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LA Trip: Depeche Mode at Staples Center Depeche Mode at Staples Center was the focus... but that left plenty of time to go visit! Depeche Mode's August 15th showing at Staples Center was the focus of the trip. 12 tickets to the concert, for Thomas, Yanson, Kim, Mickey, Jackie, Billy, Jason, Tu (sp?), and unfortunately 3 other people's names I have unfortunately forgotten... Pearl saw the previous night's show and said it was disappointing, but she's a concert-goer, and I'm not. We meandered in late, after finding cheap parking and a tiny Taco Bell built into part of a gas station. The first 45 minutes of the show dragged on, but the last hour and a half kicked butt. Much of it was excellent, but it was a song that I'd never paid much attention to that was phenomenal. Black Celebration. I knew of it, but it wasn't on any of the singles collections and hence never got much playtime in my car. It was awesome... We dropped off those who needed to study for MCATs, then went to Denny's in Westwood and ordered food. I sat across from Jackie and we probably each thought each other vaguely familiar- each look I got at her looked familiar, but was it really the same Jackie from middle school? . . . Yep, it was. Crazy, huh? Billy waited forever for his food, and got a free desert out of it. Entire table shared a bananna split, which was delicious! Back to Thomas and Billy's apartment, where we played Monopoly until 3am or so. I ended up in jail for 3 out of 5 of the first turns, so I was basically screwed. Good game, though... college monopoly is ruthless and ends in less than 20 turns. Of those 20 turns, I'm sure the last 5 turns are just a courtesy too! The late night discovery was when everyone left, and the remains of Tu's car were found outside along with some other cars in the street, all vandalized. I'll refrain from ranting here about things like that... but it sucks, still. That meant we were up until 5am or 5:30am figuring things out with the police and a towing company. Just for good measure, that morning was when remodeling was occuring inside Thomas's apartment. 5:30am bedtimes with 9am wake-up times suck when the apartment manager and later his construction crews come in with ladders and power tools. Everyone else had left by late morning, leaving Thomas and I to move furniture out of the way. Groggily I finally ceased my attempts to sleep at around noon to being the day. Not much else happened until mid-afternoon. I finished some errands and tired of wandering the same paths in Westwood, so I talked to Margaret and Kimberly, floor-mates from my 2nd year. Turns out the two got lucky and got into a rent-controlled apartment for $1600/month. Wow! An hour later, Alicia finally fought her way through traffic and we went out to dinner, where I learned of her busy summer and caught up on a lot with her. Dropped her off later, and finally met up again with Barry, Jimmy, and Billy... yes, a different Billy. With Eileen we went to Monterey Park, enjoying the usual pearl tea (cursed SoCal people... it's pearl tea, NOT boba!) and losing Billy for a while as he wandered off to smoke. Visited another one of Barry's friends that night- and again I have forgotten her name! =( She was in a huge house a few miles from UCLA, off Santa Monica Blvd. Incredible... too bad the fire alarm wouldn't shut up. :-þ The night was spent sleeping on the floor of Eileen's apartment, and the morning wandering Westwood before we headed back to San Jose. Looking at the odometer of the Maxima revealed I had traveled 3,000 miles in one month in it... that's a lot of driving!
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