Out of nowhere...

I get a call this morning. Yep, its for.....a job interview! I won't divulge the name of the company, but they've been all over Yahoo! Hot Jobs the past month or two. Apparantly they are an import company looking to expand operations into Northern California, and because of that they need a shitload of new employees. I am a bit wary of this, because who knows if the position I want is already filled, or even available. I don't think I'm going to try for anything like sales, like I did for the last interview. I said to the person on the phone that my preference would be for Marketing, because I know that Design and Marketing go hand in hand, so hopefully I could be doing something at least related to what I know and what I went to college for. But if its just an admin job in a cubicle, and they want me, I'll at least take things into consideration. I certainly don't want to be filling out TPS reports all day.

Halloween is today. What does that mean to me? Very little, really. I never really liked dressing up as a kid, though I certainly did like the candy (and still do!). I actually do get into the "holiday" a little bit--I'll watch some schlocky horror films, and listen to some creepy music, and of course hand out candy, but thats about it. I haven't been in a costume since I was at least 12 or 13.

I did go to a pretty killer "haunted house" last night though. Really it was a whole haunted attraction, done locally in a field in the middle of a buisness park in Fremont, called "The Pirates of Emerson". It was incredibly well done, with lots of scary looking pirates jumping out at you, and well done ride design for something thats relatively low-tech. It had to be good, as there was a line at least 60 yards long to get in (fortunately I got there early...still had to wait a good hour though).

Oh, and the Niners ended up winning yesterday. Don't know if its worth nothing, but I mentioned yesterday I was watching, and they may not win again for a while.

My younger brother is driving us nuts today. Who the hell really knows why...

I bought a belt today, and it fits like crap. I lost the receipt, so I guess I'm keeping it until it eventually fits, or I hang myself with it (just kidding! heh, that was dark). Fortunately it was cheap, so I'm not losing out much. I'll probably get another tomarrow (hopefully a better fitting one...why I didnt try it in the store is beyond me, doh!). I'm going through a lot of belts lately--the 3rd in the last month. The last two broke on me, but after using the same one for a year or so, I wanted another that fit a little bit better. Finding shit that does fit me well is uh...sometimes a problem. Yes, I'm fat, is that a surprise? Damn...

Oh well, bye for now.

Sunny Sunday

The time change has come, thus signaling the onset of cooler weather. Well that, and the fact that it was frickin freezing last night (at least by California standards...). I always liked the quality of sunlight this time of year, that real deep, rich, low light that creates all these fantastic shadows and light/dark contrasts, even at noon on a cloudless day. I need to go out and start taking more photographs.

I worked fairly late last night, either until 2:30, or 1:30, depending on how you look at it, or when you decided to turn your clocks back. Actually from what I understand, we'll stop doing that in 2 years. It seems like an interesting idea, although I can't imagine what it will be like to wake up in the morning time in the winter months and still have it fairly pitch black dark out. That has to be play havoc with ones' system, or at least it did with mine whenever I had to leave when it was fairly dark. Of course what I liked the least was having to brave the traffic in the dark, so I suppose the tradeoff of that dark evening commute for a dark morning will be worth it in the end. What am I talking about? I don't even have a job where I have to commute anywhere significant. Heh. I'm kicking around the idea of getting a seasonal job though, where I can just get some more experience and money under my belt and into my bank account (and maybe, just maybe, have a thread of a hope that whoever hires me likes me so much that they want me to stay on full time year round? Heh, who knows.). I did just email a resume to The Apple Store in Walnut Creek via Yahoo Hot Jobs. That wouldn't too bad of a position at all--I'd still be able to keep up on all the latest graphics software, at least in some way, and maybe be able to afford new computers on a regular basis, instead of having to to squeeze the life out of 5+ year old machines, and cheap laptops.

Actually, everything's going fairly well right now. I'm going to some haunted house in about an hour and a half, more on that later. And my mini trip is in 2 weeks. I have the reservations confirmed, and the ticket for Camer Van Beethoven in Santa Cruz on my desk. And the Niners are winning, at least right now. Who knows if it will stay that way, but they are playing a decent game defensively.

Now Playing--Van Der Graff Generator: Pawn Hearts.

I didn't have any flowers in my hair...

...but I did go to San Francisco on Saturday. The first time I'd been back since the failed interview last June (good lord, was it really that long ago?). Obviously, I don't get out there nearly enough, but can be rather expensive to travel those 30 or so miles. Gas is pricey these days, as is bridge toll, and parking. Fortunately for me, I decided to leave the car at the BART station (for those that dont know, BART is a train system that services parts of the Bay Area) and take the train into the city for the low, low price of about $9.50 round trip. I don't really know how that would compare had I driven my own car, its probably a lot less, and I have none of the hassles of dealing with city traffic, parking, and worrying about getting broken into. But I don't know the city bus system too well, so usually when I go to the city, I usually only stick to downtown. That was the plan on Saturday, at least.

