and gave it to us. Later, Pat texted: "Hey Dave, check out www.savingjeremiah.blogspot.com" Alas, he didn't text back either because he didn't give a shit, or was passed out in a gutter somewhere. Probably both.

Another highlight of the day was shaving the back of Jorge's neck. I'll end this blog with his before and after pictures.

Before:
After:

He has a natural bald spot.

Silence of the Blogs

I can explain.

Don't be too mad at me. I'm sorry.

Okay, so it's been close to a month since I've blogged. But like I said before, I can explain.

So, here it goes.

I just didn't feel like it. So bite me.

I've decided to blog again because I've been getting a lot of complaints about not having done so. Apparently it was the highlight of some people's days (electronically speaking). That is sad and pathetic, but, duty calls, and I shall answer, I suppose. Plus, Pat beat me up and told me to, as pictured below.

But really, a lot has happened in the past month. Right around the time I ended my first rush of blogging, when I first got my car, I began interning as a production assistant for the office of a feature called Senior Skip Day. I got this through my friend Sara (the dinner party one). What went from being one day of no pay in exchange for promised work on the producer's next project became six days of work with no pay and work on the producer's next project. The producer, or line producer of this particular movie, is Marlon Parry. He is from Detroit and wears the same thing every day: black shoes, black socks, black pants, black t-shirt, black button down, black hair slicked back into a pony tailk, black sunglasses. He drinks lots of cappuccino, consumes lots of sugary foods, and uses the word "seriously" a lot. Perhaps most interestingly, he is the big man in black sitting on the bench next to Skee-lo in his "I Wish" video. Marlon also wrote and directed that video. On a side note, Marlon is my hero.

"Six days without pay?!?!" you may stand up and shout at your computer. "Hero or not, Paul, that is unfair labor!" Well, let me just tell you that I ate three meals a day for those six days, three good meals from excellent places, and I didn't pay a cent. Of course, I was the one going to all those places to pick up the food, but what are you gonna do.

Oh, the other interesting thing about that is that Pat, after three days at his job at Enterprise Rent-a-Car, decided it wasn't for him. So he quit. The next day, I called Sara and asked if she could use another guy in the office. She said sure. So Pat and I worked two days together. Don't worry, he didn't get paid either. Also, I got a pair of Larry Miller's shoes from the set of the movie. How cool is that? I wear that guys shoes. They're so comfortable.

So after those six days of running errands, filing stuff, and whatnot, I've just been waiting for a job basically to come along. Marlon did call me to help him with some preliminary stuff for a commercial. He is bidding to work on a commercial for some Europeans for some Ben-gay type substance that cures pain in the joints. The commercial was to take place at an aquarium, so Marlon had to find an aquarium in the area and send pictures to the Europeans to see if they would go with him to shoot. He doesn't have a digital camera, and I had mentioned that I had one. So who does he call to go to the aquarium in Long Beach? You guessed it. We took over 200 pictures there. It was so fucking hard to capture a shark without it being blurry. Between the angle of the glass, the flash, and the sharks moving so fast, it was like trying to capture Big Foot on film. Here are some cool ones I got though:


That last one looks like God decided Hell was a bad idea, crumpled it up, and tossed it through Earth's atmosphere into a wastebasket of transcendence... Or a blue bin, if God recycles, I dunno. Anyway, it's just a jellyfish.

