So in an exciting turn of events yesterday, I was driving to a party in the Marina Del Ray neighborhood and I see MONEY in the middle of the road.

I pull over like a greedy bastard and run at it half expecting it to be attached to a fishing line pulled by some pranksters.

But no, it is attached to a purse.

And it's a full purse too. A quick look into it shows a drivers license and a credit card. So I gather up all of it's spilled contents and load it up into my car to have a better look.

I am not joking when I say that this woman's entire identity is in this purse. It is a con artists dream. Divers license and credit cards are the tip of the iceburg. This lady has not only her social security card, but her daughters and what I expect to be her husbands.

I realize that I can't just snag the 8 bucks in cash and drive off, so I start going through this woman's purse hoping that she has SOMETHING in there with her phone number.

But the more I look, the more it hits me that I'm looking into someone's personal life. She's Lutheran (daughter goes to a private school), she shops at the Gap and at Vons. She's also dealing with alcoholism or knows someone she is because she has a ton of cards and pamphlets for various clinics and support groups. There's also a small bag inside the purse that has some sort of powder in it.

As I go through the contents I come up with these crazy scenarios for how her purse got thrown on the side of the road. She had a fight with whatever ex-husband or drugged up boyfriend she was with and they threw the purse out. She'd had a melt-down and threw her purse out the window as she planned to drive her car off the pier.

Highways and Freeways excluded, I couldn't think of another reason that someone, having noticed their purse flying out the window, wouldn't have turned around to get it.

I call this ladies road side assistant card in hopes that they had her number on file, but the only number they have is to her work place, so they leave a message with my number telling her that I have her purse. The man on the other side of the phone who works somewhere in the midwest tells me what a good Samaritan I am.

Out of curiosity, I put the address on her driver's license into my iphone to see where she lives. She lives about 10 minutes away in Mar Vista. I decide that it wouldn't hurt to drive over there after my party.

My party is sort of bleh. The Dad ends up being a dick who takes 10 minutes to pay me and THEN gets upset because I don't have change. As I pack up in a hurry he asks "Do you have ANOTHER party to go to?"

I tell him that I am on a quest to return this poor ladies purse that a lesser dick like him would have left on the street to be picked up by someone just itching to open up a credit card line at the Best Buy and he says something about me being a good Samaritan.

People say that word a lot. "Good Samaritan". I learned a while ago, that way back then, it was not cool to be a Samaritan. They were basically a religious group that the Jews did NOT like and that the Samaritans did not like back. Biblical Scientologists if you will.

So I drive over to Mar Vista and get to the house of this woman who is missing her purse. The house is empty.

I thought about it for a minute. I could leave a note on the door "FOUND YOUR PURSE!!! CALL MEE!!!". And no doubt she'd go back to work on Monday to get a message that someone had found it, but I just made it my goal to return that purse to the woman that night.

I live in an urban area full of apartment complexes and neighbors who never talk to each other. In my head, everyone in suburban areas know each other and at the LEAST have their phone numbers so that they can call each other to complain if they don't like how someone's flower bed looks.

So I pull into the cul de sac and start knocking door to door.

In a way it was sort of amazing to watch people's facial expressions change so fast. They'd come out, notice how I was dress in yoga pants and an xxxl hoodie, reeking vaughly of dog feces and go "Can I HELP You-" and then stop as I showed them the purse and asked if they knew Rachel so-and-so and their eyes would widen and they'd repete that phrase "Good Samaritan".

The first guy didn't know her, but suggest that they guy next door might now. He wasn't home, but I called over a man trying to get his dogs in for the night and he told me that not only did he know the lady, she'd actually moved. ....two houses down.

I walked over to the house smushed into the corner of the cul de sac and rang the door bell. A tired looking woman with her hair in a veil opened the door.

I help up the purse and hugged me and she started to cry.

"My father's ASHES were in there!" she said.

I hand her the purse and she goes though, and suddenly that mystery bag I found made a lot more sense.

Her daughter, around 8 and blond walks over, asking grandpa's ashes are still in there. The Mom nods happily and turns to me. "You are an angel!" she says. "I don't know how to thank you!"

In my line of work people say thank you a lot. And in my line of work, I've come to realize that people in general say thank you simply as a social obligation.

This woman was filled with the most sincere gratitude I'd ever seen in another human being. In my head I'd expected the door to be answered by a crazy lady going on and on about her ex-husband before I had to awkwardly excuse myself.

And her gratitude caused me to get chocked up and trying not to cry in front of this lady who five minutes ago thought she would never see this purse again. I apologized and she said not to feel bad about crying. Seeing as how she'd spent most of the day crying.

She said something about not having any money she could give me. (She rummaged through her purse and realized that giving someone a few singles wasn't the best option.) and took down my number saying she wanted to do something for me.

