Uncle Sam Goddamn
Last wednesday it happened again. The cops pulled us over when we were driving down Venice, just minding our business and not breaking any laws. It’s the fifth time it happens now and believe me when I say it’s got nothing to do with my driving. These cops kept us by the side of the road for over an hour, interrigating us about everything between heaven and earth, searching the car and acting rude as usual. This time I was prepared with all the documents they could possibly want from us, but seeing the opportunity to mess with foreigners who don’t know their way around, they told us both our documents and my drivers license were invalid. I got issued a ticket, for total bullshit, and I even have to appear in court! Even though I was not at fault and I had proof to back it up! But these ignorant fucks sent the car to the impound lot, again, and left us on Venice to figure out a way to get back home, again. No wonder people hate the LAPD. These incompetent, uncivilized, superior, condescending, patronizing, bloated pathetic losers with their “fuck you, obey me”-attitude make me sick to my stomach.
If I wasn’t leaving in a month, I would make a formal complaint, but now the time is too short, and I don’t want to spend my vacation dealing with this shit. I’ve already squared one of the 2 points I were supposed to get fined on, tomorrow I’m going to court to fight out the other part. Then I’ll just try to forget this ever happened. Well, at least until I get pulled over again…
GOOD and Let’s Move Infographic Competition
A while back, GOOD Magazine, held a competition in collaboration with Michelle Obamas Let’s Move Initiative, where they asked the GOOD readers to create an infographic on Childhood Obesity. The submission deadline has now passed, and you can view the submissions here, including mine!
The Designers Struggle
Frank Chimero, a graphic designer in Portland, Oregon, wrote this fantastic spot-on article on the constant battle of why he both loves and questions being a designer. A must read for young creatives.
The Griffith Observatory
On Friday me and Heidi went for a little afternoon drive, just driving randomly around southwest Los Angeles, just marvelling at how different from Sweden the streets and people are here.
Awesome.
After driving for a while, we went up to the Griffith Observatory, just in time for sunset. It was really crowded though, so we didn’t bother taking a tour or standing in line for the telescopes. We’re going back on a weekday when there aren’t as many tourists.
You can see the Lone Tree on the far left (where we had The Human Party).
Celebrating Two Years
Last night me and my girlfriend celebrated two years as a couple. We went to a quaint little place called La Boheme in West Hollywood for a nice candlelit dinner by their fireplace.
Operating Forklifts with Jack Daniels
This weekend was pretty damn sweet. On saturday me, Heidi, Sean and Maja went to Chinatown to visit Max in his new apartment in the brewery. The brewery itself is a pretty awesome concept, an old brewery that’s been made into living spaces. Max’s apartment was 3 stories of awesomeness. The crown jewel was a forklift (…) that he had inside of the apartment, he apparently got it for free from work. So of course we were playing around with it, lifting eachother up, swinging from ropes we tied to it, etc. We might have gotten a little carried away at the end though, someone luckily caught it on film:
In Russia, forklift operates you! Ok, jokes aside, he actually had a forklift and it was awesome, but we didn’t break anything. We spent the night at his place, and we had a nice hung over sunday together in Downtown and Little Tokyo, with lunch at Pete’s and dessert at Yogurtland.
The Wait is Almost Over
It’s been exactly 5 months since I left Sweden, my friends, family and girlfriend. Being away from all of that sure hasn’t been easy, but tomorrow things are going to get a lot easier. My girlfriend is finally getting on the plane from Stockholm to join me here in Los Angeles, and she is staying for almost 2 months! Woo!!!
E3 Expo 2010
Yesterday me and Sean were able to score some badges for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3. It’s an annual event where the biggest players of the gaming industry present the latest and greatest innovations and games. We saw some pretty cool new stuff, among other things the new XBOX Kinect technology, previously known as Project Natal, which involves some cool motion tracking features. I prefer playing with a mouse or a controller to jumping and waving like an idiot, but I suppose it can be cool for some types of games. The lines to try out of
The best thing about the Expo though was when we were just walking around randomly and heard a lot of noise coming from one of the stages. When we walk over there we see Method Man and Redman on stage, and they start to perform just as we get there! They were there to promote some Def Jam Singstar game or whatever. They played some of the old school Wu-Tang stuff, and it was fucking awesome.
The Tron bike!
That’s just wrong…
Redman, fuck yeah
Happy happy, joy joy
Parking Ticket
Got issued my first american parking ticket today. We were at LAX to drop off my classmate Johan, who together with Maja has been visising us the last week. Johan is going to Brazil and Maja is staying here for another 2 weeks. Anyways, we only left the car for 5 minutes to make sure Johan found his gate, but I was kind of parked in a taxi zone though, so I guess I had it coming…
Woop, Woop, That’s the Sound of the…
… yep, you guessed it, trouble with the police again. The last week we’ve been pulled over twice for having faulty plates, the first time they even impounded the car. We got it back though. We also moved into our new apartment on friday, which was a mess in itself. We spent the entire day packing up our stuff, only to realize, when on our way to the new apartment, that we forgot to pick up the keys. With our entire life stashed in the U-haul and nowhere to put it, we had little choice but to stay at a hotel over the night. But now we are finally settled in at our new place in Playa Vista, and it’s great. 3 mins drive from work, 5 mins drive from the beach.