My Xootr has arrived!

I haven't had a chance to upload photos of my Xootr Scooter yet. (There is footage of Matty Higgs zipping around on the Xootr too.) But don't worry because it turns out that the Xootr was featured prominently as a mode of transportation in the 2005 movie Little Manhattan.

Little Manhattan is the story of Gabe, an 11-year-old boy from the Upper West Side who falls in love for the first time with another classmate of his from karate class. The New York Times praised the movie for the sophistication of its protagonist's The Wonder Years-style voice-overs, the dead-on touches of tween culture (Rosemary wears a t-shirt from Dylan's Candy Store), the emergence of Josh Hutcherson as a child actor worth watching. The producers of the film proclaimed the movie as their love letter to Manhattan.

For me, Little Manhattan is a love letter to the Xootr Scooter.

This is because Gabe's primary mode of transportation is a Xootr Scooter. In the movie, Gabe uses the Xootr to get all around the Upper West Side. In fact, there is a voice-over scene in which Gabe describes a map that looks like it is drawn in crayons that illustrates his "world" - home, school, and anywhere he can reach within a four-block radius of his home.

In the movie, we see Gabe take Rosemary with him on rides around the Upper West Side and Manhattan. She rides behind him on his Xootr.

Of course, Juan and I tried to do this too in front of the SPA school on Monday (Juan kicked, I held onto him). This was a horrible idea.

The Xootr is best for distances of under a mile, and the movie respects this by having Rosemary and Gabe actually using the subway to visit something. Note: Gabe is holding his scooter using the Xootr strap.

Check out the trailer:




And if you're dying to see more of the scooter, check out some of these videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fScmh1O_c5I

Carpoolchella

I know that Coachella is like old news, but I need to rehash some interesting details.

For starters, I think I have to go to Coachella next year. Why? Because I desperately want to see Carpoolchella in action. I saw Chris Meyer yesterday (he's one of Juan's good friends from Pomona and he and I did TSL, the newspaper, together) and Chris said that people are crazy about Carpoolchella. Picture huge signs on windows, people painting their windows to say that they'd carpoooled with four or more people. The car that entered the lot after Chris's won one of the bigger prizes.

Secondly, Brian Taylor, the department chair of my program, told a great story about how he got guilted into driving out to Coachella last weekend... to see his kid play basketball. Except Brian had no idea that the music festival would be occuring simultaneously. So what should've been a two hour drive took more like four hours each way. He didn't even manage to see his kid play, which sucks. *sigh... obviously, Brian Taylor has not been paying attention to the buzz around Carpoolchella.

I heart Tori Spelling

I read Tori's first book SToritelling from cover to cover last spring. Now she's got a new book out called Mommywood. She came to speak at the LATimes Festival of Books earlier today. BeccaKlaus and Liz came with me to see her. Tori's tiny - like tall and skinny, and I liked her a lot. She had on glasses, a nice cardigan, and jeans. She seemed likeable, thoroughly therapied-ized (like she'd spent many years in therapy), and trying really hard to do the right thing for her family and kids as well as make enough money to support them. She also knew that her career choice - acting and entertainment - put her in the public eye and that was something she had to negotiate.

I liked that she admitted that she can't provide for her kids in the lavish way that her parents had. Not that is a bad thing. They still have a roof over their heads. (And it's a house in Encino, in a nice school district.) But lets' face it - her parents are rich and yet she still has a non-functional relationship with her mother. Money can't buy you everything.

It's worth noting that Tori Spelling and her people do a great job as presenting her as likeable and modest. She's the complete opposite of Kate Gosselin, that's for sure! Putting her kids on TV and talking about them in books... it's hard to say what the long-term effects of that will be on her kids. Hopefully things will work out.

There were definitely some nutjobs who came up to ask Tori questions. I was almost convinced that the people who spoke up at today's thing were even crazier than some of the regulars at Jody Litvak's subway meetings.

I enjoyed myself and I enjoyed having Tori come to UCLA. Thanks for coming, Tori!

Where to live "next year"?

