Recursion (maybe, I'm not exactly sure about the definition of this term)

Emergency! was a spinoff of Adam-12 which was a spinoff of Dragnet. One of the main doctors on Emergency! is in a cameo on this Dragnet episode! crazy prescient recursion?!

A few notes on basketball.

1) The people they show cheering before the game are not live, because they don't expect fans to be loud and such during winter break.

2) We won by 51 points today--113-62! (side note, when did I start caring about basketball?).

3) During half time, they have a "super shot" contest, in which one can win prizes if one makes certain shots. Half court shot winning the ultimate prize of a year's tuition and books. You sign up before the game if you want to participate. In no way was I ever planning on signing up for this. Apparently, someone thought it would be a really great idea to sign me up without telling me! And I was picked! SERIOUSLY. I didn't think I was even going to make a lay up, nonetheless a half court shot. yeesh. I was so nervous, shaking like I was about to get some sort of shot a the doctor's office. Oy, the announcer makes jokes about you the whole time! But, at least, I did make a lay up. One usually gets one Muscle Milk (such a lame prize) but they ran out (thankfully), and so I got a free burrito from Chipotle.

3a) I have only eaten at Chipotle twice previously. Both times were because I got free burritos.

4) Oh my god, I love James Keefe. This is mostly because he was in one of my geography classes, but also because he is quite good looking and a pretty solid basketballer.

Side note: I haven't done a Royce celeb update in a while. Both super pregnant Jennifer Garner and super high-heeled Patricia Arquette were at The Nutcracker this past Saturday.

Things I learned yesterday

1) Apparently, it took only 12kb to get to the moon on Apollo 11. (I didn't do any research to confirm this). This got me thinking a lot. I find it hard to believe that if, today, we tried to send a man to the moon on only 12kb we could still do it. Have we lost the ability to do things the way they were done pre-new technologies? By the way, Andrew Dawson is performing at UCLA's Little Theater tonight through Sunday; I highly recommend it!

2) I always knew what the "Twinkie defense" was, but now I know where it came from! Yay movies teaching you things.

3) The 800 block of Pico Blvd. in Santa Monica is actually pretty sketch. Surprising. Watch for the establishments named "Cash N Run" and "Sober Inn."

2008 Concert Photos

Mr. Greenwald put up his annual Best Of Concert Photos post. Last year mine were so much better than his. haha. Since then, he has improved and, in comparison, mine are pretty weak. Plus, his blog has a nice and convenient way to view the photos unlike mine. Hopefully you can handle it anyway. Enjoy!

unacceptable

Dear Swingers,

How dare you charge me a dollar for two quarters of a pickle. That is ridiculous. I overuse the word ridiculous, but I am pretty sure it is quite appropriate here. Not even Jerry's Deli charges for pickles; they provide a whole plate full of free pickles. That makes them better than you, which, I must say, is an unfortunate predicament for you to be in.

No longer your fan,
Laura

Thank Hugh

Dear SNL,

How do you make the hilarious Hugh Laurie not funny?

Sadly,
Laura

P.S. To see Hugh in all his comedy glory, please watch any episode of Jeeves & Wooster or most any episode of A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Try this one:

Omg.

I just unwittingly ate octopus. And, it was DELICIOUS. weird.

Update: Octopus has come up a lot lately. Another great octopus: the one painted on the wall at the party in the beginning of classic movie Beat Street.

Vocabulary Lesson

So amazing. Real word:

palinode

PRONUNCIATION:

(PAL-uh-noad)

MEANING:

noun: A poem in which the author retracts something said in an earlier poem.

Also,

14.71% of visitors to this blog this month searched for etrog vodka. How timely.
5.88% for "susan harris" ucla.

Trouble is My Business

If you don't actually know me, you may not know that I am obsessed with all things Raymond Chandler. And, as such, I have started a blog that I actually update with quotations by Chandler and pictures by me. It's basically a photo blog with captions, or a quotation blog with illustrations. Either way, you should check it out.

Also, on this blog, see the incredibly growing sidebar list of books I read this year--go me!--and how Chandleriffic it is.

The real inspiration for this announcement is ErGo's "Metaphorplay" post. Chandler is nothing if not a craftsman of metaphor and analogy. One of my favorites from The Little Sister:

At 3 a.m. I was walking the floor and listening to Katchaturian working in a tractor factory. He called it a violin concerto. I called it a loose fan belt and the hell with it.

Finally, if I do know you and you like movies, please join me on my more recent quest to watch every movie based on/written by Raymond Chandler. Unfortunately, about half of them are not on Netflix, so this might be a challenge.

Disservice

To whom it may concern,

If I call/email/chat with you for any of the following reasons:

• my computer suddenly loses all sound
• you charged me for wireless internet with included router but did not send me a modem/wireless router
• you don't tell me that the price of the service is actually the price after a mail-in rebate, which won't be applied until four to six weeks after you received the filled out rebate, which I won't even receive until over a month after service begins
  

Please do not thank me after every step of your mind-numbingly repetitive process. Please do not call me Ms. Laura. If you deleted both of these horrible things from your script, we could solve problems much more efficiently. Seriously, all of the following were stated just for "Bert" to tell me that I need to reinstall the audio driver for some reason which he does not know.

