finding your inner-celebrity.

i found a hilarious celebrity look-alike website.

some of the look-alikes are really good!!!!
Ozzie Osbourne look-alike.
Danny DeVito look-alike.
Sharon Stone look-alike.
Sophia Loren look-alike.
Samy Davis Jr. look-alike.
Fergie (the real dutchess) look-alike.

and some are just plain AWFUL!!!!
Pamela Anderson look-alikes.
Matt LeBlanc look-alike.
Gloria Estefan look-alike.
Rocky look-alike.

apparently any brunette wearing sunglasses can be victoris beckham and any guy with facial hair can be oralando bloom. hahaha.

and check out the photoshop jobs on emimen #1. looks like a sixth grader made it in MS paint!! and check out the awesome solar flare coming from brad pit #2's belt buckle. oh my!!

could you imagine making a living off of impersonating a celebrity??? if you answered yes, better start with the celebrity face recognition website to find out who you look like!! (my results below)


(really depends on what photo you use).

for hilarious results, use a photo with multiple people in it.

and i said, what about breakfast at tiffany's...

monday: met with dave to discuss what i will be doing while he is away in London. he gave me some of his portfolio books to send out and showed me how to contact ad agencies. he also showed me photos of the studio/house he is renting and some of the models he will be working with. (the kids are really cute and you know that they're going to be all proper and well-behaved and have cute little english accents, hehe). and then he paid me in advance, which is always nice. :) that means my share of the rent will be on time and i will be able to afford a ticket home. :)

tuesday: bummed around. scanned/edited photos. cleaned up the bedroom by rearranging all of my picture frames; putting away a big heap of clothes; and i even dusted. rick and i watched Paris When it Sizzles (audrey hepburn and william holden).

"According to several Hepburn biographies, the filming of Paris - When it Sizzles was chaotic, as Holden, who had had an affair with Hepburn during the making of Sabrina a decade earlier, attempted to rekindle romance with the now-married actress." ~wikipedia

it was one of those movies about making a movie. it was weird to see audrey hepburn with her hair down for a few scenes because she usually wore her hair up.

wednesday: (today) called ad agencies for dave. interviewed for a study that i really hope i am chosen for. (i don't want to jinx myself so i won't divulge the details yet). i talked to missy monchichi on the phone for 1 1/2 hours!! we had a lot of catching up to do!! although we've never met in person yet, she continues to be a great friend. we started talking through myspace in march 2006 after missy discovered our mutual admiration for a certain numerical band. (haha, 311 - making friends since 1989!!) so we just clicked and became pen pals/e-mail pals and have been ever since.

when rick got home, we finished watching Paris When it Sizzles, at which point we both were extremely sleepy so we took a 30 minute nap which turned into a 45 minute nap. then rick and i went to the library, checked out some more movies, stopped at costco and wound up eating dinner at 9:15 pm. our resolution for the week is to start eating dinner at a decent hour. lately we've been eating around 8-8:30 pm.

RANDOM FACT: (good jeopardy question) Orangey, the tabby cat in Breakfast at Tiffany's was a talented animal actor and the only cat to win two Patsy Awards (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year, an animal actor's version of an Oscar). source: wikipedia.

NEW SET ON FLICKR!!!!

LOTS of NEW photos from the adventure with miss rutabegabunny on saturday... check them out.

broken glass
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

screen door
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

nails and hooks
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

end to end
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

boogers, trespassing and a wedding.

thursday: i was sick. :( i worked for Michael (wedding photographer) arranging photos and creating layouts for an album he was working on. i took a roll of toilet paper with me and was quarantined into the main lobby room of the studio. Michael is letting me borrow a jacked-up Canon 20D, just to see if it's working correctly. which it's not. it won't autofocus or play back an image on any other setting except auto. but i did take some kewl photos of miss gray with it. i'll post them on flickr in the weeks to come because i do not want to overload my contacts with cat photos.

friday: met with Jeff to see about that barista job. mostly weekend work, but it's local and it sounds promising. i also took some kewl shots of a "sundog" i saw while i was stuck in traffic in camarillo. posted some new self-portraits on my flickr.

saturday: rick and i bummed around all morning long and totally forgot that the 311 presale for the santa barbara bowl went on sale at 10 am. that sucks. pit tickets were already sold out by the time we called. :( what sucks the most is that i could have bought the tickets last week, but opted not to in order to avoid the extra "convenience" charges tricketmaster is notorious for adding onto your bill. ugh!!!!! i'm never trying to save money again... unless it's over $10-15. so then we went to the mall so rick could find some new sunglasses. (after 10+ years, his favorite pair finally broke). i didn't wind up working with Michael, i worked for him on sunday instead.