My grad school girlfriends and I who are all living in Weyburn Terrace right now need to figure out where on earth will we be living next year.

As she is a transportation geek like me, BeccaKlaus's preference is to live as close as possible to a subway line. She's set with a gig in downtown, so she can realize (my) dream of living a hybrid LA/NYC life. She'll probably score a 1-bdrm somewhere in Los Feliz.

Liz is a bit less grounded to the idea of subway-life, but her boyfriend lives in Thai Town, so she'll head further east.

As for me, if I end up working on the Westside, I will probably end up living just south of Wilshire and as close to a Zipcar. Consider these points as my options:

Locations of existing Zipcars in LA

But there are other tempting places to live, according to Craigslist. Consider these examples:

1) $2550 / 3br - awesome restored 3 br craftsman bungalow (hollywood/studio belt) (map)

 This place is $2,550 per month in three bedrooms:
6516 barton ave at seward 

2) This historic 1913 two-story craftsman bungalow in Hollywood. It has FIVE off-street parking spaces.

My Xootr has arrived!

Finally, another way to travel the Last Mile!
And let me tell you, it is beautiful!!!

Yesterday evening, Juan and I Xoot-Scooted around the Pavillions parking lot off Wilshire & Stoner Ave in Brentwood. He looked so happy. Matty Higgs also thinks the Xootr Scootr is cool. He tried the scooter out when he came by to pick up some maps on his way back home from the airport. He thought it was an overpriced toy (I guess sort of like my Macbook and my iPod Touch). But then Miggs got onto the scooter and realized it was no toy.

I don't think the Xootr will completely replace my preference (at times) for a bike. But it is wonderful for short trips and for traveling the last mile.

PS: The Xootr is wonderful for zooming through the hallways of the SPA School.
PPS: Brian Taylor is the third person to see the Xootr Scootr formally. He'd never seen one before. Evidently, he owns a Razor Scooter. (I bet he "bought it for his kids".) But he admired the Xootr, which is pretty neat.

What I'm excited about

• Google Transit: 700+ people in the Los Angeles Wants Google Transit FB group started by me and Juan.
• I ordered my Xootr Scooter yesterday and have been talking about it ever since.
• Giving a talk about viral marketing using social networking and web 2.0 on Tuesday
• Going back to Leimert Park to eat more chili and explore the site for a school project with Juan. (Luckily Juan likes to eat).
• Graduating.
  

Out to eat with Juan and Sirinya: Siam Chan in West LA

The best Thai food on the Westside, in my opinion, is at Siam Chan, which is this 20-seat hole in the wall off Santa Monica and Colby Boulevard. And it's not saying very much. If you want really good Thai food in LA, then you have to go to North Hollywood or Thai Town. But if the traffic sucks, you just want delivery, you go to UCLA and don't own a car, then you look up Siam Chan and say, well at least it's cheap.

And then that presents an onslaught of guilt (mostly white guilt, but hell, I feel it too, so I guess it's also yellow) because the following things happen:

1) The staff is super nice, which then makes you worry about how little they are being paid, and how they even manage to attain health insurance and
2) You're like me, and am learning way too much about agri-business, so when the server asks if you want Chinese Broccoli or American broccoli, your inclination is to say whatever is organic. But then you realize that they'll look confused, and then in the kitchen, they'll say, oh that kid, she's American-born, thinks she's too good.

And then as an addendum, also if you're me, you'll try to pronounce items on the menu correctly, but you know from having spoken to an actual Thai person last week (nice kid named Mike) that you speak HEAVILY accented Thai. So the server will be nice, and maybe sincere, and ask, oh you're Thai and you/I end up staring down at the table admitting, oh, I was born here. It's supposed to be apologetic. I'm sorry, Mom, that I never learned how to speak Thai so impeccably that people presumed that I had to be a 1.5-er!!!

Onto the actual food. It was okay.

