Intelligentsia was magical as always.  Got the usual, 2 cafe mochas along with a interesting sour cream muffin thing.  Then we headed over to the Yardhouse which was suppose to be a 40 minutes wait but magically 2 spots at the bar opened up right in front of us, so we grabbed those. I was about to order a Heineken when Aleks started making fun of me, “You are at the Yardhouse with 100 beers on tap and you wanna go with a Heineken?” So I gave in and ordered something that was like Heineken  We spent a few hour there waiting for Inception to start at 11, so I had fun watching re-run of this weeks Pre-season football games.

At 11 we started watching Inception, I pretty much fell asleep.  Don’t get me wrong, the movie had its moments but the plot was out of the control.  I told Aleks it reminded me of a couple of kids playing super heroes saying “I got you!”, the other kids says “No, I had a invisible bullet proof cloak that protects me from your bullets.” The other kids says “Oh Yeah?  Well I have super bullets that go through invisible bullet proof cloaks” the other kids says “Oh yeah…” In other words, the rules of the Inception world would change all the time without warning.  I could write more about it, but it is one of those movies you need to watch and decide for yourself.  I might be willing to give it another shot.

Overall Saturday was fun.

We walked over to MOCA which was fun since I had never been there before. We then took the MOCA shuttle to The Geffen Contemporary At MOCA. MOCA was fun. Took a funny picture of the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy with a closed sign in the door.  Apparently Preserving Democracy is a 9-5 job and closes on the weekend.

We got Sushi as a place in LIttle Tokyo, I couldn’t find it on YELP so I am not sure the name of it.  I do know it smelled like Sea world but I got use to it pretty quick and had some really good Sushi.

After Sushi we made out way to RAMP creative headquarters.  This was very cool, as  I am going to start working with them starting Thursday!

We then walked around the corner to Spring for Coffee which I had been wanting to try for a while.  Huge plus that it is right around the corner from RAMP.

After Coffee we headed back to Rachel and Mikes, where Mike and I drove Rachel and XX crazy with all our shop talk.  Mike gave me a very helpful critique on my Helvetica Neue campaign.  Rachel finally made an executive decision and made reservation to The Gorbals a tapas style restaurant which served intelligentsia coffee via chemex method which was great.

All in All XX and I had a blast!  We both loved Downtown LA!

Making Coffee (Comm 307) from Mike Devlin on Vimeo.

The Night Marchers // Grove at Anaheim

Opening Band // The Night Marchers

John Reis has great stage pressence guy is a ball of energy! Which is more then I can say for his other 2 guitarist. The bassist Tommy Kitsos and Guitarist Gar Wood were horrible! Kitsos has no soul at all! Gar Wood, I don’t know what to say about this guy. I think he is a leech. He added nothing to the band, he played exactly what John Reis played. So my question is why is he needed? He added nothing to the band.

I think the John and his drummer Jason Kourkounis need to go find a Bassist and lead guitarist that in the words of Eddie Van halen, HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY. These guys while fun to watch will go no where till they find guys that can make the band better. I would have loved watching John and Jason jam out.

They aren’t Duke Spirit or Plain White Tees bad but they lack the pieces to be a headline band until they ditch the slugs. Make the call John and be the Bad guy and you are destined for something more.

Opening Band Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

VENUE // Grove at Anaheim

Postives

I like that it’s location pretty easy to deal, plus lots of local hotels because Disneyland is so Close. I like the lounge area, it was pretty comfortable and well designed. Had fabric from floor to ceiling very cool. Staff was friendly, bouncers weren’t arrogant douche bags.

Negatives

I am not a big fan of General Admission standing because everyone acts like Douche Bags, especially in Orange County. Not sure what it is about SOME Orange County people that bug me but people here were very Self-Absorbed, arrogant and inconsiderate. I didn’t like that they wouldn’t let me go out and put the 3 t-shirts I bought in the car. So I was forced to care them around all night. Doesn’t really encourage people to buy stuff from the bands.

After the Open Band was finished people began to rudely push their way through the crowd to get a better view. At one point two fat chicks pushed their way in front of the guy next to me, who ended up being obnoxious. At one point he knocked into me, we really lucky it only happened once. I wasn’t in the mood to be in a mosh pit at a modest mouse concert with a bunch of yuppy spoiled OC kids. There was another guy with this goofy emo hair that would jump up and down like he was at a Avril Lavigne concert… later he ended up shoving his way through the crowd knocking everyone around and stomping on Lauren toes. He was lucky I didn’t find out about that till much later.

Needless to say… these inconsiderate, self-absorbed, pretentious, quiksilver wearing, soul-less [did I get everything? Think so] Really took away from people’s concert experience. Sorry, Someone had to say it…

Concerts in Orange County are never as good as LA. Venue Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Yelp Reviews from Trip

Anaheim Marriott Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Jamba Juice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

ESPN Zone Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Grove of Anaheim Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

In N Out Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Carrows Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

The Trip

Anyone that knows me for any amount of time, knows that I am rarely in a hurry and typically procrastinate whenever possible.  This Saturday was no exception, I really should have left Friday night, but I was really tired and didn’t want to ward off the sandman while flying down the I5 freeway.

