On Sunday I got to hang out at CAMELOT GOLFLAND, a mini golf course in Anaheim that also has an arcade and something called “lazer jousting”… whatever that means. My good friend Kevin was in town (he goes to school in Northern California but was in SoCal for spring break), so we obviously had to find something ridiculous to do.

We hit the jackpot when we went to Camelot. They had five mini-golf courses, and we elected to play the most difficult one. There were two teams: Me & Kevin vs. Graceface & Joanna. Guys vs. Girls.

It was on.

We played all 18 grueling holes, hitting golf balls into pools of water and other obstacles with relative frequency. We kept careful score throughout the game and at the end, it turned out we were tied. So we did a Sudden Death Tie-Breaking Championship Round.

Grace chose the “Mission”, a hole that had a big replica of an adobe mission that you had to hit your ball into. It was the single most intense hole of mini-golf I have ever played, but in the end the guys emerged victorious by just one stroke. We gloated for a good twenty minutes and took lots of pictures (which will eventually make their way onto Facebook, for those of you who are interested).

Afterwards, we stopped by a restaurant called Los Cabos and ate a ton of mexican food before heading off to Downtown Disney, a shopping, entertainment, and super-touristy area right outside of Disneyland.

We were in awe of the fanny pack-laden tourists clambering around us as we wandered into the coolest store ever: the Lego Store. We spent a good twenty minutes in the Lego Store building things. Kevin made a giant pillar and a replica of David Blaine. I made a super-secret spy platform with windows. The five year old next to us just stacked random pieces together, forming little more than a blob of Legos. It’s good to know that while my maturity has stayed the same, my ability to build cool things with Legos has only improved with age.

After Downtown Disney, we drove to Yogurt Land, a self-serve frozen yogurt place where they charge you by the weight of your yogurt (which means you always get waaaay too much). Yogurt Land reminded me of a super-fancy and much nicer version of Jason’s frozen yogurt in Ithaca. Good stuff.

I drove home that night knowing I had accomplished four significant things:

1. I won a game of mini-golf by just one stroke. And I played on the “hard” course.
2. I ate a tamale.
3. I built a super-secret spy platform out of Legos.
4. I ate more frozen yogurt than your average person should eat in a month.

Now all I’m left with is a great sense of accomplishment. What did YOU do this weekend?

In case you hadn’t already guessed, I was definitely building up this story a bit more than I should have. BUT that doesn’t make it any less awesome.

A few weeks ago I engaged in an epic lazer* tag battle in an ancient temple-themed facility called ULTRAZONE. ULTRAZONE claims to be the largest lazer tag facility in L.A. So it seemed fitting that the largest group of warriors in L.A. (Ithaca’s ICLA students) should schedule a group trip there.

Mallory and I were running late from work and a subsequent Chiat intern sushi night, but managed to get there in time to play just one epic game. We walked into the temple-themed building, which looked like a poor attempt at reproducing a scene from “Indiana Jones”. The marginally curteous 13-year old employee gave us ULTRAZONE WRISTBANDS™ and we walked into the ULTRAZONE STAGING AREA™ where we were briefed on the ULTRAZONE RULES™ (which included the ‘Don’t Run’ rule, which is the most frequently broken rule in lazer tag…walking just doesn’t suffice when lives are on the line).

Casey and Kelli and I decided to join the red team, the sole reason being that red was easier to distinguish under the black lights than the other colors, which were blue and green. We entered the arena together, armed with guns and ready for battle. The inside of the arena was two floors, and included enough windows, catwalks, barricades and dark corners to excite even the most experienced lazer tag warrior. With music blasting and adrenaline pumping, we began the battle of our lives (which only lasted for about 10 minutes).

At the end of the game, we emerged unscathed (well, mostly…I took an elbow to the face at some point). Casey was the top ranked lazer-tagger, and I floated somewhere around 30th place (I know, you’re impressed). I’d definitely go back, despite the decided lack of fog in the arena (you can never have too much fog when playing lazer tag). Regardless, it still put Ithaca’s lazer tag place to shame**. There may be another lazer tag trip sometime this semester, and I’ll be sure to let you know if we make it to ULTRAZONE again.

That’s all for now, but don’t worry, I had an awesome experience at a giant castle on Sunday that you will hear about sometime soon.

Until next time –

-

-

*Yes, this is spelled wrong. But when you spell ‘lazer’ with a ‘z’ it makes it so much more extreme.

**Ithaca’s EXTREME LAZER X on State Street is definitely worth checking out sometime, though. Don’t worry, they go heavy on the fog.

I’m back from an awesome spring break in London. It was great to go back and visit the city that I lived in less than a year ago…it seems as if time has stood still since then; everything was just as I had remembered it. I got back in L.A. on Saturday night, incredibly jet-lagged from an 11 hour flight but glad to be back in a warmer climate.

Everybody who stayed in L.A. had a blast, though. Most of us had the week off at our internships and nobody had classes: a formula for adventure. Lots of kids from Ithaca came out to visit, and several ICLAers traveled up and down the California coast, visiting places like San Francisco and San Diego.

Just because classes started again on Monday doesn’t mean things got boring, though. Lots of people kept busy organizing plans for St. Patrick’s Day (yesterday). People had parties at work, at the apartments, or at bars. There was a big parade downtown, and I even passed some random bagpipers marching down the road outside of Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank (check out the picture I posted on Twitter).

