Hometime!

Well, I awoke this morning not really sure what I was going to do with my day. In the end, I went out for breakfast at Starbucks (I was good, I had a vegetable and dip selection) then went back to the hotel and finished getting all my stuff together. I checked out at around twenty past ten (although they stored my bags for me). I had it in my mind that I wanted to do a tacky bus tour, so this is exactly what I did! I did a two hour tour of a load of stars homes (although anyone with any real money could afford a place with a massive private drive!) The funniest bit was when the tour guide held up a photo of Tom Cruise's home, pointed to a tiny window next to a flagpole and said that if we looked quick enough as we drove round the corner, we would be able to see that window and the tip of the flagpole. If we were lucky!
After that, I walked around, it was almost one and my shuttle was not due to pick me up until five, so I went to watch a movie. I saw Diary of the Dead and it was shit, but when I got out it was four so I sat in the hotel lobby until the shuttle collected me. I was at LAX by six thirty, checked in and having a bite to eat. As I write I have a couple of hours to kill before my flight so I will read and listen to my iPod. See y'all in the UK!

I, Oscar!

Today is my last full day here in California – indeed here in America, and Wendy goes back today. We had a good bit of news this morning – Nathan and PJ don’t want to hear a proof copy of the interview, which means that we can put it out at our leisure.

Wendy and I walked into the Hollywood/Highland Centre, where some real Oscars were on display. We actually got to hold one each!

After this, we had a cake and something to drink, then Wendy started packing and I decided to go Geocaching in nearby Runyon Canyon. I said goodbye to Wendy, as there was a good chance that I would not get back in time. I didn’t.

The caching was fun – the walk was nice, but about half way through the heavens opened and I got soaked. I found three caches, and headed back to the hotel for 3pm. The views from the top of the Canyon of LA were excellent, again hard to capture by photo, but as I had one with me I had a go!

I got some of my stuff ready, then went to look around some shops. I was going to buy a film on DVD to watch on my laptop, but when I got to the TV section I found Highlander Season 5 and Highlander: The Raven at the equivalent of £25 each, so I got them. I ordered Season 6 of Highlander (the only one I don’t have now) online, so now I have the full set (well, I need to order the TV movie that came out last year).

Watched the first episode of The Raven, then watched Men Of Honor (which I had on my hard drive, it was excellent) then packed most of my stuff, then went to bed. I have to check out my midday, but my flight is not until 9.20pm. I have arranged a cab to the airport, but that doesn’t collect me until five to five, so I will have some time to kill!

Sony Studios

Not in the mood to write too much today, we went to the Sony Tour which was much better than the other one we went on. Wendy's ex boss, Craig, took us to the Sony staff shop and I bought a fantastic digital SLR camera for the equivalent of £400 (that is the camera, a zoom lens, a spare battery, a cool carry case, and a 8Gb card). I am very happy!

The tour was better because we actually went into a TV show studio (it wasn't taping obviously) as well as a real ADR studio, a stunt studio, and even a company that does backdrops. We actually saw a cave backdrop that will be used in a forthcoming movie, and I don't remember which one, it was something I have no real desire to see!

Wendy stayed at Sony to have a meal with Craig, I came home on the bus (God it was crowded!) then the train and then went to see the film Jumpers at the Graumans Chinese Theatre, the most gorgeous cinema that I have ever been in.

Oh, forgot to mention, the huge Sony building at the end of their lot was used for thr exterior shots of Wolfram and Hart in Angel, which was really impressive!

Griffith Observatory

Today was a lazy day. Wendy was worried that she had spent too much cash since she had been here. Yesterday, Colleen had been to the Griffith Observatory to go to a presentation on tonight's Lunar Eclipse. She left a leaflet, and it looked good, so I got a cab there and had a look around. I agreed with Wendy that I would leave at four so I would be back in plenty of time for dinner this evening.

The place is amazing. It opened in 2006 after four years of renovation in which they basically lifted the whole thing up from it’s foundations, dug a massive hole, created a huge chamber with a thick concrete roof and put the observatory back. I watched a video on what they did – it is incredible.

The underground chamber has loads of stuff, and the actual Planetarium was great as well – in fact it was so well done that you actually felt that you were looking into the real sky. Amazing.

I also did a Geocache, my first here, but the bugger wouldn’t open and it was too small for the travel bug I wanted to put in it anyway. I will have do to some more.

