Gunnerrific

My trip came full circle as I ended up back at my apartment.  With final measurements and plenty of options, I went back to OUTRAGEOUS CONTEMPORARY HI-TECH EUROPEAN IMPORT FURNITURE to peruse their selection one more time.  And that’s when I saw her.  A steel frame, glass top, with nice leather chairs.  It screamed CONTEMPORARY and the price was OUTRAGEOUS.  But I couldn’t say no to its sleek curves and transformer features.  Yes that’s right, transformer features.  Much like my transformer chairs, that can slide back to almost become a bed, this OUTRAGEOUS CONTEMPORARY HI-TECH EUROPEAN IMPORT table had multiple configurations as well.  After paying the fine gentleman at said boutique, we loaded up the car and I headed back to my place with a brand new addition to the household.

In case you didn’t know, large plates of glass are heavy.  Seriously, they are really heavy.  Here we go:

• Carrying that box in from my car was like carrying in an obese midget, he didn’t want in and I had to take lots of breaks.
• Lugging this new table in from my car was like trafficing drugs across the border, I had to strain real hard and not look suspicious.
• Moving a table this heavy in from my automobile is like the treck to the bathroom after you poop yourself, I had to lift slowly with my legs and take small steps. (okay that was in poor taste I apologize)

You try!

[action verb denoting moving] a table this [adjective describing large size] from my [nickname for a car] was like [describe something ridiculous X], I [relate X to moving heavy table].

Okay back to the matter at hand, the glorious transformer table (who at this piont will be referred to as Grimlock). So there I am, just Grimlock and me, face to face.  I wasn’t about to let the remainder of the day pass by without a complete table in my dining room.  An hour later, Grimlock had found his new home.  Check out the pics.  Make sure to take a look at the four that show the ‘transformation’. 

Speaking of Grimlock, I still use Google Sets.  This was the first feature introduced by Google Labs, and although it has remained beneath the radar I still find great uses for it.  Case in point,  check out these transformer names.  I fed it Optims Prime, Bumble Bee, Starscream, and Megatron.  I guess I could have just google’d for "transformer names" or something, but this way is just cooler.  Trust me.

Any time I say Burbank, or even think it, I think it like Will Ferrell says it.  BUR-bank. In Burbank lies Ikea, a veritable utopia of affordable yet nice furniture.  Or so I thought… enter me, into a world of plywood.  Now I don’t mean to knock Ikea, but their furniture is probably the worst ever made.  And I don’t mean to make fun of how cheap their furniture is, but homeless people could buy it and make homes out of it.  Problem is, a home-made shack out of tables and chairs from Ikea would either a) blow away in the wind or b) collapse under the weight of itself.  Oh boy here I go:

• I don’t mean to make fun of Ikea, but that is the worst store I have ever gone into.
• I wouldn’t want to put off Ikea, but they should donate their furniture for fire wood.
• I don’t want to hurt Ikea’s feelings, but their store is aboslutely huge and full of nothing of consequence and there were so many people in it I couldn’t find the forest from the trees and even when I did find the tables they were so poorly made that I could probably knock one over if I tried to cut into a juicy Filet Mignon that I know I will be cooking and eating on my new table that I will most certainly not be buying from such a horrible store.
• I’m a nice guy and I wouldn’t want to make fun of Ikea, because that could result in offending someone that likes Ikea, but people that like Ikea are stinky marmots.  ZING.

Check out this car.  Jalopiwood!  I do love LA, and its things like this that keep it interesting.  This woman was driving the oldest most beat up car I have ever seen actually operate it, right in central Hollywood.  I’m sure I have seen older cars in the front yards of random folks out in the hill country of Texas.  However, this one actually runs.  I don’t know the model, I don’t know what color it is (other than just Rust?), and I don’t know how it runs.  I wonder how the gas mileage is on that bad boy.  I did do my part though, and let her in to my lane.

Next up, Griffith Observatory.  I haven’t been up there, but I know I will be at some point.  It has been featured in lots of films, the latest being Charlie’s Angels 2.  Apparently a big James Dean film, Rebel Without a Cause, was also filmed here.  I just happened to notice off in the distance sitting high on the hill.  I think it’s about 3 miles away.  That would be one hell of a zip line, am I right?  Maybe I should start looking into that.  It could be the new hit tourist attraction, zip line from Griffith Observatory straight to Sunset Strip!  Notice the garbage and refuse, in particular a piece of plywood, that are randomly strewn about the streets of Los Angeles.

