August 3, 2007
a night of a thousand nightmares

i guess i am kind of looking forward to the fall season.

anyway i had a bad feeling about my dreams before i went to sleep, and my fears were realized, again and again. there was one about the shuttle and space station being destroyed, and astronauts floating around space before about to die, with nothing anyone could do for them. and another typical orchestra one.

part of the last one found me sitting somewhere, and then creed sits down next to me, and then jenna/pam, and steve and maybe oscar and angela were there too. anyway, i was telling them that although i'm on the show, i don't feel like i know them very well, and that i wanted to quit my programming job and do their show full time.

they all laughed at me.

August 5, 2007
some friendly advice

this one is for all the aspiring taxi drivers out there.

when someone has called the night before for a taxi at 5:something in the morning, and you arrive a full ten earth minutes early, do not walk up to the house and start tapping on windows in the house. i don't even know.

oh, and for you travelers: you might want to check that you have your passport before you lock yourself out of your friends' place.

all in all, the trip was a lot less exciting that previous trips to pearson. and even customs was a breeze, even though i haven't shaved since wednesday.

it's nice to listen to stars again. apparently i neglected to say how awesome their new album is. it is, in fact, pretty awesome.

also i can't believe it's the 5th already? beastie boys tonight!

August 8, 2007
on repeat

when i woke up this morning it was raining, so i decided not to go running. my running clothes were in the washing machine anyway. i didn't realize that these two things would cancel each other out, because really, i didn't feel like running. i'd go after work.

well, after work it was like 90 degrees, and i hadn't noticed that week 7 is when the hill repeats start. fortunately, they start of with only four, so it wasn't that bad. i waited until about 8 for it to cool off a little bit, and even saw two other guys out there doing the same thing. but yeah, it was still hot.

August 10, 2007
no sleep 'til brookline

well, i managed to survive another 12 hours in new york. this time i actually took the subway by myself for the first time. neither trip went as planned. this was after i could not get a metro card with my credit card.

on the first, i was on the N train and it started hitting stops like 45th st. and 53rd st. and i was started to freak out since i thought i was still in manhattan, and it did some crazy loop. no problem, just get off, and go to the other side.

but i was pretty sure i had been going the right way. i went upstairs, but could see the map, so i asked the guy which way was going to coney island. i went back down and got on the next train, thinking i was going to be backtracking, but soon we were above ground, on new stops. apparently i was totally confused and didn't notice that i hadn't switched platforms. oh well.

i waited around for a while, then in line, but my friends didn't show, but i ended up right against the barricade, stage right. i had a pretty good view of robots in a pyramid. it was a strange show. i am really glad i wear earplugs.

i got another hot dog before heading back. this time, a Q train was waiting there, and after i got on we were still waiting for quite a while, but eventually it rumbled off. but then at atlantic ave. it stopped and was taken out of service. ah, just like home. almost everyone on the train, or at least my end of it, had been to the show and didn't really know how to get to the other lines, but eventually we found it. it might have taken an hour and a half to get to penn station.

i had some tremendously uncomfortable sleep as usual on the 66 train, but woke up long enough to catch the sunrise over the atlantic. ho hum.

i think it's time for breakfast and a nap. tomorrow is weekend.

August 11, 2007
i was not aware

i was watching the daft punk encore, and heard a the guitar loop from something that i didn't think was daft punk. well, turns out it was one of the fist (disco) house songs that made me realize that, well, i like (disco) house. i thought it a little strange that they'd play this, so i went and found it on wikipedia. turns out one of the guys who wrote it is one of the guys in daft punk.

and i totally didn't realize it at the show.

August 14, 2007
a disturbing trend

lately i've been making some alarming malapropisms: company instead of country, and build instead of bill.

speaking of bills, i don't understand anything on this one:

August 15, 2007
boxed in?

shipping containers played a brief, but prominent, role in a dream i had just before waking. also featured were some very confusing new machines for purchasing commuter rail tickets, joe (and others) in overalls, and a very lucid conversation with a mother wood duck.

in other news, it looks like the new season of "cold or allergies?" is starting up, right on time. i guess i'll be spending the next couple of weeks claritin-cracked-out, before the icy grip of winter takes hold once more.

August 16, 2007
empty vest

i have a month of nights of no zelda, no shows, no hockey, no office, no anything to fill. plus i'm a little sick, so i just want to lie in bed. but the humidity is over 80%, so i don't. november, i love you.

at work today joe punched me and made me cry. i haven't cried at work in a few weeks, so it was pretty embarassing. not to mention i ruined a new shirt i liked. i kept trying to blurt out, "it's not me it's the claritin," but he wouldn't stop. he never does.

superbad tomorrow!

August 17, 2007
a new discovery

podcasts!

who knew?

