LA itself: There’s a really bizarre, almost surreal feel to large chunks of this city. Due I think to expanding so rapidly without much zoning or thought going into layout, one finds random globs of industry, commercial towers, small-town main streets, strip malls, and residential areas all thrown in together all over the place. My city, El Segundo (while not part of LA proper, it’s certainly lumped in) has five big office towers- DirecTV, Hughes, Oracle; an honest-to-God “Main Street” with little townie bars, a great hamburger place, etc.; the beach; an enormous Chevron refinery; lots of nice residential areas, and the Hyperion plant, known around here as the Shit Factory; all within about a 2 mile radius. It’s also got Sepulveda Blvd. running through it- one of the most glaring commercial meccas that I’ve ever encountered. From Santa Monica to Long Beach, Sepulveda serves up a never-ending repetition of furniture stores, fast food, oil changes, car washes, surf shops, Ralph’s supermarkets, and anything else that one could possibly want. There is some kind of charm to the mix of emporiums, specifically that there are a lot of non-chain stores, and odd CA-only chains like Koo Koo Roo California Kitchens, El Pollo Loco, the above-mentioned Ralph’s (home of 24/7 double coupons) and so forth that, at least for now, keep it from seeming too generic.