sunday: photo play day with rebecca. went inside the Maddy house (an old, abandoned ranch house off of the 101) and explored every room. it was pretty creepy at first. every time the door between the kitchen and the living room would slam shut, we'd get freaked out. and even if we KNEW it was about to slam shut, we'd still get freaked out. the house was built in 1912 and it's really kewl (and dirty). there's three bedrooms, two bathrooms, green carpeting, huge windows, two nice porches and lots of feathers. there were little animal prints all over the kitchen range and bird nests in every lighting fixture. there's also a barn/garage with a workbench. the house is situated on 5.3 acres and was purchased (supposedly for $20 million) so a shopping center could be built there :( just want we need!! i hope the plans fall through. i really want to learn more about the people who lived there.

"According to local legend, Maddy's husband was a retired scientist who had worked at the top secret Area 51 site in Nevada. He died many years ago. Several years later, Maddy reportedly went blind and had to roll out strings between the rooms of the house so she could find her way around."

rebecca and i took tons of photos. (we wound up spending 2 hours there!!) and my shoulders got pretty sunburnt. EXPECT LOTS OF NEW PHOTOS ON FLICKR!!!! :D

sunday night: was 2nd shooter at a wedding in malibu. really interesting wedding. it was jewish man and a chinese woman. the bride had two wardrobe changes. people were hugging the groom goodbye while his best man was giving the toast while the maid of honor was translating what the best man was saying into chinese. (shesh!!) they had a salsa-sounding band whose singer was from Congo. the bride and groom only danced together ONCE and it was choreographed. it was just all really ODD, but we got to eat good wedding food. i had salmon. :) and then michael took me for a ride in his brand new lotus. can't believe how close to ground those cars are!! (six inches!!) highly impractical cars.

movies watched this week: Spanglish (wanted to punch the girl who played adam sandler's daughter in the face), Down With Love (really cute), Saturday Night Fever (always a classic) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (i *heart* william holden).

i'm sick. :(

yep, i got caught cold. running nose. sore throat. all that fun stuff. i have a busy weekend planned, so i better feel better soon. i've been drinking emergen-C, which is rare because i hate taking any kind of medication/anything, so that better work.

i planned on going to an audition today and then meeting up with my favorite photographer dave nagel to pick up some of his portfolios and see what i need to do while he is away in England taking photos!! (lucky bloke, hehe). so while he is gone i get to be his "studio manager." OoOOoOOOooo, fancy.

but instead, i bascially bummed around all day long, washed off our "new" patio furniture and hung out with miss gray. also, thanks to my grandmother, i ate a lot of pretzels.(she sends me bags of my favorite pretzels in the mail). awwww, what a good grandma. :)

here's how my weekend looks:
friday: interview with Jeff for p/t barista job
saturday: 2nd shooter at wedding with michael brannigan
sunday: maddy house/malibu photo adventures planned with miss rutabega

p.s. there's lots of new photos of miss gray on my flickr. enjoy!!

father's day.

rick and i went refrigerator hunting with rick's mother because her fridge just broke. :( you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to find an off-white fridge. every one was either white, black or stainless steel. i personally am not into the whole stainless steel craze. i'd much rather have this fridge:

preferably an authentic, old one... but i guess it's safer to go with a newer model. and of course i'd want a teal stove top and sink to match. :) (sometimes i think i was born in the wrong decade, hehe).

so anyway, rick's mom had to pay an extra $125-165 just to get a "bisque" colored fridge, which is funny because at one point all refrigerators were off-white. my grandmother remembers the top three color choices being avocado, mustard or rust. Mmmm!! i'd actually like an avocado green fridge. hopefully when i'm looking to buy a new fridge, the color choices will be different because white fridges look sorta tacky, black fridges show scratches, stainless shows fingerprints and off-white fridges are boring.

after finally finding a decent fridge, we went food shopping, bought A LOT of food and BBQ-ed. rick's neighbors came over and we ate a lot. and then ate some more. and rick and i wound up leaving with an obscene amount of left-overs. we won't need to go food shopping any time soon.

check out my father's day tribute to my dad here and here and here and here.

work and unwork.

wednesday: i met up with a local wedding/pregnancy/child photographer named aleasha. i was second shooter for a small shoot she did in a park. it was with two kids, very mellow and well-behaved given the circumstances, for a christmas card photo. (yes, people plan that far in advance. crazy). it was the first time meeting aleasha. she was extremely nice and pregnant, hehe. that's why she is looking for an assistant/2nd shooter/someone to whore out as a photographer while she is out of commission. so the day was more or less a test to see if she liked me and my work. i think it went well. i took a lot of images and innovatively saved the day when the mother of the children realized that her little girl was missing one of her tiny elastics for her pigtails. (hello, cabbage patch doll!! hehe). soooo hopefully she'll think i'm a keeper. :)

wednesday night: rick and i bought some toys for our spoiled kitty, miss gray, and she loves them!!!!!