I gave it to her, knowing she probably wouldn't call, but in truth, I'd feel odd taking anything from someone who was going through what she had.

As I turned to leave, I tactfully asked her how she'd lost her purse in the first place.

She told me she was arguing with her daughter while they were getting in the car and in the hassle, she'd forgotten that she'd left her purse on the roof of the car as they drove off.

I told her that I did puppy parties for kids her daughters age.

Long over-due, here are the photos from Anton's Uncles.



( ...the really sad part is, I never did get around to reading Uncle Vanya )

So a lot of my new job will be door knocking, so I figured I'd best have a business card to give to people.



This is what I'm going for, but I definitely could use advice from other people. (motorbike where are youuuu???)

Clash of the Titan's trailer.

Pros:
Awesome casting.
Giant Scorpions.

Cons
Trailer is if 300 and God of War had a baby with Jacob's Syndrome.
"TITANS... WILL...CLASH!" is the worst tag-line sense "THE STARS WILL BE ....AT...WAR!"

I ponder. The original was revolutionary for it's time, but by the time I watched it when I was 12, it felt really dated. And while bad actors fighting claymation might be sub-par, how much better will decent actors fighting CGI be?

Also, stolen from wikipedia. Here's the summary of the movie.

Perseus sets off on a perilous journey deep into forbidden worlds. Battling unholy demons and fearsome beasts, he will only survive if he can accept his power as a god, defy his fate and create his own destiny

Which is really hysterical because if you've read your classical mythology, you'd realize that the entire story of Perseus is about how man can't escape one's own fate.

In a nut-shell, the Perseus legend goes like this.

King gets prophecy that tells him that his daughter will have a son that will kill him.
He locks her up
Zeus visits daughter and knocks her up with HALF GOD BABY
King puts daughter and grandson in a basket at sea.
Daughter and baby survive.
Baby grows up to be Perseus.
Perseus goes on HEROES QUEST. Kills Medusa. Saves Andromeda.
Perseus goes back to his homeland and meets his Grandpa who apologizes for trying to kill him and welcomes him as his Grandson.
Perseus competes in the Olympics. Throws a discus that goes out of control and hits Grandpa in the head killing him.
WAH WAH WAAAAHHHHH~~~~

This is one of those movies where I say "I might see it" and change my mind once all the reviews peg it as awful.

I keep having this discussions with people who say "oh pa shaw! It's a pop corn movie! Just turn off your mind to enjoy it!"

This makes little sense. As I have brought buckets of popcorn into Cohen Brother films.

But it's a fallacy to accuse someone of having no suspension of disbelief because they didn't like an action movie. I can look past people and cars violating the laws of physics, and ninjas taking blows to the head that should have required a CAT scan, but I don't think we should be required to "shut off our brains" to ignore bad writing, directing or acting.

May I remind you all that The Dark Knight was fantastic not due to being a "pop corn" movie, but due to amazing directing, writing and acting.

That and please just stop with the re-makes. No really.

So how do I celebrate the holidays besides drinking cheap whiskey, drunk dialing ex boyfriends and forgetting to light my menorah?

by updating my Wish List of course!

If you make more money then me (I made $140 this week) and I have had an LJ post that has made you laugh at least once, then I suggest you get me something. If you make less then me and still want to buy me something, The Pillowman is like.. 8 bucks here.

If you want to get me something and someone has already bought me The Pillowman, then I like scented candles and gift cards to places where I can buy coffee, books and furniture I have to put together myself.

If you want to send me a card then bug me and I'll reluctantly give you my address. Everyone else who IS getting a present might have to wait because at due to the slowness of work, I'm sending out like... one fucking present a week here.

Unless you are a co-worker like ddrsensei and catsonmars where our boss organized a Secret Santa so we could all get gifts and that will be your present and you can get your weezer snuggy.

If I have not sent you a present this year and you are hurt and planned on makeing a friends locked lj post over this, then I invite you to come to my party because I will make up for my treatment of you by giving you a lot of alcohol because that's what broke friends to do one and other my friends.

I also offer you this picture of my boss's Shannon's new puppy Zoey. (oh. and Shannon's doctor told her she was cancer free so it is a very merry Christmas indeed to not deal with cancer anymore. Lucky Shannon. No more cancer AND a puppy.)

I think most of my LA friends are on facebook now, but I might as well throw this up anyways.



British Invasion X-Mas Party!
December 19th at 7 pm.

For all you blokes out there who fancy getting pissed this holiday and snogging under the mistletoe, we got some Hunky-dory news.

You're invited to the British Invasion Christmas Party! The key word is British, and the drinks, costumes and food will follow this theme.

What's British to you? Mods? Punks? Preps? Chavs? Harry Potter? Doctor Who? Dick Van Dyke the friendly chimney sweep?

