Home Alone

Well, I am home alone. Mer went to go work on classroom materials with her friend Annie. They went to a bar, too. I bought a quesadilla at Yummy Taco and rented Chicago. Tom and Emma came over on Saturday; Tom had an interview for a job at Kaplan. We watched

• The Kid Stays In The Picture: I don't know if it was good or not I didn't really pay attention
• Bringing Down Da House: Embarrassing / Unfortunate
• NARC: Embarrassing / Moustaches

Now I'm trying to get PHP + Apache + MySQL working for my implementation of Fiendster.

I had drinks with Billy and Ruby Lien on Friday. Billy's doing okay, I guess. It made me want to start working on my stories again, whatever that means. It's always nice to open up a word processor and just type things up. I was thinking about publishing a book of short stories in the shower this morning. Not publishing the books in the shower, mind you. On the way home, I picked up a copy of PSM Magazine at a newsstand. That thing is a piece of shit. Here are some quotes:

While the story is somewhat cliche, the gameplay is tried and true

What?

Jak's ability to transform into an unstoppable dark version of himself, his gun-wielding capability, and the fact that he can whip out a nimble hoverboard at any point automatically makes the gameplay much deeper and more unique.

Yeah, I bet it's real great. Thanks, shills.

I went for a bike ride today. It was beautiful. Maybe I'll ride my bike to work tomorrow. Maybe.

The Dickies Roadshow

Yesterday a guy who was sure some gigantic wizard in outer space was granting him wishes blew up a bus full of people who were sure that some gigantic wizard in outer space was granting them wishes. Also a bunch of still-anonymous individuals who, presumably, were sure that some gigantic wizard in outer space is granting them wishes blew up the office of a guy who put helping other human beings ahead of whatever stupid beliefs he may or may not have had about the special rewards he'd receive when he went to the fairy cupcake kingdom after he died.

The Fiend Fest was okay. I met Mer there around 7:45 -- it took me a long, long time to get up there, because I had to buy earplugs and then run back to the office to take a horrible shit -- and the show hadn't started yet, though they had said to be there at 6:00. At 8:00 they let people in and the bands started going on at 8:15. So the bands, in chronological order, were D.I., Balzac, Agnostic Front, The Dickies, The Damned, and The Misfits. D.I. and Agnostic Front were terrible -- an embarrassment to themselves and hopefully their fans, though I don't know if their fans are capable of being embarrassed. Balzac was okay. The Misfits web site describes them as "horror punks from japan," which apparently means dressing up in spooky costumes and singing like The Misfits.

The Dickies were just great. It's just Leonard and Stan now, of course, but they seem to have tamed the three frosted-tip jerk-offs (who're playing drums, bass, and rhythm) pretty well, because every song sounded like the album version. Leonard made some characteristic stage small-talk, which sounded, as usual, gratingly rehearsed. Among the gems:

• He referred to Stan as "the best bisexual Muslim guitar player in all of punk rock." Stan leaned awkwardly toward his mic and said, "Well, first of all, I'm not religious." "Second of all," he said haltingly, as if he resented having to participate, "you're the one wearing the snakeskin stretch pants."
• Leonard presented literally 5 or 6 variations on a proposal for a new reality-TV show he'd like to shoot called "Who Wants To Suck My Dick?"
• Leonard mentioned that the new album came out on Fat Wreck, which meant that Fat Mike from NOFX was his boss. "How'd that happen?" he asked. After a moment's reflection, he said, "Oh yeah! Heroin!"

So anyway, I danced around a little, but I don't have the energy for it I had when I was 16.

The Damned played a boring set that took too long to set up and too long to play. Then The Misfits took even longer to set up. I'd never seen them live before, and they're probably better than their Tour Edition ("Dez" from Black Flag on guitar and Marky on drums). They played the songs really fast and there was some kind of buzz problem with one of the PAs and the vocals were too low. The band was also kind of ticked off because not enough people were dancing around. I am sorry guys, but I woke up at 7:00 AM, and your roadies spent 45 minutes dicking around trying to hang black sheets in front of Marky Ramone's drum kit. Jerry Only kept trying to get people excited with good old working-class crowd-pleasers like, "Hey New York, are you ready to have a good time?" Some article somewhere once described him as "the hardest working guy in punk rock." I'm no expert, but I think it is definitely not punk to be the hardest working guy in punk rock.

