Live from Los Angeles

At one point there was a rash of "100 Things About Me" lists making their way across the internet. I don't like to be put under pressure (plus I hate numbers), so I'm not going to number my list. If it comes out to exactly 100 that's going to be weird. Don't feel obligated to read the whole list - I'm just doing it to take up space and actually post an entry in a timely manner. So here goes:

I'm 27 years old - born Dec. 3rd 1977 (obviously, this age will change depending on when you read this post, duh).
I am 5'9".
I weigh 140(ish) pounds.
I have straight brown hair, currently flowing to a length about 8 inches below my shoulders (but I'm getting bored so I'll probably cut it soon).
I have hazel eyes.
I tan easily and hardly ever burn.
I wear a size 7 or 7 1/2 shoe, depending on the manufacturer.
Measurements: 34-28-36
I don't really have a favorite color, but I look good in jewel tones - especially Gucci purple :)
I hate gold jewelry - I choose platinum any day.
This picture comes up first when I do a Google Image Search for "dusty":


(WTF? Does it look like that one guy's pants are on fire or what? And what's up with the girl standing in the front of the room watching? It came from this site - aaaaah, rugby - that explains it.)

My mother's family is mostly German, my father's mostly Irish (therefore I can drink all of you under the table - it's in my blood... and I never get sick or hungover... no shit).
I'm a middle child (which explains quite a lot actually).
I have 2 sisters - Drew, who is 11 years younger - and Debbie, who is 6 years older (same set of parents gave birth to all 3 of us).
My siblings and I all have the same initials - DSF - because my dad's name starts with a D and my mom's starts with an S.
I was born in Lubbock, TX where it's really dusty - isn't that clever?
I spent most of my youth from the time I was 2 years old in Ft. Worth, TX.
I got the hell out of there and moved to Austin, TX when I graduated from high school in 1996.
I graduated with a BA in Archaeological Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in the year 2000, which I thought was pretty cool (both the year 2000 part and the UT part).
The only city I like in TX is Austin.
I moved to Los Angeles in February of 2004 because The BF (at the time) got his second degree in Film and wanted to pursue a career in the 'biz.
I did some extra ('background') acting (if you can even call it that) work when I first moved because I didn't have a job and they give you free food. You can see me in Arrested Development, Scrubs, The OC, Las Vegas, Navy NCIS, NYPD Blue, and some others (if you look REALLY hard). Then I found a real job and playtime was over.
I have been dating the same person for 6 years - holy crap that's a long time. Important Update: I decided that I needed to be on my own for a while, so we separated in April 2007. Now I'm having fun discovering who I really am, without being defined by a relationship. It's been very interesting so far.
Important Update #2: Well, I guess I discovered what I really wanted as of November 2007 because now I'm engaged to a fantastic guy who I've worked with for the past 3 years, and I'm blissfully and incredibly happy. Now I know why people write love songs.
I have 2 fat cats - one orange and white male named HI after Nicholas Cage's character in Raising Arizona (and also because, as a kitten, he would always come and say "hi" to me when I got home from work) - one black and white female named MIA, short for Missing In Action because I couldn't find her for 2 weeks after bringing her home (she was hiding in a tiny little crack under the bathroom sink, which I discovered by lying in wait for her to come out and eat food in the middle of the night). Here are their pictures:



I can get along and be friends with almost anyone.
But I'm not really very close to anyone.
I am not very easily bored by life - there's so much to DO!
I wish I didn't HAVE to work - I wish that work was a choice. Which means that I like to do things that I enjoy, even if they are considered 'work' - but unfortunately most of the things I enjoy don't pay shit. So I guess it also means that I wish I had a wealthy, long-lost relative who would die and leave me lots of money.... or a Sugar Daddy, preferably an anonymous one whose only demand is that I write in this blog periodically in order to entertain him.
I believe that there are two types of people in the world... those that litter and don't give a shit, and those that pick up other people's litter. Those people who litter and don't give a shit can bite me because they are part of the problem and believe that it is not their concern to be a part of the solution.
I don't cry when people die.
But I cry hard when pets die.
And I cry really hard while watching movies - even animated ones like Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
I told my dad that my company is helping me pay for my new computer (which is a big lie) because I'm always whining to him about how I don't make enough to pay back money that I owe him, when all I really do is blow the money on stuff I don't actually need (but this PowerBook is so cool - I do NEEEEEEED it!).