1) Juan's pad thai. The noodles were al dente, which means they weren't soaked in hot water long enough. But Juan was happy, so I guess that's all that matters. Sort of.
2) Seafood lad na. (Noodles with gravy). I order this often because making it at home is a total hassle. The gravy... eh, it was heavy on the fish sauce, could've used a dash more sugar or sweet soy sauce. Some aspects of the seafood were disgusting and made me question what the hell was I thinking when I ordered it. Eew to the clams, the imitation crab meet, and the squid. That stuff is good fresh, and it probably all came from a can in this dish.
3) Mee Krob. We ordered this as an appetizer as a tribute to the time Sam, Dan, and I spent our entire trip in Thailand asking for it. The portion was huge.
4) Two scoops of green tea ice cream. Now THAT was simply perfect.

Siam Chan
1611 Colby Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 444-4981
siamchanrestaurant.com/
* Hours:
Mon-Fri. 11:30 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Sat. 11:30 a.m. - 11:00 p.m. 
Parking: Curb OR you can pay to park for just $1/hr and NOT cruise for parking in the city lot next door.

Out to eat with Sirinya & Charlene: Leonor's Mexican Restaurant

Leonor's Mexican Restaurant in Studio City was a hit with my mom today!

Leonor's is a moderate priced fast-casual chain in a tiiiny strip mall that specializes in preparing Mexican food with dairy and meat substitutes. (Translation: It's Vegan. But you can't say that to people who think vegan is for crunchies!) A place like Leonor's works well for my mom, who is an adventurous eater but can't tolerate certain types of dairy.

We wound up a small pizza with mushrooms, bell peppers, and soy sausage as well as a beet salad. The pizza was amazing. My mother loved that the dough was made of whole wheat, since she associates that with higher levels of nutritiousness, and that the cheese was actually made from soy products.

However, the beet salad took us by surprise. I was envisioning a green salad with beets as a garnish. Instead, we were served a plateful of beets with some slices of tomatoes and cucumbers. The beets were also kind of crunchy and undercooked. I realized today how lucky I was to get beets through my CSA box, because those are organic and suuuper naturally sweet, in contrast to the bland, crunchy taste of the beets in today's salad. The salad was okay (at least, Mom and I knew we were eating "healthy"), but we'd never touch it again with a three-foot stick.

In all, Mom liked Leonor's and said she'd be willing to go back there again. We'll have to try out the North Hollywood location on Victory by Tujunga, as I like to stick as close to our EV/working class roots as possible when pursuing foodie destinations.

Leonor's Mexican Restaurant
12445 Moorpark St
Studio City 
$ to $$ - Lunch for two, $18.50 + tip
Note: While the restaurant specializes in preparing meals with meat substitutes, not all of its ingredients are "vegan" friendly. This place, however, uses soy cheese in preparing its pizzas, which was suitable for my mother's dietary needs.

Welcome to the White House, Bo!

Ohmygod! The Obamas have gotten their dog! They weren't kidding! They named him Bo!

Ted Kennedy found the First Family a rescue Portuguese Water Dog and (wisely) trained it before placing the dog with his new family.

And isn't he adorable???

According to the Washington Post (story reprinted on latimes.com), Bo "The First Dog" Obama followed commands, made no toilet errors, and did not gnaw on furniture. I love that Malia Obama was focused on caring for the dog, such as how Bo would be cared for and trained. She seems like a level-headed 5th grader, and a cool kid.

Observe and Report: Movie review

Juan and I saw "Observe and Report". We're fans of Seth Rogen's work, plus we'd really enjoyed "Paul Blart: Mall Cop", so we thought it would be amusing to go watch yet another mall cop movie. As for "Observe and Report", it had funny moments, such as this one:

Seth Rogen, the mall cop, constantly harasses a cart vendor in the mall played by Aziz Ansari (Parks & Recreation), by calling him Sadaam and, in one scene, accusing him of plotting to blow up the mall's Chick-Fil-A franchise.

Sadaam yells back, "Why the f— would I want to blow up the Chick-Fil-A? It’s f—ing delicious!”