I'm starting to feel pretty healthy again, which means it's probably time for life to fuck my ass. Thanks for everything, God, you great merciful faggot!

Cracked-out Blackout

So there was this blackout on Thursday, right? Big frickin' deal. When the power went out at my office, my boss made sure everyone had a way to get home, and then we all walked across the Manhattan Bridge together. It took about 2 hours door to door and I was pretty beat. Mer and I hung out on the steps of our building with our neighbors Jamie and Tony, and then we went in and ate stuff out of the fridge and drank some beers. When it got dark, I lit some candles that these kids outside Flatbush Hardware had been selling, and then read to Mer out of the Diamond Age (she liked it so much that she stole it from me over the weekend and read the whole thing). The exciting part was that our friend Ted had been planning on staying with us that evening -- he had an early flight to catch -- and we figured, since he'd've been taking Metro North, that there was no way he'd make it. Well, at around 11:30, Jamie knocked on our door to tell us that this guy was wandering around outside our building calling our names. Ted had driven all the way down from Hartford on a dark highway and somehow found his way across the bridge and into our neighborhood. He had to get up at 4:45 to catch his flight, and when I got up to wake him up, the power was back.

Unfortunately, so was my sinus/throat infection. That was awesome. Not.

Here are some movies we watched over the weekend:

• About A Boy: Quite charming
• Bowling For Columbine: Characteristically excellent and hate-filled, though it looks like Michael Moore needs to take better care of his teeth
• Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: I mean, it's quite good, but the battle of Helm's Deep is a little boring.

By the way, shut the fuck up, Sean Astin, you fat corporate mouthpiece piece of exploitative shit. Doesn't it cost enough to see a movie these days? Some people need to get paid a bit less, I think, if some schmuck set painter is gonna lose his job. I probably do, at least.

Appreciated, IBFT-style from some Ain't It Cool News message board:

You stoner fuckwads destroyed the world with that crap. Of all the cloying stupid bullshit catchphrases going, those are the worst. How about FORGETING everything you learned in kindergarden and seeing how things turn out? Stop sharing, stop waiting your turn, and STOP THINKING IT'S OK FOR ANYONE TO HAVE A FUCKING LAME ASS OPINION. News flash: if you sit at home and watch "My Little Pony" tapes and enjoy them, it isn't an example of the beauty of pluralism in action. It's an example of a reason why you should be in the fucking gulag. I for one think movies, like everything else I can think of, would be a lot better if everyone STOPPED deferring to every mongoloid's right to have an opinion, and instead decided to scream and hate and fight each other over their differences of taste and viewpoint like fucking Palestinians after a funeral.

Dickies tonight!

Well Today Is Just Turning Out Great

I just took my second burning, capsaicin-flavored dump of the morning. Chicken Dansak Curry and Burrito, you are delicious: Why do you want to hurt me? I gave the "Enchilada" menu to one of the marketing people, and she says she might order some for lunch on Friday. What else happened that was bad? Oh yeah, a little spider crawled down my shirt today on the subway. I don't know where it came from. And then when I got to work and was looking over my boss's shoulder at this bug report, I spilled coffee all over myself.

Yesterday wasn't fantastic either, mind you -- I had to stay at work until practically 9:00 PM, and then on the way home, a hot piece of melty tar from the Canal St. Station ceiling fell near me, almost splattering the book I was reading (Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, which I thought I'd read before but don't remember any of it).

The day before that was pretty good, though. Mer'd told me that the guys at the Golden Deli had a very affectionate cat, so I went over there to see. I couldn't find the cat, so I asked the morning guy and he said, "Abdul! Take him to see the cat." So Abdul grudgingly takes me down to the basement to see the cat, a skinny calico that seems perfectly friendly but clearly isn't interested in me, despite Abdul's repeated attempts to pick it up and put it on me. That evening I visited another cat at the Haifa Deli across the street. It thought I had food when I called it over and walked away when it found out I didn't. The guy at Mike's pizza let me pick up my take-out food even though I didn't have the cash on me. I paid him later.