I'm addicted to the internet. I must have my daily hit. I start shaking and convulsing when I can't plug in to the Matrix and mainline millions of pages of useless information at 300 kbps (my DSL is slow).
I have no motivation when it comes to the distractions that life throws at me. Sometimes I just can't "stay on target".
This blog is the longest I've ever kept anything close to a journal or diary (usually they only last about 3 days tops). I'm pretty sure it helps when I know that people may read it. It makes me think my thoughts through a little more.
My greatest fear is not living up to my potential.
My hardest goal to reach is discovering what that potential might possibly be.
I care too much about clothes. I care to the point that I can never make a decision about what to buy because I am convinced that only the expensive stuff looks good on me. When I do splurge and buy something that looks and feels awesome on me I feel incredibly confident, but then I usually end up taking it back because I feel so guilty about splurging. Therefore, even though I care too much about clothes, it ends up looking like I don't give a shit because all I ever wear are jeans and t-shirts.
I'm pretty lazy, except when it comes to work.
I take pride in doing my best everyday at my job.
Right now, I'm sweating my ass off in our air-conditioner-less apartment because it's about 105 degrees in the Valley.
I need to clean my apartment - badly.
I need to find a vet for HI because he's getting really fat:


(There is no photo-shopping involved in this picture, he's really that fat - I'm a bad pet owner - but he's so sweet!)

I love watching movies in the theater - complete with popcorn, Mr. Pibb, nachos, and speakers that make my eardrums crack.
Favorite movies include:
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy (TTT extended edition is my fav of the 3)
- Star Wars (only the original trilogy counts among my favorites)
- Pulp Fiction
- Kill Bill (I like the 2nd one best)
- A Life Less Ordinary
- Evil Dead (all 3)
- Donnie Darko
- Shaun of the Dead
- Edward Scissorhands
- The Rocketeer
- Sleeping Beauty
- Far and Away
- Moulin Rouge
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- and I hope to soon be able to count Serenity among my top favorites! (my friend worked on it and said it should be pretty awesome)
I don't watch much TV and I don't have cable.
Favorite TV shows include:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- The Office (both versions)
- Fawlty Towers
- Scrubs
- Arrested Development
- Angel
- Seinfeld
- Firefly
-Battlestar Galactica (new one)
I love to read, and totally ruined my vision by reading too much in bad lighting as a kid.
Favorite books include:
- Tom Robbins' "Jitterbug Perfume"
- Tom Robbins' "Another Roadside Attraction"
- Stephen King's "Firestarter"
- Stephen King's "On Writing"
- John Jakes' "Homeland"
- Caleb Carr's "The Alienist"
- Carl Sagan's "Contact"
- absolutely anything by Lloyd Alexander


Okay I'm bored now.

So AntiViolence L.A. was a huge success! A whole bunch of great people showed up in support of Joshua and others that have been in his situation (read more about it through his Friendster blog starting here). I'm guessing between 200-300 people showed up, and Sam told me at work today that between 6,000-7,000 dollars were raised through raffle and ticket sales. Very cool. I must say that when we first walked in there was a crazy, loud, 2-foot-mohawked-what-the-heck-kind-of-hair-products-do-those-guys-use band yelling up on the stage. At first I thought perhaps we had walked into the wrong club because it was quite violent for a concert promoting non-violence. But the following bands were much better - more electronica, less screaming. Sam's band Imperative Reaction played last, and they brought down the house. The music they play is very much reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails, which I like. If that sounds cool to you, take a listen to some of their songs (just click on the song title links to the left of the album cover art).

I took a couple of pictures before I got too tipsy. Click the link to view the set. The pics of us dancing were definitely taken after the "too tipsy" point, but hey, it's all good:



The Predator bust was kindly donated by Sideshow to the raffle. Yay for Sideshow :) I unfortunately pretty much suck at taking good crowd pictures, so I didn't get any of the crazy characters that were there. (Besides, I was a little scared that they'd beat me up if I tried taking pictures without asking.) This one guy had his whole head shaved, save for a little piece at the very front that he had somehow made to stand 3 feet straight up in the air. It was awesome. I'd be willing to bet that most of the males that were there take just as long getting ready to go out as the females do, what with the make-up, the carefully chosen clothing, the hair products, and choosing which piercings to wear! A very different crowd from my normal SoCal-casual, flipflop-wearing, barely-brush-your-hair-in-the-morning group of friends. It's good get away from the norm once in a while.

Needless to say, my friends and I had a ball, and I'm very very happy for Sam that it all worked out so well. He has not only spent the last few weeks organizing that whole thing, he has also been slammed at work designing our next catalog. He's one of Sidesehow's graphic designers and pretty much the only one who works on the catalog, which is a pretty difficult job requiring 12 hour days staring at a computer screen for at least 3-4 weeks. So to pull something of this scale off while simultaneously working his butt off during the daylight hours deserves great kudos. Yay for Sam!!

This is happening tomorrow night (picture is a link, so click it) - Sunday August 21st - at the Key Club on Sunset Blvd. Me and my co-workers, all of our friends, and all of Josh's friends and probably many more fun people will be attending... so if you wanna hang with the cool kids, come on down and join us! Good music, good company, good cause, and good times will all be had... so be there, or be square. Rock!!!!