Juan and I cheered. Nobody else in the theater even came close to understanding. Nonetheless, Juan and I walked out of the theater unsure whether we even liked the movie. There was no plot; the f-bombs were excessive; the movie scarcely addressed the fact that Seth Rogen's character supposedly had bipolar disorder; and I found it disturbing that the movie did not make any clear connection between actions (like how Seth Rogen's character shoots a flasher with a gun to the chest) and consequences (strangely, the flasher lives.)

Out to eat with Juan & Sirinya: Wolfgang Puck Express, Santa Monica Promenade

It was the sign announcing half-off pizza, beer, and wine at Wolfgang Puck Express that lured us in for dinner before watching Observe and Report last night.

Personally I had been avoiding the place since I thought it was overpriced and a bit too frou-frou for my liking.

However, it was hard to pass up the possibility of a half-off "gourmet" dinner. Juan and I ordered a large mushroom and spinach pizza; two beers; and a glass of tasty wine for $20. The pizza was delicious. I love it when I can actually see my ingredients. Plus, there was fresh, sliced basil on top, which added to the aroma of the pizza. The woman working the counter was super nice.

We dined on plastic plates provided by the food court and spudware. I don't quite understand how the Promenade's food court operation is capable of using reusable dishes, cups, and glasses, but not reusable utensils.

Wolfgang Puck Express
1315 3rd Street Promenade
Santa Monica, CA
(310) 576-4770
Yelp's opinion: $$

The happy hour special runs from 4 to 7 on Mondays through Fridays.

New Scramble Crosswalk @ Weyburn and Broxton Ave

Yesterday, while riding the UCLA Campus Shuttle with Juan, I discovered that the City of LA had installed a new scramble crosswalk at the intersection of Weyburn & Broxton Avenue, right in front of the iconic Bruin Theater (the site of many movie premieres). Oh so exciting!!! The intersection is designed such that a scramble crosswalk is probably much safer, particularly because peds like used to cross diagonally/illegally beforehand.

 

Oh Westwood, maybe there is hope after all!

High school yearbook wedding

Imagine that you're sixteen (or, if you're me, you're like 24). You really like this guy, and you think he might dig you too, except you're too young, and he's just too immature to get his act together long enough for you to be together. You think, if only we were only older...

I was convinced those kinds of couplings never actually occurred until an hour ago, when I found out that these two people from my high school yearbook class - Jenny and Ryan - not only got together as adults, but they actually married each other two weeks ago. And yes, I think this is just gooey romantic. I also did not see this coming, but I just can't help but be happy for these people.

Now that I think about it, there was something suggestive in Ryan and Jenny's interactions in yearbook class. I got the impression that Jenny saw something that others did not in Ryan, but . But then again, I could be entirely wrong since I was fairly self-absorbed in my own personal drama.

Oh but it is just so romantic...

Transit-Oriented Adventure to Thai Town

As I recently noted over at the LA Subway Blog, my and Juan's latest Transit-Oriented Adventure brought us to Thai Town, this 10-year-old renamed section of East Hollywood, for the 2nd annual Curry Festival. Our buddy Willy T from UCLA and Pomona (he stood two rows behind me in the choir during the one semester I spent at Pomona College) came to join us.

The highlights of the transit-aspect of our adventure included getting new TAP cards instead of paper day passes (you get a TAP card for free when you buy a day pass while supplies last, I believe); spotting Metro employees assigned specifically to help people inside the Hollywood/Western subway station; and seeing an LAPD officer on a Segway. The low-light included the inclusion of a HUMMER in the parade.

 

 

This is a Hummer. A HUMMER. What on EARTH? Is this how we are spending our tax dollars???

I don't even know how many food, service, and retail vendors were on hand. There were just a lot. Sometimes the food options seemed a bit repetitive. There were lots of vendors who wanted to sell you meat on a stick, papaya salad, and crappy chow mein. Some attendees might have been mystified by the curry offerings, but you know what? If it weren't for the commitments that Thai CDC got from those vendors to bring in curry (and there were vendors who brought us curry from not just Thailand but also Hawaii - my favorite; Indonesia; Jamaica; Kenya; and various parts of India), I think Sunday's event would have been a little bit more ordinary.