A Journey of Self-Discovery

I took the IKEA-bus to IKEA today. Kind of a fluke -- the last one leaves at 2:30, and I showed up at 3:00, grimly determined to get to Elizabeth, NJ somehow, someway, and by God there was a fucking bus waiting for me. Ill. I had been hoping that those creeps at 81 Degraw would help me get there, but the one with the car said, "Oh, not today." Just goes to show, if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself. The Elizabeth IKEA didn't have much of the stuff I wanted, but I got an office chair and a little box for some of Mer's bathroom things. My arms are killing me.

And now, a musical interlude:

Well, they'll stone you when you're walking down the street
Yeah, they'll stone you while you're looking at you're feet
They'll stone you while you're excavating Crete
Yeah, they'll stone you while you're welcoming the fleet!

You know, I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned!

I've more or less finished the first version of my Fuckfuck to C converter. Here's the link.

I Feel Like A Turd Burger

I do. I woke up before Mer today with a tummy full of gas and I made all these really long farts, but I didn't feel better. I think it was the taquitos I had last night, but who can say for sure? I've been having some strange dreams lately. A couple of nights ago, I dreamed that Mer and I had these gigantic fish tanks installed in our house (or maybe we were living at the Coney Island Aquarium -- the decor was definitely a Beach/Granite kind of affair), and we had all kinds of fish. We even had a 1950s Norman Rockwell dad type of human who could only breathe water living in one of the tanks. He had a pipe and a newspaper and everything. Whenever you would walk up to one of the tanks, the fish would get really excited and press their weird little faces up against the glass. But whatever company was supposed to be cleaning all of it was doing a bad job, because the water was really murky. In the dream, I think we were having an argument about switching tank-cleaners.

This morning as I was on line at the breakfast cart, this guy asked if he could see the front page of my paper because Kofi Annan was on it. I told him he could have it, because I'd already read it. I do like Kofi Annan a whole lot, though. He is one hell of a guy. No, seriously. I really like him.

I've been playing around with ChilliWilli's F*ckf*ck language. I've even written a simple piece of software to convert 'feckfeck' code to C. Maybe I'll post it on the main page once I polish it up.

There was this article on CNN's site the other day about a fossil specimen of the earliest known human:

Although we call them 'modern humans,' they were not fully modern in the sense that we think of living people," [some scientist] added.

"They are all dirty and smelly and all that sort of stuff."

What?!

Just Wonderful

Today was really very nice. The weather, I mean -- I know we are going to have this big stupid hurricane but it's not really going to come here, and it just seemed like a very nice fall day on Broadway today. Everyone was going about his or her business, and I really felt like I was a part of the everyday goings-on of the world again. You know that feeling, right? It's very nice. Plus, it's "Fashion Week" in the city, so you can imagine the height and virtue of the women walking down the street. I had some sushi and dumplings for lunch.

But I am a terrible employee. I mean, I am always goldbricking and making stupid mistakes. I spent a couple hours today trying to get the sound to work on my computer so I could listen to MP3s on peoples' Windows shares, and it didn't work out. The only thing I was supposed to do today was rename some variables in a few test files and I could barely do that. I'm still trying to get it done. I'm awful.

I posted a comment on Slashdot that earned me 5 "Funny" points. The thing is, I'm not that funny and neither was my comment. You know who's funny? David Rees.

Eat A Fat Salad

Well, I decided that most of the things I had to say about September 11th wouldn't do me or anyone else any good to post, so I won't post 'em. Suffice it to say, it's very sad that all those police and firefighters and EMTs and whatever all got killed. And that if it's open-karma-season on Western civilization / whitey, we really better watch out, because we've got it coming to us in a major way. And all those neo-nationalist creeps like Wil Wheaton can eat a fat dick -- Liberal? Conservative? American? Shut the fuck up.

Last night when I joined Mer in bed, I tried to take some of the blankets away from her and she said "Mmf... no." When I tried again, she started punching my hand, hard. "Some people need to learn to keep their hands to themselves," she said irritably. I figured out she was asleep and said, "Jesus Christ, it's me in the bed with you." "Try to set a better example, then," she said, and turned towards the wall. When I told her about it this morning, she cracked up. "Oh, I knew it was you," she said. "I just thought something else was going on." What?!

I got some cool but overpriced d6 and d10 from Blatt's Billiards -- they're all black with white numbers on them, and the d6 have little skulls instead of ones. I'll be going to the library at lunch today to pick up a book about historical Boston. Or should I say... hysterical Boston?

I Feel Like The Bottom Of A Taxi Cab

No, I do. I was carrying heavy things all weekend and now I feel like the acid-deuce. I didn't even feel like writing in my stupid 'blog today, but that's the thing about having a web-log. You have to write in it, even when you don't want to and don't have anything to say. Mer's got her first day of teaching today. She's doing it right now, I think. Actually, the kids are probably at lunch right now. But she was doing it recently. It's probably going to go fine, though she has been experiencing some slight trepidation.

