hooray for hollywood

the end of the road?











new fires on the other side of the valley!






ok ive yet to be engulfed in flames... but this area smells like a musty fireplace and ash is flying everywhere. ive gotten used to it though. anyway, yesterday i checked out hollywood and beverly hills and such. it was great! in hollywood i found the greatest record store ever (apologies to waterloo in austin, which just a few weeks ago won the 'greatest-record-store' title; it must now move into second) called amoeba records. its huge and, like i said, totally awesome. i also walked around hollywood boulevard a bit and drove around some of the more famous areas, like rodeo and melrose. i got a chili dog from pink's, which is one of those disgusting-but-delicious late night eateries.

today i explored some of the east valley cities, like sherman oaks and burbank. i went to universal city for a while but didnt go in the theme park, and then i went to warner and took the studio tour. i guess it was silly of me to think the tour would focus on my favorite films of theirs from the 40s to 70s; it was mostly aboot current tv shows, which i couldnt care less aboot. but it was kinda fun anyway. afterwards i went to downtown burbank, which is where that fire picture comes from. now the coolest thing was i didnt even hear on the news that there were new fires in that area, i just noticed as i was driving aboot some fire on the mountain (did i just start singing a grateful dead song?). so i got as close as i could, and i think i went to the right spot cuz there were a bunch of people standing around taking pictures. and i became one of them for a few minutes.

tomorrow im going to check out some of the northern/central beach communities - malibu, santa monica, venice and marina del ray. im staying one night in del ray and then going to san diego to see my cousins on sunday. ill be back here on tuesday to get some more exploring done. its taking a long time - this place is huge! and after all that... who knows?