(Usersound compliments of Mr. Coffee's band. Yeah, everyone is a performance artist out here. Hell, finding a parking space in this town is performance art!)

Movie night at the park was fun. I haven't seen The Graduate since I moved here. Interesting how much more tuned in I am to the location now that I live here.

Not that I can compete with 2 feet of snow and 300,000 homes without power, but my Friday the 13th was kind of weird too. Arrived for my last day of work, and 15 minutes later get a phone call from Brenda. When she started her car, it went haywire and the lights started flashing, horn started honking, CD ejected. Not something you hope for on a good day, but certainly not first thing in the morning in an enclosed garage. Luckily, she figured out locking the doors turned everything off. So I swung by and picked her up and we made our own private carpool to Milipitas, CA for our farewell lunch.

Funny thing is, when I emailed my family about the company's farewell plans, turns out my brother's company is also planning a "corporate event" at Dave & Busters in NYC on November 4th. (e:flacidness) - if you're working that day, you'll have to look out for them.

Word to the wise: I think I sprained my thumb on this damn rollerball game. Do NOT pick San Francisco for your location! Freakin' hills!

Since this corporate event did not sponsor alcohol, we had no choice but to take the after party to the tiki-lounge in Alameda, where mai tai's were on special. So I had four, which is a lot for me. Although I remember the days when I'd have two at lunch-time. Ironically, that was when I worked at the New England Journal of Medicine. Ha!

After my fourth I decided I'd better head across the Bay since I was supposed to meet Stevil for a show at the Elbow Room. Walked outside and was confronted with the surreal scene of a friend who was coming there to meet us filling out a police report. A biker rammed into her car while she was waiting to pull into a spot. The biker broke his leg and had to be taken to the hospital. Needless to say, she was pretty shook up, but handling it well. After contributing what moral support I could, going back inside to let everyone know what was going on, deciding another mai tai might not be in order, given the cop outside, I finally fled the scene with visions of flashing lights dancing in my head.

Found a great parking close to home (not easy on a Friday night), and grabbed my few personal possessions from work (tampons and soy sauce) from my car. Between locking the car and switching hands, the bag fell out of my hand and smashed into a million pieces. Wasted approximately 5 seconds wondering whether to salvage soy sauce infused tampons. The answer is no.

I decided with all the weridness already that day, I'd better sit tight at home. So I cancelled on Stevil. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention. I think I did tell you how every time Stevil & I have gone out so far, something has gone wrong for one or the other of us? Well, the last time, I got stopped on the way home from Mission of Burma because my headlight was out. The stupid thing out here is, when you get a fix-it ticket, you have to get the problem fixed in so many days, get it verified by a cop, then appear in COURT to get your violation stamped, and pay a $10 compliance fee! WTF! So anyway, with that experience still fresh in my mind and everything thing else that day, I decided a date with Stevil on Friday the 13th might not be a good idea.

p.s. - It took me three tries to finally finish this post. I think if I'd written the whole thing at once I would have been bored long before it was finished, haha.

Ok, that snow is totally out of control! If it were me, I would blame (e:Ajay). ;-)

There's not much I can do to help except to tell (e:chicoschica) : when I've had trouble logging off, sometimes I've cleared my brower's cache and cookies, then logged back in again, and been able to log out. Or, log in from a different browser and log out. Then you have to clear the cookies of the browser where you appear to be logged in, but to everyone else, you're already logged out. I know it's weird, but browser compatibility is an ongoing battle.

Good luck peeps -- and stay safe.

Since it's already been a weird week, I decided to go see "The Graduate" with Mr. Coffee tonight at Dolores Park Movie Night. I know, I know -- I'm not sure why I'm doing this. He's like a bad accident I can't tear my eyes away from. After gawking this long, seems I should at least fein some genuine interest before walking away. Why do I have to be so considerate AND so cynical all at the same time?

Anyway, he's bringing the wine, and we can get tamales from the tamale lady, and it's free. I mean, how bad can it be, right? I'll tell you tomorrow.

At least it probably won't snow, haha. Seriously, I cannot believe it's snowing there already. My brother says it also snowed in Chicago, so you're not alone.

Stay warm everyone! And be extra careful while driving and re-roofing.

p.s. -- My last day at work tomorrow features lunch and games at Dave & Buster's. Then after tomorrow I should have much more free time to work on my blog. I mean, house. haha.

off, that is.

Ok, maybe technically it's not being laid off if you're a contractor. But they made a BIG DEAL out of asking me YESTERDAY if I could be available through November 31. I said yes, except for the last week of Oct./first week of Nov. So they printed out a new contract for me, which I filed with the other half dozen. Then I promptly decided, shit! I can't deal with working here another month! And, NOVEMBER? That is a word that strikes fear in my heart. I'm pretty much in denial from November 1 through March 15. Or I was until I moved to California. But old habits die hard.

Anyway, I decided I'd better take today off. Which is why it was so weird to get the phone call saying they pulled the plug on our project (thank GOD! I hate to work on a losing proposition, but if you pay me $70/hour, I'll do almost anything, haha), and there's going to be a party Friday for everyone who dedicated the last EIGHT MONTHS OF THEIR LIVES working on this freakin' thing. So I'm going to go, and get paid $70/hour to be there.

I hate to be talking money with y'all again, but do you have any idea how empty this all is? Can't I get a job curing cancer or administering a kickass local social networking site or something? Doesn't anybody think that's worth my time? I'll only charge half price, haha.

My trip to Buffalo made me realize I'm long overdue for settling into my not-so-new abode. This Halloween will be exactly one year since I moved out of my old place, and all my stuff is still in storage. How crazy is that? I do kind of miss my stuff. But when I get it, I'm going to have to put it somewhere, and that somewhere should probably be more or less habitable. It's much easier to just keep my crap in storage.

To be fair, even though I moved here almost a year ago, I only got possession of the unit I want to live in a month and a half ago. And it needs a lot more work than I can do myself. Still, I've put my life on hold again. From the outside it might look like I'm progressing through life, but from the inside I know I'm just procrastinating.

Anyway - this topic is way too heavy for a fine Fall day. If I'm still a self-exiled nomad in the bleak mid-winter, there'll be plenty of time to bitch about it then. Meanwhile, Happy Columbus Day everybody. And Happy Birthday (e:Southernyankee)! Wish I'd had the chance to meet you.