So if I haven't been getting paid, what have I been doing? I did work on Election Day. And let me tell you, that was a fucking nightmare. Election Day was on a Tuesday. I found out that I was going to work the election on the Friday before, when Pat had me go to Apple One, a temp agency, and fill out a form so that we could both work that Tuesday. I guess it was doomed from the beginning because I got lost going there, then spent an unnecessary amount of time actually at the agency making stupid mistakes on my application, then found out that the parking garage I had parked in for less than an hour and a half cost twelve dollars, then found out I only had two dollars in my wallet, had to repark my car to go to the ATM inside, but my keys got locked in the ignition somehow (does anybody know why that happens?) and I almost started crying and was VERY close to asking a stranger to sit in my car and try to get my keys out when they actually came out. Finally, I was able to leave that fucking place and be on my merry way. But when Pat and I went to the training on Sunday for the election, we found out that we were at seperate polling locations and on top of that, we were INSPECTORS, which meant we would be in charge of our polling stations. Which meant we had to pick up ALL the equipment, be there at six in the morning, set everything up, and be in charage of however many people for the entire day, which was from 6 in the morning to 8 at night, plus wrapping up and bringing all the voted ballots to a specified location. Jesus Christ.

Let me just tell you, the four hour training on Sunday did not prepare me whatsoever to be inspector of this polling location, which was Beverly Hills 90212 (that pissed me off a lot, I was one digit off!). I had no fucking clue what I was doing. They could have gotten that dumbass looking shark in the picture above to be Inspector and he would have been more effective. On top of that, I was working with an old black woman who was so sweet but unfortunately was as dumb as rocks, two lazy college-aged girls (one of which showed up an hour and a half late), and last but not least, the biggest bitch I've ever met in my life to date. She was probably late 30's, early 40's. She was just a raging inferno of bitch. Every time I looked into her eyes I saw an entire replay of the Holocaust from start to finish, no lie. She was just a miserable, unfriendly, bad attitude bother of a woman. Anything I did, she questioned. She yelled at poor little old ladies working at other booths. I actually had to tell her to calm down multiple times. She told me that I wasn't earning my paycheck, and I needed to take a leadership position, and she couldn't believe who they sent to be in charge here, and I have to do my job better. She was absolutely right, but that wasn't my fault. They didn't prepare me. Basically, any time she looked at me I heard her thoughts, and they were something along the lines of "I will kill you like a dog in the street."

On top of this crazy lady working with me, I was in Beverly Hills, home of the biggest fucking snobs on the face of the planet. Don't get me wrong, there were some very nice people. But there were also people you could tell were just so used to getting their way and having everybody cater to their needs. They were actually FIGHTING about cutting in line. Multiple adults were basically whining about cutting. I wanted to like bring them to the principal's office or something. Just incredible, immature, self-centered people.

There is this machine called InkaVote that people, after voting, put their ballots through. The InkaVote machine scans the ballots for any overvoting or damaged ballots, and if it finds those errors it spits it back out and we have to advise the people to vote again. If everything clears, then the InkaVote takes the ballot and drops it into a big black bin which the InkaVote machine sits on top of. Well, my stupid fucking InkaVote broke about halfway through the day. So we took it off the black bin and had to insert ballots manually. There is a slot on the front of the black bin as well as the hole in the top where the InkaVote had been dropping the ballots in. We propped the black bin up on the table kind of diagonally so people could drop it in easier. Well, I'm sitting at the front, checking off names of people voting and handing them clean ballots, when a woman comes up to me and goes "Un..................................................... believable." Just like that. So I was like "Um... okay." She said it again, "Un............................................ believable."

Me: Ma'am, is there a problem?
Woman: Do you KNOW what just happened?
Me: No.... No, I don't.
Woman: I just put my vote in the black bin. Do you KNOW what happened?
Me: No, I don't.
Woman: My vote flew OUT THE TOP of the bin, and INTO A GARBAGE CAN.
Me: (trying not to laugh) You're kidding.
Woman: I am not.
Me: Well, I'm sorry about that, ma'am.
Woman: Do you KNOW how wrong that is? How conceptually wrong that is? My VOTE went in the TRASH.
Me: I know, ma'am, and I can assure you nobody else's votes are in the garbage.
Woman: Are you in charge here?
Me: Yeah, sure, I guess.
Woman: What's your name, I'm going to report this.

