My Top LA Coffee Destinations

October 7th, 2007

I have made a list on yelp of My Top LA Coffee Destinations. Check it out!

New Gehry Plan for Downtown LA

April 24th, 2006

I am very excited about this. Go LA!

Gehry Sees His Glass Towers Transforming Downtown L.A. – Los Angeles Times

wow, a month without running

April 2nd, 2006

I can’t believe it’s been an entire month since I last ran (3/1 according to my training diary). I did an easy 31 minute run today. Not much of a run, but I’m happy to be running again! And, it’s now DST, so I can run later in the day!

w00t! over 10,000 flickr views!

March 25th, 2006

Flickr: Photos from benchristen

Your photostream has been viewed 10025 times.

granted, over half of the views are on one photo, but still, I’m stoked!

2.5 days of BBQ

March 15th, 2006

ben's bbq long branch

I was lucky enough to go to SXSW this last weekend and I had BBQ for every meal!

  • meal 1 – BBQ Brisket at Iron Works BBQ
  • meal 2 – Major Plate at Stubbs BBQ (Brisket, Pork Ribs, Pulled Pork)
  • meal 3 – BBQ Brisket and Pork Ribs at Ben’s BBQ Long Branch (pictured)
  • meal 4 – Minor Plate at Stubbs BBQ (Brisket, Pulled Pork)
  • meal 5 – Chopped Brisket Sandwich at the Salt Lick (the airport location, next time I’ll go to the real location)

And thus was my BBQ Odyssey. I had Shiner Bock and Iced Tea with most meals, except at Ben’s Long Branch I had Grape Kool-Aid. On my BBQ Odyssey I saw Ahmir ?uestlove (drummer for the Roots) THREE times. Ahmir is awesome (a hip hop legend) and clearly also loves BBQ.

I Love Katamari (on PSP)!

February 11th, 2006

Katamari Poster - Prince Ru|3z, even as a little stuffed toy - so cool

I can’t get that song outta my head! Naanaaa, na na na na na na na, katamari damacy . . . Na Na! nananananana . . . and on it goes. But I love it. It’s especially fun when the katamari is over 50meters and prince is rolling up buildings. I only wish I could find a translation somewhere online, I (we, buds at work have it too) have the Japanese import version for psp (we just couldn’t wait the one month for the english version). Let me know if you find a translation. Oh, hit left and circle (at the same time) twice to do a 180 around your katamari. And, I think the raft is where you go for multiplayer (the table is for infrastructure (I think)).

Official Site

update! wait a second, I know the internet better than that – use google translate on the official katamari page!

update 2 it’s so obvious now, to do multiplayer, the host sits at the table and the others go on the raft to the hosts island! but of course! Thank you google translate.

Hollywood Hills Run

February 11th, 2006

Had a nice walk/run in my neighborhood today. I didn’t realize that Hollywood Blvd continues on west past Laurel Canyon (up into the Hollywood hills). Today I used the OwnZone setting on my heart rate monitor. It never let me run for more than 2 minutes straight because I would be over my target heart rate. Looking forward to doing the same run/exercise but running the whole time and staying within that heart rate range.

  • Total Time: 1h08min50s
  • Distance: 4.1 mi
  • Heart rate avg: 83% / 159 bpm
  • Heart rate max: 99% / 190 bpm
  • Calories (burned): 811 Kcal
  • Speed avg: 3.6 mi/h
  • Speed max: 8 mi/h
  • Pace avg: 16min 52s/mi
  • Pace max: 7min 30s/mi
  • Gnome Homes Seen: 1 (I also saw this bizarre guest house that was straight outta a children’s book (not that gnome homes aren’t either)

Runyon Canyon Stats

February 4th, 2006
  • Total Time: 1h17min4s
  • Distance: 3.1 mi
  • Heart rate avg: 78% / 149 bpm
  • Heart rate max: 96% / 185 bpm
  • Sport Zone 5: 12min22s
  • Sport Zone 4: 21min40s
  • Sport Zone 3: 18min56s
  • Sport Zone 2: 24min01s
  • Sport Zone 1: 00min04s
  • Calories (burned): 691 Kcal
  • Speed avg: 2.5 mi/h
  • Speed max: 4.3 mi/h
  • Pace avg: 24min 0s/mi
  • Pace max: 13min 57s/mi
  • Total Babe Count: 4 (girls who made me think, “wow”)
  • Languages Heard: 5 (english, spanish, german, french and something else)
  • Celebrities: 1 (I think, it may have been laurence fishburn, but I really doubt it)
  • Times I nearly gagged from the overpowering smell of dog piss: 2
  • Dogs seen: countless
  • Coolest Dog: tie between this little fritzmeister dog (some sort of toy terrier mix) and this other big grey dog (maybe a weimaraner)

some random things

January 31st, 2006
  • ear plugs are the best things EVAR for concerts, they’re now a must for any show I attend. same great concert experience (sure, i feel a bit dorkier), but no ringing ears afterwards! rock! (ben and amanda and any friends I have in bands are already hip to this, sorry I didn’t take heed sooner, ya’ll)
  • brushing my teeth and being ready for bed before it’s actually bed time is awesome. this way, I get to watch tv or whatever and when i’m tired, I just go to sleep. versus, not being ready for bed, I’m too tired to brush my teeth and i have to fight my desire to slumber (which, why would you ever do that? it’s not fun, so much better to fall asleep the moment your body goes into shutdown phase)
  • i want to get a heart-rate monitor and get all OC Disorder (don’t call it that) about running, track my stats and chart my heart rate over time! If ely gets the same one we can compare stats. We might not be able to run at the same time or place, but we could encourage each other to keep pace and update our stats on a training blog! (best training blog evar)
  • i got a new coffee thermos . . . I love it
  • this list is a <ul> due to it’s random nature, there’s no order to this nonsense

Cowscapes by Rachel Sudlow

January 18th, 2006

Wow! These are fantastic. Cowscapes, by Rachael Sudlow. Great idea for a photo series. And, if anyone wants to buy one of these for me, please do! I may even get one for myself, they’re just that cool.

via la.apartmenttherapy.comCowscapes by Rachel Sudlow

dreamhost ru|3z

dreamhost ru|3z