Lisa Frank

Sometimes teddy bears do wear top hats!
I love this faux Lisa Frank biopic trailer so hard. I was obsessed with Lisa Frank as a kid.

Red State

This weekend, I went to a screening of Kevin Smith’s new film, Red State, at the New Beverly. He’s touring the country with the film, and doing a Q&A afterwards. I like Kevin Smith’s films, but I like his podcasts and Q&As even more. I’ve been hearing him talk about the film on his various podcasts for a while now, so when the tour finally came to LA, I jumped at the chance to see it.

The film was really good, and very dissimilar to any of Smith’s previous works. There was a lot of unexpected turns, and the ending was great.

The Q&A afterwards was also excellent. As usual, he only managed to answer 1 or 2 questions, with answers so long you forget what prompted them. One such answer was a story I had heard before, but an embellished version, so that was pretty cool.

Glee The 3D Concert Movie

My boyfriend won 2 tickets to a screening of Glee: The 3D Concert Experience. He wasn’t able to go, so I went with my friend from work who is also a big Gleek.

The movie was great! The cast sang all of their best songs, and had interstitials with some real teenagers who had faced or were facing bullying and adversity. They also had cute backstage interviews with the cast, acting as their characters rather than themselves. Which actually made the whole thing a bit meta, since the stories with the real life kids talked about the show itself, but the concert parts were meant to be as though the Glee kids were on a tour. The whole thing was really cute though, and they did a good job of making it seem as though you were at the concert.

Amy Winehouse

Wow, this is a very beautiful and fitting eulogy for Amy Winehouse by her good friend, Russell Brand.

5 Acts of Nature...

That Changed the Face of the Planet!

This list is somewhat reassuring, oddly. If all these crazy things have happened to the planet, then all the stuff that's going on now with earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanoes is just a normal part of how nature works. And NOT signs of the apocalypse or anything other stupid thing crazy people are claiming.

Cracked is totally my new favorite website, btw.

Earless Is The New Earful

The bunny has no ears!

I don't know how to feel about this. On one hand, this is terrible... but on the other hand, this is adorable!

Boot Camp

Today was the last class of my first Boot Camp session!! It’s been so great, and really challenging. It’s such a great work out. Working out in a group makes me feel like I need to push myself more to keep up with everyone else. Plus, this way I don’t have to go to a gym or something and try to figure out what to do myself.

I feel so much more in shape than I was when I started, and I’ve been eating a lot healthier as well. I’ve lot a bit of weight and have more energy. I even signed up for the next session, along with a couple of my co-workers!

Dodger Game

Last week, my office took a work field trip to see a Dodger game! I’ve never seen a baseball game before, so this was a brand new experience for me. We had pretty decent seats that were in the shade, thankfully, since it was pretty warm out in the sun!

We had a ton of great food to eat, include the world famous Dodger Dogs! The Dodgers unfortunately lost the game, but everyone had a great time hanging out outside of the office on a workday!

Scent Bar

Last week, my boss wanted to have an event for some clients at a perfume mixing place. I had searched high and low for a place that could do any kind of perfume thing - mixing or matching or whatever. Finally, I found this awesome place by the Beverly Center called Scent Bar. They have every kind of popular and obscure perfume you could imagine, and the people who work there are ridiculously knowledgeable about every single perfume. It reminded me of going wine tasting, where the sommelier can pontificate about every single wine you taste.

Prior to the event, everyone filled out a questionnaire about likes and dislikes, and general personality stuff. The staff at Scent Bar then matched 3 perfumes for each person. During the event, they then spoke at length about each perfume that was chosen for each person. Then we each chose a perfume to purchase; some bought a perfume that had been recommended for them; but not all. I myself chose a perfume by Juliette Has A Gun, named Not A Perfume.

Garage Sales

The City of West Hollywood hosted a garage sale this weekend. Or, really, a bunch of people throughout the area all put on garage sales on the same day. I have fond memories of hitting up garage sales on the weekends with my parents growing up, and even having a few of our own. This totally makes me an expert on the subject, and as such, I have some suggestions for the people who, rather ineptly, tried to sell their stuff.

First of all, no one wants junk. Seriously. Don’t try to sell stuff that really should be put in the trash. One person’s trash is everyone’s trash. Seriously. Second, price everything!! Don’t make your customers have to ask what the price is on everything they are interested in. If there’s no price, I am far less inclined to want to buy something than if it had a price tag already on it. Next, have things in some sort of order. Books with books, clothes with clothes, toys with toys. Don’t just have everything in boxes for your customers to sort through. Have them laid out neatly where they are visible. Also, price things reasonably. People who come to garage sales are not prepared to lay down big money, and definitely don’t want to pay near full price for things that are clearly used.

I had thought these things would be fairly self-evident but clearly not. I didn’t even find one single thing worthy of purchase (though my boyfriend did find several books to buy). Most of my enjoyment lay in walking around parts of the neighborhood I had never been to before.