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10.31.02 boo. happy halloween. # the best thing about halloween in san francisco? i can't tell who's dressed up and who isn't. # 10.30.02 so it's really hard to catch back up right now. i'm behind on a bunch of websites. i don't know where to start on my blog. i'm short of time and inspiration for my writing. work is demanding. interesting, exciting, exhausting. and there's so much to do in the new apartment! we got the boxes unpacked (mostly) and stuff put away (mostly) and utilities hooked up (mostly). there was an ordeal with the dsl, but isn't there always? actually, it was with ups. but isn't there always? i yelled at someone; for the first time i was one of those irrate customers who are always ahead of you in line, demanding to speak to a manager. i can't believe it, but at least it worked. so i'm back online, and i'm trying to update, and my boyfriend and i have started to make up names for the neighbors we're watching through their windows (how very Rear Window of us) and i'm enjoying my job and i'm trying to stay calm while life works out all of the kinks and bumps that lie inbetween the good parts and the bad parts. and i'm wondering, have i told you all of this before? because it all feels so terribly familiar... # 10.29.02 byron's back! see, i told you. # remember baby jessica? the little girl who fell down that well? that was 1987; she was 18 months old. that means that today little baby jessica is 16 or 17 today. does anyone know where she is now? is there an E! True Hollywood Story yet? is she a precocious little snot or a trashly little slut? has she turned to drugs or run away from home or what? what is she doing now? # yes. we're back. (see the webcam too.) # 10.24.02 celebrity sighting #2: did i just say that i wasn't going to post for a while? well, strike that, because this is too OMG to pass on. tonight, walking home with jessie, standing at the corner of geary and mason, i actually saw thom yorke and colin greenwood (of radiohead). i stood at the crosswalk with them. i could think of nothing to say that would not betray the utter school-girlishness of my reaction. i die now, a man fullfilled. # i'm feeling mixed about the update status of my website(s) over the next week or so. at work, i have lots of access but not much time. at home, i have a little bit of access and a little bit of time. i'm managing some light updates to both sites, but my ability to continue, both in time and in energy, is questionable. what's i'm saying here is, don't expect much. we're moved in, almost fully, with the last set of boxes and stuff coming over last night. now comes the unsettlingly complicated task of unpacking. there are boxes everywhere. the cat is finally getting used to it all, lying on the couch as we unpack, but she's still a little skittish about all the noise. that makes two of us. she seems to be enjoying all the space, wandering around at night, tagging along behind me in the morning. this morning she was playing at my feet with a piece of her food as i ate my cereal at the kitchen counter. the table's still got stuff on it. the phone is a mess at the moment, despite brian's noble attempt the other night to save us. worse, i'm afraid the phones may be foreshadowing things to come with dsl. i'm waiting a little while for cable, because it seems like such a frivolous item and we don't even have a wire long enough to run it to the TV anyway. it's nice though, this new place. and it's ours, very shared, very together. i like that most of all. like aaron said, it's so wonderful when life starts to come together. # 10.22.02 the washington post has sold it's 50% stake in the jointly owned iht to the new york times, co-owner of the international newspaper. the times says they will not make changes at the iht, and a longstanding loyal readership, including your's truly, hopes they'll keep their word. # urban/technology convergence moment, #24: who says you need to pay for high-speed internet access? unprotected wireless networking, another lovely feature of our new building, and a generous gift until such time as we can get dsl installed. # 10.19.02 um, yeah, forgot to mention that i'll be, you know, offline for a while. until we get hooked up again. soon kids, soon. # 10.18.02 as promised, some pictures from the new apartment. i also threw in one of my new office. (you can't really see my desk very well; i sit on the left. but look at that window!) these are purely informative pictures, so go easy on me for the cruddy composition, poor color correction and over-compression. then again, disclaimer's aside, isn't it cool? i'm so excited!
