Mendel's Experiment

Julia (the friend who convinced me to be an extra in "Dispatch" with her) has struck again.  This time we went out to dinner to Mizu 212, this really cute (and delicious) Shabu Shabu restaurant on Sawtelle (the address is 2000 Sawtelle, if anyone's interested in going there).  Shabu Shabu is a Japanese style of dining in which you get a plate of vegetables, spices and raw meat, and then you boil it all together in a pot of water in front of you.  We were feeling adventurous (and uncharacteristically open with our wallets), so we ordered a side portion of Wagyu Kobe beef.  You can tell just by looking at it how much better marbled it is than the regular beef (which we also had, and Julia ordered a half-side of crab legs in addition).  But it really is better.  I mean, honestly, it's probably not enough better to merit the extremely high price, but you could taste the difference and it was just much easier to eat/chew, since it was that much more tender.  If you're getting a steak (which I had once for my birthday and was the most expensive steak I've ever had) I can understand why you'd be willing to pay more for a much better steak, but Shabu Shabu is extremely thinly sliced meat so having a piece of beef that's more or less tender just isn't a noticeable or important.

Then we shot a short film for an assignment from Julia's Visual Storytelling class at Chapman.  I starred in it and Julia directed it.  The assignment was to show a character making a decision.  Julia decided to tell the story of a girl choosing between going out partying or re-writing a Biology report.  See, in the short film my character epicly fails at Biology, which is ironic since I'm getting ready to go out and tutor some ninth grade girls in Biology right now.  Anyway, we spent a long time getting this room ready for the shoot.  We printed out/found in magazines lots of "hot" guy photos (Hugh Jackman, Clive Owen, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Princes William and Harry, etc...) and putting them on the walls, then found any pictures of me on my facebook that could look like I was at a party and made a little photo collage around my Jude Law calendar from tenth grade.  Throw some high heels on the floor, movie star magazines on the bed, instant teen girl bedroom.  We shot the short in like half an hour, but when we went to upload it to Final Cut Pro we discovered that we didn't have a firewire cable, which is necessary for that task.

We drove to Westwood, which had the nearest Best Buy, only to find it CLOSED!  It was about 10:30 when we got there.  Our next stop was Rite Aid, but we parked at the old location and were told that it had moved.  We drove to the new location, parked, and found out that they also did not have a firewire.  We walked to CVS (leaving the car in the lot near Rite Aid so we wouldn't have to pay for parking upwards of twice), but it was also closed.  And now it was around 11:00.  So we walked to the UCLA campus student store, figuring that they would probably be open and have it.  It was by no means a short walk.  But they were CLOSED and we were very sad.

We ended up back at my house, and I remembered that I'd found my firewire cable this summer and used it to upload videos in the family room.  So we looked in the basket where all the random wires deserted in the family room end up, and sure enough there it was.

We edited it all together and you can watch it here.

In other news, this is my new diet plan: ONLY PIE.

Seriously, you can get a whole balanced diet from only pie.

Protein - mince pie, pot pie, steak and kidney pie, etc...

carbs - crust

fruits/veggies - fruit or veggie pie (i.e. apple)

dairy - cream pies (i.e. banana)

So now, like I said, I'm prepping for study sessions with two ninth grade girls I'm tutoring in biology.  They have a test tomorrow!