It snowed like crazy back home. Only my parents would think of going on a hike that day.

I went and saw the LA Kings play the Detroit Red Wings a couple of nights ago. The Kings lost 5:2, yet I had a good time. Going to a hockey game in at Staples Center is a rather surreal experience. Not only do they offer you Sushi (I hate Sushi), but they also serve you at your seat. Sushi and some crappy $10 US domestic beer. Anyway, hockey is always fun.

Oh and I also had a dentist experience. Also a rather surreal one. My bottom left wisdom tooth had not completely made it through my gumline, hence, my dentist decided to remove whatever flesh was holding it back. And he did so with a laser. Let me tell you, it’s weird feeling when you have smoke coming out of your mouth and the entire office smells like burned hair.

I visit my buddy Ray’s coffee shop more often than all my family members’ birhday partys counted together on a lifetime basis.

And I am a big fan of his Siphon coffees, and am currently trying to figure out which coffee blend (the actual beans) I like the most. Well, I have been trying to figure that out for a while now, but am struggling to remember which ones I actually tried. So I am going to blog about every single coffee blend I try at Ray’s.

Today, I had the “India Malabar - Monsooned”

Here is what Ray has to say about it:
“Although this coffee has an outstanding taste, more interesting is the monsooning process of bean preparation and why it is used. When ships would take long journeys across the seas carrying coffee, the high humidity and changing weather conditions changed the color and taste of the coffee. Today that change is made by exposing the beans to the high humidity during the monsoon season. The result is a full bodied, lightly acidic coffee.”

Here is what I think:
“I like nutty. But his one was a little too nutty for my taste. Still much better than anything you can get outside of this fine establishment I call Ray’s world.”

So it looks like I might have managed to seriously put a threat to my China trip this year. Talking to my buddy Terry in Shanghai today, he informed me that one needs a visa to travel to China. Well, not a big deal one would think.

Actually, it is when one of the requirements for such Visa is that your passport doesn’t expire for at least another six months after finishing the trip. There in lies the problem. My trip ends on January 15th and my German passport expires in February.

So, I have roughly three weeks to get everything figured out. The biggest obstacle is that it takes eight weeks to get a German passport. And the fact that all German passports are printed in Germany doesn’t especially help my cause.

Two questions immediately come to my mind:
1. Should I still get my flu/hepatitis A shot on Monday morning?
2. Where should I go if I can’t go to China?

Either way, I am a complete idiot for not thinking of Visa/passport issues in advance. I have been literally sitting on this ticket since July and it’s not like this is the first time I have traveled overseas.

Gosh, someone please kick me.

Happy Thanksgiving to all out there. It’s about 80F in LA and with that probably the warmest Thanksgiving day in my history of Thanksgiving days.

Later on today, I will be going over to my friend Chris’ house for dinner.

I just watched three episodes of “Six Feet Under” in a row. Actually, I have another three episodes available for consumption (got to love Netflix), but it just doesn’t seem like a good idea to watch this much TV in a single night. Oh well, I am going to just say it here and now. SFU is the by far best television series that I have seen on American television. I haven’t been this hooked since I first tasted Red Vines.

On a different note, I am also reading an excellent book called The Color of Law. The author’s name is Mark Gimenez and with this being his first novel, he’s destined to be the next John Grisham.

Gosh, I wish I had some Red Vines right now.

Ok, in the past I used to spend my Sunday nights at “Koo Koo Roo,” happily eating roasted chickens and flavorful potatoes. For some reason, I began to ditch the chickens and started spending my Sunday nights watching rather disturbing movies.

Tonight I watched Capote, which is the story of Truman Capote writing his award winning non-fiction novel In Cold Blood. Writing the book truly messed him up, and I think that watching the movie might do the same to me. I just don’t do well watching movies involving not only murderers but also elaborate descriptions of their time awaiting the death penalty. Regardless of my fearful demeanor, go see the movie if you can. Two thumbs up.

It’s like 90F in LA right now.  Much against everyone’s probably rather pleasant perception of this climate, it’s not nice. The air is bone dry (Santa Ana desert winds) and my sinuses feel like I just sniffed a bucket of sand. Thanksgiving is only days away and it’s too hot to even wear shoes. Don’t get me wrong, I am wearing shoes.

They are playing christmas music at all the stores and malls, which turns out ot be a rather surreal experience. This is just flat out ridiculous.

ioaking is the latest trend that I coined over three cups of coffee this morning. It’s the concept of hooking up your isight to your computer, loading up your favorite song, karoaking it like crazy and then uploading it to the Internet for the world to see. It’s a rather disturbing trend, yet I am trying to figure out how to gain my fair share of fame in the field.

It all started with Gary Brolsma, featuring and really introducing the famous Numa Numa dance.

Now there are competitions going on all over the Internet. I went on Google video, typed in one of my favorite’s songs names and here is what I found.
People are singing everywhere. From Plettenberg to Peru. Mothers, daughter, and Chinese kids in basketball jerseys. Singing, Dancing, Ioaking.

I just saw the new harry potter movie. It was a special screening put on by some media company that we do business with. Got to love LA.

Anyway, it’s better than all previous Harry Potter movies. Go see it if you can.