The best costume will get a jolly good prize so be sure to dress to make all your mates and your bird jealous or we will all take the piss out of you.

Bring a round for the party, but make sure you're getting sloshed on drinks from UK origins. Cheers if you can round up some mince pies and bangers and mash as well.

This will be the dog's bollocks.

Drove down to San Diego on Wednesday with Laika to pick up motorbike from the airport. She'd brought me back cheese from Paris as requested.

catiechu came over as well and we had an amazing thanksgiving that involved no less then six bottles of wine.

Catie by the way, makes me laugh and laugh. Mostly because of that "We're back ... a dinosaur story!" line which I still can't say with out loosing it.

For thanksgiving, we also took Laika to the San Diego dog beach, where Laika pooped on everything and proclaimed herself ruler of the dog beach. She also apparently has doggie aspergers and didn't want to play with any of the other dogs, even though they were all hysterically awesome and cute. This includes a young aussie, a sad basset hound, a really fat dog that just sat next to us for ten minutes, and the cutest french bulldog ever.

MUCH better dog beach then the one in Long Beach.

Later on the day, Natalia's friends Wendy and Enrique came over and we watched a bunch of movies via' netflix. The Darjeeling Limited isn't as good as Royal Tennenbaums, Kazaam is too bad to be funny, and Never Ending Story is full of Nihilism, drugs and pedophillia as only a german man can write.

Natalia and Catie are Pescetarians, so we had ahi steaks, along with a ton of other things we all cooked up. Our thanksgiving started REALLY late. So at 2 in the morning, we all drove down to the OB pier which was amazing, but also rather creepy. I've never seen waves go that high.

I drove back yesterday and I miss them all. Wah. However, I'm finally starting to re-decorate my apartment and I think if I can by one or three things more from Ikea, I'll be set. (Sorry old computer desk. You sort of suck.)

Mom enjoys finding articles on dogs or reptiles and aspergers syndrome in the New York times and forwarding them to me.

Today she sent me this and it was so awesome, I had to share.


LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Federal officials say they arrested a man who strapped 15 live lizards to his chest to get through customs at Los Angeles International Airport.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday that 40-year-old Michael Plank of Lomita, Calif., was returning from Australia when U.S. Customs agents found 11 skinks, two geckos and two monitor lizards fastened to his body Tuesday.

Plank has been released on $10,000 bond and will be arraigned in federal court on Dec. 21.

Authorities say the lizards' value totals more than $8,500. All Australian reptiles are strictly regulated and Plank did not have a permit for them.

I forworded it to Shannon who was bummed out that they'd taken no pictures of the man and all the lizards stuck to him.

Today we got our final projects for Scenic Painting.

As proof of how awful I am in scenic painting, the teacher gave me one of Van Gogh's paintings of a windmill and said "Um.. you might have less trouble with this one".

I took it with what little dignity I have left in that class and went to graph it.

After class, I finally worked up the guts to find the wardrobe trailer for Community that was filming that day. Sadly, the only person who was there at the moment was a designer from New York who personally dresses one of the leads and explained to me that getting Wardrobe Union in New York was different from the rules of LA union.

She however was pretty chill and re-enforced what I already knew and suggested that I contact the wardrobe union directly to see if they could help me find a PA job.

I'd just really like to get some business cards printed out so I can venture into passing them around to strangers on the street.

Bleh. I just really want to graduate next month and be done with this abortion of a reminder on why I hated highschool so much.

So today I told the first and second semesters that I was leaving lab hours early to get a tattoo.

"Oh!" they all asked "Is this your first tattoo".
I explained to them that I had six tattoos already.
As expected when people learn that wholesome little Emma has six tattoos they freaked and demanded to see them.

Then as promised, Beth came over and we walked up to True Tattoo and I got this.



Max is probably the most awesome tattoo artist who's done my work by far. He was really hysterical and crazy and flirty and this lead way to me and Beth talking a lot about the stuff we normally do at work, which of course involves projectile vomit and Persian jokes.

We told him about Herb who whips at you if you wake him up too early.

His response. "So do you ever go in and wake him up if you feel like you need to be punished?"

Beth eventually wants to be a tattoo artist, so she very subtly asked him how he got into his line of work. Max apparently lucked out with his job as all tattoo artists do and I told Beth that her best bet to get an apprenticeship somewhere was to build up her own art portfolio and start makeing buddies with people in tattoo artist circles.

Then we got a few beers and I lent her my Bushido: Japanese Tattoo books. She's been talking about getting Japanese work on her back and I always tell her about faisdodo's baku tattoo which she thinks is awesome, but I keep telling her she needs to get a kirin.

I'm very very pleased with this tattoo, and as an extra bonus, arm tattoos hurt FAR FAR less then anything I've gotten previously.