Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Walking in a different direction after my day, maybe to walk off some dinner, I found myself going towards Santa Monica Blvd. It’s a neat area that doesn’t really have a name, but has restaurants, and a cool video store. It also happens to be the night before Shari passed away. I can keep blogging about it, and she’s not coming back anytime soon. I figure instead of moping, I’m going to try and talk just a little about what she saw around her immediate neighborhood. Walking towards the video store where we both rented videos, Shari and I walked by this center. It’s like a corner mini mall that’s attached to a crummy market (Safeway). This center has a Hallmark store, bakery, laundromat, and some weird stores. I don’t know what the heck these are… But see right about the roof of the car? That store has all kinds of crap. It’s like a mixed up store selling clothes and junk. The shoe store is open pretty late. I have no idea what’s really there, but this center is sort of catering to Mexican nationals who live in the area. I’m glad they have sort of a place to be together, since I’m not sure if they’re even cared for in the least by others. Good food, I’m sure. It’s awesome how something like this can just pop up on Barry avenue near Santa Monica blvd. It’s there every night, and when I’m hungry, I’m going to eat there. It’s smells great. I’m not sure if this is necessary, but I can’t help but walk by once in a while, this is the area where Shari’s life was taken from all of us. Although it’s been a year, not one hint of her is here. Maybe it’s for the best, she shouldn’t be remembered here at all, she should be remembered doing the things she liked-crafting! Making Helvetica hoods, buttons, and other cool things. Here’s her hoodies. The blue and yellow one on the left is mine. This is Video Store Named Desire. We’d rent movies here (and it’s one of the best video stores ever). If you look closely in the window, that’s Mike in the white t shirt. He’s a bit camera shy. Shari and I would have conversations about Mike, and I remember how Shari once thought Mike and one of his employees were father and son! I thought it was impossible, and tonite, I asked Mike once and for all, if they were even related. No. But the kid used to call Mike, “Big Daddy,” so Shari probably heard him say that. Mike and I got a small kick out of that tonite. I’m glad I shared even just a little bit of her memory with someone who knew her. By the time I wake up and get my day going, it’ll be more than one year. I hope there’s a group of us thinking about her at any given time throughout the rest of...
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Today, this shows up on my desktop. Mrs Field’s cookies. I guess they’re pretty good, right? Tons of crap, brownies, cookies, all good to make me smile. But who’s it from? The note said, to GR – “thanks very much for your patience this year w/ our issues.” Let’s figure this one out since it’s unsigned. It shipped 2 day air to my house. 1) printer – we didn’t have any problems this year. But maybe ” issues” is a pun.They’re not that creative. No.2) distributor – again, a great pun, but I don’t know what “issues” there were exactly. Did they fuck up and not tell me and are apologizing? No.3) past employees who are now admitting their wrong doing? Possible.4) lawyer / accountant – maybe. There’s always issues. Possible.5) UPS or USPS – maybe. But they won’t send cookies and they do suck and we do have “issues” with them. But no, I’m sure it’s not them.6) Current employee who’s been a problem? Possible.7) Doctors who couldn’t fix my finger? Possible but unlikely.8) Al Quaida apologizing to us at GR with cookies? No.9) GW Bush saying sorry to GR? No.10) Mrs Fields herself? Doubtful, but nice of her maybe.11) The Earth thanking GR for helping? I’d accept that.12) Popular Culture fans? I’d accept that too.13) The Bank. Yes, maybe it’s from the bank. Possible. We’ve had problems with our bank, but that only got hashed out yesterday, and this was shipped 2 day air. I’m not quite sure.14) Maybe it’s from aliens and or Yeti. We’re really nice to aliens and Yeti and many paranormal topics. Maybe it just came from them. They hacked Mrs. Fields.15) A Vendor? Again I have no idea who I had problems with. Surely some of them, but nothing that warrants such nice cookies and pastries. Probably not. We’ve never gotten a gift this nice from one.16) A film festival? The issues thing is possible. We donate tons of magazines to them. Probably not.17) My plumbing problems? Did my yard or porta-potty I rented hook me up? I wish.18) Secret admirer who got none (therefore “issues”). Could be, but I don’t know who this could be. Sorry.19) Mean customers and evil art fans who say they’re not coming back, but keep coming back? I’d like to believe this. There’s been some “issues.”20) Last possible… someone who think we’ve had “issues” and worries about it. Meanwhile, I haven’t spent any time thinking about it. Could be… Issues… no idea, I thought I (we) had a fairly good year (I’ll go through it soon in a post). Maybe it’s a symbol of a great bookend to a year for GR that I thought went decently. Nonetheless, whoever I (we) had issues with, they’re the bigger person for sending us a gift. Meanwhile, I’ll sit and stare at these cookies and wonder.
