duncan heights

You’re sitting in traffic for at least an hour at any given part of the day

You go to the beach and see that real lifeguards actually do look like the lifeguards from Baywatch

You see purple and gold and the word “Threepeat” on every corner

You begin to “lie” to your friends about where you are (i.e. “Yeah I’m like 20 minutes away”) – when you know that it’ll take you at least an hour to get there).

You eat a different ethnic food for every meal

You look around at the nice cars around you during traffic, thinking it’ll be your favorite Laker or WB star.

You make a conscious choice to watch Jay Leno over David Letterman

You mourned for Tupac and not for Biggie

You know it’s best not to be on the 405 at 4:05 pm.

Getting anywhere from point A to point B, no matter what the distance, takes about “twenty minutes”.

You know what neighborhood someone lives in by the degree of damage incurred during the riots.

You’ve inadvertently learned Spanish.

You’ve got to bring the cat/plants in when it drops to 55 degrees.

In the “winter”, you can go to the beach and ski at Big Bear on the same day.

You’ve bumped into a celebrity at El Pollo Loco.

You know what “sigalert”, “PCH”, and “the five” mean.

Your pizza delivery guy is also on contract with Warner Bros.

If your destination is more than 5 minutes away on foot, you’re definitely driving.

You have a gym membership because it’s mandatory.

Your TV show is interrupted by a police chase.

You can’t fall asleep without the lull of a helicopter flying overhead.

When tourists ask where they can get souvenirs, you direct them to Venice Beach.

You know someone named Freedom, Rainbow, Persephone or Destiny.

You’ve trespassed through private property to get to the “Hollywood” sign.

You’ve partied in Tijuana at least once.

You know Hollywood has a “lake”.

You don’t stop at a STOP sign, you do a California Roll.

You’ve lost your car in the Century City Shopping Center parking lot.

You’ve ever bought oranges, flowers, cherries or peanuts on a freeway off-ramp.

You think that Venice is a beach.

You drive next to a Rolls Royce and don’t notice.

You’ve started crossing a street and returned to the curb when the DON’T WALK sign started flashing.

You’ve never listened to NPR.

Calling your neighbors requires knowing their area code.

You have a favorite Thai restaurant.

You think Johnnny Rocket’s is an accurate depiction of a diner.

You think Manhattan is a beach.

You eat pineapple on pizza.

You’ve been to Disneyland more times than Downtown.

When giving directions , you follow up with the phrase: “With/Without traffic.”

You classify new people you meet by their Area Code. An “818″ would never date a “562″ and anyone from “323″ or “213″ is ghetto/second class. Best area code: “310.”

Driving along, you see a high-speed police chase approaching in your rear view mirror. You don’t panic or even flinch. Instead, you call your friends on your car phone and tell them you’re on TV.

You know that if you drive two miles in any direction you will find a McDonald’s or a Starbucks.

Your cell phone has left a permanant impression on the side of your head.

You never, ever go into the water at the Beach. You barely touch the sand.

Everyone you know has 3+ phone numbers. Home, Office, mobile, pager, two-way, voicemail…..

It is not unusual for your waitress at a restaurant to have blue streaked hair, a dragon tattoo and tounge piercing.

You are awakened in the middle of the night by a moderate earthquake. Your reply: “That ain’t even a 5-pointer” and go back to sleep.

You think you are better than the people who live “Over the Hill”. It don’t matter which side of the hill you are currently residing, you are just better than them, for whatever reason.

You live 10 miles from work. It takes you 60 minutes to get home.

Walking out of Jamba Juice, you see that a movie is being shot on-location across the street.

You are not happy, or even slightly exited that there may be a movie star there. You just say, ” They f*ckin better not be blocking my parking space.”

You have to yell at your bank teller through a 2 inch thick wall of plexi-glass.

That last one goes for your local convienience store man, too.

You go to Las Vegas for a weekend getaway and the whole trip cost you $50.

You personally know at least 5 people with agents.

You personally know at least 3 people who have been in a movie or TV show.

You know what In N Out is and feel bad for all the other states because they don’t have any.

You know that not everyone in Beverly Hills is a millionaire.

You know who the tinsel underwear dude in Venice Beach is.

You’ve done something on a street corner in an attempt to get money (i.e. sang, tap danced, told jokes).

You’ve gotten parking tickets from parking in the red zone in front of your house.

You say you live in LA when really you live in a subsection of a subsection of a subsection of southern LA.

Any major movie star is picking out the best portobello mushrooms next to you at the grocers and you don’t notice.

The guy at 8:30 in the morning at Starbucks wearing the baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney IS George Clooney.

You really can never be too rich or too thin.

The gym is packed at 3pm…on a workday.

The workday starts at 10am…or whenever you get out of your therapy session.

Any invitation comes with, “Starts at 8pm or as soon as you can get through traffic.”

You have never met a waiter that wasn’t really an “Actor.”

You never go to a coffee house without a copy of a script – any script.

It’s sprinkling and there’s a report on every news station about “STORM WATCH ’99″

You call 911 and they put you on hold.

You have to leave the big company meeting early because Billy Blanks himself is teaching the 4:30 tae-bo class.

The three hour traffic jam you just sat through wasn’t caused by a horrific 9 car pile-up, but by everyone slowing to rubberneck at a lost shoe lying on the shoulder.

A nurse can look at you in all seriousness and ask, “you don’t drink or smoke, right?”