Tomorrow, Operation Table Harvest Success.

The first place along the esteemed Santa Monica Blvd that I visited was Pier 1 imports.  I have been familiar with this classic college/hip/young-adult furniture/accessory store for quite some time.  There used to be one located in Casady Square that was pretty nice, which was extremely close to my house and right next to my high school.  The Pier 1 in LA was definitely twice as large as any Pier 1 I had ever been to.  However, there was quite a poor selection in regards to dining room sets.  Here we have a square wood one that is oak.  Here we have a circle wood one that is teak.  Here is a bamboo themed set.  Blah.  I have so much wood in my apartment, I’m surprised I don’t have a beaver infestation.

It was in fact my younger brother that suggested I get away from wood.  In hindsight, it makes perfect sense.  I have wooden floors, wooden coffee table, wooden desk, wooden headboard; wooden this and a wooden that, wooden be-bop-a-doo there’s some wooden scat.  So if I’m not buying a wooden dining set, what will it be made of?  Steel?  Glass?  Plastic even?  What if it was made out of hate?  I didn’t know, but I did now that it wasn’t going to be from Pier 1.  The import so much, but they sure don’t export my table. 

I then take my trek north-east, to hollywood and sunset, and then further north to Burbank.  While on my way, I went by a pretty nice billboard of the local news team:

Get a load of the guy on the far right.  Let me introduce you to Johnny Mountain.  Finally, a reason to watch the news.  This guy couldn’t buy a better name.  I wonder how I can find out if he changed it, and if so, what his original name was.  I bet it was something absolutely and horribly lame, like Johnny Mnemonic.  Speaking of names, I have been seeing quite an interesting use of the name Will around here.  There is Beverwil, Willamen, Willford, and Wilton, just to name a few.  Maybe it would be worth adopting the name Beverwil, such that when combined with my monicker I become Beverwillly Brand.  Add an ‘a’ in there, and it’s Beaverwillly.  And thats it folks, I’m full circle, back to the beaver infestation comment from earlier.  I’m like an episode of Seinfeld.  Tomorrow, Burbank!

My journey for a dining room table took me first to OUTRAGEOUS CONTEMPORARY HI-TECH EUROPEAN IMPORT FURNITURE.  Alright, the real name is just Outrageous Contemporary, but their sign clearly reads OUTRAGEOUS CONTEMPORARY HI-TECH EUROPEAN IMPORT FURNITURE.  This place was absolutely insane.  They had chairs that look like this and couches that looked like this.  Needless to say, I didn’t really know what I was doing in the place.  However, the foreign gentleman who owned it was quite helpful.  He showed me some very interesting table and chair sets, however when you buy OUTRAGEOUS CONTEMPORARY HI-TECH EUROPEAN IMPORT FURNITURE you apparently will end up spending quite the penny.  Dismayed by the high price, I pretty much wrote off every piece of furniture in the store. 

My first hit was not a hit at all, it was in fact a convincing miss.  Ever the optimist, I held out and continued to browser around the store.  Pots of dry-ice fumed over the 2-foot-off-the-ground furniture like I was in a sci-fi set from the 70′s.  At least I gave it a shot. 

I then hit a couple of places in Beverly Hills.  I will sum this up in 12 words.  Furniture in Beverly Hills is more expensive than everything I own combined.  Almost ashamed that I even set foot in these fine establishments, I left hastily, but not without taking a bottled water.  I was slightly shocked to see they were offering wine and cheese to those that were seriously shopping there.  Where was I, some sort of French Bistro?

In other news, I took a candid shot of an interesting gentleman bum.  Maybe this is the guy thats been punching my right jaw at night.  Note the billboard in the background.  You can’t drive for a single block in LA without seeing this advertisement in some form.  Next up, Santa Monica Boulevard.

