LA, CA Questions, Complaints & Everything Else: Episode X: "No Time Like the Present!"

Aww how sweet, you would so be my type if you were a girl.

 

The only time I've heard that song was in 'Homeward Bound', the family sings it in the car.

Feel better, JT!

 

I love that song.

 

I totally remember that! Wow...a fellow Homeward Bounder.

In other news, I heard a horrid thing today. If you remember Never Ending Story, my friends told me that the horse they used, Artex, really died in that scene where he goes in the pit. I'm scarred for life. I have to investigate further.

 

That does sound tragic. Please report back.

 

The 23rd doesn't work for us for HP. Will look for another date.

 

Three post in a row. Where are you people? Don't you love me anymore?

 

I think the city workers are playing it safe -- everybody else: I don't know! Maybe we should just hire the entire LAFF here at our place of employment so we can just have fun all the time!

 

Sounds like a plan. I'm working on JN's request. Though the evil sith lord Avila hasn't contacted me back yet.

 

I would totally go along with this... LOL.

 

I have looked at every web page now. I'm bored!

 

LOTR is just finishing up...I'm getting ready to pack up! Yay Friday!

 

I'm taking a break from packing. I'm so tired already...if only I had muscles, then it wouldn't be so bad.

 

I was at the Long Beach Grand Prix this past Friday and Saturday (thanks JN!). It was a lot of fun, it's a lot better than it has been for the past few years. They've added a lot of better support races, and they have Drifting now! (they had it last year too). I got autographs from Xzibit and Roger Cross, he plays Curtis on 24. What was cool that Roger's car was number 24. I know none of you care about any of this.

 

I care only that you have fun in whatever way you desire.

 

SR/JT...

My friends from work, Smita and her husband, saw you Saturday at Sarahs. They were delivering a couch and recongized Scott.

She (my friend) knew Nick from my drinking photos. But, they were in the car and could not stop.

 

That's funny.
I have to tell this story about ES. I hope you don't mind but it's funny and creepy.
So it's 10:30pm we are at ES's old place and I was leaving for the night. I noticed this large white slab of marble and ask her what that was lying by the front door under her bedroom window. She said she didn't know but that it had been there ever since she moved in and that she used it sometimes as a stepping stone when it was raining.
I knew exactly what it was. A tombstone! The coloration, the shape, the weight, there was nothing else it could be. So I lift it up and sure enough, there is the person's name and all. It was one of those tombstones from the Veteran's Cemetary on Sepulveda and Veteran. And it had been under her window for years!

Funny but serious in that I think the landlord should take care of this.

 

JR, DRIFTING RULES! That's about the only part of racing I 'get' on any level. It's amazing to see cars deliberately sliding perpendicular to the track IN TANDEM! I was there Saturday just for that. The drivers are such hams!

ES, you've been stepping on a TOMBSTONE for years!?! Oh my. Leads to the question, "Where's the rest of the grave?" Good thing SR didn't recognize this until you were moving,

 

A tombstone? That's it.. Sara's cursed for life. I would haunt someone who's been stepping on my tombstone. Who in their right mind would steal a tombstone?

 

Double Post!
I spoke with my wife in Japan this morning, and she said she took her friend Waymond (yes, he's Chinese), who's visiting Japan at the moment, to a "Maid Cafe". I've never heard of these before, but she said they are becoming popular in Japan. So I did some research:

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?Maid in Japan? cafes treat geeks like lords
Girls dressed in frilly frocks wait hand and foot on male customers

Toru Hanai / Reuters

Updated: 8:36 p.m. ET March 14, 2006

?Welcome home, Master,? says the maid as she bows deeply, hands clasped in front of a starched pinafore worn over a short pink dress.

This maid serves not some aristocrat but a string of pop-culture-mad customers at a ?Maid Cafe? in Tokyo?s Akihabara district, long known as a Mecca for electronics buffs but now also the centre of the capital?s ?nerd culture?.