Got back to find a message from Wendy (she wasn’t there) saying that Greg was picking us up at seven thirty, which he did.

We had dinner at a fantastic Indian restaurant, and had a really good chat. Greg loves Ricky Gervais, and it was nice because nobody ran out of things to say and we didn’t really talk about Firefly. After the food (which they paid for, which was lovely since it was meant to be the other way round, however we promised to take them out when they come to London) they drove us up the hills in the middle of the city and we got to see the views of the city at night, which was utterly amazing. I had no camera to take pictures, but then no picture could capture the sheer fantastic-ness of the view.

They dropped us back, it was a very nice evening. Sony tomorrow, and I am thinking of going to Best Buy to find a new digital camera.

Universal

Wendy and I went to the Universal Studio lot today. We caught the Metro under the hills and through to the station near the Studio, then caught a shuttle up to the lot. We did not have to pay, as we were given complimentary tickets, and as well as that, queue jumper passes. The whole lot was worth over $260.

The first thing we did was the studio tour, which was us sitting on a bus being driven around the lower part of the lot and the back lot, which is streets and streets of fronts of buildings, some done to look American (specifically New York) and other parts that could be dressed to look like some European city.

It was okay. I was looking forward to one part where the guide said “we have to be quiet as we go past stage 28, as they are filming”. I was looking forward to this, but when we drove part the appropriate sound stage, the doors were closed and we saw precisely nothing.
The latter part was more interesting – we drove past the original Bates Motel from all of the various Psycho films, and right behind it was the plane crash from the Tom Cruise version of War of the Worlds. There was also the driveway (Wysteria Drive?) from Desperate Housewives which I am sure I would have been thrilled to see if I didn’t think it was a pile of shit.
The next thing we did was the Terminator 2: 3D viewing, which was a 3D movie shot using the cast of T2 but in 3D. The part where the T1000000 attacked was actually quite good, as the metallic spears it was attacking Arnie with came right out at you. Towards the end there was a huge explosion and all of the seats in the cinema dropped a couple of inches. The woman to my left grabbed my leg then later said sorry.

After food we did a few other bits – the Jurassic Park ride was fun, the Mummy Returns roller coaster was okay, and the fire demonstration based on the movie Backdraft was, well, hot.
After all of this, we had a walk around the shops, then came back to the hotel. The road outside the Kodak Centre is now closed and the Oscar set up is in full swing. We had dinner in Mel’s Drive In just off Hollywood Boulevard, which was really nice. Tomorrow is another lazy day – the main thing is that we are taking Greg Edmonson (composer for Firefly) and his wife to dinner to say thanks for the interview he did last year for the podcast. Awesome.

This evening Colleen came over and we recorded the links for the latest Sending a Wave podcast, I edited it and put it online, as well as posting the latest episode of Cadmium2.

Lazy Day

I had a lazy day today. Wendy went to Disney with her ex boss, which to be honest I didn't really fancy. So instead I explored the local area.
I walked a way up Hollywood Boulevard, looking at various stars names on the walk of fame. I found both Harrison Fords (apparently there was an actor called Harrison Ford many years before the actor we now know as that name and they both have stars!) and then I walked down a road called La Brae North until I found two shops that Wendy has recommended - Target and Best Buy. The latter deals with electronic goods and DVD's, I looked but I have no real desire to own any more region one DVD's so I didn't bother getting anything. Then I went to Target and got some new clothes - two pairs of jeans, two pairs of summer shorts and two shirts. I also got some new shoes at a discount shoe store round the corner.
After this, I walked back to the Hotel, changed into some of the summer clothes (it was that warm) then caught a train out to a shopping mall in Pasadena. I had to change trains at Unity Station - changing from the Red Line to the Gold Line. The Gold Line is a unique line - most of it actually runs between the two lanes of the freeway - you get out of the station either through a subway or bridge.
The Pasadena mall was a bit dull so I came back, but the main thing I noticed about LA was how poor the city is once you get away from Hollywood and Downtown. The houses all look like a good fart would blow them over, and everyone seemed packed in like sardines.
Got back, Wendy has back quite late. Universal Studios tomorrow. Oh, and Colleen from the SoCal browncoats should be coming over to record some links with us for show 31 of Sending a Wave, which will go out later that night.

