much to my horror, i realized today that i’m perilously close to becoming a ‘local’ in Las Vegas (or as much of a local as possible without actually moving here) and it kind of makes me feel dirty.
and just to clarify, the loss of hundreds of US dollars i mentioned yesterday did not include any of my money. i don’t have cash to throw around; plus, i only gamble with my life.
so the other big reason why i came to Las Vegas was James’s bachelor party which resulted in a great gnashing of teeth at the loss of many hundreds of US dollars. i’ll leave it at that and let you guys fill in the blanks yourselves.
the drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas went by pretty quickly and the car drove pretty well even though the trunk and backseat were packed with Beka’s belongings. surprisingly, we made it here on much less than one tank of gas, averaging 40 miles per gallon. not bad for 10 year-old Mitsubishi Mirage, eh?
well, that’s it. Beka’s landlord is an asshole and we have no choice but to be on our way to Las Vegas.
goodbye, Los Angeles. goodbye, hell.
some advice to anyone out there who plans on becoming a landlord someday:
it looks like we finally found a suitable sublessee to take over Beka’s apartment here in Los Angeles. with any luck, we can get her moved out by today and be on our way to Las Vegas tomorrow. fingers crossed!
one thing that really annoys me is having to depend on people. this annoyance is multiplied exponentially by incompetent idiots that have ZERO consideration for other people’s time. if i had things my way, there would be a “three strikes” program in place which would load repeat offenders onto a space capsule so they can be launched into the sun and recycled as fuel. justice and environmentalism all in one.
in an extremely rare case of impulse buying, i’ve purchased a bottle of “LENINADE” i found at a Japanese convenience store. i didn’t know of its existence beforehand nor was i looking for unusual drinks; it simply caught my eye and, before i knew it, i was handing over a wrinkled $20 bill with a silly grin on my face.
the beverage itself is vaguely tasty and wholly unremarkable. the packaging, however, is ruthlessly gaudy and oh so lovable. the bottle is completely plastered with lines like “GET HAMMERED & SICKLED!,” “DRINK COMRADE! DRINK! IT’S THIS OR THE GULAG!,” and “BEWARE THE REPRESSED COMMUNIST PARTY ANIMAL WHO IS REALLY A PROLETARIAN IN DENIAL MASQUERADING AS A BOURGEOIS COLD WAR MONGER!” while the underside of the bottlecap urges me to collect all 72 “Leninade caps” to become a “HERO CUSTOMER of the Soviet Legacy!”
cue “Гимн Советского Союза.”
i got few grains of sand in my Nikkor 18-35mm. i can hear them when i zoom. ARGH.
this week’s video is of a garbage monster having breakfast in Amsterdam. shortly after shooting this video, i came across a dead pigeon whose head had evidently exploded during the previous night.
as i squatted there marveling at how the still-intact eyeballs floated neatly atop the mound of splattered brains, i barely noticed the garbage monster’s return until it was only a few meters away. i jumped up and backed away just in time to see the pigeon corpse get sucked up into the monster’s cavernous belly.
BURP.
so we’ve been trying to sublet Beka’s place for a few weeks now but haven’t had much luck. i suppose the biggest problem i’ve noticed is that people try to be cheap and picky at the same time; they want nine trillion square feet, a spectacular view and a private parking spot at a bare minimum.
there was a girl who didn’t want to start her own utilities account, a lady who turned this place down because of “bad energy,” a raggedy-haired ‘artist’ who said the apartment would stifle his creativity, an idiot who complained that he couldn’t feel an ocean breeze through the closed windows and about a dozen others who refused to pay a security deposit. jerks!
