- One thing that is obviously different living in LA as opposed to Chicago is the weather.  Sometimes it's good; sometimes, it's annoying.  I've always lived with four seasons, and those seasons represent not only certain moods, but also holidays and traditions.  For example, I expect it to be hot and sunny for the 4th of July and throughout the summer... expect there to be a chill in the air and leaves falling from the trees around Halloween...I expect it to be cold and for there to hopefully be snow on the ground for Christmas...and I expect spring to bring gorgeous smells, fresh rain, and jacket-weather.  So, when Halloween arrived and it was 82 degrees and there was a clear blue sky, I felt weird.  Don't get me wrong, waking up to a sunny day nearly every morning is certainly invigorating, but I feel like people take it extremely for granted out here.  How can you really appreciate a beautiful day unless you have some crappy ones?  This past week, it has been raining pretty much every day.  If you believed what you heard from the locals, you'd know for certain that the end of the world as we know it was upon us.  People are scared to drive...go outside...the entire infrastructure of the city shuts down...homes are falling off the sides of hills/mountains (Side note: I don't care if I sound callous when I say this, but I feel absolutely no sympathy for people who lose their houses in the wilderness of Southern California, or the floodplains of the Mississippi.  I'm sorry, but you are dealing with forces of nature that are completely out of your control.  Every year, Mother Nature cleans out the dry and dead forests of California to make room for new foliage by blazing fires.  Nearly every year, the Mighty Miss spills over its banks and fertilizes the soil that surrounds it.  If you think that events such as these will simply cease because you decide to build a house there, you're an idiot.  Mudslide?  No, you built your house in the side of a cliff where it shouldn't have been and it fell off.  Flooding?  No, you built your house where the river naturally runs during certain seasons.  The properties that are destroyed every year in California are extremely expensive.  Conversely, the properties that are flooded along the Mississippi are "bargains."  Similarly, building a house in either of these places means you are dumb and deserve to have your house demolished.).  Since June, it's rained in Los Angeles a total of about 5 times...maybe.  During that time, I've never heard a clap of thunder, nor saw a bolt of lightening.  In fact, I would describe the rain as a "drizzle" each time it has rained save about 10 minutes total.  In the Midwest, at times, raindrops fall like golf balls and drown out all sound around you.  If these people get this freaked out over a little sprinkling, I fear for Californians if they ever experience a real thunderstorm.  Yeah, they don't bat an eye over an earthquake, but if thunder sounds in the sky, I think most would believe that the 31st state was finally falling in the Pacific.

 

- Since becoming a dog-owner...and with my experience with homeless people in two of the three largest cities in the United States...if you see any sort of liquid on the sidewalk, I recommend avoiding it at all cost.

 

- I've had my fair share of problems with my body, and I fully realize that I have no room to make light of any one else's physical condition.  Nevertheless, people with lazy eyes freak me out.  Where do you look?  If you stare at their eyes, do they think you're mocking them?  I always feel weird staring at their nose - as if they can sense how uncomfortable I am.  The thing is, if you know you have a lazy eye(s), can't you just look a little to the left(right) so that you're eyes line up with mine so I don't feel so awkward talking to you?  Is that too much to ask?  Oh...you can't see me then?  Alright, fine.  Man...some people are inconsiderate.

 

- Another comment on living in LA - no one says hi.  You walk down the street...all eyes are forward.  Now, I'm not saying that where I'm from, everybody says hi to you on the streets, but it's certainly more prevalent; especially if you make eye contact.  When I'd go running back home on this path by my house, one thing was constant - if you pass another person running or cycling, you'd give/receive a wave or hello...it was sort of community of people...as if to say, "Hey, I can't believe I'm actually out here running when I wish I were at home watching TV and eating Frito's."  Out here, if I'm out running and pass by another person aerobically exercising and say hi, I'm either ignored or countered with a look of indifference/shock.  We're all in this together...I think it's Ok to say hi.

 

- I can't be sure where it started, but somewhere along the line, a civil engineer came up with the idea of marking words on the pavement for motorists so that they would read them as they approached them.  For instance, to warn drivers that there was a stop sign ahead, they would paint, "STOP...AHEAD" in succession on the road.  A novel idea, I admit.  However, these words are not miles apart...or even tens-of-feet-apart...they're like two feet apart and you can read them both clearly at the same time.  So, instead of reading, "STOP...AHEAD" in the road, I always read, "AHEAD STOP."  Instead of reading, "BIKE...LANE...^" I read, "^ LANE BIKE."  Instead of reading, "PED...XING" I read, "XING PED"...this proves to be more curious and confusing than helpful, although I appreciate the original intent.  Unless I'm traveling by lying flat on a skate board and looking directly at the ground (I can't think of a time when I'd chose this mode of transportation)...this system of alerting is lost on me.

 

- American Gladiators.  God, I loved this show when it originally aired.  Thanks to the WGA Strike, we get to watch it again.  However, this version of American Gladiators is very different from what I'm used to.  I watched the first episode with Maggie and we both couldn't stop laughing.  
 

Ten Points on AG:

1. One of  the first female contenders basically broke her fibula while running...without a Gladiator within ten feet of her.
 
2.  They're reusing the name, "Siren"...only, this girl isn't deaf, so it doesn't make any sense.
 
3.  The Gladiators are purely muscle and so unathletic that they're letting a 5'5" little Asian dude beat them.
 
4.  Wolf - howls on command.  Favorite interaction of the night:
 
Hulk Hogan - "You'll be facing...WOLF!"
Wolf - "AAAHHHOOoOOOOO!!"
HH - "Good one, Wolf."
 
5.  Another female contender bashed her forehead on a metal bar during the swimming obstacle of the Eliminator, and was bleeding.  That's the first time I've ever seen blood on AG.
 
6.  One of the male contenders, a skater named Chad, was clearly so gay that he wanted to get caught by the Gladiators just so he could roll around with them.
 
7.  Another male contender, we'll call him, "Jeff"...because that's his name, had tried out for AG 14 years ago, but didn't get to be on the show because he got caught in traffic.  You had to listen to his "I've been waiting 14 years for this and I'm in the best shape of my life" speech about 80 times during the show, only for him to completely puss out during the Eliminator and basically pass out from exhaustion...allowing the 5'5" Asian to win.
 
8.  I would complain about the speeches being scripted for the contenders between events, but it's not such a bad thing...otherwise, there would be no rhyming or clever puns about their occupation.

 

9.  The female contenders fall down at any given time, seemingly unable to control their limbs.
 
10.  Toa, your "tribal" Gladiator, wears eye liner and eye shadow, and at one point, went off on this tribal chant of intimidation that I'm sure was nothing more than gibberish.