Miranda

A couple of things worth mentioning happened today. First, Wendy took me to the local shop. The closest Grocery store to the Hotel. Can you guess what it was? Yes, it was a Fresh and Easy. Typical. I can’t escape from them. (If you Google Fresh and Easy on the UK Google page, you will understand!)

Actually, they weren't too bad, and gave me a $5 discount. Not really sure why, but won't argue.

I also bought a new memory card for my mp3 recorder, so from having about ninety minutes of recording time, I now have eleven hours. Awesome!

Wendy showed me a few oher bits - we walked past a (famous) Chinese Theatre, (which was surrounded by cretins dressed up as superheroes or Disney characters or crap like that) and I also realised that the closest road to the hotel is the actual Hollywood walk of fame. Saw several Star Trek people (was disappointed to see that Patrick Stewart was just outside Fresh And Easy) and we also had a look around a Virgin Megastore that had the biggest, most insane range of TV DVD's that I have ever seen. There was loads of UK stuff out on DVD over here that I am sure hasn't made it on to a proper release at home yet!

There is also a place that has Oscars that you can hold. I am not sure why, but I have got an urge to hold an Ocsar. Idiot, I know.

A cop called Scott Atkins picked us up just after eleven for the trip to the location. Really nice guy, we had spoken to him once before on Sending a Wave. It took about an hour to get to the school where the location filming was done, and there was quite a large group. There were several really nice people, and I got to speak to most of them for the podcast. We walked around with screen shots that some of them had printed from the movie, and were able to match most of them to exact points in the school. Some of them were recreating the shots to take still pictures - I didn't really do that, apart from this one here, which is Scott (the cop) standing where Jayne stood near the crashed shuttle in the film. I think the camera must have been pretty much where I was standing, since this shot is almost bang on.

We then found the steps where there was a brief shot of lots of dead people on the steps, which we recreated, with all of us lying "dead" on the steps and one bloke taking pictures on almost every camera there!

After this, Wendy had to go back and meet her boss but a SoCal Browncoat called Colleen lives very close to the hotel and offered to take me back later, which was very nice of her. We had a picnic in a lovely park (the name of which escapes me) and we were there until after six. I recorded lots of stuff so we have almost certainly got a whole show out of the stuff we recorded today.

Colleen ran me and a girl called Rebecca back (an actress, doing theater work, very petite and really pretty!) and it turned out Wendy's plans had fallen through so she had been in the hotel all afternoon! In fact, the person she was due to see (her ex boss from London who now works out here) arrived just after I was dropped off!

I reviewed the audio, and had a problem with my new sound card - there were sound drop outs every thirty to forty seconds on the recordings I had made today. It pissed me off, but I was able to edit around them and made a forty minute feature on todays trip.

Wendy got back late, we are due to do Disneyland tomorrow. I don't remember her mentioning it before, I am not that keen to be honest. I fancy the studio tours (I think we are doing Universal on Tuesday) but Disney just doesn't do it for me. Oh well. I might not go. I will sleep on it.

In LA!

The plane touched down in Los Angeles just after three thirty. We had actually taken off late from Heathrow but made up the time en route.
Immigration wasn’t the nightmare everyone had warned me that it was going to be. This is probably because once they had got all the UC Citizens through their own gate, they let foreign nationals in that way too to get the queue (or over here, line) down quicker. Baggage reclaim and customs were easy.
Then I got out into the airport. I hoped to find some information on what I needed to do and where I needed to go, but there was literally nothing at all. I phoned Wendy (who told me what I needed to do) then got a bus to the hotel where the Gallifrey convention was happening. Well, had just finished as it happens. Wendy and I had coffee and then got a bus type thing to our hotel.
The hotel is called the Hollywood Orchid Suites, and what I did not realise until we arrived was that it was literally a stones throw from where the Oscars are being held next weekend. The building that faces our hotel is the Kodak Theatre, where the thing takes place. Once I had dumped my bags and unpacked, Wendy took me through to the Hollywood and Highland Centre, a posh shopping mall that joins the Kodak Theatre. We had a really nice dinner in a traditional American burger bar – I need to eat carefully whilst I am here, as my anti-depressants slow my metabolism, and I have already put on a few pounds in the two weeks that I have been taking them.
Tomorrow we are joining the SoCal Browncoats at a shindig in a placed called the Diamond Ranch High School, where the outdoor scenes on the planet Miranda in Serenity were filmed. I am hoping to get a podcasts worth of material from that outing.
I safely copied the Interview. Tomorrow morning I will call Mike so he can make a back up copy as well!
Went to bed by eleven, as I had been up almost 24 hours!

