hi america. hi canada. hi ships at sea. i heart you all. i do. ive just been super busy

brad pitt has been here all week distracting me. not from my Times work, but from the busblog.

he keeps saying things like Hey Little Man ever try Hipstamatic? he likes to call me Little Man for some reason. even though we are exactly the same height. and i say no, havent tried it.

hes one of those guys that will stand close to you and make you download the app before he steps away. sorta annoying. which is why im glad hes not gonna be shooting here next week.

guess who has a twitter haiku account?

yep, your favorite newspaper

got any video from kanpai?

not a lot, but heres some for yr backside

and we gorged omokase style and drank sake and beer and ate this crazy fish head

and sucked down oysters with caviar sprinkled on top

and noshed on soft shelled crab

and discussed pretty much nothing but sex and video games.

most of the latter came from our waiter Peter (pictured, with ali) who for some reason has been smitten with ali and her video game expertise since he first met her.

sarah got a wee bit tipsy and when i drover home she had a full head of steam that probably resulted in some interesting action last night in the hollywood hills

but for now lets see a picture of ali consoling sarah after someone very special didnt immediately reply to a text message

whoops i guess you’ll just get a picture of the crazy fish that ended up being deep fried and eaten like potato chips.

i have great friends who i love very much. im incredibly lucky.

we also had a toast to karisa who discovered the place and who is always in our hearts whenever we visit kanpai.

today its gonna be super hot.

last night was just a warm up.

digg bigg wigg kevin rose is recovering from left lower lobar pneumonia

so the old spice guy sent him a shout out from a bathroom in oregon.

metafilter, who i need to get back on my daily reads, has a good thread on it and this style of viral, creative, marketing.

doing born free last night

shes got it.

how many people have been on letterman and done something creative.

lots. true.

and heres one more giving a solid performance with a modern song

a combo that should force lady gaga into retirement

on principle.

she 24.

ive been lucky enough to meet a whole lotta bloggers over the years. many of whom i had read a lot, and loved.

so it was such a pleasant surprise when i got to meet krista one fall night in toronto right before a matt good show.

i was very nervous once i realized she was alone because i knew id get drunk and spill out my schoolboy crush on her. and sure enough after a few molson canadians i told her that she was my date for the rest of the night and i was going to kidnap her and bringer back home with me to los angeles.

we sat next to each other at the show. we partied backstage after she met her idol (not me, somehow). and then we rocked out at various parties across TO.

and then i passed out and forgot to kidnap her.

my bad, because now look, shes engaged to a canaidan seaman!

krista is one of my favorite bloggers not because shes so sweet in real life but because her photos are always so beautiful, her posts give us a glimpse of life in canada (and now BC), and her unique personality makes you fall for her immediately.

three things i love about krista:

her dad is a minister
shes adopted
she makes prints of her photos and sells them at a good price (i know i have several)
she loves nature
she loves sushi and i cant wait to eat some with her one day
shes the most dedicated employee even when she shouldnt be
she reminds me of my xgf jeanine who i just talked to on the phone

shes a real blogger who lays it all out there and maybe thats what i admire the most in her.

happy birthday baby!

Top photo by Krista, second photo by me using Krista’s famous camera

at Quentin Tarantino’s movie theatre

on Melrose Ave?

“The Citizen Kane of cheerleader movies” – Roger Ebert

speaking of Quentin, the New Beverly is screening Pulp Fiction on Friday night for all you youngsters who have never seen it on the big screen

went to my high school and played on the Lancer marching band drum line? JUST LIKE I DID?!?!?!

notice he says “one of my instructors from high school” around minute 1:40?

give it up for mr. snoeck!

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Kotche…

Kotche went to Lake Park High School in Roselle, IL, where he was a member of the drum line in the Lake Park Marching Band, and later the University of Kentucky, where he honed his musical skill and technique and obtained a bachelor’s degree in music performance. Glenn was also a member of The Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps from Rosemont, Illinois in 1989, playing in the snare line.

i will never talk ish about wilco again.

in fact there was a time when i was a virgin

it was during that era that i met an amazing blonde girl at a rock show.

her friend worked with me at the record store and i was all your friend, tell me she doesnt have a boyfriend. turned out she didnt. so i said tell your friend no matter what she cant say no to me when i ask her on a date.

she said, teller yourself and gave me her phone number.

now to be honest, i dont know how anything worked out back in those days because no one had cell phones: you actually had to call a number and hope that the beautiful young lass was home when you called.

else you had to leave a message.

and in those days you couldnt leave a message and review it and try again if you sounded like a shmuck. in fact the odds were pretty good that, since there was no such thing as call waiting, that the owner of the phone and answering machine, was listening to you leave the message live as you left it. call screening they called it.

somehow i got her on the phone. somehow teenage tony even got a date with this native californian girl. and somehow there we were at the movies and then at the fatburger sharing a shake.

and then, somehow, there we were making out in the back seat of my grandmothers cadillac off a street in westwood village.

somehow things were going so fast, faster than id ever expected, cuz to be honest, i didnt think id even get her on the phone.

life will throw you curveballs america. no question about that.

but sometimes life serves up something so wonderful and beautiful and sweet

right over the plate

that you dont trust it.

and you just stand there with your bat in your hands

frozen.

thanks to the miracle of facebook, the other day that friend friended me on facebook, and i snooped around her friends to see if that amazing blonde girl really existed

or if it was just a figment of my ridiculously creative imagination that my memory had labeled

natural blonde who reminded me of jennifer jason leigh in fast times

and there she was.

the second to last girl who ever knew the innocent tony pierce.