# and while i'm ranting, because i haven't felt like it all week, i should mention that we got a new apartment. it was the one we've been wanting for a few months now, for those of you following along at home. finally. we'll get keys tomorrow evening and start moving over the next week or so. it's really cool. maybe i'll dust off my poor, neglected digital camera and take some pictures for ya'll. also, at work this week, i finally was given a desk, computer and phone. all those things that make a boy feel special. i'm starting to feel awfully settled all of a sudden. isn't that funny? after months and months of panic and worry and monotonously dreary posts about the futility of the post-collegiate life, to wake up and find all of that concern gone? seems odd. bizarrely so. # a few months ago, i had this great idea. it really was a doozy. i put a folder in the links toolbar on my browser. that way, when i come across a page that i don't have time to read, or get halfway through, or want to come back and blog about, i can just drag it into this folder and save it for later. then when i'm done with the link, i'll delete it. sort of a web browsing to-do list. so tell me: in your home, is there a junk drawer? because that's what this folder has become. my web browsing junk drawer. there are so many items in there, i have to scroll the menu down just to see them all. a real mess. and to make matters worse, i can't remember which links i've blogged, which i'm waiting to visit, and which i'm halfway through. ah. these dumb ideas never turn out well. can't someone just tell me what to do for the rest of my life? it would probably be easier on all of us. # 10.15.02 a brief # there's this odd little tradition, when bloggers meet. it's a social formality, this funny little cultural artifact with a digital signature. it's the cross-party-thanks-post. see, the boyfriend and myself met up with the imfamous double agent, brian of driscoll and his partner in crime, J. i of course, being the lazy street urchin that i am, have been less than prompt with my meetup post, and was subsequently been beaten to the punch by mr. brian himself. in keeping with the all-parties cross-post tradition, you can likely expect mention of said event soon from jessie, although he often lags behind in these things. nevertheless, all mocking aside, brian and J are super sweet fellows and i was very glad to earn a slice of their time this weekend. # the gomez show: hey, these guys kick ass. i mean, i love gomez. they totally rock my boat. and i wasn't all that into the concert. it's a shame, really, because they played ferociously. with wild abandon, i believe it was. but it was their persona, their stage presence. something about singers two of three (everyone but the b.driscoll doppelganger, ben) and their gestures, their conversations with the audience. the crowd was diehard, they were really into it. but there was this sort of...blown up feeling that i just couldn't get past. i guess i'm one for the more understated performers, but when the singer manages to ask the audience to sing along or makes that stupid "rock!" gesture without a hint of irony, i'm running for the door. that said, the band sounded great. they tore apart their glossed studio sound and coaxed to life a wall of noise, roughened grooves and chaotic textures. at times they turned into, for better or for worse, a jam band. it was an interesting show to listen to. which is good, because they recorded it for release as a live album. still, i had trouble watching them perform. too much aerosmith persona for me, thanks. but really, the true joy of the evening was watching ben ottewell sing. gomez has, as you may know, three vocalists. one of them has a gravely, blues-filled, thickened voice. tom waits little brother. sounds like a hardened, older, worn down leather man. now imagine a tall british guy, glasses, short hair, round face, boyish features belting out this sandpaper solo. impressive. yeah, and he was an understated performer. good thing. # 10.12.02 gomez tonight at the flimore! i'm so terribly excited. anyone else going to be there? # 10.11.02 2 + 2 = 3. could there be anything more queer than a friday night plane to Palm Springs, with a stopover in San Francisco? of course; the stewards could be playing Cher while boarding. # 10.10.02 day trip for work tomorrow. couldn't book an afternoon flight back home. anyone in the metropolitan seattle area want to get together for dinner? speak up. # a large banner hanging from the bus depot near my office informs me today that Jesse De La Cruz of AC Transit is, in fact, a national bus driving champion. # uh oh. reese isn't going to like this. digital radio, coming soon (very soon) to an antenna near you. # 10.09.02 they put labor onto life support today. though it may already be too late. # 10.08.02 perhaps the most popular address on the web, google has moved to correct a standing reporting error in it's system, speculates the register. according to the top-grade folks in the rumors and speculations department of the internet, google has made adjustments to the PageRank algorithm to correct, at least partially, the blog-skew. obviously, web logs ("online journals" now, says the reg) are helpful to google's robots because of their inherant properties of amalgamation and filtration. bloggers have, in a sense, become the earthworms of the internet. now if only they'd stay underground. a big problem with the blog effect is that, most of the time, my website simply is not the best resource on the web for articles on the pledge of alligience or even drawing adult cartoon porn lessons with mouse. and despite the popularity-contest thrill, it's really all about finding what you're looking for, isn't it? so even if i do loose some of the search traffic that filters into this site, personally, i think these changes will be a good thing for the internet, on the whole. *a worthwhile footnote to this article is the mention by one google engineer of a single-box search concept at the center of the company's dart board. because information