August 20, 2007
it feels like fall outside

the other night i walked into the kitchen, turned on the light, and saw some small, dark thing scurry out of there as fast as its little legs could carry it. maybe that smell wasn't gnome after all. either way, mouse traps are now in place.

which made me wonder, why don't i get too worked up about mouse traps, but kind of didn't care for the squirrel traps my landlords set out earlier this year? i mean, a squirrel is basically a mouse that can inflict a mortal wound on a man, it's not like they are particularly awesome beasts.

anyway this is brookline, so i hope the mice enjoy their organic, preservative-free peanut butter in the brief moments before their tiny spines are snapped.

also i bought lemon pasta again, sigh.

August 23, 2007
a wake-up call from beyond the grave

let me tell you about my new phone. the first twenty-four hours with it have been quite pleasant. it has a solid feel (it's heavy), the UI is pretty (the default theme has an almost iPhone-like glassy look to it), and the UI is very responsive. my previous phone was not. other improvements compared to my previous phone include notifying me that i have voicemail (from over 2 weeks ago!), notifying me when i get text messages, and not crashing after i make or receive a call. it is easily argued that this is a great set of features for the modern age.

so last night i set the alarm on my new phone to wake me up for running. but this morning, thirty minutes before it was set to go off, i was woken up by a ringing noise. it wasn't coming from the new phone. it was coming from the old phone, in my office, which had been turned off. they were clever enough to have the alarm work when the phone was turned off, but not clever enough to give me a way to turn the alarm off without a sim card in the phone! fortunately i had my old at&t sim card around and that let me power down with the alarm off. stupid phone.

anyway i really wish this weren't true, but over the past seven years i've gotten a new phone almost every year:

there have been ups and downs, but so far i think this one is the best since that trusty sanyo 4000 lurking all the way on the left there. which has me really relieved. i wouldn't let myself get an iPhone, and last week i checked out the bb pearl, and it was slow and felt kind of cheap, and i didn't want a new contract anyway. this has gone well.

August 24, 2007
memories

as i was opening this entry, i thought to myself, "oh, august 24; that means it's windows 95's anniversary." there is no reason for me to remember such things.

the past few evenings have been quite lovely. it's still warm enough to sleep with the window open, but cold enough not to require the fan. this allows the summernighttime sounds to float in; storms have been coming in so last night the blowing leaves joined the crickets. and even better, mr. street sweeper took the night off.

i'm so glad i'm not running today, because i am still so full from bbq last night.

August 25, 2007
this is the life

day three, and i still haven't actually heard my phone's alarm clock. its preventative nature, much like my mouse traps, is actually better, since then i'm up a few minutes early.

i was hoping the forecast called for rain, so i could go back to sleep and skip my ride this morning, but instead it anticipated a high in the mid 90s. oof. better get my errands in early.

so, i'm at the hardware store getting a new lightbulb for the kitchen (the "60-watt equivalent" just isn't cutting it), and i notice they have sprinklers. this seems like a grand solution to the day's most significant challenge, so i pick one up, along with a couple pools(?) of hose.

i've just now finished setting it up, and it's a treat. i know, you're probably thinking, "if you put a sprinkler in your living room, aren't you worried about flooding?" well, just another one of the joys of living in an attic: the water just flows down the stairs! why didn't i think of this when i was working from home?

August 25, 2007
a scary thought

there are a lot of things for which i wait until the last possible moment to do: haircuts, booking flights, even often times feeding myself. renewing my driver's license is not one of these things, however, given my unparalleled fear of posisbly having to take another driving test some day. and even better, massachusetts is awesome because you can simply renew over the internets! today i got my new license in the mail, and it expires in 2012, potentially over fifteen years since the last time i drove a car.

August 26, 2007
what a difference two years makes

lately i have been playing around with WebObjects a little bit, and i wish i had earlier. i think in retrospect, it very well may have been better to use something like it for hula, oh well. anyway today i found a pretty good list post about rails-like ajaxyness with WebObjects (current home, which is a little broken). too bad that guy has to go about hating on javascript so much.

August 27, 2007
but you make it

there i sat, trying to climb the stairs in my nyc hotel room. the elevators were full of stupid people, this would just be faster. i had to check my reservation to see if i was staying another night; if so i could have lunch with peach the next day; otherwise i had to pack up. the subway here was very strange; some stops were in people's apartments. you could either just pretend they weren't there, like someone wanting to talk to you about the environment, or try to strike up a conversation. i tried the latter; it didn't go well. i didn't want to stay another night; joe or phil or nat had some new girlfriend. outgoing, boisterous, and blonde, she was basically dreadful. maybe just because she wasn't mine. either way, i couldn't handle another day with them, so i needed to figure out what was going on. while going up the stairs, which was typically difficult, some music was playing in the background. it was some live led zeppelin album i hadn't previously heard, not unlike "how the west was won," although some of the tracks kind of cut in in the middle. and then "judy blue eyes" came on, and is now stuck in my head, and i can't figure out why. i haven't listened to it for... years? so why now?