Catching up with the weekend

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Here we are, back to Monday morning again. Woohoo…or something like that. Hrm.

The weekend was okay. Friday night I met up with Alex and Nate again, as this was Alex’s last weekend here in the Seattle area before he gets out of the Navy and heads back to Alaska to go to UAA. We hit the Vogue and the Mercury, then Nate went home, and Alex and I crashed out at the Shoebox.

Most of Saturday was just Alex and I bumming around Capitol Hill — neither of us really had any plans, so it was pretty laid back. Towards the evening we met up with Casey at the Bauhaus coffeeshop/bookstore and sat and talked for a while. Casey and Alex went off to meet up with Dez down at the Alibi room, but I was feeling pretty beat, so I just wandered home and went to bed.

Sunday I spent mostly in bed — apparently I’ve picked up a minor bug of some sort. Not enough to make me feel really bad, but I certainly don’t feel really good, either. Had another conversation with Loren in the evening, and eventually crashed out again.

Not all that amazingly entertaining of a weekend, I guess…I’d been planning on getting out and doing a bit more, but just ended up not quite feeling up to it. I’m still feeling a little under the weather now, but am hoping it blows over fairly soon. On the bright side, I did get word from Loren that my bribe…er…tax refund showed up at the Pit, and he’ll be mailing it down to me, so I should have that sometime this week. Pretty cool, I guess. Anyway, that’s enough freeform babble for now….

Kudos to The Onion

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I just got a look at the most recent issue of The Onion, and I have to say that it’s very, very well done. If you’ve not read them before, The Onion is one of the more biting online humor sites — basically, they use a news-site format to skewer whatever is going on in the world.

This issue is their special issue regarding the terrorist attacks, and I really think that it’s an incredibly effective series of articles — using humor and irony to point out very serious, deep truths. Plus, it’s really funny — and it’s nice to see someone able and willing to take the initiative to look at some of the opportunities for intelligent humor in the wake of the tragedies. Sometimes, laughter really can be the best medicine — and The Onion is giving us just the right dose.

Some of my favorite quotes come from the article God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule:

“I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you’d get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important,” said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. “I guess I figured I’d left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?”

“To be honest, there’s some contradictory stuff in [the Bible], okay?” God said. “So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it — My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bullshit. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it’s God’s will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall.”

“I don’t care what faith you are, everybody’s been making this same mistake since the dawn of time,” God said. “The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don’t even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, ‘Turn the other cheek,’ but you’ve been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades.”

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God’s shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

Anyway, go check it out. There’s quite a few different articles, and so far all of them I find well worth reading.

Wow…

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There’s a distinct possibility that I just might be able to get out of debt within the next month. A somewhat staggering prospect, really — I’ve had a credit report that’s ranged from shaky to just plain bad for so long that I’d more or less written it off, figuring that I’d get it all paid off “eventually.” Well, eventualities do come around occasionally, I guess.

I saw an ad somewhere on the ‘net for ConsumerInfo.com offering a free credit report, so I figured what the heck, and signed up. It turns out that you do have to sign up for a pay service to get the report, but you can cancel out of that before you ever get charged if you don’t want to continue with the service.

I got my credit report today, and whaddaya know — I’m only in debt $2984. A big number, admittedly, but not nearly as bad as it could be. So, now I just need to figure out the best way to get that taken care of — I’d really like to get to a point where I don’t have any more outstanding debts hanging over my head. Tonight after work I’m going to wander by Washington Mutual, the bank I’m using down here, to see if they can do a debt consolidation loan (and if they can, whether they’ll give me one), and if not, if they can recommend me to a company that might. I figure if I can get the debt consolidation loan, then I should be able to afford payments on that — and the PFD and other money owed me will help me get the loan paid off as soon as they come through.

In theory, I could be down to a single payment pretty soon — and if I can afford to devote all of the PFD to that loan and pay the rest off as fast as possible, I could be completely debt-free by early 2002. Not bad — not bad at all. Time to cross my fingers again, I think.

To boldly go…

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…where three television series and nine movies have gone before.

Or something like that, right?

But hey — they’re doing it with style. Gotta admit, I thought last nights premiere of Enterprise, “Broken Bow,”, was pretty darn cool. Finally, it really does look like we’ve got a new entry to the Star Trek universe that just might be able to carry on the torch and keep viewers interested. It’s about time.