respects no boundaries, this would be one of the most relevant developments google could offer. # my father couldn't help but note the irony of his son attending a doves concert on the same night that the president made motions to get his war on. of course they were at the fillmore tonight in san francisco, and yours truely was present to unwind, knock back a few (or maybe just one) and catch a glimpse of the british former-trio. a really spectacular show, despite the overwhelming heat inside the venue, a crowd that was pretty damned annoying and the worst-ever theater exit system known to man. the concert though, now that was a good time. the set included a mix of tracks from the first and second albums and a really spectacular effects show. really great lighting, good sound, lively performance and a pretty cool (though at times silly) video montage. by far the best moment was the last song, at the end of the encore, when the boys played a really lively version of space face, an old dance track credited to sub sub, doves previous incarnation. i'm working on finding a version of this great track to post for your consumption, but sub sub tracks and information seem difficult to come by. if anyone happens to have an album or know where they can be located, i'd be interested to know. coming up saturday, gomez. is anyone else going to be there? # 10.07.02 the register: what's wrong, what's right, about microsoft's initial incarnation of the tablet pc. "enabling technology," or the what came before what came next scenario. # if you find yourself with a lot of time/bandwidth/harddrive space, check out these videos. heavy, interesting. # wracked by guilt over a recent lack of updates, our young hero found himself furiously pounding away at his laptop, composing a movie-post of epic proportions, when suddenly his web browser, a highly evolved and super functional piece of software which had remained active and running for well over a week and a half with nary so much as a closed window, abruptly crashed. ahem. so here's a list of movies instead: perhaps you don't know exactly what the films on this list mean. certainly you don't know what i was planning to say about them. though you can devise, i am certain, some patterns from their sequence. such as: movies featuring my # 10.04.02 i never thought i'd say this, but way to go verizon! # today, i came close to realizing my life's ambition of becoming a hand model, only to have my hopes dashed as my opportunity was usurped by another. such is life, i am told, in the fast paced world of advertising. # THE HO & THE HUM this week. this week. i've been a little absent, a little neglectful. you've noticed. but it's been difficult, hard to sort through each day, sift away all of this stuff and find something to say to you. i feel worn down, deadened, inarticulate and stupid. and i'm very, very tired. my first, most basic instinct whenever i begin something new, like a job, is flight. i want to run away, the hide in the dark and ignore the world around me. five unemployed months has only made this worse, breaking my spirit and wilting my own instinct for assertion. each day is a struggle against these pressures. sleep is haunted by a pummeling stress, a rhythmic pounding against my head, as if i was living on the inside of a still beating heart. but the nightmare's are gone, even if the restlessness is not. by the morning, my alarm clock is almost a relief. permanence, as brian says. this week is introducing a new kind of permanence, a game that requires a new level of commitment. quite suddenly, quite abruptly, i've discovered the distance between "i'll do this for now" and "this is what i do." tomorrow we're going to see what will likely be our new apartment, my new home. such melodrama i'm capable of. but all of this, it gives you the wrong impression. i'm so excited all week, so happy to watch these pieces finally falling into place. i really enjoy the new job. the people i work with are dedicated, hard working and creative. it's such a refreshing change to be around people who enjoy what they're doing. so i'm a little tired at the end of the day. the beginning too, for that matter. but the progression of things, of life, is coming along wonderfully. and despite the stress and the inertia, i couldn't be happier right now. even if i don't say it to you. # 10.02.02 "...after a child is missing for a couple of weeks, I think we need to improve on our efforts to find them." captain obvious stikes again. these are smart people, truly they are. salon reports that nearly 500 children within the los angeles foster care system cannot be accounted for and may be lost. five hundred. five hundred. just in la alone. i don't want to contribute to the recent barrage of "missing children" stories, but shit, five hundred children, completely unaccounted for within a system that is intended to protect and care for them? this is absurd. # 10.01.02 last night was rough. the evening was shot down by a dull stupor. sleep was fitful at best, terror in floods and flight. i woke twice in a full sweat. this morning was a painful shock, jolting me from sleep. what does today have in store? # Rules are important, no question about it. But by themselves they are insufficient. Unless one has an emotional investment, rules are too easily forgotten. truer words are seldom spoken. what makes these words # what happened? overnight, my links page has fallen out of fashion, decended into disrepair. there's dead links, old links, new pages, new domains, new friends, new favorites; one really should keep one's links fresh, you know. but the inertia required for this task has been high recently. this much i'm certain is obvious to you, gentle reader, as you sit and wonder to yourself, how much harder is it to change the links page than to write a whole post about not changing it? but it's difficult, i tell you, quite difficult. perhaps i'll think about this tomorrow. # « September 2002 | archive index | November 2002 » built with movabletype |
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