LA Musical Inspiration

Just wanted to share with you the music that were on my ipod during my shopping and wandering days in LA.

Nickelback - Rockstar

I’m through with standin’ in line
To clubs I’ll never get in
It’s like the bottom of the ninth
And I’m never gonna win
This life hasn’t turned out
Quite the way I want it to be
(Tell me what you want)

I want a brand new house
On an episode of Cribs
And a bathroom I can play baseball in
And a king size tub big enough
For ten plus me
(Yeah, so tell what you need)

I’ll need a.. a credit card that’s got no limit
And a big black jet with a bedroom in it
Gonna join the mile high club
At thirty-seven thousand feet
–(Been there done that)–

I want a new tour bus full of old guitars
My own star on Hollywood Boulevard
Somewhere between Cher and
James Dean is fine for me
(So how you gonna do it?)

I’m gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I’d even cut my hair and change my name

[CHORUS]
‘Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We’ll all stay skinny ’cause we just won’t eat
And we’ll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger’s
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blonde hair
And well…

Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar
Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar

I wanna be great like Elvis without the tassels
Hire eight body guards that love to beat up assholes
Sign a couple autographs
So I can eat my meals for free
(I’ll have the quesadilla, ha ha)

I’m gonna dress my ass
With the latest fashion
Get a front door key to the Playboy mansion
Gonna date a centerfold that loves to
Blow my money for me
So how you gonna do it?)

I’m gonna trade this life
For fortune and fame
I’d even cut my hair
And change my name

‘Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars and
Live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We’ll all stay skinny ’cause we just won’t eat
And we’ll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger’s
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blonde hair
And we’ll hide out in the private rooms
With the latest dictionary of
Today’s who’s who
They’ll get you anything
with that evil smile
Everybody’s got a
Drug dealer on speed dial, well
Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar

I’m gonna sing those songs
That offend the censors
Gonna pop my pills
From a Pez dispenser
Get washed-up singers writing all my songs
Lip synch ‘em every night so I don’t get ‘em wrong

Well we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We’ll all stay skinny ’cause we just won’t eat
And we’ll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger’s
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blond hair
And we’ll hide out in the private rooms
With the latest dictionary and
Today’s who’s who
They’ll get you anything
with that evil smile
Everybody’s got a
Drug dealer on speed dial,well

Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar
Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar

And for shopping music….

This song is called “Lets not pretend” by 16 Frames and I love it! I can’t seem to find the song anywhere so anyone that has it or knows where to get it please drop me a mail yah? They are with Arista Records and the album name is “Where It Ends.” The other songs like ” Back Again” and “Close Range” is pretty neat too!

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Universal Studios Hollywood Part 3

Before headeding to the theme park for our rides and stuff… the tour broke for lunch. And it was yummy! We even get to keep the “film roll tins” as a souvenir of the VIP experience. These tins are also for sale to the general public at the theme park stores… with no food in them of course.

There were 2 rides I really liked and should not be missed… which is “The Revenge Of the Mummy” and ” Jurassic Park” … ponchos were provide for the VIP tour group so we won’t get wet. We also got free “ride” pictures as part of the package.

I enjoyed the Waterworld: A Live Sea World Spectacular show. Just don’t seat in the front few rows cause you are guaranteed to get wet!

There was also Fear Factor Live! Yes… they film some episodes of fear factor here since Universal is owned by NBC’s parent company which is General Electric.

Shrek 4-D is actually a very nice ride… but I guess I didn’t get much thrill out of it as it was exactly the same ride I took in Universal Florida a few years back! But I don’t get bored of posing with Shrek! ( or spongebog for the matter!)

Some other interesting pictures I took is of the Bourne Identity Car.

The huge Jaws hanging in the middle of the square.

And this rare picture of a stage that happened to be opened. It contains the 1925 set up of the first Phantom of the Opera movie (silent) and the set has been left like this ever since 8 decades ago. The story goes that this studio is haunted by one of the deceased cast member Lon Chaney and even the guards are excused from guarding the place at night. No workers dare to tear down the set cause every time they tried there would be a fatal accident. Another urban legend states that during the post production party of Phantom… a famous fortune teller told the owner of Universal that as long as those Phantom sets remain… so will the success of Universal. Regardless of which legend is true… the set stands till today.

Since the VIP included the all-you-can- eat pass… dinner was in the park! All-American greasy dinner.

Shopped a little at the Universal City Walk… checked out the concert hall and Hard Rock then called it a day.