So I’ve got this completely empty room that is begging for a dining table.  It sits there right now with a fan and a bookcase in it.  In my growing quest for maturity, I have decided that a dining table would be a good call, so I will fore-go my current dreams of a Foosball room.  Foosball room narrowly beat out rompus room, which would be full of toys, pillows, and an inflatable floor.  Nay, instead, I will create a room that would be suitable for (up to) four individuals to dine like kings.  Uh-oh here we go:

• We’ll dine like kings, not English Kings or anything.  Kings as in gypsy kings, with rags and acoustic guitars and poofy pants.
• We’ll eat like sultans, but not like the sultan of swat with the baseball uniform and what-not, more like Sultans of Swing, with the singing and concerts and drugs.
• We’ll eat like lords, but not like the lord of the dance with all the high stepping, more like the lord of the flies, what with the kids and the fire and the cannibalism.

After gathering input from friends and co-workers, I composed a list of local and not-so-local furniture purveyors to visit.  I had about 4 places on Santa Monica Blvd, 4 more in BH right off Santa Monica Blvd, three blocks worth of places on three different streets known for their furniture shops, an outrageous contemporary place a mile away, and the Ikea in Burbank.  One day, one task, one dining room table (although truthfully I have been keeping an eye out for a table for a bout a month now).  On paper, this plan was flawless.  But that’s what they said about communism, and we all know how Canada ended up.

I approached this task like I approach any problem.  Slide rules, charts, and bar graphs.  After carefully planning my route I was ready to embark out into the streets of L.A.  And boy do I mean streets.  I travelled about 80 miles when all was said and done.  Holy cow, Los Angeles is huge.  I mean huge.  The hugest.  It’s so huge I’m going to make up a new word describing how huge it is.  Mammonculus.  Los Angeles is mammonculus.  The good news is that despite it’s mammoncular status, I managed to find a me a brand new dining table.  You will have to tune in tomorrow, I will continue to string you along during my trials and tribulations of this character testing quest.

See how this works, I inform you of what’s going on in my life while attempting to be humurous?  Don’t thank me, I didn’t invent this futuristic form of writing/website.  I got all my crib notes from this guy.  Who, when he visits me in LA at an undetermined time in the future, will most likely be the only living person who might be willing to take shots of Real Life Dead Cobra Tequila (this name will hold until I find out the real name).

And in complete randomness, I made this wallpaper from a NASA photo.  Pretty ASTRONOMICAL wouldn’t you say?  I photoshopped the con-trail to the left of the shuttle, for some reason it stopped right behind it in the original.  And now that I look at it I remember removing the open bay doors to the right and left of the body as well.  While I’m at it, this is absolutely amazing.

I had a relatively tame weekend, which was pretty nice.  Friday Night was the big night out, with two former high school friends.  The former only applies to the ‘high school’ part, cause we don’t go to high school together any more.  Cause we graduated.  See how that works?  Then read it again. 

Luna Park was the destination, a nice little joint over on La Brea about 100ft north of Wilshire.  Delicious steak, excellent Martini’s (they had Hanger One, the new hot vodka, which I’m delightfully keen on).  Again, this is a local shop that I will have to add to my list of places to take visitors.  Then again it seems like every place I go to gets added to the list. 

In other news, I think a bum has been breaking into my place at night, punching me in the right jaw, and then leaving.  Either that or I just have a sore right TMJ.  It’s probably the latter, because as far as I can tell there isn’t anything missing from my garbage.  Tonight I will set up an intricate alarm and pulley system to notify me if said bum returns.  That means I should probably sleep with a gun or baseball bat for when the alarm goes off.  But I don’t have either of those, the best it gets is a hammer or a pair of garden shears.  Maybe I could tie the hammer and garden shears together to make nunchucks.  And there we have it, tonight I will jump out of bed at 2:30am in the morning with my homemade hammer-garden-shears nunchucks in hand after the alarm goes off, yelling "Keep your stinky mitts off my jaw muscle, you filthy hobo!". 

The real point of this post was that I did about 3 hours of garden work in my front yard today.  I sprayed for bugs, clipped unnecessary or stray branches/stems, and cleaned about 20 years worth of built up dead junk behind the flowers.  Ew.  What’s worse is that around my hedge wall, I can just stick my hand in there, grab, and come out with a handful of dead stuff and cobwebs.  Looks like I have another weekend or two of this.  Or I could just put up with the general poor appearance of the garden and added bugs that live behind there.  But I’m me, and that won’t McFly.

In the following week I will tell a tale of great length and depth, involving my quest for the One Dining Table.  Ready yourself.