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National Celebration!
Canada wins the gold medal! CA-NA-DA!!! CA-NA-DA!!!
This is a dream come true for hockey fans, like my brother here.
Chris was hangin' at a Stratford, Ontario sports bar with his homeys, cheering on the nation to glory in their
fight against American oppression. He's even in the local paper! That's my bro, Canada's number one hockey fan!
Check out his article in the Stratford Herald!
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Cruisin' Car of the Day
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Today's Commute...
Coasting into Town
There is no better commute than driving along the ocean as the sun rises! I don't know what the locals are complaining about.
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Today's Featured Street...
Santa Monica Boulevard
If Sheryl Crow sings about it, you need to cruise it! Go rent a classic car, pull the top down, and work your way down the strip. Put on a pair of dark glasses and a scarf and you'll probably appear in more vacation albums than the Hollywood sign.
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Today's Outdoor Mall...
Third Street Promenade
This is a great area to people-watch. You've got your beach bunnies, your street performers, your tourists, and even the occassional local looking to spend some money at the local Banana Republic.
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Round Round, Get Around,
We Get Around
Feb 24 -
I love to drive in this city. I loved it four years ago, and I still love it now. This is a city built for
drivers.
New York? Fuggetaboudit. You couldn't pay me to drive in it. Well, that's not true. I'd drive in New York if
I was paid, but it would have to be a sufficient amount. I certainly wouldn't want it to be my career. My number
one Career Don't is a New York taxi driver. Actually, more like number three, following Northern Ontario Roadkill
Removal Technician and White House Intern.
We've now navigated our way through a good chunk of America's major cities:
Chicago,
Philidelphia,
Detroit,
Phoenix,
Dallas and
Punxsutauney,
to name a few.
But on the ol' Drive-o-Meter, L.A. is still tops, and New York City is way down at the bottom (Detroit's down there
with it, but only because I would prefer never to take any form of transportation into Detroit ever again).
Now, before you get your Ray's Famous Pizza all over your shirt in a fit of rage, let me explain. As the T-shirt
states, I Love N.Y. I and the T-shirt are in full agreement. New York is top of the list of cities I'd like
to be in. But driving? That's a whole other story.
1. L.A. drivers are nice.
Los Angeles has learned that if we all want to get to work on time, we all have to work together. If you are let
into line, let someone else into line. If you want to change lanes, signal, and someone will back off and wave you
in. Teamwork!
If you're a dink and cut people off, they'll get mad just the same as anywhere else, but from what I've seen, it
doesn't happen often. At least, not to me.
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N.Y. drivers are nasty.
The best word to describe New York driving is "cutthroat". You push, you shove, you honk your horn. It's all about me, me, me.
If you're too far behind the car in front, someone will sneak into your space, guaranteed.
There are only two ways to change lanes in this city: jump the green light, or use the "nudge" method. "Nudging"
involves slowly bouncing out into the next lane until your front bumper is blocking traffic, then speed into that
space, waving to the guy behind like he let you in to be nice.
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2. L.A. drivers "Merge" well.
The ability of a major city to merge is a rare art form. In L.A., they get it. There's a sign that says "Left
Lane Closed, 1 Mile", and by gum, within one mile, there's nobody in the left lane. It's uncanny!
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N.Y. drivers cannot "Merge".
New York merging is always ruined by the "sneakers". A "sneaker" is that guy who sneaks up the closed lane with
the hopes someone will let him in further up, like he couldn't figure out why this lane was free. The result:
deadlock. No exceptions.
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3. L.A. has no public transit.
I think we've seen three buses since we've arrived here. The only people who ride it are those who can't afford
a car because they've spent all their money on crack. A car is as essential to the Los Angelese as a Metrocard
is to New Yorkers.
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N.Y. depends on public transit.
The transit system in New York is so efficient that even people with cars use it instead of driving. Besides,
if they drove, they'd just end up complaining about all those damn taxis everywhere. An environmental thumbs up!
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4. L.A. doesn't allow jaywalking.
This means when your light turns green, you can go. The only hazard you need to watch for are the post-red light
jumpers. There's always a few who think that if they squeeze right behind the car in front, it's really only
like one car instead of two, and you won't notice that they're running the red. Sneaky!
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N.Y. has no laws for pedestrians.
In New York, people are just walking every which way. Red lights mean nothing, Don't Walks mean nothing. You
just walk. You could walk from Chelsea Piers to the United Nations with a blindfold on and you won't likely get
hit (I put that "likely" in there to avoid any lawsuits).
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So by this, I'm sure you can see my reasons. You combine this with the nice weather, nice cars, palm trees and
scantily clad ladies, and you can surely see that Los Angeles was built for cruising. It's the kind of place
where, when faced with an empty Saturday afternoon, you can spend the day driving for driving's sake. And still
be in a good mood when you're done. New York is about the destination, where L.A. is about the journey.