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Someone wrote to me asking about starting a magazine. I guess it’s ok for me to post my responses. I hope they do help, although there’s no real answers to some of these questions… I left the topic of his possible magazine out. I also edited things down to make them shorter and easier to read. Was it difficult to take GR from a zine to where it’s at now? Did you and Martin work full-time on GR from the beginning? Or did you have day jobs for a while? How did you fund it in the beginning when you first jumped into a full-on magazine? Given my limitations, do you think this idea is unrealistic? 1) I think you do have to start small. If you can figure it out, you can make a site first, then make the publication later. People seem to do this these days, it’s tough work, but if you want it bad enough, it’s there to do. It’s totally possible to make this work. It’s a decent idea. You might have to make sacrifices, you can’t do it all. Had I not sacrificed, I wouldn’t be doing what I do today. I watched people move forward in life, while I lived at my parents and toiled all night. Typical, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. 2) It’s a long ride, 12 years or more for us, so it’s not easy, but small steps is what it took. It wasn’t an overnight thing, it was small improvements each issue. Did you know we had black and white in the mag until maybe 2 years ago? 3) Martin worked FT elsewhere for 10 years. I worked on GR full time much much longer. I lived at home until I was maybe 30 or near there. 4) Funding. $200 for the first issue and it was out of pocket. If you have $200 you can start something. I don’t know when the “full on mag” thing started, I usually say it’s the first issue, but the jump to the third issue was $2000. You gotta have at least $2000 and something to get things going anyway, on the minimum. But we did start with $200. 5) Things are as real as you want them to be.
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Click on this to make it bigger, but we accidentally got many of these posters from Woody at Sneakerfreaker. So no new issue yet, but many posters. But while we’re at it, how many of these can you name? Are all of those 5 striped ones KSwiss? Sneaker Freaker Woody is a great guy, if you ever get a chance to meet him, shake his hand.
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Santouka originated in Asahigawa in Hokkaido and now they’ve landed in West LA in the Mitsuwa food court. What was once Tampopo ramen in the food court serving what was always maybe average ramen, it’s now the king of ramen in Los Angeles. A small line formed at lunch time on an average tuesday. There’s not a lot of seats open, and the audience is mixed, some are Japanese, many aren’t, but you can tell a lot are food people checking the place out. There’s a bit of construction going on, but it’s not too annoying. The glass case, shows the entire menu, there’s ramen, basically three types, salt, shoyu (soy sauce), and miso. The inside line from my friend in Japan is that the “shio” or salt ramen is the one to get. I opted for the regular shio with ikura over rice combo. The ramen broth is a tonkotsu (pork) and shoyu broth mix. If you order shio ramen in another ramen joint, you might get something nearer to a clear based ramen, but shio here means it’s salted tonkotsu-shoyu ramen. The bowls are actually small, so if you opt for just ramen, you might end up a bit disappointed. If you’re a ramen eater, get the large. If you’re getting a combo, perhaps stick with regular. The ikura bowl was fair, in the end, it’s sort of like filler, you’re getting rice and fish eggs, and neither are spectacular, but Santouka is famous for it’s ramen. The shio ramen was again, smaller in size, but hearty in flavor. The whitish broth has a savory flavor that’s filled with the familiar tonkotsu style pork broth you’d fine in ramen from Kyushu. It’s oils mixed with it’s long boiled broth make it exciting and satisfying. The noodles aren’t anything new, they’re decent, and the small fixin’s inside are fine with the pork standing out. It even comes with a mini umeboshi. The plastic food versions actually look decent, although there was less ikura than the plastic example showed. The hardboiled egg was actually surprising since it’s been soaking in a soup base. My combo was $10.49. If you decide to get just ramen, for the shio small it’s 5.49, medium 6.49, and large 7.49. You can always get extra pork, and that’s good too. The hot miso ramen seemed least appetizing, and I probably won’t be getting that until I’ve tried everything else. Take a look at the ramen. These are plastic. Click on it and zoom in and you can see what’s written here. Santouka Ramen3760 Centinela Ave.Los Angeles, CA 9006610:00am – 8:00pm(310) 915-0442 The Other Address!21515 S Western AveTorrance, CA 90501(310) 212-1101
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