Sitting in Los Angeles at the free hotel that is, thankfully, very rat-free so far.

It’s very IKEA in its sense of style; lots of glossy orange in the bathroom, blue astroturf by the pool side, and prices aren’t too out of line with reality. Even the room service appears to be in the range of sanity, which s surprising. There’s something of an obvious attempt at being hip and trendy, but it’s not as plastic and false feeling as you’d imagine… though, if I saw the lobby on a TV show, I’d say something like “nobody designs a lobby like that in the real world; just on TV LA.” I’m especially looking forward to the semi nude model that hangs out in the display case behind the front desk.

The room doesn’t technically have wireless, but the room is close enough to the lobby to catch the dregs of the wireless access there. The rooms have free wireless in theory, but the jack here is loose behind the plate; and me without a screwdriver to fix it. There just isn’t enough friction to insert the cable far enough to click, so I’ll just feed off the leftovers I’m getting from downstairs. Oh, there we go; loosened the screw on the cover enough to fix the wired connection…

Someone needed some sleep, so we checked into the hotel for a bit, and later the plan is to walk up Sunset a bit, maybe catch Amy Sedaris’ book signing / reading / whatever at Book Soup tonight, or have dinner at one of the million and a half places in the immediate vicinity.

Tomorrow? LA Zoo, Getty Museum, Venice Beach? Not really sure yet. Friday’s the Warner Brothers studio tour, and maybe Saturday will see visits to the festivities at LA’s Day of The Dead event. A visit to LA coroner’s souvenir shop will undoubtedly follow, and we intend to leave as we entered; alive.

I was sitting poolside when I got the official offer letter from Keane / Morgan Stanley for the position in Halifax. I’m not sure how it’s going to happen yet, but if you know us and you’re in Vancouver and want any of our stuff, speak up, as pretty much everything is for sale in hopes of reducing the cost of the move.