Places like Randy’s Donuts and Tail ‘o the Pup are great pop icons in Los Angeles. I think I remember in “Mars Attacks”, the donut is zapped off the building and then rolls down the street?

The HOLLYWOOD sign

On a hot summer night, with little constructive to do, some friends and I decided that we wanted to get up close and personal with the famous HOLLYWOOD sign in Hollywood Hills. We were prepared to climb, hike, do whatever it took to touch one of the letters. Let me just say, winding up the narrow streets to get close was a feat in itself. We never made it even close because it is so protected, you practically have to be air-lifted in to the area. Better that it’s off limits and safe from the L.A. crazies.

This guy and more in Venice Beach

Whether it’s the roller blading, guitar playing sihk, the tattoo’d muscle men lifting weights at Muscle Beach or the disco dancing roller skaters in the central park area; Venice Beach is a fun place to hang out to get a taste of the really wacko side of L.A.

Dogtown & Z Boys
Surf & Skateboard Culture

Sunshine

OPENS TONIGHT!!! JUNE 13, 2008

Why? you ask does Chi WOW WOW have such a fascination with MARVEL?
It all started with Captain America. Read our very first post, “Captain America to the Rescue”.

Let’s see if MARVEL can score with this movie after the success of IRON MAN. I like Edward Norton (aka. Bruce Banner). In fact he doesn’t know it yet but we’re in love and soon to be married. The movie also stars Liv Taylor, Tim Roth and William Hurt and is directed by Louis Leterrier (Transporter). I’ll be P.O.’d if it ends up being a total yawner/animationfest….

Anthony “Tony” Stark at the age of 15 enters the electrical engineering program at MIT. At the age of 21 he inherits Stark Enterprises when his parents are killed in a car accident (ok…so what else is new, right?) Later in life while visiting one of his plants, Tony is injured by exploding shrapnel and captured by warlord Wong Chu. Chu forces Tony and another captive, famed physicist Ho Yinsen, to create weapons for him. All the while the lethal bit of shrapnel is slowly working towards Tony’s heart. Tony and Yinsen creat an iron suit that keeps Tony alive and allows them to escape. During the escape Yinsen is killed, sacrificing himself to allow Tony time to change for the first time into IRON MAN.

The movie also stars Gwenyth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrance Howard. Later this year (June 13 release) look for THE INCREDIBLE HULK, starring Edward Norton.

We had a great time at the Los Angeles PETCO Unleashed 4th Annual National Chihuahua Races held in Montebello, CA but it was unusually hot, over 90 degrees and the chihuahuas were kind of lethargic. I’ve never seen so many chihuahuas in one place, they were really cute!

TEAM Chi WOW WOW play-by-play
Izzy exited the starting box, dazed and confused as she was cut off by the chihuahua in lane # 8 (see race start above). At that point, the race was all over for her. She did look good in her Marvel Comics “Incredible Hulk” Tank Dress though. In ELVIS’ heat, he sauntered out of the box and immediately caused a “butt-sniffing” traffic jam, having no interest in going from one end of the track to the other. He was disqualified and had to be carried off the track.

Post race let down. Neither athelete would look at the camera as they were too embarrassed to have their photo taken.

The National Finals will be held at PETCO Park in San Diego on August 31, 2008. For more information go to PETCO.com

So what exactly is Geocaching? (pronounced geo-cashing)
Well it’s similar to a treasure hunt but instead of using a paper map or instructions, you use a GPS device and follow coordinates to locate the prize or “cache” as it is called. Individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the cache. Once found, it may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache. Most contain logbooks to sign and most are located in areas that are worth seeing for some reason or another. Here’s what Tammie had to say about her experience in this new age game of treasure hunting.

How did you get involved in Geocaching?
Since I love hiking and sight seeing, I was planning a trip to South Carolina and looked on a website for Paris Mountain Park. There I saw information about Geocaching. I bugged my boyfriend for two years before he finally surprised me with a GPS unit and we tried our first cache hunt on the way to the Carolinas. We stopped in Charleston, WV at a geocache named CATO. Zoe and Cassy were in their mega cool doggy backpack so we followed the GPS and ended up descending down a hillside. Steve found the cache and we found him further up the trail where we started. I guess we took the “hard” way to the cache and we had a good laugh about it. He signed the log but did not swap anything at that time.