Bert : Thank you for confirming.
Bert : Thank you for the information.
Bert: Thank you for the information.
Bert : Thank you for your efforts inchecking all the information.
Bert : Thank you for the information.
Bert : Thank you for the information.
Bert: Thank you for confirming.
Bert: Thank you.
Bert: Thank you for your time and patience.

And now, to especially you, Verizon, please do not tell me you can not give me my money back (for your, of course, incorrect charges) because you have not yet generated the bill when I have the bill in my hands. And when I tell you I have the bill in my hands, don't just ignore that and move on like there is no such bill.

Also, Micaela, please learn how to speak English. "Just to confirm, is the music files are same on external hard drive earlier also?" Huh?

Best,
Laura

Happy Anniversary Canter's!

Um, so, I ate beef yesterday. Weird. But, seriously, at least it was super incredibly delicious, oh man. And, even better, this is what 60 cents bought me: an entire (2 halves) corn beef sandwich, a pickle (a little too bitter, not sour), a "taste" of potato salad (I don't like potato salad, so I gave it to a friend who actually ended up with three such tastes), and a rugulach! SO good. SIXTY CENTS. ridiculous. I feel like Huell Howser should have been there for this moment.

The most important thing one can take away from the film Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton

Make sure your workspace has hardwood floors and you sit in a chair that has wheels. Do not ever get up. Do not ever give up.

Too many "In Memoriam, Intial Initial Initial"s lately

Dear Paul Newman,

I always liked you better than Robert Redford. You were incredibly dashing. Plus, your Italian salad dressing is delicious.

Adoringly,
Laura

My wisdom was extracted on Tuesday.

Consequently, I've been bleeding and reading--and not eating. Plus, watching a lot of movies. A few notes:

• I finally finished alphabetizing all the 'rock-pop-soul' CDs at my internship. The Hives' Black and White Album really has fantastic album art. The font is spectacular. Looks like a great old movie. Unfortunately, I can't find a picture of the back where this great font is. So you'll just have to believe me.
• Also at my internship, I've been doing a bit of golf cart driving which is, I gotta say, quite fun. The silly thing about the lot, though, is that the limit lines for stopping are about three feet behind the intersections, and, thus, you can't actually see anything when you stop there. It is all very silly.
• I also interviewed James Franco again last week. I'll play it on my show as soon as I finish healing. Stay tuned!
• I watched Hitchcock's last movie, Family Plot, today. Didn't like it too much, unfortunately. There are two interesting likenesses though.
  
• 1. The villain looks remarkably like Zev Yaroslavsky!
• Bruce Dern in this film reminds me of Will Farrell. But kinda only in this movie. Weird.

In Memoriam J.A.W.

Dear Jack A. Weil,

For you, I resurrect my letter writing. For you, I spent 85 dollars on a shirt. For you, I made my friend drive twenty minutes out of the way so I could spend those 85 dollars on that shirt. I am glad I did. And I still regret that we didn't stop by earlier in the day so I could meet you. I don't have a picture of you, either, but trusty Charles Phoenix does and a mighty good one, too! You are great. I mean, come on, you invented the western pearl snap button shirt!!! You, and not that hideous Lee Greenwood song my mom loves so much, make me proud to be an American.

Laura

P.S. Your initials are JAW!

Start them arms a-flappin'!

Please join me in reviving the Funky Chicken. Do the Funky Chicken now!



Here's another video for your viewing pleasure of Rufus Thomas is all his pink glory at Wattstax!

Just for a while, just for a while.

I watched another movie you can't get (or rate) on Netflix last night: Marlowe, you can't even get it on DVD! As you may have noticed, I am currently reading and watching everything I can get involving Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe private investigator character. This movie is an adaptation of Chandler's The Little Sister. While I would only give this movie 3.5 stars out of 5, if this movie was on Netflix, I would start two new lists in addition to the one I created last week about movies that have parts that take place in the Hollywood Bowl. Marlowe's office is in the beautiful downtown Bradbury Building and another scene takes place in Union Station. There also quite a few noteworthy small roles in this movie--Caroll O'Connor as Lt. Christy French and Bruce Lee and killer(killee?) Winslow Wong.

Edouard Edvard Edward Eddie Ed

I have written about this man, one of my professors last year, previously on this blog. Now you have some absurdity/genius to match with the name. In this clip, Soja is almost like a super-intense-in-a-completely-different-way Huell Howser!

nonpareil

So, it is always sad when I can't rate movies on Netflix. One movie that I watched in 2006 comes to mind, in particular. Raffles, with the nonpareil David Niven. It is so great. You should watch it today. That is the end of this post.

-fin-