Here I am sitting at my desk and not working... but it seems like no one else is either... I've been driving around running errands these past two days (work related for once!) - had to make sure my client's rent was paid by 5pm yesterday (dropped off a check at their landlord's apartment) and had to run to the bank today to make sure their account isn't overdrawn. Stan is at a seminar and Eileen was at the gym this morning so I had to wait to go to the bank (Eileen and I have a tag-team thing going where if one of us leaves the office for any reason, the other is here to cover)... I was bored and I was getting sick of being on the internet - you reach a point when the internet gets boring after you've been on for a couple hours - so I decide to go to LA Times.com.

I find this article Seven More Shot in L.A. and I click on it cause I did hear something about a bunch of shootings happening in LA recently... I'm reading the article and those streets sound a little close to Dante's place... Western and 76th... I'm thinking, "Wow, glad its not Western and 83rd"... and then I come across - The first attack took place at 83th Street and Western Avenue. Ernest Williams, 17, was shot in the head and later died. and Across the street from one of Tuesday night's shootings, at 83rd and Western, another man was shot to death while standing at a phone booth last week, Miller said. Two days earlier, on Nov. 12, three people were killed along that same expanse of Western. Damn! What the hell is going on?? The neighborhood didn't seem that bad months ago when I used to go over there all the time. Apparently, 13 people were shot between Friday night and Monday. Then, 7 people were shot Tuesday night between 6:40 and 7:10pm - this is so messed up! Dante and I talked about it (HE'S MOVING!! Even if he has to move in with me for a little while, he's moving!!) - he said it was gang related and he went on but I was still too shocked about what happened to remember what he said... He saw the body - after the cops came, all these people were outside and he saw the dead body. He said he heard the gunshots too. The article said something about the area being South Central and I asked him, "That's South Central??? What the hell? Why didn't I know that?? I thought it was just Inglewood, etc." Wow. I've been sheltered. You don't get much sheltered than Orange County (Villa Park especially, although I lived in Anaheim - the "hood" according to the guy from Swingers) and Westwood... I live in Palms (West LA/Culver City) right now and that's not that bad of a neighborhood either.

I guess this is what happens when you watch Seinfeld and Frasier at 10pm and Friends at 11pm, you don't catch any news. The only news I sometimes watch when I'm bored is the Fox News Channel because I can catch that at all hours of the morning, but thats more nationwide.