Outback Steakhouse + Burbank = Hell on earth

Well, maybe I am being a little extreme in my assessment of last night's activity. I went to the house of dead cows in the queen of all suburbs (didn't suburban culture originate in the Valley?) and I was only expecting the worst. I was doing this so I could partake in our friend Tim's birthday and hang out with his wonderful friends. How can a vegetarian/wannabe-hipster survive such an outing you may ask? It wasn't as bad as I expected. I got some emergency advice from my vegetarian/real-hipster friend Nick on how to survive in such a mysterious and frightening place. He told me the soup is really good (and homemade) and the salad was amazing. So, even though Outback Steakhouse may not have a vegetarian friendly name, you can find good food there. And Burbank was not as bad as I imagined.

Earlier in the day, Greg and I went to Topanga Canyon State Park (just north of Santa Monica, 20 minutes from our apartment) yesterday and I had a wonderful time with him as always. The weather was perfect: not too cold and not too hot. The scenery and quietness of the place was very refreshing. It was really great because we only saw about ten people for the three hours that we were hiking. We had lunch at the top of this steep hill we climbed up. We were on a mission to find this waterfall on the map (which we never found because we left the map in the car). The trail was poorly marked... arrg. See the photo album for some pictures of the scenery.

Sam, Ian, Tim, Chris, and Melissa came over over for drinks later in the evening. Melissa made pumpkin vodka drinks...oh my, they were good. Sam, Tim, and I decided that in gay heaven they have all-you-can-drink pumpkin vodka milkshakes. We ended the day by pissing off the downstairs neighbor by being too loud at 2 in the morning. She arrived in her nightgown and I arrived in my "I feel so guilty I want to go to bed" place. Greg left an apology note downstairs on her door this morning.

Camels and mustangs

So it took Mexican food to reawaken my senses to the point that I must write about it. I cannot even remember the name of hole in the wall that Dawn and I went to for lunch today but it was heaven on earth mexican food. The place can only seat about 15 people and the line starts to get long at around 11:30. It has a great view of the ocean despite the greasy windows. You know a place is good when all of the Mexican construction workers go there for lunch. The walls are covered in surfboard and skateboard stickers (those annoying things you see pasted on the back of stop signs) and an assortment of random bumper sitckers. One sticker said "California permit to hunt terrorists #091101. Expires 2050" I thought that was kinda scary but there was another one that said "Curran for President" (who's that?) and "Give peace a chance". The walls are really dirty and the people that work behind the counter are pretty sweaty and speak "un poco" English. You can only sit at the counter on broken stools since they have no tables. Okay, the salsa is amazing... I will dream of it tonight. The best part... entire Mexican dinner: 2 enchiladas, rice, beans, and salad for $5.00.

Greg's friend JC is visiting this week and last night we drove out to Fullerton during rush hour (38 mile drive from where we live) to meet Greg for dinner. JC rented a Mustang convertable for her little vacation in Los Angeles. What a great idea... watch the sunset as we pull away from the city enjoying the original American Dream: the California freeway system. Go anywhere, do anything, show off your wheels, where big sunglasses, look fabulous. Just so you know... riding with the top down on a freeway in L.A. is not what the movies make it out to be. It's not "fun" or "glamorous" or "freeing". You see, there are 700,000 other cars and trucks pumping exhaust in your face. So many pounds of fumes did I circulate through my lungs that when JC started to smoke, I enjoyed smelling the organic substance of tobacco smoke. And for the first time in my life, I asked her to please blow more smoke in my face.