This entire day has been an adventure. We started out with the breakfast buffet in the hotel cafe; they had a plasma-screen TV with CNN on one wall, and MSNBC on the other. CNN had the sorts of stories that I would, oh, I dunno, call real “news” - and MSNBC had breathless live coverage of the death of Jon-Benet Ramsay’s mother.

“It’s not as if anyone’s getting killed in Iraq, or anything,” my friend observed.

Then it was off to Venice Beach, where we rode bikes and went in all the boardwalk stores. We left to meet up with C., one of my readers, who treated us to lunch at a really cool little place called Jinky’s on Sunset Boulevard. (There was a short stop at the Hotel California for pictures. Who knew? That it was an actual hotel, I mean.)

C. earlier described Jinky’s as a “writer’s dive,” but it wasn’t like any Philadelphia dives. “To me, a dive is the kind of place where someone might take a leak on the floor,” I explained. (You know, like Dirty Frank’s.) This was a bright, edgy coffee shop with great food and outdoor seating. C. is a writer who just finished a screenplay, and I can’t tell you the plot because 1) writers tend to be private about that sort of thing until it’s published/produced and 2) it’s thoughtful, intelligent sci-fi and I’d only screw it up if I tried to tell you, anyway. (I’m falling asleep as I write this, so I’m not too coherent to begin with. I didn’t sleep at all last night and I have dark purple bags under my eyes as a result. Oh well.)

We finished the day with a visit to the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater - I kept looking for Marilyn Monroe’s handprints but couldn’t find them. Someone steered me to the right place and of course I put my hands in her prints. (Surprise - my hands are the same size as hers.)

Then it was back to a new hotel, where I’m staying tonight before meeting up with some bloggers tomorrow. I’ll tell you all about it later.