thursday: i assisted a shoot for James Lemmo. it was a small test shoot with one model and three outfits, so i mainly acted as a stylist. the model was really down-to-earth and friendly and james was a really great guy to work for. before the model arrived, james shot a few photos of me outside and they came out REALLY nice.

i stayed for lunch and we talked about movies (he has directed and written a bunch)!! he also had some really great-sounding recomendations of foreign movies (my fave) that i've already queued on aldrin's netflix account. james said he could use me for some upcoming product shoots and i really look forward to working for him again. he's really to the point (he's from NY) and has a lot of knowledge about the film industry.

aldrin stopped by thursday night before his car meet, ate some fish and dropped off two movies that i put on his netflix (Delicatessen and Dark Habits films by two of my favorite directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Almodovar, respectively). :) Aldrin's a good guy... we just need to find him a girlfriend named Jen.

friday: unwork day. met with michael brannigan and david frey to discuss a new job position creating layout for their wedding albums. it's a tad low-paying to start but it's better than nothing and at least i'll be doing something dealing with photography. michael said the best way to learn about photography is to look at other people's photographs... and if that's the case, with the amount of time i spend on flickr, i'm already a pro!! hehehe. but he did bring up a good point about being exposed to all of those photos... while doing the layouts, i'll be able to see which photos the clients selected and i will get a good idea of what clients like/expect/want.

after that, i went to the home depot to introduce myself and charge a battery for a promotional demo scheduled for saturday. i also ran into target and bought some homer simpson magnets for rick.

friday night: went to the dodger game (dodgers vs. the angels) with rick, jonathan and his friends!!




it was my first time at a professional sporting event and it was pretty fun. we all had a good time!! dodgers won. :)

saturday: worked a six hour demo at home depot that basically consisted of me drilling a couple screws into a 2 x 4. only two people bought one of the powerdrill kits i was promoting and when they did purchase them, it was a major hassle because all of the sku numbers were wrong and we all realized that home depot didn't even have the 7 piece kit they were promoting!! they just had a 5-piece kit marked at the 7-piece kit price and i had to go to the register with the people who were buying them and explain why these people were adding tools to the kit for free to build the 7-piece kit. ugh, it was quite a headache. the highlights of my day included meeting the hispanic version of my friend barry; being blessed by a costumer; and witnessing an older man sitting on one of the patio chairs "hiding" on his wife by holding a box up to his face and seeing her walk right by him TWICE before he finally lowered the box and she "found" him. hehehe.

american graffiti :: 200 cigarettes

monday went well. the golf tournament was an easy event to cover. i mostly shot portraits of guests at the reception and auction. rick and i watched American Graffiti. i was a little disappointed. it was good, but i don't think it deserves the 7.6/10 rating from imdb.com. it was kewl to see california depicted in 1962. the fact that guys and gals really met up by cruising the strip and hopping in each other's cars is still a bit surreal to me. what a different time we're living in now. but anyway, the movie really reminded me of 200 Cigarettes. Much like American Graffiti, 200 Cigerettes tells the story (in vignettes) of a group of friends or acquintances who are intertwined by a common event. both films revolve around hook-ups and missed (or found) opportunities for love. and both films take place in the event of 24 hours. even the character "types" parallel each other. the advantage of 200 Cigarettes is the fact that it is new years eve in nyc in 1981. you have to go watch both movies to appreciate my discovery, but here are the character parallels i found: (i'm using the actors' names because i don't remember character names).

american graffiti :: 200 cigarettes

Richard Dreyfuss :: Martha Plimpton
(characters searching for a mystery man/woman)

Ron Howard :: Angela Featherstone
&
Cindy Williams :: Brian McCardie
(couple that breaks up and makes up)

Harrison Ford :: Casey Affleck (shady out-of-towner)

Paul Le Mat :: Jay Mohr (looking for a hook up)
&
Mackenzie Phillips :: Kate Hudson (juvinile girl guy gets stuck with)

Charles Martin Smith :: Paul Rudd (nerdy/intellectual type)
&
Candy Clark :: Courtney Love (ditz/floozy who hooks up with him)

Wolfman Jack :: Dave Chappelle
(ominiscent voice that reaches all the characters)

if only the questions on the SATs looked like that!! haha.