Things I liked:

The ship — especially the interiors. It really does look something like a cross between a starship and a submarine. Very cramped interiors, walkways going around the various parts of engineering…very nice look. Besides, I’ve always liked the design of the Star Trek universe.

The technology — they seem do be doing a credible job of placing the technology somewhere between what we have today and what was thought the future could look like in the original series, from the sliders on the transporter to T’Pol’s viewer on the science station. With nobody really trusting the transporters yet, it’ll be nice to have extra-vehicular missions using shuttlecraft the majority of the time (one of my favorite TOS episodes was The Galileo Seven, a premise which wouldn’t have worked without a shuttlecraft — sometimes the transporters made things a bit too convenient, I think). The use of an actual grappling hook device rather than a tractor beam was a very nice touch.

The cast — I have to say, I think they just may have done a good job here. I wasn’t sure what to think when I heard that Scott Bakula was going to be the new captain, but I ended up really liking Cpt. Scott Archer. The rest of the regulars came off well too — about my only reservations are with Ensign Hoshi Sato (while the constant nervousness about whether the ship is about to explode around her ears is amusing, the writers will have to tread carefully not to make it just flat-out annoying) and Dr. Phlox (reminds me a bit too much of characters like Neelix [VOY] and the early Ferengi [TNG/DS9] — good ideas that didn’t hold up well over the long run), but as this is solely based on a 2-hour first episode, these characters could become much more than they seem in a season or two. I was also pleasantly surprised with Sub-Commander T’Pol. Considering the jumpsuit they’ve put her in just screams out, “Look at me! I’m the resident token sex object!” she actually ended up with a character much more thought out than I at first expected. She also has that wonderful trick of managing to smile without actually doing it — I think it’s something in the eyes, but it’s something I haven’t really seen an actor pull off with a Vulcan character since Spock and Sarek.

The fact that the show is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen. Very cool — now if only I had a high-def TV and receiver to watch the thing on!

Things i’m iffy on:

Okay, what was the point to the decontamination scene? Or, rather, was there a point beyond titillation? Admittedly, it wasn’t bad as far as prime-time titillation goes, and I have to give them props — not only did they have T’Pol strip down to her skivvies, but they also had Commander Charles Tucker in there (either for the women or the gay men in the audience, or both) — but it seemed out of place, and clumsily done. Either the two of them were just helping each other with the decontamination gel, or they were flirting, but the scene played like a clumsy mix of both. Ah, well — at least it was good eye candy, right?

The opening theme. Y’know, assuming I ever get in a situation where I can watch this show on a weekly basis, I think that song is going to grate on me more and more every time. The visuals during the credit sequence are nice, I like the exploration theme — but did they have to go to some horrid, cheezy, adult-contemporary soft-rock ballad? Ugh. That can go, as far as I’m concerned — and it can go as far away as possible.

Overall

A good, solid B+, I think. I’ll catch more episodes when I can — whenever that may be — we just might finally have another worthy contender to the Star Trek universe here.

Enterprise

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Ooers, yeah — one more thing. Tonight’s the premiere episode of Enterprise, the new Star Trek series. I’m hoping to be able to catch it, Damon has said I can hang out over at his place tonight to see the show. Hopefully it’ll be worthwhile — I’ve gotta admit, I’m intrigued by what I’ve read so far. Tonight’s episode is Broken Bow, where we get to launch not only the series, but also the first warp capable Enterprise, and Klingon/Human relations. Should be interesting!

Bleah. Bleah, bleah, bleah. And a pfpptfptpfpt too.

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Yeah, well, yesterday kinda blew. A lot. Not quite a “terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad, going to move to Australia” day…but not exactly sunshine-n-roses, either.

Monday evening I’d gotten a call from Nate to meet him over for coffee at a place about 2 blocks down Boylston from my apartment. All fine and dandy, was a nice evening, talking and playing chess — but the coffee was a bad idea. Having dramatically cut the amount of caffiene I take in from what I used to, my system isn’t conditioned to accept a sudden influx of stimulants at 6:30pm in the evening. I didn’t get to sleep until sometime around 1am…ugh. Not doing that again anytime soon…the coffee part, at least. The talk and the chess was fine.

