renegadeRICEcracker

HHGG!!!

yay! we went to see hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy tonight. very geeky, i know, but we had fun. overall, i thought they did a pretty good job, though i didn't care for the intro song so much. of course, that being the case, it is STILL stuck in my head. but i think that's my only complaint.

the audience was VERY geeky (andy kept looking around and shaking his head like he was disappointed in me for taking him there). it was exactly like the u of c undergrad that was all around us during law school. a handful of young college-looking kids were there with towels around their necks. the whole hitchhiker's guide admonition to never leave home without your towel and all is very cute, but proudly bringing your towels to the theater on opening night with you... *sigh* (yes, i know it was geeky of me to even be there. but still.) at the beginning a theater guy was giving away free stuff (we were at the bridge off howard hughes parkway), and in noting that for some reason they gave him a lot of triple x stuff to give away said, "yeah, because YOU guys look like the PERFECT audience for that..." hahaha...

ANYWAY, i'm off to bed. so long and thanks for all the fish!

i got my hairs cut.

they are all much shorter. my head had become very shaggy, and i felt the need to get rid of the shag. so i did.

now, not unexpectely, all the shag is gone, though more of it is gone than i anticipated. i am trying to figure out if it was evened out so that, although the top was cut too, the bottom was cut more, so that as it continues to grow it will blend better, or if i just got a bunch cut off and it set me back growing out my hair for a couple months. this is not my hairstylist's fault, but a result of my incompetence with hair. i am now a little concerned that it's too short and i won't know what to do with it.

anyway, today one of the secretaries came by and said, "oh, you cut your hair? it looks very nice. still long, and it looks very nice." a few minutes later my secretary came by and, as an afterthought to what she was saying said, "oh, [so-and-so] said you got your hair cut? huh. i can't tell. you got your hair cut?" "yes." "oh. well, i can't tell. just a very little bit then, right?" "no, actually a lot was chopped off." "oh. *shrug* well i can't tell."

i thought that was nice.

"ASS DRIP"

i know, i'm not so pleased about it, either.

this is not a physical ailment i am dealing with, it is my new prison name. get YOUR prison name here!!!

a lovely exchange from e-mail today:

me: sad to say, i am "ass drip." however, if i use one of my online monikers, i am "fist fucker." charming.

coworker 1: At least [RRC]'s tough. I'm "Towelboy."

coworker 2: Well, Towelboy, I may need your assistance. My name is "Cum
Guzzler." That's it. We're fired.

coworker 3: Call me "Tubby Bitch."

mmm... santa barbara...

mimi and i got home last night from our weekend trip to santa barbara. it was fan-tastic. we stayed at el encanto hotel, which was recommended to me by a couple of my co-workers, and which was totally quaint and serene. we had our own little bungalow, which was attached to another one, but didn't feel like it, since it had its own entrance through its private patio where we ate our breakfasts.

friday night we got in a little before dinner, relaxed, and then ate at the hotel restaurant, which was populated by bougie looking white people. we slept in saturday morning, and then had room service in our quiet little patio, which was surrounded by greenery and stuff so you couldn't see or hear anything but birds around you. this was nice, except that we think all the greenery, combined with the lack of screens on our spanish style cottage, contributed to the large number of, um, exotic safari-like spiders we saw in and around our place. those and the mosquitos who came in and attacked us in the bathroom. but anyway.

after breakfast we went swimming and then laid out by the pool, amid the 20-something people loudly talking about their wedding preparations and the various primping procedures they had left to do that afternoon. i felt bad for the one 12 year old who was stuck hanging out with the one 5 year old. anyway, we laid there for a while and i was surprised to see how it takes very little time at all for me to get nicely brown, although mimi and i are still disputing whether my face got burned a little. ignoring this, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the sun, walking around on the grounds (which were somewhat smaller than their website and map implied -- i was a little surprised to see that the "waterfall" is about a foot high, though, i suppose, water was certainly falling -- but which were more than ridiculously cute enough to make up for their lack in expanse), and then lazing in the swing chairs they had scattered around the grounds, playing backgammon, doing crosswords, and reading the paper.

it was a nice afternoon.

at night we went to brophy bros. for some yummy local seafood, and then went dancing at hades, one of the very few gay bars in town. it is a fun and very chill place -- less glitzy than, say, even stargaze in chicago, though with far fewer lesbians. very dark, has a small dance floor in one side, and in the other is the bar and a pool table, with small bar tables and stools scattered about.

sunday we ate in again, walked around the art fair at the beach, and then went on what i proclaimed would be our "adventure" of exploring the roadside fruit stands along the 126 on our way back to LA. what mimi did not realize was that this meant i would want to go to about 80% of the roadside stands that we saw. we got fresh strawberries, navel oranges, tangelos, deliciously red vine-ripened "large steak tomatoes," grapefruit (which look suspiciously like pomelos), avocados, asparagus, bananas, raw peanuts in the shell, sweet white corn, local honeycomb, dried papaya and beef jerky (the dried items on this list being of mimi's choosing). (don't worry, we did not make one distinct stop for each of these purchases.) i ended up opting out of the pistachios and cured olives, and still mourn our failure to stop at the honey farm, with its fresh homemade honey samples. it was probably just as well though -- when i got home and sampled the honeycomb, i was reminded of just how damn sweet honey really is. now i have to figure out what to do with that jar that i bought.