All the “cool gyms” allow pedestrians on the street a full-view of those working out. Literally, you can�t drive by Wilshire without staring into L.A. Fitness. Perhaps a new form of window shopping?

The hot seasonal party favor is a candied apple from Neiman’s. The apples are called “Skinny Dippers.”

The waitress asks if you’d like “carbs” in your meal.

Bars card. For real.

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Los Angeles.

Your house has an anime room.

You and your friends flash peace signs and take girlish poses when you are happy.

You get an anime tattoo. even though you’re scared of needles.

Your walls are covered in wallscrolls and posters from your favorite series.

If you use the term ‘Kawaii’ for describing everything.

You try to convince your girlfriend that ‘cat ears’ and ‘tail’ really looks good on them.

You can sing songs from your favorite shows, in Japanese, even though you dont speek Japanese…

You spent hours looking through your library for a copy of “The Universe of Four Gods”

You have legally changed your name to that of your favorite charcter.

You wear a necklace and fall down everytime someone says sit boy.

You insist on having an entrance that includes spotlights, music, and raining cherry blossoms (while you hold a rose if you’re a guy).

Your only dream is to attend Tokyo U with a girl you haven’t seen in 15 years.

You play an instrument and you nick name it Inuyasha

For valinetines day you buy a stuffed dog and make up your on japanese name for it

If you get mad at you teacher and draw a picture of her as a anime demon cat

You wtch Iron Chef constanly to pick up great recipes ( haven’t done it but plan to )

You’ve bought a twenty dollar ring in the shaped of a dragon to show off at school.

You always have your hair covering your left eye and always fliping it so you look like a anime character.

You think that falling flat on your back with your legs in the air is a normal reaction to big news.

You are worried because you don’t have several desirable members of the opposite sex frantically trying to make you fall in love with them.

You shave a cresent moon onto your cats head, dye the cat purple, then take it to school and insist it’s Luna, your talking cat.

You go around town trying to eat donuts and act all crazy-like, all the while saying you’re Vash the Stampede.

To resolve a conflict, you insist in a duel.

The employees at Gamestop know you, and tell you when you walk in if they’ve gotten a new shipment of anime DVDs.

You’ve gotten angry at someone and placed two fingers on your forehead shouted the word “Makanekasopo!” (specail beam cannon or light of death) and then poked them in the eye.

You waste countless amounts of hair gel to get that “Goku look”

You map out points in Tokyo where the Dragons of Earth might attack

You believe it is possible for a person to be severly beaten in the head with a large hammer, stick, etc…and still come out alive.

You have a moment of confusion whenever you go to school because there are no girls in those tiny little skirts that come with their school uniform

You yell out ‘Baka hanyou Inu-Yasha!’ at your birthday party and everyone (except your parents) knows you’re talking to your boyfriend.

You tell your parents you need to stay out past curfew to save the colonies.

Each time you see a stray animal, you turn your hat sideways and throw one of those plastic Pokeballs Burger King was giving out in their kids’ meals yelling, “POKEBALL, GO!”

You add “no da” to the end of all statements you make

The majority of your CDs are Japanese or the English version of a Japanese soundtrack or the English soundtrack of an anime that just decided that it would use English in its songs.

You misplace your manga and someone at school you don’t even know gives it to you saying they knew it was yours.

You incorporate Japanese, somehow, into every class.

You can sing songs from your favorite shows, in Japanese, even though you dont speek Japanese…

You use random Japanese words such as baka, kawaii, and hentai.

You try to read every book from right to left

You take a break from watching anime to go to your computer (nicknamed Lord Conti) to download anime (for previewing purposes only! ), while visiting your favorite anime forum, while listening to Japanese webradio…

You call your parents Oka-san and Otou-san

You say ITADAKIMASU!! before you eat your meals

You think that locket your boyfriend gave you will turn you into a magical girl

You’ll risk grounding to get a good new fanfic.

You constantly say “w00p” after almost every sentance.

You insist on chopsticks for everyday use.

Your bookshelf is filled with anime boxed sets and no books

You stop listening to the radio because english makes no sense to you anymore and it’s your first spoken language

You call yourself “otaku.”

All of your family portraits have been altered to the proper super large eye size.

Random battles seem to erupt wherever you go.

You take the time to write messages on your cigarettes, only to burn them right away.

Your dreams are animated.

You naru punch all the guys at school, and then wonder why they don’t follow you around like keitaro follows naru.

You hold your eyes really wide all day trying to make them stay big

Duct tape is really funny to you and most of your threats involve taping people to walls.

When you’re washing dishes you yell out “SUPAH WAVE SMASHUH!” or any water attack.

You run out of space on your computer because the hard drive is taken up by hundreds of anime pics, mp3s, midis, and music videos.

You spend all night trying to figure out how many people you can get to go in with you on buying the complete collection of Sailor Moon episodes in Japanese.

You spend your whole spring break working on an anime webpage.

You expect to see a teardrop over someone’s head when they get embarressed.

You start to speak with an odd accent.

You can watch two animes in the same room at the same time and still have the TV off.

You know your favorite character’s bloodtype.

Knowing Sailor Moon helps you on an Astronomy test.

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends who are addicted to anime.

Your SAT Score of 1540 Means:

Your Linguistic Profile:

1960 – 1969: You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule – oh, and drugs too.

1970 – 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you’re partying or protesting, you give it your all!

1980 – 1989: Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You’re colorful at night – and successful during the day.

1990 – 1999: With you anything goes! You’re grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It’s all good!