I just got some spam that said I could buy an acre of moon land. Don't want it, thanks.

The AniMatrix on DVD was strictly okay. I mean, the animation was, in most cases, pretty interesting, but the stories were pretty lame. They were just too short to be good. It was 9 stories, each one about 5 minutes long.

The Enchilada

Man, I was feeling kind of down last night, but Mer made me one of the best dinners I think I've ever had. I kind of helped -- no, I shouldn't even say that because my contribution was miniscule. The food was pasta with red pesto, green beans, mushrooms, and onions, with chicken on the side. Totally delicious. Then we had smoothies and wine. We also watched The Business of Strangers, with Julia Stiles and Stockard Channing: Julia Stiles, as usual, all wrong for her part, but Stockard Channing was good. It could have been a little punchier.

So I just walked over to (what used to be) The Big Enchilada. Now it is just "The Enchilada." What?! I asked at the counter and they said it was because they were under new management -- the girl pointed at this frat-boy type in an Oxford shirt with an asshole haircut sitting at one of the tables. He definitely looked like an asshole. The food was as good as ever, though. Let me tell you.

When I get paid in a few days, I was thinking about buying Call of Cthulhu to play with Tom and Ted et al. come September. I think we should all get dressed up in period clothes and drink gin and tonics while we play. They are in for the gin and tonics, they say. I, as the Dungeon Master, will wear robes and a silver pendant.

Sclar Tabotage!

That is what some junk mail just told me. My sty went away.

I bought a couple of tickets to the Fiend Fest show at Club Exit NYC. They were very expensive, but I was worried that Leonard might die or The Dickies might break up before I saw them again.

Okay, so people were talking about this guy who wrote a paper that says there's no such thing as a fundamental unit of time -- as evidenced because of Zeno's so-called "paradox," that says it's impossible to move anywhere because in order to have moved x units of distance, we need to first have moved half of x units of distance and so on, until we use up infinite time going nowhere. It's a paradox because motion is clearly possible. Anyway, some other people are saying that the paper doesn't make sense, and that the guy who wrote the paper doesn't understand infinite series. Now, I haven't read the paper in question, nor do I really understand math that well, but I don't see what the problem is. The opposing side's argument is that you can have a sum with an infinite number of addends, and it'll come out to a non-infinite value (like when you sum 1 + (1/2) + (1/4) + ... and get 2). The thing is, numbers can be infinitely subdivided, but the understanding of time that the author is arguing against says that time can't be. So if you've got a minimum unit of time that it takes to move any distance, no matter how small, and you've got an infinite sum of these fixed units of time (corresponding to the infinite sum of the distances), then Zeno's right and it takes forever to go somewhere. The guy who wrote the paper is saying that time is continuous, and thus can be infinitely subdivided -- to the extent that time even exists, anyway. So he does understand infinite series, right?

Here are some movies I want to rent:

• Spider
• Crash
• The Devil's Backbone
• I don't know

Seymour Fattenstein

Hello. I have a big sty, like one of those eye-pimples, you know? It is right on the cusp of my lower eyelid. I look like I got punched.

Man, is it ever going to stop raining? I wanted to ride my bike today. This reminds me of this Ray Bradbury story called... well, I don't remember what it was called, but it was about this people exploring Venus, and apparently it rains all the time on Venus and they are looking for this place called the Sun Dome, I think. Man, are they excited about that Dome. But when they get there, it turns out the place is all broken down and deserted. That's where the story ends. Serves 'em right for wanting something real bad. The rain woke me up this morning, so I got up and shaved and showered and made myself a breakfast sandwich to take to work. Now it's raining again.