Also that evening, after Nate and I parted ways, I’d decided to pick up batteries for my MiniDisc recorder so that I could work on recording another mix session. On the way down the hill to QFC, however, I saw Holly and Ryan getting out of Ryan’s car. Turns out they were meeting up with a friend at the Rosebud (a cafe/bar on Pike), and invited me along. Once there they introduced me to Trey, and not long afterwards Will, a friend of Trey’s, showed up, and the five of us kicked back and had a lot of fun talking and joking around for a while. I was hoping the two cosmopolitan martinis I had would offset the coffee, as alcohol tends to make me drowsy…unfortunately, no go. It did make for quite an entertaining evening, however, and after a while I headed home and eventually fell asleep.

Unfortunately, falling asleep at one in the morning doesn’t exactly help ensure a quick up-n-at-’em in the morning. I didn’t miss my bus, but I sure didn’t hop out of bed as quickly as I do when I crash out at 10pm. Anyway, once I got to work, things were pretty crazy from the start, which didn’t do a whole lot to help my mood. I’m just glad I don’t get hangovers — two martinis probably wouldn’t be enough to trigger one anyway, but you never know, right? Lunchtime rolls around and I head down to Todays to pick up my paycheck — only to find out that it’s not there yet.

This is one of my few big beefs about my current work/pay situation — Xerox has required that rather than using their own system, Todays has to use a third-party intermediate called White Amber to handle my pay. So, each week I need to go to White Amber’s website and input my hours. At that point, an e-mail gets sent to my supervisor within Xerox, who has to approve my hours. Once my hours are approved, then Todays can cut me my check. End result — too many cooks in the kitchen, and it is causing me all sorts of headaches. It already delayed my ‘official’ payday from each Friday to the following Monday, and then there are occasional things like this, when it’s not there Monday, not there Tuesday, and I have to call today to see if I’m going to get paid or not. Urgh…things like this make it really difficult to plan out a budget and keep my money on track.

Then, just to make the day even more entertaining, once I get home and check my mail, I find a bill from GCI for roughly $400. Now I’m really ticked — before I left state, I made sure to completely pay up my accounts with GCI, and made arrangements for my phone and cable modem service to be cut off at the end of June. Last month when I’d called up and talked to Miranda and Loren (as along with Shane, they are the current residents of The Pit), I’d found out that for some reason GCI had not disconnected my service — but they assured me that bills were being paid, and it wouldn’t end up causing me any problems. Grrrr…that bill sure seemed to be telling me a different story. As it turns out, though, that much at least may work out — I’ve talked to both Loren and GCI, and it’s all getting taken care of. I was lucky enough to get a GCI person that I knew (a guy named Clyde, who I’ve known around Anchorage for a few years, and was starting at GCI just as I was leaving), so he’s going to see what he can do to get the bill knocked off — when he checked my account the notation to have my service cut at the end of June is in there, it just never happened…so at least at one level, it’s definitely a GCI screwup. I should be getting a call on that sometime today.

I did get a chance to jabber with Loren for a while yesterday evening, which was cool. After sorting out some of the confusion with the GCI stuff (some of which turns out to be related to my cable modem — I thought I owned it, so told Loren he could hold onto it, GCI thought they owned it, so were adding bills to my account to make up for a ‘lost’ cable modem), we got each other caught up on all the general day-to-day bits. Sounds like I’m missing out on a lot of drama up there…can’t say I’m surprised, nor disappointed that I’m not involved anymore, to be completely honest. While there are some disadvantages to my current living situation, one of the definite advantages is a nearly totally drama-free lifestyle.

And that’s about it for the moment. I did manage to put together another mix session last night, which came out pretty nicely…I’m really hoping I can get a way to get the ones I’ve done onto MiniDisc (I’ve now got three or four that are MD-only currently) onto my computer, ripped to .mp3, and/or burned to CD sometime soon — at the very least, would be nice to finally put an update on my DJ Wudi propaganda page. I’ll get to it as soon as I can, though. Laters….

Just a quick word or two

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Just tossing a quick entry in before I send out the e-mail update to those few people who get it. It’s Monday morning and I’m at work, so don’t want to spend too long here, but I thought it would be good to get a little bit in here so I’m not completely out of date.