What has been your most memorable experience to date?
There are SO many memorable cache experiences and gorgeous interesting places we would have never seen if it weren’t for Geocache, it is hard to pick just one. I guess the most memorable was the second cache I found in Charlotte, NC called Tomb Raided.

In the cache was the first Geocoin I found, a travel bug with a mission – gave me a rush for some reason. I was hooked! Since then I have designed my own coins, been featued on Podcacher and Icenrye’s Videozine podcasts and attended Geowoodstock V in Raleigh, NC where I was a vendor selling my glow-in-the-dark cache rock containers. I have recently given coins to co-workers at BASF who geocache. One person took a coin to Hawaii and left it in a cache there, it’s mission was to go to Geotiki’s geocoin studio Oahu. The logs from the artist and metal smith Tiki were great! He designs the most sought after Geocoins in the world. I have many of them and they fetch a pretty penny on ebay. Another co-worker took some of my coins to Shanghai and I have a coin that travels around Australia collecting photos of the outback. This coin was mailed to my coin customer and he placed it there for me. Then the BIG geocoin race between me, my boyfriend and my sister Marie, this is our second race – last year Steve’s geocoin volkswagon beetle won with over 12k miles accumulated in a year. His coin made it to Russia, Germany and Australia.

There are also Geocaches and coins dedicated to dogs and other pets. I have placed a cache in a Northville, MI next to a dog park. It is a cache dedicated to owners who want to swap unused dog toys and it also collects dog related travel bugs. My dogs go with me sometimes but since they are very small chihuahuas, I have to be careful only to bring them to easy low terrain cache hikes, on mild weather days.

What kinds of trinkets have you collected?
You generally do not keep the travel bugs and coins you find in a cache. You read the mission and move it along to the next cache. I have purchased coins and been to Geocaching events where you swap coins and other signature items. I have coins from Geotiki.com the handcrafted coins from Oahu, Crake Productions from Texas, many coins my family gets me for Christmas and award coins from my boyfriend. He has them engraved with the cache I found for the milestones I reach. Kids love to collect the toys left behind in geocaches, most of them are happy meal toys. I have gotten an iPod sock, a chihuahua stuffed toy and other useful items. One of the items I love to collect are Pathtags. They are like a Geocoin, but you can keep most of these you find. They are all the same size and have a hole in them (design is the same as the UK’s trolley coin concept).

Is there anything you want to tell people who are considering taking up this hobby?
You can get into it very inexpensively. Buying used GPS equipment is always an option. Paperless caching if you get into the sport is the easiest way to take your missions with you on the road. Paperless caching uses smartphones or PDA devices to manage database queries of caches in your target area. Stick to clean trails for the most part – most cache hiders will stick to a clean trail until about 10-30′ from the actual cache. Be safe out there! Know and practice basic hiking safety. Always take water, a small first aid kit for your hiking pack and keep a larger kit in the car. Caching in pairs or groups is always best for staying safe. If you don’t find the cache the first time, report your DNF. This helps the cache owner monitor for issues with cache hides. Sometimes caches can be stolen or removed without the owner’s knowledge. If you want to hide a cache, see the rules on geocaching.com and get the location approved by local parks or location property managers.

For me, it’s a perfect opportunity to do a little sailing and while I’m at it say hi to the locals.

“Am I seeing things? or did ELVIS from Chi WOW WOW just float by?”

My good friend Pilot joined the sushi boat parade…Cha Cha Cha!

Here are “The Lady’s” absolute favorite sushi restaurants:

Brothers Sushi
Woodland Hills, CA

Katsu-Ya
Studio City, CA

Original posting 2006-02-14 04:48:26

Well we went out for a saturday morning walk over by the golf course near to the house and as we were crossing the parking lot I spotted it. Against the blacktop landscape it had the appearance of a flying saucer but I knew it was definately, of this world. I ran out ahead to the end of my retractable leash and could now see the object in full delicious view. It was simply, a pancake, puffy and golden brown, and slightly round. But was this just any pancake? Ohhh nooo! It was HUGEaMONGUS! And, untouched by any knife, fork or mouth. It was a “random” pancake and it was all mine, mine, mine!!!