Waking in London

It's just gone 6am, and I am sitting in the Youth Hostel with a massive cup of coffee to help me to wake up. I am going to walk to the Great Portland tube station as soon as I am done, then go to Paddington Station and get the Heathrow express.
I am actually quite excited now - it seems that I will be in Los Angeles quite soon, by 5pm, although that is local time and in fact due to the twelve hour flight it will actually be almost this evening (possibly technically the small hours of tomorrow morning) before I arrive.
Meeting Alistair yesterday was nice, his flat is walk up the Strand (trust him to choose the location with Pet Shop Boys lyrics!!) and we had a nice meal at a Sushi restaurant (not too much food, but enough - I wasn't feeling all that hot).
His flat is awesome, spoiled only somewhat by the necessity of his having to share it with two other people (who seemed nice enough). Whilst were at dinner, he mentioned that an ex school colleague of ours had just been heavily involved in setting up a stright to CD radio play for the BBC Sci-Fi range, called The Brightonomicon, from a book (I think) by Neil Gaiman. Oddly enough, Paul was telling me all about this a few days ago. The cast is huge and impressive, and includes Andy Serkis (Gollum in the LOTR trilogy, well the voice anyway) and David Warner (cult credits too numeroud to mention). Al is going to put us in touvh with Neil Garnder for a possible interview on Cadmium2.
Right. I'm going to finish my coffee. Next blog: LA!

Going to LA

Okay, this is another attempt by me to keep by Blog uptodate. I m not going to pretend that I will managed to make an entry every single day, but I will try and do something a little more frequently than I have been managing.
So why today? Well, I have been off work for almost two weeks with depression (the place actually makes me feel physically sick when I set foot there, which is not good!) and tomorrow I fly out to Los Angeles, to join Wendy (my friend, who is the presenter of the Sending a Wave podcast) who flew out earlier in the week. I fly from Heathrow before midday, so I have decided to spend the night in London (in a Youth Hostel) and just tube it to the airport tomorrow.
So, as I write, I am in a cybercafe in Charing Cross Road, writing this. It is about half five ish, and once I have finished doing this (and drinking my Americano) I am going to see Alistair, an old friend from school that I have recently got back in touch with, as a result of using Facebook.
So where else is my life at the moment? Well, I am almost terminally single (there is a person who I like, she knows it, but it's not going anywhere so I am deliberately going Cold Turkey at the moment, which is hard, because I enjoy her company but at the moment is going nowhere is not helping with my depression. I will keep in touch with her, just not for the next little while. Not that I will avoid her, if she contacts me, which she has a habit of doing out of the blue) then I will of course talk to her).
Where else? Well, I produce two podcasts, both of which are going rather well. The first, Sending a Wave (which is about the TV show/movie Firefly/Serenity) has been going about eighteen months now, and gets a really decent number of listeners. There are two other Firefly related podcasts out there that are bigger than us (well, there are probably several more, but the two I mention, Firefly Talk and The Signal focus on the series to the same level we do and are not general Whdeon or Sci-Fi podcasts). Our podcast is on the verge if getting much bigger, we hope, becuase on Tuesday Wendy bagged an interview with the one and only Nathan Fillion, star of Firefly and a man who has never talked to a Firefly podcast before. This is a massive scoop for us, and as long as Wendy hasn't done anything silly like wipe the recording (I'm sure she hasn't, I'm sure she hasn't, I'm sure she hasn't, I'm sure she hasn't!!!) it will really get us noticed. We have not announced this yet.
The other podcast is called Cadmium2, and covers cult British Film, TV and radio and that is also getting quite big. We generally review stuff on this show (well, bicker and tear apart about) but it is also getting a decent amount of attention (not as much as Sending a Wave, but I personally think that is just a matter of time, we have been going properly only about seven months).
Well, I have almost finished my coffee, and I am going to head for Al's. I will add more either tonight or tomorrow from the airport.
And I have a couple of Facebook friends who I think read this thing: Hello to Shell (there will be pictures of what happens in LA as soon as I take some either here or on Facebook) and Hannah A (you're still gorgeous, by the way xxx!) And possibly Paul, so my message to him is: can you bring that shirt I felt in the wardrobe at your house back next time you come over, or when you see my sister?
TTFN.