So at that point I was ready to shit a brick. I left for my first break at that point. It was 6:30 PM. I hadn't eaten anything all day. I was so hungry I said I would stop at the first food place I saw. Driving through Beverly Hills, I realized that people don't eat there. All they do is bank. There are just streets and streets lined with banks on either side. I finally found a food place, but their menu only had gold carrots. Finally, I found a sushi place after like twenty minutes of driving around aimlessly. I was really down in the dumps. My day was awful. I had talked to Pat. Of course his day was going fine. He was stationed in a pizza parlor. He got free pizza all day. Go figure. I ordered some spicy chicken and rice and sat down. Then the Japanese owner of the place came out and saw my "Election Official" sticker and asked me how things were going. I told him how shitty they were and that I hadn't eaten all day. He gave me a free spicy tuna hand roll. He will never know, but this kind-hearted Asian man saved my life that night. I returned to the polling place with newfound determination to not let Beverly Hills snobs walk all over me. Of course, they still did, but oh well.

So, how was everybody's Halloween? Mine was okay. We actually had trick-or-treaters at the house, which made me feel oddly grown-up. I don't know what is so maturing about the process of handing out candy to kids dressed as silly things. But anyway, the first night we went out for Halloween, we went down to Hermosa Beach to meet Woody and some of his pals at a house party. The theme of the house party was 70's and 80's lounge singers. I actually had one of the better costumes just from stuff I had lying around. By the time we all got down to Hermosa, Woody and the gang were out at a bar. We waited a long time and finally got in. Oh, that's what I looked like on the left. No idea who the pirate woman is. Seriously. Don't I look creepy though? Pat was standing, talking to some Asian chicks and I was kind of just there hanging around, and one of the girls, no lie, stopped Pat and said "Can the guy with the fake hair please leave?" I was more than a little offended. I was just standing their innocently and she went out of her way to request that I leave. But I guess it all comes around. There was the really nice Asian who gave me a spicy tuna roll for free and the really mean Asian who asked me to leave because of my fake hair. There is a ying to every yang, a balance. Nevertheless, fuck her.

At another Halloween party, I was Gilligan, but no pics of that. Thank God.

Other updates:

• Jorge loves his job at ING Direct and is doing great. He got MVP of his class (training) and scored the highest on his final. Word.
• D.J is working as a PA for the writers of "Heroes". How fucking awesome is that? I wish I had a job.
• Joe has been giving our gay (yes, they are actually two gay guys who live together and oddly keep Joe's wine glass filled while he's over there) neighbors piano lessons, as seen in my creepy voyeuristic photo from our back balcony:
• The mouse was found IN a bag of rice in a cabinet. We took it down the street and let him free. He will be missed.
• Pat and I have watched two seasons of "Lost" on DVD in about three weeks.
• We went to I.O West, an improv comedy club and ran into some celebs, including Neil Flynn, the Janitor on Scrubs, Tim Meadows, and Horatio Sanz, of Saturday Night Live fame. Tim Meadows bumped into me and apologized. I feel like I've known him for years.
• Joe Sabia is currently in Las Vegas at The Comedy Festival, a huge event for all comedians established and up and coming. Joe gets to interview, or at least hold the camera while somebody else interviews, Bob Saget, Dane Cook, Bill Maher, Jamie Kennedy, Dave Attell, Sarah Silverman, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, and Whoopi Goldberg, and no I will not put links to all these people's IMDB pages for you, you spoiled brats. Anyway, Joe's been there since Tuesday and is coming back Sunday or Monday. I received a text a couple nights ago that he was interviewing Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, who had just humped his microphone and called it Ginger. Last night he was interviewing Damon Wayons, who I loved in "Blank Man".
• Leah's coming on Tuesday for a week and is spending Thanksgiving with us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally, a woman to do some housework around here.
  

On a side note, Joe was given--GIVEN--a $300 dollars stipend to GAMBLE with in Vegas by HBO. That's about fifty dollars more than I got paid for my entire DAY OF HELL on Election Day. Something good needs to happen to me, fast.

Enjoy the blog, you blogsexuals. There will be more.