Saturday was one of Zac’s days off so we decided to head to Hollywood. The problem is we were up way to late partying and now we weren’t leaving downtown LA until about 1:30 in the afternoon. No big deal though it really wasn’t all that exciting in the day time, anyway. We tooled up west Hollywood and checked out where Zac works. I suppose I shouldn’t actually name it, but they operate several stages and locations for photo or video shoots. They charge about 5,000 dollars a day for rent of their smaller studios…Ouch! Pretty cool stuff though…No one famous in the day I visit, of course. However there have been many a famous crew down there doing photo shoots for advertisements, commercials, etc. Neat.

We tooled down all the famous streets and checked out the Hollywood walk of fame and all that. Not really that impressive, to me…If I had to be honest. I spent some time walking there at night one of the days Zac was working and its all glimmer and lights, but walk a few blocks down and everything changes back into the usual scene. There are pockets of nice, but not everywhere. The shops and things that are on the strip are more or less for product advertising then anything else. None of that interested me, really at all. It was neat to see some stars names, check out the Chinese theater  and those landmarks, but the novelty wore quickly. So we decided to hit an off place that had “world famous” hamburgers…Yeah right, service blew, hamburger blew, fries were ok…blah…

So, you can already tell that my feelings on Hollywood weren’t that great. I found a bowling alley, Lucky Strike. It had a dress code, that made me laugh. It was high-society bowling. Could there be any more of an ironic statement? Its like saying high society methadone clinic, just doesn’t make any damn sense. We decided to take to the hills for some star stalking. It was fun, I used my blackberry and we navigated up Beverly Glen Road up towards the big houses. We found some off-path type places and found some really small, windy roads. We talked with people as they walked by with their dogs and their piles of money…It seemed happy up there, but still. Who would want to pay millions of dollars for a house tucked away in an inconvenienced place with no real great view. Seems to me to be kinda dumb…So its either you have super rich money, or none at all. We caught up with some papparazzi guys hanging out somebodies house…We were going to poke around, but decided not to. Who knows who they were stalking…Really, who cares.

We looked out onto the valleys where NBC/Universal, and other studies were located. The guy who created Universal studios had bought a large chicken farm and decided to put a production lot on it, keeping the chickens just in case it all failed…Man, that was silly. Failed, it did not. This was pretty obvious from where we stood on the hill. After a few red bulls we descended back down into town. Where no one lets you pee…No wonder the streets smell of urine. I went into a gas station, and convinced an attendant to let me in the bathroom that was labeled “Out of Service,” he hit a button behind the counter and the  door swung open. Holy hell! Remote control bathrooms? Jesus…That is just awful. It really tells you something about it all.

Fast forward a day and I was riding the tube at 11:00 at night to head down to Hollywood/Highland via the red line. I was going to walk around a bit and meet up with Zac for dinner out in Hollywood. Where did we end up going? Freaking in and out burger…”Sometimes you don’t want fresh,” I thought to myself eating a shitty burger and fries. Why are people so obsessed with that place? The fries sucked. The milkshake was alright. The place was packed and it took a long time to fill an order. “Number 25, your order is ready,” we heard with a scowl…Nice customer service…eh?

We drove around a bit…it was dead. midnight or better on a Sunday with nothing really happening will do that. People still walked up and down the strip though. Cute girls one after another walked by with their looks of high society, even though it was quite obvious they weren’t. It made me laugh…Fake it til you make it, I always say. A few more red bulls and we were back in the city. I liked the city after Hollywood…People are more real there anyway…which is a bit refreshing. Granted they are so real they are about to mug you, beat you, and leave you for dead in an alleyway, but nonetheless….

The city looks cool at night when you are coming in from West Hollywood. Great skyline, the Wells Fargo and USBank buildings stand proud and tall and its all very nice. Plus Zac lived a few blocks down from USBank so it was easy to tell how far we were as all I’d have to do is look up at any given time. This was the final night, make it good. We drank beers and I copied Zac’s iPod over to mine…Muhaha, many gigs of royalty free (of course, heh) music transferred I was much the richer. It was well worth staying up even later. Somewhere around 4:00 or so we crashed, slept for a couple hours and made our way to the airport. I walked in, sweet talked an exit row window seat with extra room, ran through security, and sat waiting for the plane. In a few hours, I’ll be all good. I watched movies and listened to music on the iPod. Had a sandwich (some sort of bread with some sort of meat, scary), some apple juice…empty plane. It was nice. Nothing sketchy at all, everyone asleep. Probably from too much LA nightlife. We landed on 35L after a last minute runway change…Our pilot, very verbose, and thankful. I exited quickly…learning that the long distance was broken at work…Not bad. Something usually happens but this one is beyond my control and for the most part nothing blew up while I was gone. Thank god. The life of an IT guy can be strange.