Or in some cases, it's about the car itself...
Meet Dennis Woodruff:
Independent Filmmaker, Art Car Designer and Cultural Icon
Number of Films: 14
Number of Art Cars: 8
Dog's Name: Tuffy
Dog's Occupation: Wonder Dog, Actor
Words to live by: Never trust a suit.
Marital Status: Single!
How long have you been a filmmaker? Ever since I was a kid I've wanted to do this. I used to set up carnival acts in my backyard and sell tickets to my friends.
Actors he's met who are cool:
James Woods
Kevin Spacey |
Actors he's met who suck:
John Travolta
Tom Cruise
Sean Penn
Tom Green
Matt Dillon |
What's your take on Hollywood? It's fake. Everybody's fake. That's the thing about this town, as long as your understand it's fake, you're okay, but you can't take anybody at their word.
How many films do you sell a day? Around fourteen, at $10 apiece. Today I haven't sold that ma-- HEY I'M DENNIS WOODRUFF! BUY MY MOVIE! IT'S GOOD! Sorry, what were we talking about?
What's was the budget of your last film? $10,000. It doesn't go far these days, as you can see when you watch my dog Tuffy play the part of one of the Ant People.
What's going to be the theme of your next car? Well, I just found these mannequin legs today, so I think that's the direction I'll go in. Stick them out the top of the car or something.
You should get a bunch of legs and stick them out the side, like a spider. Oh, that's good.
Any upcoming film projects? In my next film, I'll be portraying Osama bin Laden, who is sending a message to the American people. It's going to be like he's making a video just before going into plastic surgery. I've got other film ideas, but this one's so timely I've got to get it out soon.
Any final words of advice? Yeah, if someone tries to give you crap, you should just be extra polite to them. All that does is make them mad, and they start throwing more crap at you, and then you be even nicer... Pretty soon, the meeting's over, you're still okay, but the other guy is just one big seething bowl of crap. It's great. Hey, do you smoke pot?
Win an autographed copy of Dennis Woodruff's film, Superstar!
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triangulating the sign... |
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We've got mail...
Hello Kevin and Aimee.
Who is this you might ask? Well I'm a 23 year old Canadian at heart working hard at finishing a degree in computer graphic animation at Arizona State University. My name is Frank McLoone and I grew up in Calgary Alberta and can't wait until I'm able to move back once I'm done school. I was lucky enough to score some tickets to go see our boyz play Germany at the Olympics with a 3 -2 win and both Veronica Brenner win silver with Deidra Dionne picking up bronze for our proud country in the women's aerials finals. Canadian Girls Kick Ass Eh?
If you have not figured it out by now I'm your Olympic Fan Of the Day with the "I AM CANADIAN" car [ back on Day 174 ]. I just started cleaning out my car from one of the greatest road trips that I have ever taken and I found your card that you gave to my friend Kelly, so I looked up your website and here I am. I remember running into you guys at the gas station when I had been on the road for hours and in needing to stop for a pee pretty bad. I had been driven by some kind of crazy voice chanting the words Hockey, Hockey, Hockey all the way to Utah. Anyway I've been taking a lot of computer classes at school like Dreamweaver 4 and am still a rookie but I've been learning about Linking image, Rollovers, Cascading Style Sheets, ect... I just wanted to let you know that I loved your guy's site. What a cool idea to document a great trip like the one you guy's are on. Even through I have not even got close to seeing all of it YET! I wanted to write to say "EH" and have a safe trip back home, I wish now I would have talked longer with you at the gas station about your experiences but can probably guess by the state of my car how excited I was to keep on heading for Canadian Gold up north!
- Frank, Arizona
Drop us a note!
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 Today's Weather:
Golden
| Sleeping Quarters |
Malibu Creek State Park
 
Site 11. All the families out for the weekend are packing up to head back to their hollywood lives. We've been camping in empty campgrounds for so long, that we liked the company. Oh well. At least now we can pee outside again!
Cost: $12.00
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Bkfast:
| Campground
Malibu Creek S.P. |
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| Both: | Stand-Up Pancakes |
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Lunch:
  | Jack in the Box
Sunset Blvd. |
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| K's Order: | Sourdough Jack Combo |
| A's Order: | Spicy Cheese Wedges |
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| Cost: | $6.58 |
Burger Joint
Jack in the Box
Specialty: Sourdough Jack
Price: $1.99
Fries: Fair
Jingle: We make it when you order it!
This place had that creepy, slightly unclean feeling. Not recommended to the health-conscience, but perhaps the health-board would be interested...
  Overall Impression:
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