I bought Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role playing game. I got the one with the original rules system instead of the new "d20" rules. See, when you play role playing games, you have to role dice and someone has to do a little math to figure out whether or not certain things happen in the game world. The set of dice rolls and calculations is what makes up the rules of a game -- the part that is not just sitting around talking and drinking vodka tonics. Wizards of the Coast, the company that bought TSR, is trying to come up with a ruleset standard so that people will be able to learn new games quickly and maybe have more genre-fluid campaigns, and their work so far is referred to as "d20," because it involves a lot of 20-sided dice. Anyway, I bought the version with the non-d20 rules; this one is called the "BRP" version. I think it's going to be fun. We'll all dress up in funny costumes and light candles and eat chicken wings.

News Flask:
(Reactions to Bush's Address to the Nation)

"In 15 minutes, he attempted to make up for 15 months of misleading the American people and 15 weeks of mismanaging the reconstruction," [Howard Dean] said.

In his speech, Bush called Iraq the "central front" in the war on terrorism and said foreign terrorists were to blame for recent violence there. But Dean said the security vacuum caused by the war itself is to blame for that situation.

No duh, right? (From the New York Times front page)

Twenty-seven percent, or $144 million, of the $539 million World Trade Center Business Recovery Grant program went to traders who work on the floors of the financial district's stock and commodities exchanges, to brokerage firms and to investment banks, according to an analysis by The New York Times. An additional $53 million, or 10 percent of the total, went to law firms, some of which employ hundreds of attorneys and generate yearly revenues of tens of millions of dollars, and few of which faced dire threats to their survival.

Johnny Rotten asks "Ah hah hah! Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" Get on board the hell-bus, jerks.

I had a funny dream last nigh: I developed this way of shimmying around and slipping away from people that made me an excellent football quarterback. Naturally, this talent made me very attractive to the admissions department at Wesleyan University, to which, for some reason, I was really eager to return.

I really want to do this. Yo Degraw snivlets -- want to help?

Welcome To The Diamond Mine

Actually, now that I write that title, I wanna hear that song real bad, but I brought all my CDs home from work so that Mer could put them into this big binder we bought.

Ted et. al. moved into their new apartment, finally, on Wednesday. They want to go to a bar tonight, which is kind of disappointing. When it comes to that kind of thing, my point is this: Single people with an appetite for shit can go off to a bar all they want, but to try to sell it as a fun activity for your friends is insulting. Because it's not a fun activity when there's no prospect of scoring new and different pussy (if you're a dude) or of having some greasy meatball in a tight shirt tell your hair looks "beautiful" (if you're a woman). It's a shitty, boring time. So I don't know what I'm gonna do tonight. I'm out of the closet and I feel alright, though I am out of Carbona.

My sister's birthday was yesterday; as per her wishes, I made her a Ramones mix CD. My parents got her a computer to replace the e-Machine that just conked out. I had tacos and cake.

I put on this shirt this morning and I was out of the house before I realized it had a big stain on from the laser chicken I ate last week.

Stupid, Awful Shit

Fucking blogger just erased my post.

Well, today is Labor Day. Tom, Emma, Ted, Devin, and Katie were supposed to move into their new house yesterday, but they couldn't find the landlord, so they just cooled their heels in Pelham instead. It sucks because we waited around to help them all day, and we'll probably end up doing the same today, because it's raining and there's nothing else to do, and they are probably not going to find their guy.

Mer was telling me about this big dumb woman she saw buying lottery tickets at the deli. The woman bought like ten lottery tickets and made a net profit of a dollar. As she was leaving, Mer heard her say to herself, "As long as I stay one step ahead..." You fucking idiot. She (Mer) also described how most of the women who shop there aren't very good at doing math, so they go get the most crucial item first and bring it to the counter with their twenty, and then when they see how much change they have left, they start going after less necessary items, like donuts and Big-Gulps, and they say "gimme 'dat" to the cashier.

I was on line at Wholesale Distributors, the big department store underneath my office, and there's this guy on line behind me on a cell phone who's ordering some food for himself from his friend who is on line at some fast food place (it sounded like Wendy's). So he orders some happy meals or something for his girlfriend and a chicken sandwich for himself, and then he's like, completely serious, "Yo, make sure that chicken sandwich is fresh." What?! You have an Associate's Degree in Office Technology and wear khakis to work, so you are clearly a connoisseur of rubbery fast food chicken, able to tell the difference between the pap we serve to customers and the tender morsels we save for ourselves, the Wendy's Illuminati. Welcome to our inner circle, you fucking dumbass.

Movies:

• Spider: Good, but not very talky, and not very Cronenbergian, though I don't think I know what that means.
• Heavy: Very good, very sad
• Royale-wit'-Cheese Video Exchange also gave us Wild Cherries by "accident." That is one boring porn.

The asshole upstairs is playing his music far too loud again. At least it's "cool jazz" this time and not sex-you-up-girl music. I have never spoken to this guy, but I get the feeling is the kind of guy who says things like, "Music is my life." Anyone who tells you that music is his life is the fucking death idiot.

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.