Valentine’s Day in Los Angeles arrives the same way as every other day, as far as I can tell – I’ve been up since nine in the morning, and I can expect to wait until midday or one pm before I have any company. The weather has finally broken – it looks really sunny outside, although it’s still pretty chilly. I’m off to meet some people from barbelith.com in an hour or so.
I’m in LA for the release of the Oscar nominations, and they are a fairly mixed bag. The most important categories (Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Film, Best Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Screenplay) are mostly shared between ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, ‘Erin Brokovich’, ‘Quills’, ‘Traffic’, ‘The Contender’ and ‘Chocolat’ – but with notable appearances from ‘Almost Famous’ and ‘Requiem for a Dream’. One film dominates though: Crouching Tiger with a total of ten nominations, but even this is matched by the combined nominations for Steven Soderbergh’s competing films. Notable (and delighful) absence from Best Film: ‘CastAway’.
I am currently trying out Melatonin pills as a way to regulate my sleep patterns while I’m out here, as not only do I have the eight hour time difference to deal with, but I also must content with my gorgeous hosts’ nocturnal debauchery. Essentially this amounts to a thirteen hour time difference from how I live in London.
It has rained pretty much constantly since I arrived in the city that Time Out says has ‘possibly the most temperate climate in the world’. Last week apparently was near tropical heat. Next week is expected to be more pleasant as well. In the meantime though, this makes two trips out of three to LA which have ended in near flooding. I must be cursed in some way.
I am having a cool time though – went to see a cheerleader movie yesterday with Kerry and Sean. I was hoping that the movie would resemble in some form the awesome ‘Bring it On‘. It didn’t. In fact ‘Sugar and Spice‘ sucked arse. Don’t see it.
I’ve arrived in Los Angeles (near Santa Monica and Vine if that means anything to anyone), and am experiencing yet again the wonders of sleep deprivation and chronic jet-lag. I’m not at my best at the moment, that much is for sure.
Announcement: It is now 10am GMT, and in two hours I will be leaving my flat and heading trans-Atlantically to Los Angeles to stay with Kerry and Sean. Since the flight takes about eleven hours, I am unlikely to post again today. I think I arrive about 2am GMT (7pm PST) at LAX. I’m back next Sunday evening. In the meantime I will, of course, attempt to post whenever I can – but no promises. [What I posted when I went last year.]
While I am out there, however, I would be more than interested in meeting any LA based webloggers or members of the Underground – although bear in mind that I have obligations to my hosts, which may preclude rampant socialising. If you’re in LA over the next week and you’d like to meet up, send me an e-mail. I may not reply if I get swamped, but please don’t hold it against me. I’m on holiday goddammit!
While we are on the subject, (and since I only compiled the links page of timeout.com’s Los Angeles pages a couple of weeks ago), here is a collection of links that might be of interest to locals and/or visitors to the City of Angels: LA Times | LA Insider | Streets of LA | Virtual Voyages | The Getty | LA Weekly | City of Los Angeles.
I’ve just invested $10 in buying sponsored links on Google because I thought it might be a laugh. It is indeed a laugh. I’m targeting people who don’t have anything better to do with their time than muck around on my site. Unfortunately, the search terms I have sponsored have only been entered six times all day. Very much recommended. [Addendum: Click here!]
Discovered via Wired: “Navel Gazing: Britney Spears and the Semiotics of the Belly Button” as published by the online arm of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
“She was perfectly outfitted in the iconography of the coquette—pleated skirt, kneesocks, pigtails—but the key signifier that positioned her on that cusp between innocence and knowledge was a feature that, although common to all humanity, usually is given little serious consideration—her exposed navel.”
Things to do when you are bored: Heromachine.com: Make yourself a sexy superhero. They may all look gay, but that’s only because they’re sexy and cool and dress well. | You could go and see Hannibal (Salon Review) if you wanted – you probably wouldn’t hate it. It’s kind of cool. | When Davo is bored he informs me that his priorities are: “Eat, Sleep, Drink, Man, Woman, Wank.” | Whereas when Luke is bored he undertakes: “Procrastination, staring blankly into space, redesigning your blog.” | When Matt is bored, he types random things into Google and tries to persuade his friends to undertake advertising campaigns on various keywords.
For a city that isn’t supposed to have any seasons, for a city that is always supposed to be sunny, for a city that I’m travelling to tomorrow, Los Angeles doesn’t appear to be having very good weather at the moment.
What can I say? She‘s quite right – I should have spelt it out a little better:
Oh and Tom is referring to the fact that I am actually a man and he has been secretly pining for me and I just revealed my deep inner love within the confines of a small package and we are now off to Tahiti for a bit. Just to get things out into the open, you know.