Spent most of the weekend just kicking back and relaxing at home. Saturday I was thinking about wandering around the First Hill district, and had actually made it out the door when I stopped to chat with Damon (my next-door neighbor). While he and I were talking, who should walk up the hill but Holly and Ryan — they knew I lived around that area somewhere, but were just randomly wandering through while apartment hunting for Holly when they saw me standing there talking. I ended up spending the rest of the day wandering around with the two of them, apartment hunting for Holly, some mixing with Ryan in the evening, then a stop by the Baltic Room that night for some drinks and 60’s funk/soul before we all headed home.

Sunday was entirely a day of rest — sat at home, played with my mixing equipment, read Sandman comic books, and did laundry. Whew — tough stuff! :)

And that’s the basics for the weekend. Fun fun fun….

Amusing quotes

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…so I’m taking the occasional (er…did I spell that right?) chance to go poking around the web. Some of the other weblogs you can find out there are pretty fascinating. Like Time For Your Meds — if only my blog posts were this interesting.

OK, I know that Crayola had to change some crayon colors from when I was a kid. Indian Red, although they had some reason it wasn’t really about Indian people, had to go. Flesh, which really only matched Band-Aids, was a goner. But why would they add a color called Beaver?

— JillMatrix.com

Oh, wow…this is really worth snickering over. I think it’ll probably end up in my quotebook, too…in the humor section. I should really send it to my friend James, too. We’ve had a running joke for a few years — I’m too goth for his ass, and he’s to punk for my ass. I think this quotes from someone who’s way too punk rawk for either of our asses…. ;)

um ya well i am like rilly board right now cuz my stepmom is a stupid bitch and she grounded me. i hate her. she is rilly fat and ugly! she always grounds me cuz she’s jellus cuz she cant get a man- except for my dad but he is like RILLY old and RILLY ugly, so he like so doesnt count. anyways, my GAY brother tom was watchin vh1, which is like suppose to be like mtv only for old people or something, and there was this thing called 25 years of punk! i was like, hell ya, i’m a punk! so of course i had to watch it! and like there was NOTHING about punk! just a bunch of gay old school bands like nirvana and the sex pistols. oh ya but guess what? i found out that the lead singer is the sex pistols is totally hot! i was like omg who is that guy with the funny shirt and tom was like that’s johnny rotten and i was like well who the fuck is that his singing is gay. britist people are like sooo gay by the way. lol. im like sooo glad im not british. anyways, tom said that he was the lead singer of the GAY sex pistols and i was like oh well his music is gay but he is hot! so i watched the rest of that 25 years of punk show. they like didnt even have anything about real punk, like blink 182 and sum 41, but oh well, johnny rotten is like so totally hot! so like i am gunna go buy some sex pistols cds, even tho theyre really gay. i mean, sometimes you have to like make sacrifices and shit. like for example, sumtimes there is a gay crappy band, but the lead singer is rilly hot, so you have to go buy their cd anyways, you know? tom was getting all mad and shit just cuz of that. i swear he is soooo gay. i cant believe we’re related sumtimes. he was all talking about some shit like music is about music not what the musicians look like. whateva. thats gay. i mean i could NOT like a band with an ugly lead singer! i mean if the lead singer is ugly its like having some UGLY GUY sing to you! wtf! who would want to listen to an ugly guy sing? ewwwwww.

— jennas a punk rawker

How interesting…apparently our fighting forces shouldn’t have to put up with gays during peacetime, but they’ll make great cannonfodder. Yes, I know I said that in a very deliberately provacative way…but then, I’m just paraphrasing what the article says. Grrr.

Oh, lord…one last look at jenna’s diary…then I’ll quit. I promise.

ok so like as u no like america is like kewl n punk so like there iz a war or sumthin like that, so N E wayz, i have totalli been noticin lately, there r like, sooooooo many hott guys on the news! like, omg! its like, hottie heaven on the news, like, i swear! and like, the prezident or like boss of the world or whatever he is, jorg busch or whatever his name is, is like, SOOOOOO PUNK! i am like, totalli a republikin or whatever that stuff is now, cuz i wanna be kewl n punk like the kewl punk prezient! omg and i like totalli LUV america now. it iz like sooooooo kewl! i mean like i have got all these totalli kewl american flag shirts n stuff now! i like TOTALLI threw out my UGLY old british flag shirts! the british flag is soooooo three months ago, i swear! i am TOTALLI a patriot now! patriots rawk tha house!!!!!

— jennas a punk rawker

I think that’s it for today’s randomness, though. Unless I come up with something really über-cool later on…but work’s picking up now, so that’s not all that likely. I probably won’t be back here ’till Monday…so until then….