So Saturday I left about 12:30pm or so which should normally give me plenty of time to get down there.  I decided to fill up and get something to eat in town before taking off.  So I started to head over on the south side of town.  Things started to suck when I was trying to get over to merge and this guy was riding in my blind spot, which is pretty much stupidity on a stick but ok I am cool.  I put on my blinker and wait… NOTHING, OK… I begin to brakes, He brakes, I brake more, He Brakes More, I stop, HE STOPS! AHHHHHHHH.  Ok Deep breathe.  It is just one guy surely this can’t be national idiot day RIGHT?

Subway

So I get to Subway still shaking my head and not looking forward to this upcoming ride.  I get in there and it packed!  They have about 5 sandwiches and a line going pass the glass counter order area.  One of the employees calls over to me asking what I wanted…  she wanted me to yell my order over to here.  First I am not confident they can keep things straight… and I like see my sandwich being put together, I like to look at the stuff make sure it looks good.  So I tell here I will wait, so lady asks the guy behind me!  So then he thinks he can cut in front of me, which he did!  I think, “Whatever douche monkey…  go in front of me”.  So it gets better there is now a guy paying that is complaining, or confused, I wasn’t really sure and didn’t care!  All I cared about was getting my stuff and getting on the road.  So that fiasco ended!

Jamba Juice

Jamba Juice was just across the way and I was craving an Orange Berry Blitz!  Love those, Orange Juice, Pineapple Sorbe, Blueberries, Magic Fairey Dust.  There was a young emo looking girl that took my order.  I gave her my order and she said something really fast to me that ended with “it’s cheaper”  so I said “OK”.  I waited for my order and to my surprise the guy handed me 2 power jamba juices!  I said, “Wait? Why do I have two?”, the girl said she gave me a buy one get one free for another drink Blueberry Blitz.  So here I am with 2 POWER [largest size] smoothies and a foot long sub!  I wolfed down 6 inches of my 5 dollar footlong and started to drive drinking my smoothie.

Intelligentsia

The 210 was pretty much shut down so that made my decision easy on what way to take plus the 5 is always a nicer drive once you past San Clemente.  I decided to stop at my favorite Coffee shop in the world Intelligentsia in Silver Lake maybe get a coffee and pick up some beans for my parents and I.  This was the highlight of trip down!  The Mocha I order was freakin’ awesome!  Picked up 2 lbs of whole bean coffee, one for my parents and one for me!  Leaving here I was in a great mood!

Traffic

Then the traffic hit!  Total unreasonable gridlock from Irvine to the 78!  So frustrating!  I am still trying to forget that torture!  The 78 opened up a little bit, and I hauled ass!  78 ends in Escondido, I get to the stop light go straight right into a Soberity check at 5:45 in the afternoon!  I was like it never ends!  It was pretty much just a pain in the ass.  I got through pretty quick.

To The Game

I didn’t have much time to relax because we had to head down to the game so as possible if we wanted to make it before kick off.  Well as you can see by the rest of my day not much was going my way.  Once we got down there we spent about 1 hour trying to find parking and dealing witht he lack of organization on the part of the San Diego Chargers..  We ended up parking at the top of the hill with a very steep incline, which just about killed me going back up.  Remember Lauren running circles around me… this incline was 3x steeper and about 10 solid minute walk!

The Game

We finally got to our seat about the middle of the second quarter!  I had a blast with my dad.  Don’t get to do that very often.

After the Game and Sunday

Got to spend time with my brother on Saturday night.  He told me about the near S.I.D.S. incident that happened with my niece the previous week!  Scarey luckily she is ok!  Got breakfast with Nick and Melody, then drove around to some bird stores picked up a few toys for my parrotlet flock I have.  Had dinner with my parents and discovered my mother’s obsession with Mayo.. LOL [See Pictures]

Intelligentsia // Silverlake

So after I won the Andrew Bird tickets through twitter a couple weekend ago, I got extra excited because I knew the Greek Theatre was right near the Intelligentsia in Silver lake.  I had been hearing the rave reviews about this place from a few friends on twitter mainly @mic_dee and @ladyducayne.  So Lauren and I decided to grab some food and get some Intelligentsia coffee before the Andrew Bird Concert.  Getting the food was by far the hardest part of the entire night!  I wanted to hit Café Los Feliz, which has great food, but they were closed.  I was going to try a few other places that I saw on my Iphone Yelp Application,  but either got lost or would find it and pass it.  We ended up parked at Intelligentsia and thought we would walk to a place near us but nothing sounded good so we went to El Pollo Loco.  Why or why didn’t I look at it’s Yelp review?  I am still trying to forget that place…

Intelligentsia // Finagro Estate, Tanzania

We eventually made ourselves over to Intelligentsia, which pretty much a Coffee Drinkers Paradise!  I found out that @ladyducayne‘s posse was all heading down the Intelligentsia Venice, which is going to be my next Coffee excursion!  @mic_dee recommend their Double Cappuccino, which I got.  WOW!  This usually wouldn’t be my type of drink, but it was like Smooth Jazz on the tongue!  I was in utter amazement!  I realized, I have been drinking good coffee instead of GREAT coffee!  Lauren got a tea, which isn’t coffee LOL.

While I was there, I picked 2 lbs of their Whole Bean Coffee.  I am half way through the first bag Finagro Estate, Tanzania, which is really great blend.  I hate wasting a drop!

So if you find yourself in the Griffith Park, Los Feliz area, I would highly recommend you make your way over to Intelligentsia Silver Lake and try some GREAT COFFEE!

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Andrew Bird Concert // Greek Theatre