Day 2 in Los Angeles

Oh what a day, again.

In the late morning, I checked my Myspace, and Owen Benjamin was offering Comps. Yay us! I emailed him to say we were coming.

We decided to Head out the Universal Studios City Walk today. We took the Metro up to Universal City Station, and walked up to a trolley stop at the bottom of a hill. The free trolley, a three-wagon, windowless, bus-type vehicle, took us from the bottom of the hill to the top, where Universal Studios is.

Our 1st stop was the Hard Rock Cafe where we were served by a delightful gentleman called Emvy. He was very good to us, and funny to boot. We got our pic taken with him, which I'll upload later.

The we did some serious shopping... Jolene won a package from Lush in a raffle they were having. I bought a whole bunch of stuff there and Jolene bought a bit too. We found these awesome ribbon headband thingies, dirt cheap. We found a cool souvenir shop where I spent way too much money. There were so many fun things on the City Walk, like Hello Kitty Merchandise, Pez dispensers, bobble heads, Wizard of Oz, Betty Boop, Superman (don't worry Crystal-I thought of you...), etc.etc.

Then we rushed back to the hotel, to check and see if there was a response from Owen. There was, we had comps for the midnight show.

We changed our clothes and went out to wait for the bus that takes us to Staples Centre. We are realizing more and more what an awesome location this hotel is in for using public transit! It's only one bus or metro to a bunch of places, including the Hollywood Improv, Staples Centre, CBS, The Grove, Hollywood, Universal Studios, etc.

So we waited for the bus, but unfortunately, as our luck has gone, we just missed the last bus that would have gotten us there on time. We ended up mising about 10 minutes of the 1st period of the Kings Game (vs. Columbus Blue Jackets), which really sucked, but we kept telling ourselves that at least we got to see 2 1/2 periods... Interestingly enough when we arrived, the Kings were leading 2-0, and the scoreboard said there were only two shots on goal. They scored again on the 7th shot. Shitty night to be a goalie.

Craig (hmm-both Craigs, actually) would have loved the 10 minute misconduct on Columbus in the 1st period. Just before the faceoff, a pissed Columbus player chucked his stick on the ice. Not sure what precipitated this, but I sure do love seeing the refs give misconduct penalties! As I understand it, that was actually the second one in the first period. The guy sitting next to us, Sean, from Vancouver, said there was one earlier, where a player got Two-Two Minutes, two 5's and a 10 for instigating, facemasking, etc. And we missed it!!!!

After the game, we took a taxi to get to the Improv, which turned out to be a good choice. It took about half an hour by taxi, so it would have taken forever by bus....

We arrived at the Improv around 11:00, and had a bite to eat. I had a delicious Mandarin Chicken salad and Jolene had Buffalo Wings. While we were eating, Owen showed up, and said hello. He gave me a hug and Jolene a high five, and chatted a bit. We went in to the show and saw several really good acts. It was awesome to see Owen Benjamin Live. We found it interesting, though, that we were told we could take pics, but when we did a house guy came over and told us we couldn't. By that time, though, we had already taken a bunch, and mine weren't even on digital, so it's not like I could delete them or anything... apparently, we're not allowed to photograph the "Improv" sign. Whoops. Being an Entertainment and Intellectual Property lawyer, I totally understand this (even thoug I don't necessarily agree with it). I was just pissed that they flip flopped like that. In the end it was best for us, because we did get pics of most of the talent.

After the show, we hung out for a bit and had our pics taken with some of the acts. It was really awesome. We headed back to the hotel at about 2:20 (which is about 6:20 am for us East Coasters!) and crashed pretty much instantly...

So all in all, a good day again. We keep missing breakfast here, which sucks, but when you do to bed at 3:30, you might have a bit of trouble rising before 10...

I think w're off to Marina del Rey and Venice Beach today. Yay us!

Will update all soon...