Mariachi Breakfast at El Mercadito

Meredith, Ben and I finally went and had a mariachi breakfast in El Mercadito, a three story market in East L.A. The first floor is all retail: mostly toys, clothes, and music. The second story is both retail and food. The third story is a large restaurant, with three competing mariachi bands playing in different areas.

It was fun, but I recommend (a) checking out all three bands first, before deciding where you want to sit in the restaurant, (b) just having drinks and chips (the food wasn't very good).

Convertible Car Crash Film Locations, Los Angeles

The top photo is of the filming location for the final break up scene in Annie Hall. It's now the Cabo Cantina, but until recently it was a health food restaurant called "The Source". It's on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood.

The bottom photo is of the filming location for Mr. Lebowski's mansion in The Big Lebowski. It's the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills.

Both of the scenes filmed at these locations featured slightly absurd car crashes, both involving convertibles.

Delicious Idea

Meredith and I went out for a farewell meal with our friend Carolle last week, before Carolle had to leave town to go back to her home in northern New Jersey. We ate at the newer Korean mall on Western, the one with outdoor seating. After dinner we shopped in the downstairs supermarket and I bought a beer I'd never seen before: it was called Max, and brewed by the same brewers as Hite (a Korean beer for sale at most Korean restaurants). Hite is almost absurdly un-beer-like. Meredith likes it, but probably because it tastes like soda water, which she also likes. So I didn't have very high hopes for Max. I was, however, intrigued by the can, pictured above.

Ben and I tried Max last weekend. It was fine, though it had a slightly distasteful aftertaste. Maya tried one before we did, and gagged in response to her first sip and claimed to be unable to finish the entire can, but Ben and I thought this was a bit of an overreaction.

De Stijl

Some of the new townhouses being built beneath the LMU bluff.

All Things Must Pass

The Moca Store on Main St. in Santa Monica is closing. And since it houses the Muji Store, that means the Muji Store is closing as well. It always seemed too good to be true, so I guess this isn't entirely unexpected.

Bungalow Amenities

There was only one heater in our entire bungalow and we rarely used it. At most, we used it at night in the middle of winter. But our bathroom tended to be a relatively (for L.A.) cold place in the mornings, so I put together the following contraption, using a device I had first discovered at Radio Shack back in high school. It's a switch for turning on and off small appliances remotely. I put the switch on my nightstand and plugged a small space heater into the remote on/off device in the bathroom. This allowed me to warm up the bathroom, making it nice and toasty, all while still in bed.

The only precedents I can think of for such luxury were the remote controlled window shades I had in my hotel room in Tokyo. They were deluxe. You could sleep in total darkness long after sunrise, but then flood the room with light as soon as you woke up.

Not for the faint of heart

If you look closely at the light blue plastic shoebox with the power adapters in it in the bottom of the photo above, you'll see the bloody possum carcass that I discovered the morning of our move. Marnie's dog Peanut, which she had left (unexplicably) with us the night before our move, probably killed the possum and dragged it inside. It was pretty gross.

Thums Up

On Saturday afternoon, after we finished moving, Ben and I tried this Coca-Cola product from India. I bought it at Samosa House, on Washington Blvd. in Venice. I don't recommend it.

The obscure Coca-Cola product I'd most like to taste, of course, is OK Soda.

Disgusting Products, cont.

Meredith bought this for me. As a joke, of course.

Goodbye to the Venice Bungalow

So we moved out of our Venice bungalow yesterday. It was a sad day for me, because it was the first place I ever rented that I was actually proud of living in. I tried to get my family out to come and see it--especially the side container garden I put together--but they couldn't make it.

Pictured above is the small safe Meredith bought for me. I'm a bit of a security freak and our bungalow was decidely not secure. First of all, it backed onto hobo alley. Second, with only a little effort the windows were removable, so getting in didn't require breaking in. Both Meredith and myself locked ourselves out at different times and each of us found our way back in without anyone's help and without breaking anything. So when I first saw the bungalow an immediate thought I had was that it was that I would have to do something to secure my all-important laptop and hard drives. Searching ebay, I found the small safe above. I screwed it into the wall of the pantry and put together the wooden door hiding it. Sadly, I never got around to painting the wooden door the same color as the rest of the pantry (which I had painted when we first moved in). Nevertheless, it was pretty well hidden.

Goodbye sweet bungalow.