Year: 2001

Randomly Friday

Signs and Fresno motels (not to mention motels in general). Thanks to Sarah for the former and to the site’s author for the latter two…

Top it of with my just-completed lunch date with Chef Boy-ar-dee, Safeway Select Diet Grapefruit Soda, and Andy Griffith on KICU, and you have most of the elements of how I’m avoiding work this afternoon…

So as two people have pointed out today, it seems Wil Wheaton has had a similar problem with spam victimization this week. Fortunately, mine hasn’t caused too many problems, and it’s sort of cute to realize that Wesley Crusher and I have to deal with some of the same issues, I guess…

Back to not working…

Note to Mark: hope your day was better than expected and FedEx confirms that your package has indeed arrived…

Christmastime Is (Almost) Here

Pizza with Jamie on Friday night, to the accompaniment of “The Grinch” (the original, thanks) and “A Christmas Carol” (the 1951 Alistair Sim version, thanks). I guess the holidays have really arrived, even though I still haven’t moved Rock & Roll Elmo out of the way to make room for the tree yet…

Then I had late-evening email from Mark which gave me the warm fuzzies before going to bed on the coldest night of the year so far. It’s gonna be a long 151 hours…

And today, I’m buying my Christmas present from Mom and Dad so I can cheat and have the whole weekend to play with it, even though my mom made me promise I’d wrap it and put it under the tree. I’ll do that on Monday, maybe…

Oops. I forgot. It’s not really Christmas until I upload this…

Randomly Sunday

God, I hate malls. I’d forgotten how much until last night when we ventured to Santa Clara to visit the new Apple store. It didn’t help that it was the Saturday before the Saturday before Christmas, of course, but my God, was it hellish…

For the past several years, my mall visits have been limited to the occasional Chick-fil-a run to Fairfield, and I like it that way. They’re just so scary and creepy and self-conscious, with all the annoying people, the screaming brats, the food courts from hell, and the thousands of square feet of cloyingly cute little overpriced shops filled with nothing I’d ever much want…

Except for the Apple store, of course. But next time, I’ll hit one which isn’t in a mall…

But we also went to Fry’s, where I picked up my new DVD player on sale. And had dessert in a pace which looked like it should have been in Nebraska, which was slightly comforting…

Afterward, I came home, where my email client crashed and obliterated a message from Mark and a Christmas card from Shane before I could even look at them…

So I went to bed…

And this morning, you should find that this site has propagated over to Pair Networks, while email asscociated with this domain hasn’t yet, for some reason. Which is not a problem, since I don’t currently use it anyway…

If at some point I become less embarrassed about it, I’ll talk about my little head-shaving mishap later…

129 hours and counting…

Randomly San Francisco

Randomly San Francisco:

  • I’m really glad the 12-Folsom bus now runs every ten minutes rather than every twenty. Otherwise, I might have had to wait an entire hour for one this morning rather than the half-hour I actually did wait…

  • Great headline on this article: “Fluffing up the Castro”. It would be damned difficult make it any fluffier, wouldn’t it? OK, so the article is about the seats in the Castro Theatre. But still…

  • I don’t think anyone who knows anything at all about the TV business didn’t see this coming…

  • San Francisco: where no idea is too stupid to spend thousands of dollars on…

OK, I’ll play too. 5695 excruciatingly long minutes to go, you pornographer you…

Company’s A-Comin’

Amid all the amorous countdown messages (4356 minutes to blastoff, by the way), I’ve neglected to mention that I’m also pretty damned excited about the arrival of Duncan and Rick on Monday. And I’m also contemplating my Christmas Day meal. I imagine the menu will be pretty much straight from the double-wide. That’s just how I cook…

Today I also realized that my Christmas cards are probably not going to get mailed, and that my Mom and Dad will be having yet another Christmas by FedEx™. I’m very glad I have a very substantial discount…

Somebody who didn’t like something I’d written threatened to report me to the “web authorities” tonight. Anybody got their address so I can plead my case? I’m just terrified. Really…

Weird Voicemail

That was creepy. I just checked my voice mail. I had one message. But it wasn’t a message. It was a conversation between a telemarketer and a victim; apparently they were using one of those multiple dialers and my voice mail picked up at precisely the same moment as some woman named Rosalie.

Had she not promptly told the guy never to call again, and then hung up, I might have discovered all manner of personal information about her. Yet another reason never to give telemarketers any info about yourself: there may be unintended third- parties listening…

With Fifteen, You Get Several Eggrolls

The question is “how do I arrange an office Christmas party with about three hours notice?”. The answer, as it so often is, would be “Chinese takeaway”…

Most of my work for the year is done, although I have to do a bit of payroll and an inventory next week. I can now concentrate on starting my very minimal Christmas shopping, making my new DVD player do useful things, and (more pleasantly) where I’ll be and (even more pleasantly) who I’ll be with in 1460 minutes, not to mention who else will be here on Monday…

Maybe I’ll even buy an actual DVD this weekend. Or even start making one. Either way, it’s cinch I won’t be answering email, so don’t feel slighted…

Happy Pre-Holiday

I thought the rain would never end. I love rain, even cold, long-lasting rain. But this was one of those ill-timed storms which kept me from doing other things I needed to do, and it just went on and on like the Energizer bunny, fogging up my car windows, causing me to utter random profanities as my umbrella turned inside out, and generally keeping me from making so much as one holiday purchase…

But it’s bright and sunny out now, which is not generally my favorite weather, except when I have a 180-mile drive ahead of me. But in a mere 435 minutes, I’ll be in very close proximity to the most wonderful boy in the world…

Music swells. Video switches to mildly annoying slow motion effect. Cut to image of crashing ocean waves…

For those of you leaving your computers today, have a happy holiday of your choice…

I’m as Giddy as a Drunken Scrooge

Have you ever found yourself in one of those distrurbingly contented moods where you’re driving up Highway 99 at 85MPH, just sort of grinning this stupid grin and giddily singing along to the most insipid 1980s pop songs imaginable as they play on some Central Valley radio station?

I have. Thanks, by the way…

Christmas Eve

Christmas greetings all around…

Details about an amazing and wonderful pre-Christmas weekend with Mark will be coming soon. Also, Duncan and Rick are here, and I have a gang coming for lunch tomorrow. Right now, I’m gonna sleep…

It seems unlikely that Santa will be dropping by with an iBook or even an iPod, but I can dream, can’t I? Either way, I’m pretty well happy and contented this Christmas anyhow…