June 29, 2004
Who knew?
Apparently, my photo-blog has a value and is actively traded like a company on a stock exchange...
My biggest (and perhaps sole) investor seems to be one K.Vera... or QueenKV if she prefers. Sorry to hear about her wallet getting stolen... I hope her 'investment' in my photo-blog pays off.
Grrrrr
Some [expletive deleted] in Latin America or somewhere is spoofing my domain as the return address for their spam. I am getting every bounced message it generates sent to me. Scumbags. I hope they get eaten by caiman...
200.56.139.36
200.221.160.96
200.223.182.79
200.174.150.251
Those are some of the sender's IP addresses. Sooner or later someone will show up at this site looking for an explanation (as if *I* was responsible) and I wanted to set the record straight. It aint me, dude.
:-)
June 28, 2004
Monday Monday Monday
Had a nice weekend. Went out to the beach on Saturday and got the 'red-neck-special' tan - arms from the elbow down, legs from the thigh down, and my neck. Water was a little too cold for swimming, but I managed to wade in to my knees and play with shells, sand fleas, and starfish.
Sunday I went to my cousin's high school graduation party. Hard for me to see her growing so old - and knowing I will always be *older*. Ugh. :) Also seeing another cousin who is over 6ft tall (and he's only 13! Yikes!) made me feel very short. Wow. I have a lot of issues... :P
I had caddied (golf) at the location of the grad party when I was much younger... and there were a few minor flashbacks. Somehow I survived. Food was excellent as was the company. Nothing like a family get-together for a good event. So much better than funeral reunions.
Traffic on the way home however was no picnic. Between construction and the Gay Pride parade-goers on the streets in Manhattan, it was a LONG trip.
June 24, 2004
6 hours at 375 degrees...
NOT the way to cook turkey. I forgot I was cooking and took a nap. Extra-crispy is woefully inadequate to describe the result. Bleh. Smelled good... but that was as far as it went. Had an omelet instead.
June 21, 2004
Bright and Sunny Monday
*YAWN*...
Another week has begun. My friend Allen has caught a flight back to L.A. and I have put the vacancy sign back up. Time to stop drinking coffee and get in the shower.
Note for the day:
When driving in Washington (the state), watch out for Elk...
June 18, 2004
New Nephew, New Ticket
Went to see my newly-arrived nephew today and took lots of pictures. On the way home I just barely blew through a red light - and have a certificate to prove it. Actually, it's a summons.
9AM on July 12th I will be in Weehawken pleading my case. Ugh. The Port Authority police officer did apologize for having to give me a ticket, which was nice of him. He said he had to issue the summons, despite the fact that I was obviously a gentleman, and then he thanked my for being respectful. Good to hear, but not much of a consolation...
Everything was going so well today too... Dammit.
OMG!
I am kicking myself for not coming up with this BRILLIANT idea first...
Daaaammmmnn! If I had those shoes, I would be SO cool. Oh well.
June 17, 2004
A New Nephew...
Congratulations to Heather and Cem... and congratulations to Matthew on becoming an older brother!
At 10:17pm my sister gave birth my new nephew. A healthy and happy boy. 6lbs, 4oz... :-)
Apparently he came out smoking a cigarette and asking for coffee - so he is definitely my sister's child. God help us all... :P
10:00PM
It's 10PM... Do you know where your new niece or nephew is? I don't. Labor Labor Labor. Eeeek.
Vote for the Labor Party
My little sister has been in the hospital all day today. Labor was induced around 8am, and water broken as well. Sounds like a fun picnic. It's 6pm now, btw... yikes. No baby yet. Labor labor labor.
Soon I will be an uncle, again. The baby's sex has been kept a mystery so far, so I anxiously await to see if I get a second nephew or a new niece. :-) WooHoo.
I wish my sister a lot of strength, and as little pain as possible. :-)
June 14, 2004
Don't go to the mall today...
While the U.S. should remain ever-vigilant towards acts of terrorism, I am glad to read that 'al Quaeda' (or whatever spelling is being used today) is now going for much more obscure targets. Being in the shadow of NYC, I think about these things now.
~~hype hype hype~~
I do feel a little extra comfort knowing that I have a huge Muslim community in my neighborhood. Unless of course, all of the stereo-typing (typing with BOTH hands?) I see in the movies is true... and they're all in it together. :-P
And somebody do me a favor... send Bill Clinton a dollar. He is apparently struggling now since he had to take on the burden of penning his memoirs.
June 13, 2004
Sunday...
Last few days have been nice and clear, but as today progressed the clouds have been moving in. I think it's a bad sign of things to come... In other news, the weather seems nice enough outside. :)
Tea Time.
June 12, 2004
Satyrday
Reagan's been on a whirlwind tour that wrapped up this week. I think he might be trying to get on the upcoming ballot...
Have a seat, David. You're not going anywhere, despite what some dog may have told you.
June 10, 2004
Goodbye Ray... Hello Hotel... Hey 2001...