Some of my friends decided they were too cool to spend their time participating in these activities, and instead spent St. Patty’s on the set of "The Office". Amy and Laura are interns at Reveille, the production company behind the Emmy-winning show, and they got the chance to hang out at Michael Scott’s desk and chow down on corned beef and cabbage with Phyllis, Stanley, and David Wallace (check out their pictures on Facebook).

So things have been speeding along chaotically, as usual, out here in California. I’ll keep you posted on new developments as the week goes on, and I’ll also tell you a bit about my recent battle in an ancient temple (and no, I’m not talking about "Legends of the Hidden Temple". I wish).

Stay tuned.

I know I don’t really seem like a depressed person, but lately I have come to realize just how horrible my life is. Or maybe ‘horrible’ isn’t the right word. Allow me to explain.

Every day, I wake up in my quiet, clean, safe, spacious apartment and get ready for the day. I throw on jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt. I have some good, strong coffee to get me started, and I leave to carpool to work with Mallory. The sun is shining almost every morning. We listen to Ryan Seacrest on the radio on our way to work and dance to the repetitive pop music. Sounds awful, right?

IT GETS WORSE.

I get to work. I’m greeted by smiling faces in the parking lot, the bus, the gatehouse, and my section of the office. I sit at my big workstation, turn on my computer with a giant display, and start learning everything I can about this incredible place. I keep drinking coffee and occasionally walk through the park on my way to the copy room. I laugh at the little Yorkie that hangs out at the workstations near the bathroom, often sporting a tiny sweater.

There are always plenty of projects going on to keep me occupied for the day. For lunch, I usually have a good salad or wrap upstairs, or sometimes I drive somewhere like Whole Foods or Panera. On a particularly unbearable day like today, our whole team goes out to a nice lunch. At the end of the day, I say goodbye to everyone, pass through the gauntlet of smiles again, and return to my apartment (listening to music again along the way).

Then I work out in our apartment’s nice, air-conditioned workout facilities, make dinner in my big kitchen, and sometimes relax with a drink by the hot tub when it is cooling down at night (disclaimer: I’m over 21). On weekends, I have an endless supply of things to see and places to go. My classes are only one day each week. And from time to time I talk to my friends back in Ithaca about how much it is snowing there…it doesn’t snow in California.

Yep, life is tough.

And if you think you can handle this kind of misery, all you have to do is check out the Ithaca College Los Angeles Program sometime. Then you will really feel my pain.

To make things worse, this next week is spring break. I’ll be spending it in London with my girlfriend, where I will be sure to revisit the Ithaca College London Centre for old time’s sake (which is another good place to spend a ‘tough’ semester). This means you won’t be hearing from me until after spring break. I hope you won’t miss me too much.

I’m starting to think I should invest in some good antidepressants to help me cope with all this sunshine and happiness. It’s pure TORTURE.

So I recently realized that I’ve spent all this time talking about all of the interesting places I’m going in L.A., but I haven’t really taken the time to talk about what consumes most of my time when I’m here: work.

Let me just preface this entire blogversation (yep, I just made that word up) by saying that I pretty much work at the greatest place ever. It’s called TBWA\Chiat\Day. It’s an Omnicom-owned media arts / advertising agency that’s part of the worldwide TBWA network.

I work in a giant warehouse that is filled with interesting things. My desk is right beneath a giant life-sized billboard, just like you’d see on a street. There’s a park in our office with trees and chairs and benches, and the trees are lit up with lights at night. There’s a red phone booth straight from the streets of London right next to the park. The espresso I drink comes from the “surf bar”, which is exactly what it sounds like: a bar made from surfboards. Sometimes meetings are held in the “board room”, which houses a giant conference table made of surfboards. There’s a huge aquarium, a car, and a basketball court in the building (I even tested out the basketball court for the first time last week). People bring their dogs to work regularly. Big dogs, small dogs, you name it. Some people move around the office via scooter, just because they can. The creatives all work in “cliff-dwellings”, which are basically giant yellow offices stacked three high, like boxes. There are very few doors, even on the offices, it’s all just open. Everyone has good fashion sense. And everyone is friendly.

And those are just my physical surroundings.

My job title is “Account Management Intern”, and I work on the Pepsi account. That means I’ve gotten to help with a bit of the process behind the new ads that are coming out for Pepsi and Pepsi Max, which has been a blast. I work with people who are creative, dedicated, and absolutely brilliant at what they do. People in this place have created some of the most iconic ads in existence.

Speaking of iconic, Chiat is also home to ad legend Lee Clow. If you’re at all interested in advertising, you’ve probably heard of this guy (if not, read up on him, pronto). I’m proud to say that one time a few weeks ago I walked down the stairs and realized he was just a few feet in front of me. He was looking at his cup of coffee with great intensity and didn’t see me. He hasn’t realized it yet, but we’re basically best friends now. His office sits right on the end of the creative row, on the lower level next to the park. From time to time I walk by and admire his plasma screen TV from a safe distance, to avoid looking creepy.

Every morning, I wake up at 6:30am and begin the commute by 7:45. By the time I get to work at 9:00, I feel like I’ve gone through an entire day already. I take the Pirate bus from the parking lot to the office (there’s this whole Pirate theme here at Chiat), and I smile at the bus driver and say “thanks” before entering the building. Then I walk through the giant tunnel, turn right, and head straight to my desk by the big green wall.

My days are filled with presentation prep-work, researching, organizing, learning, breakfast burritos, and (of course) obscene amounts of espresso. And sometimes the occasional company-hosted keggar or concert, which is another story all together. It is wonderful.

And that’s that. I’m actually at work right now, so I should go. Quit wasting your time reading my blog and go do something productive!