So....news?

Howdy, everyone.

So, the point of this post is really to reassure you all that I haven't forgotten about this blog and I definitely want to share some photos once we're all unpacked... we're going on 3 weeks now. Moving is the worst!

Unfortunately, I don't really have any exciting news to share, other than a few weeks ago before we moved from Hollywood, we saw two movies at the TCL Chinese Theater and Disney's El Capitan theater. We did take some photos, but they all came out blurry... It was pretty neat to sit in an old school theater, especially the Chinese Theater where a TON of premieres have been held. Not gonna lie, not going to miss that premiere traffic at all.

Our 4th of July was relatively low-key. We spent the evening with some friends down in Santa Ana and watched fireworks. Fireworks are illegal in Los Angeles County, but not in other counties (Santa Ana is in Orange County). Man, do they take it a bit far. You, like anywhere else, can purchase illegal fireworks, and here they go all the way. Many houses in my friend's neighborhood were shooting off the type you see at ball games or Disneyland. So, cool for us not having to go anywhere and the drive back was neat seeing all the different shows across the city. Gambit, however, is NOT a fan of fireworks. He did ok, but he was definitely startled most of the night.

We are going to a Dodger's game tonight- it's a Hello Kitty giveaway game, so a few of my friends from my program and their significant others are coming along. Cameron is thrilled about the Hello Kitty giveaway- not. Haha, but he's a good sport and is willing to come along :] Hopefully, this won't be our last MLB game of the summer- though ticket prices are wayyyyyyy more than the Greensboro Grasshoppers. $10 for premium seats are so not an option here.

Gambit has acclimated well to the new place- it's so much bigger than our last and he has plenty of places to sleep. In fact, often when we come home we have to call him rather than him immediately greeting us at the door. We're also pretty sure he spends most of our time in our bedroom (more specifically sleeping on the bed) since it's the only room that has AC and the sheets are usually balled up in one corner by the time I come home.

We also need to find a new groomer in town that won't cost us an arm and a leg. We had been going to Petsmart, but we've had some not-so-great experiences the last few times and their prices have become comparable to other pet groomers. Also, I'm fairly certain he got his ear infection from his last grooming session so there's really no incentive to keep going back. Now, the trials of finding a new place to get our dog washed when he gets a little stinky. It's a good thing we only do this every 2-3 months! It's expensive when you have the dog the size of a pony.

Hopefully, we'll be doing something newsworthy in the next little bit, like finally unpacking, haha.

Chef

One of the things I appreciate the most about Los Angeles is the sheer amount of opportunities it provides. Whether that's for food, music, shopping, travel, films, whatever, there are plenty of options to try and see/experience things that you can't anywhere else. With the film industry every where over this city, it has been neat to see the different films that roll through the theaters, especially ones that aren't "blockbusters" or deemed potentially successful enough to be distributed nationwide. Cameron and I saw one such film last night: Chef is Jon Favreau's new film written and directed by him and has an great cast that includes Dustin Hoffman, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson and Sofia Vergara. Cameron had mentioned wanting to see it earlier this week or last, and we had attempted to see it earlier this week, but we both feel asleep after a breakfast-for-dinner meal Cameron made... We were able to finally see it last night at the Arclight Cienmas, and we both agreed that it was one of the best movies we had seen in a long time. We've seen a few movies since we've been in Los Angeles, but they've been the blockbusters you can see anywhere- 300: Rise of an Empire, Rio 2, Captain America: The Winter Solider, you get the gist.

Chef follows Carl, an award winning chef in a rut who is fired/quits after a difficult review is posted about his food. Jobless, he ends up starting his own food truck.

Now, I'll be the first one to tell you that dramas aren't really my thing. I do enjoy them every now and then, but they're usually not my go-to film genre. I would say without reservation that I would happily own this film and watch it again. It is so good. We really enjoyed the casting and the story line; it was just so well told (people clapped at the end of the film, so I'll take that as validation of my opinion). Cameron had a sense of nostalgia watching it for his time on the BellyBombz truck, and it was fun for me to identify many of the food trucks in Los Angeles that we had eaten ate or I've seen consistently. For me, it was feeling famous-by-association since we could now recognize places and things in the film. It also made us want to eat a lot of food afterwards, and we secretly wished it was a real food truck we could find :[

If it does become a nationwide distribution, I would highly suggest seeing the film- or waiting for it to come to DVD.