I'm glad I hadn't volunteered to attempt to beautify women at this women's expo the rest of the class are doing this weekend, as the idea of getting up early after last night was a daunting prospect. I feel for those that went to Universal yesterday, and went to the convention today after only a few horus sleep. Sod that!

I didn't have much planned for today at all, knowing that I'd be up early tomorrow morning to go and watch the football, with a gig to attend in the evening, although I did decide to go and check out a highly recommended make-up and special effects materials store in North Hollywood.

It was a quite a mission. I got off the metro rail and searched for the metro rapid bus line that takes you out to the coast (I think), but having seen the queue to get on it, and considering it was only a 20 minute walk, I trekked it. I managed to see the top end of North Hollywood park which looked pretty nice, but didn't bother going in. I had stuff to purchase. Well, I didn't 'need' to buy anything, but it's so much cheaper over here than the UK, it made sense to buy a few bits that would cost almost 3 times as much back home. Plus, I could get student discount. Frends (http://www.frendsbeautysupplyonline.com) is great. Tons of stuff I wanted to buy, but knew I shouldn't. One of the assistants actually graduated from Cinema Makeup School a couple of years back, and gave some decent advice on what is worth getting, and what wasn't. I'll definitely be going back there before I return home. I'm gonna need a bigger suitcase. Or just a second one….

After buying a fair amount of stuff (it will all be useful), I started my mission back to the metro rail, but arrived at the bus stop just in time for the bus back, so squeezed myself on to the already tightly packed pleb-carrier. I'm not a huge fan of public transport, and will always rather walk than get a bus, but there's not much choice out here, and I'm getting rather used to it. I certainly miss driving though.

Feeling pretty hungry, I jumped off at Hollywood/Vine, knowing that there's s***loads in the area, and hunted down some food. This didn't last long as I knew the Cat 'n' Fiddle was round the corner, which did really great food, so had one of the best steak and chips dinners I've ever eaten, completed with a couple of pints.

There's a cinema down the road, and there were a few films out that I fancied watching; Moneyball, 50/50, The Debt, but I'd heard that Drive is supposed to be good, so saw that. The decision was heavily influenced by the desire to have my car here.

I thought it was brilliant. Excellent cinematography, nice soundtrack, some brutal makeup effects, and great acting. Ryan Gosling was brilliant, as was Bryan Cranston, but every time Albert Brooks spoke, it just made me think of Hank Scorpio. This isn't a bad thing. there's a fair amount of blood and brutality too, which is always nice. Overall, I highly recommend it, just make sure you don't get stuck net to some Australian tit, who can't close his mouth when he eats, feels the need to slurp his drink as loud as is humanly possible, laughs at moments where there's not one minuscule element of humour, and is just generally a p**** And the government wonders why so many people download films illegally. It's because they don't want to have to endure some annoying strangers company for almost 2 hours. If only my internet were better...

There's a new horror/comedy out called Tucker and Dale vs Evil, which is meant to be great, but it's only currently being shown at one cinema, so I'll have to try and catch that at some point soon.