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Universal Studios Hollywood Part 2

I’m all ready with my giant trolley to head to the prop division. It’s a supermarket for any movie makers…. yes… anyone can rent items from the prop warehouse as long as they pay the rental fee and have insurance for the items since some stuff are virtually extinct and irreplaceable (eg. ivory elephant husks which are now illegal to obtain). It’s a little mecca of it’s own… you can find real vintage dishes from the 1930s… gladiator weapons… rubber axes… the hover board from back to the future… fake cakes… basically anything you can think off. Some items such as breakable plastics that look like glass are for one time use only and thus are sold rather then rented. It looks so much like glass but it breaks up easily to blunt pieces so the actors won’t get hurt hurling these around at each other.

After the prop indulgence it was back to the sets! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

From “How The Grinch Stole Christmas“.. Those cute little funny cars actually work! They have been converted from golf carts… I thought that was neat!

Depending on which generation you are born in or if you love old horror classics… you might remember this very notable house. Yup…. it’s the house from the 1960 film Psycho.

The huge outdoor airplane crash set built for War of the Worlds, directed by Steven Spielberg is definately the most spectacular. It is a genuine Boeing 747 plane that has been hacked into pieces and airlifted here. If you have been to Vegas before 2005 you might have seen an abandoned plane lying in the desert… well they lease the plane from the company that owns that aircraft and transported the entire plane here!

If you guys watched the last episode of Desperate Housewives… which had the tornado.. well… they shared the same film set. These are are pictures of a tornado run through of Wisteria Lane.

Other then just sets… they also had some special demonstrations and staged events… to show how they re-create flash floods… fires… the original King Kong. The ones I enjoyed most was seeing that flash flood happen in an instant and the stimulated 8.3 Richter scale Earthquake… It was captivating because living on sunny and safe Singapore I never really got to feel what a big earthquake will feel like! (Not that I want to be in a real one.) Most of it were caught on my video camera rather than my digital so not much pictures.

The next post I’ll go more into the theme park aspects =)

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Universal Studios Hollywood Part 1

I’m not a very theme park kinda person yet I’ve visited all the major theme parks throughout the word… I guess what made this one slightly different was that beside the theme park… we got to visit a real working studio.

This post is mainly gonna be about pictures… and some insight here and there. There were quite a no of rides… but those ride shots are captured in actual physical photos from those theme park camera and I don’t have soft copies to put up. Compared to Universal Florida I find the rides much less exciting… but then again Universal Florida lack the studio experience Universal Hollywood has.

The normal entrance fees are about USD65 per person but we took the VIP tour instead which is USD199 per person. I think the VIP tour is value for money if you are not on a tight budget. We had valet parking and a very nice breakfast served to us at the VIP lounge when we got there. A tour guide was assigned to us for the entire day to bring us backstage and to the filming and recording areas of the studios where it is not opened to the general public. We are given priority in both seating and queues for rides as well as to take photos with the different characters wandering around the park.

I was there when the writers strike just ended so it was really busy at the studios. Recordings of Ghost Whisperer and Lipstick Jungle were in progress! But we weren’t allowed to take any photos when we were indoors and had to be really quite so we don’t disturb the recordings.

Under the VIP tour… we took the same route any dignitaries that visited the studio would take and the guide will explain all the little legend behind each area.

Visited all the places where props and sets were made… and it’s amazing how real they all look until you touch them! Even tiny me could lift most of the stuff up as it’s made really light for transport purpose.

We took a tour of the sign shop… which designs sign boards… and labels for the fake food you see on tv… it is also the place where the map from Pirates of the Caribbean and paintings from Heros are created. I was pretty shocked that the real artist that drew all those fantastic “future predicting” drawings is color-blind!

After exploring the front lot with the director’s offices and production studios… we headed the the back lot.

One moment you are in New York and the next you could be in Europe or in an old western town… it’s amazing!

In the picture below I was standing in one of the scenes in Pirates of the Caribbean! I just need Johnny Depp here with me to complete the picture!

If you are a desperate housewives fan like I am (seems that most people are too ashamed to admit they like such a soap-like TV serial even though we all know what a big hit it is)… the you might recall that the picture below is the place where somewhere in season 4 Susan’s car fell into the river and Ian had to save both Susan and Mike. Oops… I forgot to mentioned I visited Wisteria Lane too!

Gonna continue about Universal in my next post as it’s too long!

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Random Pictures in LA

Beautiful wild flowers by the road.

Views of LA… they have a nice mountain range that was snow capped just a week or 2 before.

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