OakMonster’s Den

More pictures to come through out the day.

I would not recommend going to bed at half past midnight and waking up at quarter to five in the morning to anybody.

It’s hell, kids.  Pure hell.

But I had to stay up.  I MUST finish my Jedi costume!  Pretty much I freestyled the tabbard and the obi part because like an idiot I threw out the patterns for those pieces.  They don’t look very spectacular but they will serve their purpose.

Now I just pray that my coworkers bring me the rest of my props.  Sonia is loaning me her son’s lightsaber and Nhien is bringing in her belt.

I also finished making the Buy More pocket protector and Nerd Herd ID for Brandon.

Yes.  He’s going to his day job as system analyst as a Nerd Herd employee.

Thank god for “Chuck”.  I mean, we didn’t have any idea for what to dress him up as until recently.

Yep.  We’re ready for Halloween!!

If you leave.

Take my breath away.

Living on a prayer.

Take on me.

The last four songs my Zen randomly picked before I got to my building this morning.  At this rate, I started to feel awkward not having my leg warmers on and sort of expected to see the VERY young Tom Cruise in his tighty whitey, socks and shirt sliding past the door when my elevator opens.

And yes. I really do have those songs in my MP3 collection.

I found a way to escape it all.

USC lost to the Ducks today.  (No doubt my brother’s wife and my dad, both U of Oregon alumni, are doing the happy dance for a change…after a few years of me rubbing it in.)  Mark Sanchez did fabulous job.  But in all seriousness, the Ducks were just way too much for our still gelling team.  I don’t want to hear it.

The weirdness of mentioning my mom’s death to new friends.  Still makes me feel a bit hollow inside.

And a long-ass work week, a prelude to an even longer 10 days ahead.  That drains me more than I thought.

Oh…and a bit of a celebration of the 80% completion of my Jedi costume top.  So hooray for that!

To hide from reality and for a bit of celebration, all one requires are the following:

1. The Teddy Bear Couch.
2. A few glasses of Bordeaux.
3. And a few good TV shows on the big(ger) screen TV.   Ah…Stargate Atlantis, Torchwood and Top Gear.  DVR, how I love thee!

Oh, and half a bar of Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Truffle thrown in there for good measure didn’t hurt anyone.  It goes SOOOOO well with the Bordeaux!

I am now temporarily escaped from reality and feeling pretty good.

Tomorrow, I have dishes to do, a video I possibly have to go over to our Video Guy’s office to take a look at, and putting the finishing touches to my Jedi costume.

But right now, it’s me, Teddy Couch, and Brandon figuring out the X-Box 360.

Oh yeah.  Our living room transformation is NOW fully completed with today’s big purchase.  After weighing the options between that and a PS3, we went with the X-Box 360.  More games for B and more bang for our bucks.  PS3 that is backward compatible doesn’t really do much more if all we were going to play would be the PS2 games.  X-Box expands the playing field in the other directions while keeping me happy on PS2 with Karaoke Revolution and Star Wars Lego.  Besides, like Brandon is going to abandon his Final Fantasy games!

So yes.  The Escape Room aka Living Room is just THE place to be right now for me.

Well, until the wine runs out…then the bed IS the place to be.  Heeheee….

Our meeting with the producers for our Big Gala ran late yesterday and therefore I missed my bus.  I bummed a ride with the Producers, husband and wife team who live a few miles from me, and the Video Guy.

Of course, we chat all the way home about this and that and those.  And it came down to where I came from and who all else is back home.

“My dad and my brothers are still in Bangkok,” I said.  And then we launched into another conversation.

But when I said it, it was a strange thing to say.  My dad and my brothers.  I was hoping that the lack of mom mentioned in that would blow over.  But it didn’t.

“So, where is your mom?” the Producer Wife asked eventually.

This marks the first time I had to tell someone, “My mom passed away in August.”

And it was the weirdest thing out of my mouth.

So far, I have only been around people I know.  And people I know already knew.  The new friends I made, El Heffe and Lee, were there when it happened.  And the newest drinking buddies I made at a recent outting need not get into personal stuff.

I realize this is going to be the first of many times I will have to say “My mom passed away in August [this many years ago]” down the road as I meet new people along the way.

Definitely a growing pain all human has to experience sometimes.  But it’s not easy when it’s this fresh.

It’s 6:40 a.m.  It’s still pitch black outside.

And yes.  I’m already in the office.

What’s wrong with this picture???

Oh well.  11 more days to the Big Gala.  7 of those are working days.

I can do this.

I. Can. Do. This.

You know with the whole region on fire, I didn’t get to point out two biggest news in my universe.