(pass it on)

So I ordered a low cal blueberry something-or-other smoothie from the neighborhood Jamba Juice today. It started out bluey-purpley and after about 15 minutes it changed to this color:



It's in the trash now.

It's a rainbow of nachos!



I certainly do miss my Tex Mex, but So Cal has lots of "healthy" Mexican food eateries (healthy in quotes because I'm pretty sure nachos with one metric ton of melted cheddar cheese on top does not necessarily qualify as healthy - but hey, I got the black beans instead of the pinto, so gimme some credit for that choice). I took advantage of one called Sharky's for lunch today. Talk about bang for your buck! This photo was taken AFTER consuming enough nachos to make my stomach bulge to the point of un-buttoning the top button.

Yesterday morning the space shuttle Discovery made a surprise landing at Edwards Air Force Base, about an hour from my apartment. The twin sonic booms scared the bejeesus out of The BF and me. Whenever he hears something that frightens him suddenly out of a deep sleep, he always ends up giving me a good left hook - like *I'm* the one making the God-awful noise and he must protect himself and me... from me. That's always fun at five o'clock AM. Then the garbage truck started in at six and the leaf blower thingy at seven. It doesn't help that our walls are made out of tissue paper. I didn't get much sleep that night. But I did find out that I'm not too freaked out and paranoid that terrorists are going to start setting off bombs in LA because, now that I think about it, that's what it sounded like. Instead of breaking out the instant bomb shelter, I just said, "Well, what the hell, we're not dead so it can't be too serious", iced my black eye, and went back to sleep. Until the garbage truck rolled up.... no wonder everyone in this city is stressed to the point of shooting people on the freeways - no one can get any sleep with all the goddamn noise.

Holy shitballs - I knew I avoided video games for a reason.

read some phat rhymes then
groove it fresh and funky style
nerds can bring it, yo

(I did NOT pose this picture. Just look at him, rolling around, enjoying every second. I've never heard him purr so loud. Fatty fat fat likes paper, eh? I hope he got a million little paper cuts on his tender white belly...)

By the way, I forgot to mention that I became a famous hat model over the weekend. I think I should charge extra for my modeling services.

Today I drove the 25+ miles to work and thought I had entered the Twilight Zone. Not only was there no traffic, there were also no cars around when I pulled into the parking lot. Now, you gotta understand that I am usually one of the last of the Sideshow staffers to arrive in the office (what can I say, I'm bad with time... but I always stay late, plus work from home a lot so don't gimme a hard time, alright?), therefore I thought I was going crazy and had accidentally come in on the weekend or a holiday or something dumb like that. Nope. It turned out that there was a power outage in the area around our offices. Everyone else had gotten a telephone call except me and two other relative newbies. Great, I feel so important.

It was pretty cool to arrive and see the IT guys huddled in a bunch just inside the back door with their coffee, waiting for the electricity to come back on (which still hadn't happened by 6pm). Anything that adds some excitement and change into my day is very welcome. I was told to go back home and work from my laptop... so I did. Not all of my colleagues embraced responsibility though... I know a few took it as an excuse to sit around the pool drinking margaritas (ahem... don't want to name names, but you know who you are... and yes, I'm jealous).

It's amazing how much time driving to and from work takes from my day. Not having to drive the 45+ minutes (on a good day) home from work this afternoon made me much more productive. Normally, after spending that amount of time sitting on my ass in a car during rush hour traffic, I get a pounding headache and my brain absolutely convinces the rest of my body that I can do nothing other than lay on the couch as soon as I set foot back into my apartment. Commuting and traffic are very very bad for productivity and motivation levels. I haven't been to the gym in months.

But that's beside the point. My point is that I was much more productive with my day today. I worked. I got the leaky faucet fixed since I was home all day and finally able to let the plumber in. I watched some Angel. I took a nap... oh wait, scratch those last two items off the productivity list. Where was I? Oh, I finally caught up with some blogs. And was inspired to get even more productive by reading about Magazine Man's basement adventures today. So I started cleaning out the apartment's office area, which looks like this:



currently. There are a couple more pictures in the set that really scare me. Unfortunately there is absolutely nothing contained within the mess that is even worth giving away, so alas, there will be no fun free junk party. There are a few important things hidden away in that pile 'o shit though, such as bill and bank statements, paycheck stubs, and magazine subscription info:



So that's what I did tonight. I'll post some "after" pictures if I ever get around to finishing the clean-up. As it stands, I'm still staring at piles of paper on the floor (at least they are now organized by company and date)... my cats are going to have a field day with those tonight I'm sure. To do: buy new Rubbermaid filing drawers.

And before my battery runs out:

busblog turns four

Welcome Art Lad!

... and...

Remember when the internet looked like this?