How to Deal With Stress in Los Angeles or Canada

I’m apartment hunting again. Casually.

Unofficially, I’ve been apartment hunting for several months, perusing craigslist at the end of the workday, looking for something special.

Then along came a sweet little deal in Malibu. $1095 for a single apartment just a walk away to the beach. I work in Malibu, why not live there? It’s what people dream of after all.

Then, ironically, the day I was to visit the apartment, my friends decided my apartment would be the perfect place for a barbecue. Everyone came over, drank, played Wii, and I cooked. It was a lovely day, and it reminded me that the place I’m living isn’t really that bad after all. I missed the appointment to see the Malibu place, but I didn’t feel forlorn about it in the least.

The barbecue day was fine, yet at the same time I realized, if I was almost willing to pay $1100 to live in Malibu, why wouldn’t I pay $1100 to live somewhere else in L.A.?

I began searching around with the new price bracket, and it turns out the options open up quite a bit for a few hundred dollars more per month (coincidentally, I got a $240 raise per month which also helps).

So, back to searching I go, this time I think I’ll look downtown. I always enjoyed living 20 stories up in college, maybe I can do it again. The only tricky thing is, the further in I move, the longer my daily commute. Bah, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Without further ado, here are four beautiful blogs worth gandering over:

Caveman Diet - It’s primal, it’s hot, it’s a summertime diet craze!
Vitamin information - pretty basic, but helpful
The vitamin shop - if you’re looking to buy, this is the place.
How to relieve stress - my suggestion is the beach, but maybe not right now considering how crowded it is.

It’s Oscar Season in L.A. and there are billboards everywhere. “For Your Consideration!!!!!” or “We would like to honor _____!!!!!”

The rumour around town is that the writers strike will be over by Feb 25, which will allow everyone to attend the Oscars. Though I’m skeptical that they weren’t just plotting to end it by then anyway before they manage to piss off the entire entertainment industry.

Anyway, Oscars, yeah. That’s another great thing about L.A. I can still go see all the nominated films in the theaters. Even the ones already out on video or the odd European films only playing in one theater in America. That one theater is in L.A. buddy. Last night I had the choice of Michael Clayton, Persepolis, or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly all at the same cineplex. It doesn’t get better than that.

so, I still have 13 movies left to see before I see all the legitimate nominated films. I say legitimate, because I don’t count short films or Norbit.

Solid as always, here’s the health blog part of my post:

The vitamin shop: Find out what you can find out about the vitamin industry. Get it all here.
Damage Control Master Formula: It’s the uber multivitamin, for professional athletes and old biddies alike. Both are welcome in my house certainly.

There’s a new website called FreeRice.com which is just about the most ingenius, simple site I’ve ever seen.

The site is designed for two things, to help build vocabulary and to feed the poor. Here’s the concept:

The site is a click-through vocabulary game. You answer questions a la the SAT’s to improve your vocabulary, and for every question you get right, the website donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. It doesn’t sound like much, 20 grains is about a spoonful, but I played for about 15 minutes and had donated over 2000 grains, which is at least a couple meals.

Improving your mind by giving to the poor, and it costs nothing. This is almost a flawless concept. Admittedly it is RICE, rice isn’t the most nutritious staple, it is mainly carbs, there aren’t many nutrients, certainly no omega 3 benefits.

So, I propose that the vitamin shop websites run similar programs. Quizzes or things someone could do on the website, which will eventually lead to a donation of essential vitamins and minerals to the world’s hungry and malnourished. I’d like to see the vitamin shop run a vocabulary program for free multivitamins through add words.

The last few weeks have been crazy. Canada doesn’t really do forest fires. It’s just too damn cold. We don’t even really do floods. We do mucky rain, and muckier snow. We get plenty of muck, but nothing disasterous enough to demand a movie of the week.

California, on the other hand, catches on fire. The whole state. If you haven’t already, google the NASA photos of the California wildfires. From Space it looked like the devil just took a blowtorch to the whole state.

How do all these fires affect a Canadian? Well, I live with too many people. There’s four of us in a 2 and 1/2 person apartment. But, when our San Diego friends go smoked out, we aquired three more live ins. There just aren’t enough couches. We bought a couple air mats, which doesn’t help much. There has yet to be a day when I don’t step on a squatter while trying to get to our tiny kitchen to blend breakfast. Ah, well, I used to blend my breakfast. Now, I can’t wake anyone so I just shake it up real hard.

I shouldn’t be bitching too much, though, because these had a very real possibility of not having a house or any blenders to go home to. Fortunately, the firemen did their thing right, and our friends headed home. This is good for everyone.

And now for the healthy healthy links. Checkout out either the vitamin shop or vitamin world for all your health-like needs. They’re healthy, I swear, I’m a Canadian! And Canadians don’t lie.