A Great Day in L.A.

My wife and I spent yesterday afternoon with my brother and his girlfriend in Hollywood. The main event, the Hollywood Wax Museum, was a bit of a letdown, with models ranging from eerily realistic (Samuel Jackson, Anthony Hopkins as "Hannibal" Keanu Reeves as "Neo") to - Well... to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My big question on that one echoed so many other figures in the museum. How can you tell if a "Lifelike" model of a fictional creature is "Realistic"?

We did too much too encapsulate everything here, but here is the "Cliff's Notes" outline.

Things that were awesome:

• L.A.'s visibility and weather. In Smogtown USA, we could see the city's skyline perfectly from Hollywood Blvd. Even with Universal Studios on fire at the time.
  
• Standing around 3 stories up lookin at view; see above) eating awesome Ice Cream from one of those places where they mix ingredients into your ice cream on a refrigerated stone countertop. Banana Ice Cream with Fresh Strawberries and Graham Cracker Crumbs.. $6.07, and worth every dime!
• Getting to re-experience with my wife the things that I had seen last time I came to Hollywood without her.
• Brunch/lunch/dinner or whatever-the-heck meal it was (we woke up early, 2 timezones away), at the Mel's Diner on the corner of Ventura and Kester. Our waiter was such a stereotypically polite young Japanese woman, we expected her to perform a Tea Ceremony right there at our table. She said "thank you " about 100 times during our short meal, and I swear I could tell she was fighting the urge to bow deeply each time.
  
• Getting to finally give my brother a present that he hadn't already gotten himself. I got him an action figure of Walter, from "The Big Lebowski". (John Goodman's Character For those of you not in the know) To say it was well-received might be an understatement. I felt like Santa Claus. I felt bad for not bringing Valorie a "half-birthday present", though. (It's an old family tradition, and is exactly what it sounds like.)
  

Things that kinda' stunk:

• Not being able to go to the Grauman's Chinese Theatre to show Becca all the handprints/footprints of the stars, due to some opening, or premiere, or other red-carpet spectacle that they were either setting up for or breaking down from. We think it may have been the premiere of Hancock, but that's not for sure.
• The road closure from the aforementioned event forced my brother onto a circuitous, road-rage inducing route to the parking garage where we could finally get out and go enjoy ourselves
• see opening paragraph re: wax museum

Things that really stunk

• Having a persistent and worsening sore throat through the whole thing.

There's lots more, but I am not gonna spend my whole vacation blogging.
I'll have more blog (and pictures) soon. And twitters until then.
Swimming pool is calling to me...