The casting is completed for the new reincarnation of Star Trek in the hands of J.J. Abrams.  The Enterprise might as well renamed itself to the Dreamboat already.  Chris Pine, the hunky aristocrat from Princess Diary II, is the new Kirk.  Zachary Quinto aka Syler from Heroes is the new Spock, naturally.  The hotty Rohan horseman of the Lord of the Rings Karl Urban is Dr. McCoy.  And finally, a living proof that sense of humor is hot, cutie pie Asian brother John Cho takes on the role of Sulu, and Simon Pegg aka Shaun of the Dead aka Nick Angel will “give you all she’s got” as Scotty.

Beam. Me. Up. J.J.!  I’m all over this boat even if you make an entire different movie.  As long as this cast stays the same, I don’t care if you’re making Mission: Impossible 4.

…and…

DUMBLEDORE IS GAY!  Rowling outs him.  And there are many clues we have come to overlook.  I KNEW it!

Now you too can assist Southern Californians affected by the fire. The Red Cross guy did say that MONEY is the most needed, so off you go to donate!

Go to KROQ right now for the links on how to help!

Funny how just on Friday, Pat O. and I were watching the helicopter sprinkling seeds over the bald area on the hills behind Griffith Park.

And today, that same helicopter is probably out dumping water on the fire somewhere in Southern California.

LA has really gone to hell in a fiery hand basket.

Malibu’s on fire.  Santa Clarita’s on fire.  Ontario’s on fire.  Lake Arrowhead and San Bernadino’s on fire.  Irvine/Tustin’s on fire.  San Diego’s on fire.  (Olaina is reporting in here, here and here.)  And bits of Santa Barbara is now on fire.

LA Times is keeping an up to date map on there.  I don’t know how appropriate it is to turn the usual Google markers into mini flames though.

All we could do in the office today was walking around, commenting on the ickiness of the air, spying on the movie shoot with a prop police helicopter on the helipad next door, and joking about how lucky we are to be either too poor to live in Malibu or too rich and stuck on city life to live in the suburbs like Santa Clarita.

“All that we have to worry about down here is a tsunami,” a Long Beach dweller said.

“Dude, but you’re like on high grounds of Long Beach,” I said.

“Oh yeah.  That’s right.”

A colleague emailed us via Blackberry to let us know she was evacuating from her home in Santa Clarita.  That is probably the closest we got to the action all day.

Oh, and the police brutality protest that marched down Fifth Street.  Seriously, folks.  What the hell are you doing?  With the whole fucking region is burning, do you really think anybody is really going to pay attention to you?  But I digress.

All we city folks experience of this fire is the ashes on our cars and the smokes in our noses.  Some have the traffic gridlock to throw on top.  Some has to sleep through these warm nights with all the windows shut and been woken up by those same windows rattling by the force of the winds.

Our cars are not in actual ashes or smokes are not actually rising from what we call home.  We are not sleeping in a stadium with only clothes on our backs and perhaps a few boxes of memories.  No windows to close or to complaint about rattling.

It’s a lot easier to swallow when you’re at a distance.

Of course, and update from yesterday’s post. 

The new big screen?  Awesome.  Brandon and Erik are still configuring the thing out with “Transformers” as our guide.

The TV may be a cause for future marital spat.  Brandon likes the smushed wide screen and hates the gray box on the side if you go regular TV aspect ratio, and I can’t stand the smushedness and therefore don’t mind the gray box.  It all comes down to who has the control of the remote which is usually me.  Muwahahhaah.

The new living room configuration?  It’s going to work out great.  Now the room looks like a monsoon breezed through instead of a hurricane.  I will get you guys a picture once we put most of the things into their proper places.

The new OakMonster’s Cave bookshelf?  I actually had to evaluate how I use my shelf space altogether and I came out with a winning solution.  Organizing the Cave bled into organizing the pantry and I really wanted to get to organizing my bathroom cabinets, but I didn’t quite get there.  Heh.

My new USC Trojans honest-to-God hard hat?  It’s definitely going to come with me to Homecoming, I tell ya!

USC new Quarterback Mark Sanchez?  He’s awesome and if Uncle Pete has the faith like the rest of the fan like me and Amy the Gridiron Goddess and listen to the critic like LA Times’ Jim Plaschke, he would keep the boy and shelf Booty for a while.

**

Guys, keep your prayers out to the Southern California firefighters tonight as they battle a dozen fires across the south land.  Also pray for folks affected by the fire from Malibu down to San Diego.

Our town is about 30 miles away from the closet fire in Tustin and we are smelling the smokes quite strongly.

It will be an interesting morning to watch the smokes around Downtown LA from my floor.  I will report in on that as well.