?When they address you as ?Master,? the feeling you get is like a high,? says Koji Abei, a 20-year-old student having coffee with a friend at the Royal Milk Cafe and Aromacare.

?I?ve never felt that way before.?

Maid cafes dot Akihabara, which has become a second home for Tokyo?s ?otaku? ? roughly translated as ?geeks?. They?re known for their devotion to comics and computer games and can easily be identified by their standard outfit of track suit, knapsack and spectacles.

In the cafes, girls dressed in frilly frocks inspired by comic-book heroines wait hand and foot on customers, mostly male, who might have once been obsessed with naughty schoolgirls and nurses.

At one cafe, maids get down on their knees to stir the cream and sugar into the customer?s coffee.

At Royal Milk, diners can follow up a meal with a range of grooming services, including ear cleanings.

Maids at some of the more attentive shops even offer to spoon-feed customers at their table.

Maid cafes have mushroomed since they first emerged about four years ago, evolving from cafes where waiting staff emulated characters from a popular series of role-playing video games, often dressed in schoolgirl-inspired uniforms.

Shops where computer-generated characters came to life to serve coffee to gamers have since morphed into establishments serving customers ranging from teens to septuagenarians.

Akihabara now boasts around 30 maid cafes that cater not just to male geeks but also to couples, tourists and the merely curious.

Fantasy escape

Patronage is also on the rise among young women, some hoping to snag a geek and turn him into Prince Charming in a real-life imitation of last year?s hit movie ?Train Boy?, a love story set in Akihabara that also became a popular TV series.

?These cafes offer a chance for men oppressed in their daily life to escape into a fantasy world,? said social commentator Tomoko Inukai, adding that the phenomenon hardly helped to promote gender equality in a largely male-dominated society.

For some of the ?maids?, who are often as keen on comics and games as their customers, the job is a kind of virtual world.

?Being a maid is all-consuming,? said Hinaka, a maid at Royal Milk Cafe who goes only by her first name.

?I?m not acting like a maid here, I am one.?

Besides serving diners from a menu of inexpensive cafe fare, Hinaka also offers fully clothed massages, and for 9,000 yen ($75) customers can chat with her in a private room cluttered with comic books, character figurines and animation DVDs.

The average age of the maids at Royal Milk is 20, and an appearance of innocence is a priority.

?The concept of these cafes, where women who are physically and emotionally immature serve male customers, is not surprising given the fetish for young women among Japanese men,? Inukai said.

Hinaka at Royal Milk gets plenty of stares as she moves around in a black dirndl-inspired pinafore worn over a white shirt, which is tied at the collar with a big ribbon that matches her billowing, short pink skirt.

?Sitting here and admiring how pretty the girls are is like admiring a flower,? said Kinuko Nagahama, a 29-year-old woman sittin

 

Made in Japan.

 

Sounds like just the place for Bubba.

My western girl geek sensibilities say phooey! What about my fantasies? I want a cafe where handsome jedi boys swear to protect me from the empire, gorgeous elf boys vow to slay 1000 Orcs for me for just one smile & beautiful greek warriors who all look like Brad Pitt, Sean Bean & Colin Farrell (more or less)swear they will never let foreign invaders taint my homeland! ARE YOU WITH ME GIRLS?!

 

And the anime dorks rejoice (no offense to those who are).

In other news-but semi-related...hey JR, you like Initial D right? I bought this Initial D wallet (leather and stuff) for my ex and wondered if you wanted it. I don't want it and I'm not giving it to him..sooo...you can have it if you want. Lemme know

 

Yes, it sounds like something Bubba would enjoy.

 

Bishounen cafe! Hot bishy guys to serve us cappucino and rub our feet! And they all look like the ambiguously gendered cute guys of Anime! W00h00! Where do I sign up? ^_^

Oh wait, this is in Japan. Not in the imaginary land of Kawaii and Sugoi in my head. Great. Sexism lives in the Land of the Rising Sun. >_<