Slow times

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Hrm…I guess waiting a week between entries isn’t exactly the recommended technique for keeping a journal, is it? Of course, in my defense, I have been making the occasional post directly to my webpage from work. Now, one could, at this point, rather easily point out that that may not be the recommended technique for keeping a job…but that would just be cruel, and besides, I do it during breaks or lunch. So there. Bleah. :)

On a personal level, there just isn’t a whole lot of stuff going on in day-to-day life at the moment. My alarm goes off at 6am, I’m usually out of bed by 6:30, showered, dressed, and out the door by 7:25, and at work by 8am. I slog through work until 5pm, grab a bus home, then kill time reading or catching a movie (when I’m feeling rich enough to afford it), and am usually in bed by 10pm.

Rather amazingly dull, all laid out like that. Doesn’t seem all tht long ago that I was getting up between noon and 2pm, going to bed at six in the morning, and spending as much time as possible out with friends or at clubs, either DJ’ing or just having fun.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Okay, so that last line was a bit of an overstatement. A big overstatement. But still…does growing up — or at least getting older — really necessitate slipping into a routine so _un_inspiring that it actually inspires me to whine about it here?

I certainly hope not. Realistically, I can reassure myself that my current somewhat boring (and, therefore, bored) existance is a side effect of the move. I’m in a new town where I’m no longer the known personality that I was in Anchorage. I haven’t met very many people yet, and those I have I don’t run into that often, as Seattle is big enough that it doesn’t have an analogue to Vinyl (Village Inn, Northern Lights), that notorious center of the Anchorage social scene. I’m also in a much different financial situation — I’ve cut my pay by $1.50/hr from TimeFrame (and by $2.65/hr from my short stint at GCI), while nearly doubling my rent for an apartment roughly the size of my bedroom in Anchorage, and adding phone and electric bills that are no longer split with roommates to my monthly expenses. I no longer have a car, so my “sphere of influence” is limited to where I can go in a reasonable amount of time either by foot or by city bus.

Suffice to say, if anyone thought I was leaving Anchorage to make things easier on myself, they were sorely mistaken.

But, of course, that wasn’t why I left, as anyone who actually knows me decently well enough knows. I left for quite a few reasons — many of which I’ve ranted about on my webpage from time to time in the past — but primary among them was just the need to get out on my own in a new atmosphere.

Well, I’m out, I’m on my own, and this definitely isn’t Anchorage. I’ve known for a while that I probably wouldn’t really be in a decent spot financially until sometime in mid-October (with my last PFD estimated at $1800, parents owing me $1400 when they can get it to me, my bribe…er…tax refund of $300 showing up at some point, and another outstanding debt of roughly $1300 that I’m hoping will show up after PFD’s hit, I stand to be about $4800 better off if they all come through), it’s this nebulous paycheck-to-paycheck scraping by that gets pretty harrowing. Heck, if it weren’t for a landlord giving me castaways and a neighbor who abandoned his belongings when he bailed state, I still wouldn’t have any furniture!

Ah, well, I’ll make it — I just had to whine for a few moments. Things certainly aren’t all bad down here — my job is good, if not the most exciting in the world, I’m a bit strapped financially, though certainly not broke, my social life will pick up eventually, as there are things to do when I can afford it, and all in all, I’m really enojoying things as a whole. It’s just the niggling little details that can add up and look worse than they really are.

Of course, even when I claim that life is boring and I have nothing to do or say about it, I can still fill up eight-plus pages in this little notebook about my lack of anything to write about. ;) Like that will come as a surprise to anyone who knows me.

Oh, well. It’s a bit after 10pm, and much as it may grate on my nocturnal inclinations, these days that does mean that it’s bedtime for Bonzo. Until tomorrow, then (or whenever I get back to scribble in here again)….

Too cool for words

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Ooers…this is the kind of thing that convinces me that there is still some good stuff going on out there.

I just found a listing on the Corona Coming Attractions movie news/rumor site detailing a film that I will have my skinny lil’ butt planted in the seat for come opening day — HardWired. Alex Proyas (director of The Crow and Dark City) directing a sci-fi murder mystery where the suspects are Artificial Intelligences and/or robots, and it’s going to be the first in a series of films based upon the ideas and concepts from Isaac Asimov‘s I, Robot stories?!?

I am so there.