Not that he would've been able to see this... but farewell Ray Charles.
It has been an uneventful day (so far). The good news is that I haven't done anything particularly dumb (yet).
I am not a hotelier, however I will be pretending to be one this weekend. Two friends on separate trips (both from L.A. coincidentally) will be under my roof. I hope they don't expect room service and continental breakfasts... I should come up with a nightly rate. I think $5 would suffice.
Watching 2001: A Space Oddysey. I had forgotten what an interesting movie it is.
June 09, 2004
Jury Duty: Over / Phone: Dead
Jury Duty was a complete waste of time for most involved. While I (and 49 others) had been selected for a trial yesterday, today it was postponed. As a result, I was held (and the other 49 people too) in the initial selection and thereby not in the master pool to be selected for anything else today. End result: 16+ hours I will never get back (but I *did* make $10).
Not that I am always running at full-steam doing important things, but after spending two absolutley fruitless days at someone else's disposal it can get particularly infuriating. Kind of like a bad job, with less pay. At least I won't have to do it again for 3 years. Unless I move...
Around 3:30pm today I thought my cell provider (T-Mobile) closed up shop... turns out their system has whacked certain SIM cards based on their IMSI numbers... resulting in the inability for the SIM/Phone to make any sort of connection with anything. I'm sure they'll fix it as soon as they can... or something -- I have pics to post, dammit.
Wouldn't it be incredible if they (or anybody else) would have a 'STATUS' web page like so many places used to have? You could go and look and see: "Outage due to blah blah blah... Be back up soon..." and not have to give it a second thought (or navigate stupid voice prompts, or get the run around from customer service people). When the problem is resolved or updated, it would be right on the site... Financially it would seem to be a much better method to update a web utility than having to tie up a call center with people trying to see what's wrong. But what do I know (other than how to complain about EVERYTHING)?
Oh well. Things break. It is the way of the world. Things get fixed too.
Jury duty, day two: Fun
Showered, shaved and dressed. Another day of excitment for me. Gave myself a haircut this morning. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt... Now I'm ready for action.
One of the nice things about cutting your own hair is that you can always get an appointment. A downside to self-shearing would be having to guesstimate here and there to make sure things are even.
What's the worst that could happen? It will grow back (eventually).
Supposed to get up to 92 degrees today. Already 74 and too humid. Yuk. Melting is no fun...
June 08, 2004
Jury duty, day one: over
Got selected to a jury pool for a criminal trial scheduled tomorrow. Great. So now I show up, and wait to be asked all sorts of questions. It will be at least another full day in the crapper. Or worse, I could make the cut and get locked into a trial... indefinitely.
Difficult to describe the inefficiencies of our legal system's jury selection... Get hundreds of people in a large room for 2 days. Only use a small percentage of them... tell the rest, "Thanks for wasting two days with us, here's $10."
I would think you could develop a master pool, and pre-select sub-pools for trials -- there must be a better way than the current iteration. Outside of the basic inconveniences, taking 300-400 people away from their daily jobs/activities/whatever has to have negative impacts. Compensating them only $5 each per day is ridiculous as well.
Oh well. I am but a cog in a larger machine. I will obey. *yawn* Boring as hell, too. :)
Lunch break...
I am really anxious. I don't know what I am going to spend the $5 compensation I get for my jury service on. A new house? A new car? The possibilities are endless...
Drove to the courthouse today only to find only metered parking and price-gouging car lots. Parked in a lot for 3 hours: $15. Almost as nice as parking in NYC.
Now that I'm in my lunch hour, I drove home and re-parked for free. I will try getting back via the PATH train. I know I will regret this course of action, yet I'm doing it anyway. Oh well. Fun fun fun. One hour left until I have to report back...
Okay. I'm tired of whining. Maybe I'll get a bite to eat.
Jury Duty
Nothing like being summoned for jury duty to show you how scary the legal system really is. Today is day one, and I sure do hope it's fun. :)
June 04, 2004
Insomniannoyance
Went to bed, woke up. Went to bed, woke up again. Took some pictures of the moon, before trying to sleep once more...
Then I got up and read the news sites... not too much happening out of the ordinary. Tenet resigned from the CIA, Jersey City is in the news again, and the late Princess Diana's mother shuffled off this mortal coil...
I think I will go back to bed now. Sweet dreams to me. If I can keep my eyes closed long enough...
June 03, 2004
Clean Clean Clean
Finally put all of my camping gear away (and removed the storage box from my roof rack). Also had to sweep up a VERY dirty and dusty hallway -- my nostrils are now yielding quite an amount or gray-blackish yukky stuff. YUM!
The evil berry tree outside of my building is now dropping its mulberries to the ground, and in the process creating a nice purple sidewalk. Soon it will track all the way into my home.
My car is also getting trashed -- by the berries and the birds that sit in the tree eating them. Bleh. It may only last for 6 weeks, but it seems like forever.
Back to tidying up...