Elvis…EL-vis…ELVIS!!!
<faint voice at the other end of the retractable leash>

HUH?
WHAT?! I replied.

What the? Is that a pancake?
<faint voice getting louder>

Yup. a random one, I replied.
The odd thing is that this pancake was totally solitary. No syrupy residue, no plate or napkin nearby. Who made it? Where did it come from? Did it just fall from the sky? Who would be crazy enough to abandon it?

I want to sink my teeth into it right now…
No…save it…
No…eat it…
Save…eat…save…

ELVIS!!! Let’s go!
<now…not so faint agitated voice at the other end of the retractable leash>

I tried to grab it but it slipped away as The Lady swept me up in her arms and whisked me off.

Now when out on walks I keep a keen eye for another totally fab flapjack like that one in the parking lot, but then this wouldn’t be the story of the random pancake.

Original posting 2006-08-18 13:29:17

Oh, by the way (I asked )…”what’s a bra?”
AY CARRUMMBA!!!
So we went in, took a number and waited……
and waited….
and waited…
The anticipation was KILL’IN me.
and then….our glorious number was called!
We went to the back and I was nicely told I could not go in because I was male! I instead had to wait until The Lady was done.
I decided to schmooze in the waiting area. It felt like I was never going to meet the Weezard!
Izzy got to go back because she’s a girl.
Evidentally she fancied these red undies.
FINALLY….the Weezard came out to greet me! She didn’t have a wand or a cloak or a beard but she looked really smart and was making a LOT of women happy by helping them look and feel sexy and beautiful and I think that’s like having all the power in the universe.

So Bonnie, I would like to say that you’re the BEST Weezard I will ever meet! and…

We promised to visit again real soon.
Diane, Izzy, Me & The Lady

Original posting 2005-08-08 01:28:16

Channel Islands
DAY 1 Ship Rock, Catalina
First time in a dry suit. Ok, yes it’s warm but is it worth it, feeling like a freeze dried package, once the compression starts? Not sure I have made my mind up on that one. It does feel cool wearing something that resembles a space suit though. Water temp was 54 degrees F and visibility, not great. Most of my pictures were above water since adjusting buoyancy was an issue and having a camera hanging off my arm seemed unnecessary.
Joe with Optiquatics was the best and so patient. Thank you!

The crew on the Peace are great.

DAY 2 Bird Rock, Catalina

Somewhere near Catalina I finally took a picture underwater. The kelp is so beautiful, except when you get tangled up in it.
Converse booties? What a great idea!

DAY 3 Somewhere near Santa Cruz
We had a really rough night finding a place to settle down. The swells were so bad that a few of us were down for the count (not me.) Our Captain managed to find the only calm spot in all of the Channel Islands but only after 8 hours of searching through crazy waters.
I finally took some underwater shots…

My friend Erin got some great shots.

Original posting 2005-04-20 09:35:58

Original posting 2005-03-23 22:14:25

I was then… in a nice way, asked to leave.

The Shoe Repair Store

I made my way over to my local shoe repair store to show my friend some hot new sneakers before tooling out to Watts.

Excuse me… got this one on in a size super XXXXXXXXXXS?

The Watts Towers


We headed to South L.A. not far from where I spent the first part of my life. We just made it in time for the Watts Towers tour led by the Watts Tower Tour Guy, who was nice enough to sneak me and my friends in to the tour. The towers were built by Italian born folk artist, Simon Rodia starting in 1921. In 1954, at the age of 79, he had enough, handed over the keys to a neighbor and disappeared. There were all kinds of places to hide and I found the holy water birdbath to be a fun place to scope out senoritas.
Off to the beach…


Manhattan Beach

I decided to end our day by heading out to the beach to do a little boarding with my buddy Devon, eat some sushi at Penny Lane and

watch the sunset.
Life is good…
ELVIS

Original posting 2005-02-03 18:26:17