Emma, Tom et. al. found a place really really near our apartment. It's just awesome -- that they're moving in nearby, that is. I haven't seen the place. We had dinner last night with Emma at the Chat 'n' Chew on 15th. Mer has a new cell phone.

How bad do I wanna go to the fucking Misifts show? Very badly. As soon as tickets are available, I am going to buy them. It's on a tuesday, I think. Wait. Yes.

Feverish, Fake Christ On A Shitting Cross

Okay, this nonsense about gay marriage has got to stop. Reading all these speeches from the president and the pope (the president of the unicorn-worshippers) is really starting to shit me off. "Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law?" Way to go, all you degenerates. Give me a fucking break. You know what, let them keep their stupid heterosexual-only, God-says-you-can-throw-acid-in-your-wife's-face marriage, but make it legally meaningless, and replace it with a domestic partnership structure that doesn't discriminate against human beings. Maybe already-married people could be grandfathered in, but I'd just as soon say, "fuck 'em." Living on this planet can be pretty frustrating. Suck a fatty, God.

Angelina Jolie Is Tomb Raider

You know what? Work is exhausting. But who cares? So what did I do when I got home today? I realized that I hadn't mailed the bills that Mer asked me to mail this morning. So I hopped on my bike and pedaled down 7th Avenue 'til I found a mailbox. The weather was perfect, and I love my bike. I love 7th Avenue, too. It is a place where you want to hang out on the street because there are benches and trees and pretty storefronts all over the place. It is like a city planner's dream: All different races of people hanging out, chatting, and eating overpriced sorbet. It kind of reminds me of Wellfleet, except with fewer white people.

I forgot to mention that I saw Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Sucks on Saturday. What an awful movie. Just boring. So boring. I couldn't even follow what was going on, and it didn't look like anyone was having fun. To make matters worse, at the beginning of the movie there was this anti-piracy ad featuring this ridiculous-looking set-painter -- he was like 50 years old and had died the tip of his goatee purple -- urging us not to steal movies, since it wasn't the rich executives who lost money when movies got pirated, it was guys like him. Good, get fucked, jerk. Lose your job and keep sucking the MPAA's cock while they tell you it was because of all the sinful movie pirates; they really care what happens to you, honest. And then the worst movie I'd seen all year. Jesus Christ.

This show on Fox on gross bugs is pretty cool, but it would send my Forensic Entomology professor into anaphylactic shock it's so sensational. What am I gonna do for dinner? Tsing Tao makes some ill-good food, but I feel like I should make something.

Mer is afraid that we're going to get bronchitis.

I'm Not The Girl You Thought I Was

Blogger just erased the post I made. It wasn't interesting -- my job is nice, but the people stay too late. I also said:

The leaves of the trees outside our place up by the streetlight looked like a beautiful green spiderweb. The stoop smelled forbodingly like a horse.

I Got A Job

Yeah, so it looks like my references checked out okay, and I'll be going down to 634 B'way (or whatever the address is) tomorrow to sign some papers. I am now officially richer than all of you and own more stock options. It turned out that the Non-Compete Agreement, which prevents me from working at a competing company (as determined by DataSynapse management) for up to a year after I leave, was not negotiable. That kind of irked me, but I did a little research, and it sounds like it's probably non-enforceable in New York, as per this ruling.

And not a moment too soon, since CSFB is starting to get on my nerves. The asshole-nice guy ration among the bankers is roughly 50-50; the women in the assistant pool are insufferable -- all they do all day is talk on the phone, giving advice to friends with chronic health problems; they keyboard gets confused when I try to type a tilde (~) or a double-quote; and I have to wear a stupid "visitor" sticker on my shirt so I can get into and out of the building.

There was this creepy guy on the bus today with a voice not unlike that of the guy from the candy bar commercial who rewards an altruistic motorist with "a big hug," and he wanted to know what my sticker meant. "Are you a visitor?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I'm a temp."

"You work for Tim?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I'm a temporary employee in an office building."

"How did you get that job?" he asked. Good question.
...
Last night, Mer and I watched Spirited Away; the night before that we peeped Catch Me If You Can. Both well-reviewed by The Onion A.V. Club, who have a hilarious review of DVD commentary tracks for a round-up of terrible movies, both good. Coincedence? I think not. Thank you, snivelling, back-biting Nathan Rabin!

