2015 Dec 13 | holiday parties, Spanish Brass in Bradbury Building



Pretty sunset with the clouds.



Looking the other direction.



And another one the next night.



Cool sun rays through the clouds.



There were a bunch of these bushes and in every larger hole there was a spider with a web. That's a lot of spiders.



Some eye drops still aren't too expensive.



Whereas others have gone insane on the pricing. This one used to be $8 like the other one.



Downtown skyscrapers and palm trees.



Another pretty sunset.



At a holiday party for Miguel Santiago, a California state assemblyman.



Me with him.



Ogii watching the entertainment.



Lots of people.



Who brought lots of toys.



This poor bus driver has to get across multiple lanes of traffic in one block during rush hour because he picks up passengers on the right side of the street and then turns left at the next block. That has to be a really tough job.



At another legislator holiday party the next night.



More good food.



And desserts.



It was at Grifols, which manufactures blood plamsa. They have a little museum about their history.



Lots of toys at this one, too.



Jimmy Gomez speaking.



Me with him. I like his glasses.



Watching two streams: Live at the Bike on the left and UFC on the right.



Paige VanZant got crushed by her opponent.



Her face was really bloody.



Although she did manage to wriggle out of a couple of arm bars before eventually submitting to one.



Like football, I love reading the online forums during the UFC fights.



This lane is very closed.



Setting up for poker.



Including some presents for anyone who wins a hand with a red king, which represents Santa.



Sunday afternoon we went to the Bradbury Building to listen to Spanish Brass.



They're pretty good.



The building is most known for being in Blade Runner.



People were seated on all four floors.



We decided to sit on the top floor.



We were directly above one of the stages; that's Ogii on the top-right.



Me.



The band afterwards. They went around to different stages on different floors between songs. The best part is when they all fit into an elevator together and kept playing inside it.



Neat stairs.



The band signing autographs afterwards.



There are lots of people in tents in Skid Row. This woman on the left has some pretty nice couches and a grill.



Quads at poker.



One of the red king presents: Shredder sunglasses.



Second and first place.



A nice view.



My laptop freezes up every time I move it too much, so it's not much of a laptop anymore, more of a portable desktop. Thankfully it will work again after restarting it a few times.



Dumb Fandango; you don't know a movie is sold out until you go to select seats and none are available.



The Arclight website, on the other hand, tells you if a show is sold out and if not has a popup seating chart when you hover over movie times so it's really fast and easy to compare which seats are available.



Although we still got a few errors, I think because someone else was trying to buy the same seats at the same time.



I should win on time here.



But nope, thanks to a crappy internet connection, I lose on time instead.



Setting a trap.



After he takes my rook and I take his, I get a backrow mate unless he defends against it, which he didn't.



This seems like a safe move.



Nope. He gets at least one rook for free.



Sometimes I'll keep playing to win on time, but he's actually up on time, so that's worth resigning over.



Nice little fork.



Normally I'd lose my knight too, but this time I can get him out.



I thought he'd trade queens, but he moved his king instead.



So I traded queens...



... and then I got a fork after it. He should have traded queens.



An interesting checkmate. Actually, it's a pretty standard checkmate with a rook and a king, but my other rook is acting like the back of the board.



Another little trap.



After I take his queen, if he takes back with his rook...



... I get a backrow mate. He can block with the rook and then with the bishop, but that's just delaying the inevitable.



I could just take his queen...



...but I didn't see that and blocked with my rook instead, so he got my queen. Ah, the horrible errors in 1-minute games.