it was a good weekend.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

today is mimi's and my one year anniversary. i am in a good mood. it's sunny, 80 degrees out, and i left work at 3 so that we could get on the road. we are heading out of town for the weekend, although mimi still doesn't know where, so i can't say here. nowhere too far away, we are driving, but the place is supposed to be gorgeous and it's nice out and neither of us have to do any work this weekend and it's going to be fabulous.

i am waiting around at her place right now while she packs. slow slackass. :D

i was a little saddened to hear that 3 or 4 is already peak traffic for where are we going. since when in hell did 3 become the start time for traffic congestion on fridays? do people not work past noon anymore? PEOPLE STAY THE FUCK AT WORK!! I HAVE PLACES TO GO!!!

anyway. have a great weekend, y'all!

"i just need to get to manhattan beach!"

today i stopped by rite aid on my way home to get dishwasher detergent and other household items. outside, in the parking lot, this young guy came running up to me all out of breath, holding his keys and his wallet.

"can you help me please? that's my car parked right there and i'm out of gas and i don't have any gas money and i NEED to get to manhattan beach tonight! i promise i'm not a bum! can you help me????" while talking rapidly, he gestured toward a very nice lexus or toyota or something, and opened his wallet to show me that there was no cash.

i gave him three bucks. i'm pretty sure he was lying to me. and probably he's all smug that he *tricked* me. but i figure, this doesn't really change the fact that he needs those couple bucks a lot more than me. so... yeah.

ninjas!

it's been a slow day. we drove to chinatown for lunch and i bought toys. that is all.

still awake.

tomorrow is going to suck.

CAN'T SLEEP -- ARGH...

it's 4 am and i can't fucking sleep. i am now looking at tops 4 hours of sleep before i go to work tomorrow. i feel like i should just cut my losses and call in sick. gar...

all pissed off

i know it is not important, but i couldn't sleep and so i decided to play a game of online backgammon. i am not an expert player, but something is wrong in the karmic universe if i lose ELEVEN GAMES IN A ROW!!!

i'm torn between playing until i win one or going to sleep, since i'm sure my fatigue is not helping. ARGH!

(i went back and played one more and finally won a damn game. now i can go to sleep.)

about to pass out

i ordered a gel wrist rest that came a little while ago in the mail. it still smells all chemically -- kind of like wet paint, and i am all dizzy and light-headed now. blahhhh...

new problem

i am completely COMPLETELY obsessed with the l-word message boards. i got into two huge debates yesterday. it's fun when you wade through a lot of the crap that is in there, and then you can just keep going back for updates on the threads you are interested in.

well, i guess the addiction is not a total problem. it's started to wear off in the last few hours. so maybe it was just a 2-day fad. i don't know.

but that's all i've been doing at work.

my building manager

some of you are already well-acquainted with my friendly, intrusive, talkative, boundary-less building manager. he is a nice man, but amazingly OCD. i would include the little story about the one time mimi borrowed his key to my place and said she would return it by 10am the next morning, and i got 4 messages that night, a visit from him at night, and 4 messages the next morning leading up to 10am (both on my home and cell phones), during which time he said he NEVER should have given her the key because he NEEDS them, and then a follow-up call at 10:05 to let me know that she returned it, so it was okay now and i didn't have to be concerned anymore, but it would take too long).

i received this note on my front door on 3/31/05 (he leaves notes the day before rent is due and whenever your mailbox is too full, in which case he usually also checks it for you and puts it in your apartment for you):

"-- [landlord] came today, he put back the 4 on 104 [because it fell off]. he noticed you have not cashed his refund check of $12 dated 1/9/05 -- please cash it as soon as possible.

-- could you place your rent checks due 4/1/05 [i have 2, because i'm renting an extra parking space] in my mailbox tomorrow morning friday 4/1/05.

-- sunday nite 4/3/05 set your clock ahead 1 hour - daylite savings time."

[building manager name] [building manager apartment number]

the next day i received this message on my answering machine:
"yeah hi connie, this is [building manager] in, uh, [building manager's apartment number], it's saturday night. ahem. yeah, uh the other day when i left a, uh, the, uh, note on your door, i gave you the wrong information regarding the daylight saving time. uh daylight saving time is- is this sunday, um, its uh december 3. no, uh, uh, uh let me start over, is this sunday, uh, ap- april 3, okay, and the, uh, and you have to set your uh- your clocks a- ahead one hour, but you do that on saturday night before you go to bed, not- not sunday night, but saturday night. so right now its april 2, so when you- when you go to bed tonight and you set your clock ahead one hour uh so that uh starting tomorrow on uh april, uh, april 3, that, uh, the, uh, you have the new time there. but um, i thought i'd correct that. because the note i sent- you should set your clock ahead by one hour sunday night, but you should do it on saturday night, before- before sunday. yeah. yeah, okay, thank you."

daylight savings!

you know, i bitched and moaned about losing an hour of sleep this weekend to daylight savings, but holy god, it's 6:23 pm and still bright and sunny out. i didn't even realize that it had hit 6 because it was all bright. i am a new fan of daylight savings. it really does make a difference if you are stuck in an office all day...

yay! it makes me want to run outside and go to the beach or something.