Man, Did It Just Rain Or What.

I am serious. It was just pouring. And now, nothing.

That fire at the top of the Eiffel Tower: Don't worry about it.

Good news! I got an offer from that company; actually, the more I read about it, the more interesting it sounds. I actually got a couple of books out of the B&S library to bring myself (more) up to speed. I don't think I should say more about it until I work out a few things with my Non-Compete Agreement, but hopefully I will have a full-time job.

On about the same level of cool, I stopped at this exotic bird store on the way to the library. It was on like 33rd Street and Lex, I think; they have this really awesome display of zebra finches in front -- it takes up the whole window, practically. And inside there were all these different birds, all doing different things: There was a big green parrot that seemed like it was responding to me talking to it, only it was making dog-like "woof" noises; there was a tucan that kept hopping from one perch to another and back again; there were a couple of African gray parrots that were each balancing on one foot -- lifting the other high in the air -- like dancers stretching; there was another parrot just kind of blowing spit bubbles; and there was a mynah bird making a noise like a fog horn. I considered as I was leaving that I might have contracted some rare kind of jungle disease from talking to all those birds, but it'd be almost worth if I did.

Oops, there goes the rain again. Sorry.

Happy birthday, creep-job

Mer and I rode our bikes around Prospect Park today, this time without stopping. It was beautiful; not late in the evening enough to see fireflies like last time, though.

I spent last night with Tom, Emma, Ted, and Maya. We watched Bad Boys II -- now that's a creepy movie. The first part is an awkward and demeaning buddy comedy that purposefully reverses the natural order of Martin Lawrence as a sloppy asshole and Will Smith as a pretty nice guy; the second part is a paean to U.S. arrogance and a demonstration of the inexplicable affection all ethnic and economic groups seem to feel towards our military, as the two titular police officers stage a small-scale invasion of Cuba to rescue Martin Lawrence's sister. Sorry if I spoiled it for you, creeps.

We had Chinese food tonight: Chicken w/ Garlic & Shrimp w/ Broccoli & Boiled Pork Dumplings. Tsing Tao!

I hope I get that DataSynapse job; it's looking like I'll have to take more money out of my savings account to pay the rent this month.

Cadillac grills

Don't look at the date -- I'm posting this from an old, un-published entry. To-day is my birth-day, and I am still a little sick from this weekend. My stomach was upset all last week, and then on Thursday I developed a bad sore throat and a fever. But what made it almost okay is that Mer fed me and rented movies for me and we spent the weekend just been lying on the couch and drinking soup. I hope she doesn't get sick. Here's what we watched:

Yesterday:

• Haiku Tunnel: Good, albeit with a protagonist who inspires about zero sympathy
• Smoke: Also good, though it's clearly not a comedy (as it's billed -- "Where there's smoke, there's laughter!" What?!)

Today:

• Gangs of New York: Good but long
• Blade: Okay
• Blade II: Okay

My interview with DataSynapse went okay; predictably bland explanation of what the company does from the head guy, followed by a bad-attitude tech grilling from the jerky head tech guy who thinks he's too busy to have to deal with me, followed by an explanation of the position from the young, tired-looking guy who had it last year. At least there were no brainteasers. I have another interview with them tomorrow at 2:00 PM. It took a while for me to get what they do, because their web site is so circumlocutory, but this article in the Science Times made it clear. Apparently, grid computing is going to do for computation what the web did for data. Who knows.

This woman whose computer I fixed put me in contact with the director of I.T. for the Environmental Defense Fund, who said there's a helpdesk position available. Employment is so close I can taste it.

Here are some of the presents I got so far:

• Promethea, Book II
• Shirts, button-down
• NYT, subscription to

All delightful!

Here's a poem that my Heroes of Might & Poetry teacher read us this year:

This is your birthday, Tom, and I rejoice
That thus it passes smoothly, quietly:
Many such eves of gently whispering noise
May we together pass, and calmly try
What are this world's true joys, -ere the great Voice
From its fair face shall bid our spirits fly.

He cried a bit when he read it; it's a bit of a sad trip. s/Tom/Julian/, and s/All that shit about dying/Stuff about getting presents/. Alright! Let's do this thing!

2002 New York Yankees

Man it took a long time to get my computer set up at CSFB this morning; I don't mean my heavy little laptop, neutron-star. I mean this big stupid thing I'm not supposed to play with. The guy from IT had to connect to it and move the mouse around from downstairs before I could look up the name of this book store for my "principal," who was getting very impatient.

Speaking of principals, Mer and I got bikes at a store called "On The Move." The woman who sold them to us made it very clear that they have to be locked up or they will be stolen. "You could be reaching into your pocket for 25 cents to buy a hot dog," she said, "and you turn around -- boom! They're gone." We will be very careful. The geniuses over at Prospect Heights Realty have yet to cash my rent check, meaning that I must hurry and deposit my Personnel Express money as soon as I can take lunch. Thank Christ for Fleet overdraft protection.

Okay, I am not ready to publish this thing, but here are some good links. Slashdot justly noted that these little diary entries from Dr. Ed Lu, the current on-board ISS Science Officer are both well-written and really interesting. NASA has also made available this Q&A stuff with him, which is also quite good. Wow, and just now they linked to the NORFANZ deep sea exploration mission; it has plenty of pictures of new sea animals.

The young scumbag with a degree in Finance in the cubicle next to me just said, "What. The fuck."

[Time passes...]

Okay, I am back from lunch now. I had some chicken thing. So I got my check from Personnel Express, and it is only like $320. That's great. I still owe Mer for my bike. What a pain. I better get a fucking job soon. I am learning shell-scripting now; maybe that will make my resume more attractive. But we are going to have to cut some fucking costs, that is for sure. It's kind of depressing, even. Okay, time to publish.

"I obscenity in the milk of my shame."

Happy independence day, sheep.

The fireworks were pretty incredible. Emma and I watched them from a roof in Brooklyn Heights; it was the closest I'd ever been. I think my favorite ones were the little gold and white ones that kind of make a small cloud of glitter in the air -- like little bouquets of flowers, even. We tried to figure out which one was the "Path of Gold" or "Golden Shower" or whatever NPR was calling it. I think I know which one it was, and it was a pretty sweet piece of work: Two or three typical big exploding rockets that left an unusual number of long-lasting, glittery streamers as they went down. Before doing that, though, I went to a little party at Katie's house in Pelham and ate burgers and stromboli and drank Corona beers while Katie's brother Andrew set off garage-type fireworks. There was this one that they had like 10 of that would spin around really fast and make this steam whistle noise as it shot out sparks, and then all of a sudden about 20 little flashes and pops would go off in the air within a five-foot radius of it: The thing spits out smaller, invisible fireworks as it spins. It's like a particularly cruel, sparkly mine.

I have a job interview at a company called DataSynapse. I hate this company because it is one of those ones where you can't tell what they do. I think they host distributed computing clusters for researchers, but they don't seem to have that many contracts -- like, they only mention three people they've worked for, and they have a special "Awards" section on their web site, but they've only won one award. They have a big irritating corporate web site with all these stupid pictures but they are clearly not a big deal. And the job is like testing database efficiency. That sounds real fun. I guess I'm kind of dreading it because they're going to ask me more of those fucking think-on-your-feet brainteasers. Maybe I will just say, "Look, I'm a good programmer, I have a college degree (a B.S., mind you), let's just talk about something else." I also applied for the SparkNotes position. My dad called and said I got a letter from CUNY -- probably a Dear John; they would have called if they wanted to interview.

I got something posted on matrixessays.blogspot.com. That may not be terribly difficult, I don't know.

I watched these:

• How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days: Predictable. Bad
• The Truth About Tully: Slow, but good. And it comes with a short film at the beginning (instead of previews) that stars Nina and George from 24, as well as Sandra Bernhard

Here's hoping I can get into 28 Days Later... tomorrow when it's going to be 92 and feel like 95.

I'm re-writing the autoconf schemas for Arianne so that they check versions and so that Arianne supports the new stable version of the Lua scripting language (apparently, most of the Lua functionality that Arianne uses got altered / removed in Lua 5.0). Autoconf is behaving in a typical, hair-pulling fashion; apparently AC_DEFINE doesn't work within a user-defined autoconf macro -- you have to pass it as an argument, like the action to be taken if x is true. I won't even go into how long it took me to figure out that you can't put whitespace before the macro name and the open-parenth. Chalk it up to not being willing to read the manual. Suck balls.

West of the East and East of the West

Well, we finally got our DSL hooked up. I guess that means we have enlisted in the thick-framed glasses hipster gentrification army, but so be it. I still have to run the cable through the wall the way I want it: I think I'm going to drill a couple of holes with this big masonry bit I got at wonderful, wonderful Flatbush Hardware and then run a little RJ11/12 through one and some RJ45 through the other and attach the appropriate face-plates to either side. So when you plug a cable into both sides, it'll be like there's a line through the wall. Inspired, I know. Look, it's just going to be neater, okay?

Speaking of gentrification, the New York Times is running a story titled "Still Positively Fourth Street," about the way that street's changed over the years. Surprise surprise everybody turned into a rich asshole. From the article:

"Every neighborhood that gets famous gets commercialized,'' said Mr. Shapiro of Social Tees. "It's the nature of capitalism."

Forget the fact that Social Tees, for all its low-budget charm, is not quite a member of the old guard of home-brew Village mercantilism that the author of the article seems to love so much; the guy's pretty much right. So what can we do about it? It's simple: Boycott stuff you like. No, I'm serious. Too much enjoyment is what's ruined The Public's Shakespeare in the Park, Saturday Night Live, and the Internet, and it stands poised, at this very moment, to ruin Credit Seuss Foist Boston.

Okay, so one of the secretaries just came by and warned me that the banker for whom I am working, who was out in Chicago yesterday, has "a very big personality." I think that means she's an asshole, but maybe she means that part of this woman's brain, say, the social hippocampus, is bulging out of the front of her skull, a la Total Recall or Fist of the North Star. Or maybe she's just fat.

To help me remember, here are the jobs I think I'll apply for today:

• WNET Production Assistant & PHP Guy
• SparkNotes Lead Programmer

Hello, Blogger

Well, I'm back at Credit Swiss Mist Boston, thanks to the career wizards at Personally Expressed. What I do here is called answering the telephone. One lady is traveling on business, some other guy has a sick kid, and there is only one other person I am supposed to answer it for and she answers it herself, I guess. So I am chillin'.

I am reading For Whom The Bell Tolls, and trying to get into it, but it is very boring. The dialogue is all written in this kind of stilted, awkward English, which I assumed was Papa Hemingway's tip-off that all the characters were actually speaking Spanish and that the dialogue is supposed to be a translation, but then he started putting italicized Spanish words into it. Why would Spanish guerillas be speaking English? It makes them sound like retards. What an idiot this guy is. Here is a list of movies that we watched starting from like last week:

• The Rules of Attraction: Bad
• No Man's Land: Good
• Miller's Crossing: Good
• Pumpkin: Gratuitously perverse
• The Recruit: Nothing is what it seems, but this movie is Bad.

I brought the game Dak & Jaxter back to Royal Video last night and there was this guy on line next to me at the register who kept trying to start up a conversation with the clerks, me, everyone else about how he wished he had more time on the weekends. "Look at this rug, it's like you're pulling it out from under me," he said, pointing at the carpet. I started to agree, but one of the clerks caught my eye and whispered, "No, don't even talk to him. He's really crazy." So I paid for the rental and left. I was afraid the crazy man might follow me home and want to climb in through the screen.

So I signed up to work on this thing called Arianne until I get a real job. It is this GPL massively multiplayer game creation system, and I told them I could write C/C++ for them or write game text or something.