I had to watch my younger brother until about midday, so I didn't leave until then. I got into dowtown around 1 pm, and headed off to the Art Museum. About this time last year, I had a simply magical experience at this museum, which is the SF Museum of Modern Art. Inside are wonderful treasures by the likes of Dali, Magritte, Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky, Rochenburg, Klee, Brancusi, and many, many more. Infact two of the most brilliant works I've ever seen, Magritte's "Personal Values" and Matisse's "Woman in the Hat", are in that museum, for all to see, right before your eyes. However, unlike last year, this time was a bit disappointing. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I had seen much of it before--pretty much all of the exhibits were exactly the same as last year, except for Lichenstien exhibit which I didn't even bother attending last year. There were a couple different paintings out that I hadn't seen (including a fairly famous nude by Dali of his wife, Gala, from the back), but for the most part, I had already absorbed all the magic I could from what was available. The floor dedicated to Photography was mainly taken up by a singular exhibition by a couple who had photographed literally hundreds of photos of the countryside of Oregon. Beautiful stuff, but very repetative when you see the 20th or 30th different tree photo. The 4th floor was closed, and the 5th had "contemporary" art, most of which I'd seen also last year, and also most of which is pretty uneven.

I took off after about 45 minutes across the street to look through some street fair that the city was holding that day, then to the Meteron complex for some lunch. I had lunch at some pan-asian food type chain place, and while it was expensive, it was also surprisingly tasty, even though it was basically a big bowl full of rice, veggies, and shrimp. I tried vainly to eat with chopsticks, but I've never been able to get the hang of things when eating rice (now noodles or large veggies or meat, its a breeze, but unless its really sticky, its hard for me to grab the rice).

I decided it would be fun to see a movie, so I did. I caught one by the name of "Serenity", a sci-fi affair based on a TV show named "Firefly", which I had only briefly seen before. The movie was entertaining, but there was depth to the story that wasn't quite fleshed out (probably because they had to reintroduce characters for a movie going audience). But definitely one of the better sci-fi flicks I had seen in a long time.

In between the time I ate, and the movie, I visited Rasputins of San Francisco. This is a fairly unusual store, because its built into the corner section of an old office/apartment building in downtown SF, right by the cable car station on Powell and Market. Each store level is fairly small, but the whole store ecompasses 5 stories, and you have to take an elevator to go between each (that gets a bit annoying actually...). But I did manage to pick up 4 new discs--Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew", the most recent disc by Djam Karet, a remaster of a disc by Van Der Graff Generator, and of all things a Tony Bennett album. What can I say, I've started to become a sentimental lush for classic vocal pop tunes.

After the movie, I went back up town to the Virgin Megastore, not really intending to buy anything, really just to kill time. And that I did; I spent about an hour in the store. Like Rasputins, its on multiple levels, however this store is much larger, and uses huge escalators to go back and forth. After that, I popped into Cody's Books next door, where I found myself getting hungry again, and a bit dingy (I nearly tripped down the stairs...it must have been the lighting or soemthing that threw me off too...). I didn't end up getting anything from there though. I decided instead to find a nice bar or something to pop into for a beer and light dinner. Of course, what I didn't realise that this was Saturday night, and a game night too (game 1 of the world series). So just about every bar I could find was packed with people, both inside and outside. After I walked further uptown, I realised the situation was hopeless, and turned back downtown. The route I took was somewhat...interesting. I passed by a store named "The Tearoom", though I'm pretty sure with this being SF, they didn't sell tea. It did peak my interest, but not nearly enough to walk through the door. I finally ended up at Mel's Diner, where I was able to at least get a beer and a sandwhich, albeit in a place with somewhat lousy atmosphere (though it was at least pretty cheap!).

I threw around quite a bit of money, at least for me. I spent about $50 on the CDs, $7 for the museum, $10 for lunch and $15 more for dinner. Then $10 for the movie, and $5 to some guy I met on the street selling a book somewhat relating to hindu religion, who struck up a very lovely conversation with me (which proves that in spite of my anti-social behavior, I'm usually happy to have a meaningful conversation with at least someone).. Tack on another $10 or so for the train fair, and thats a grand total of...well you can add. Lets just say, even with all that, I still restrained my spending quite a bit (I left with cash in my pocket still). To put it bluntly: damn, shit is expensive! But all in all, it was worth it, if for nothing else than to get out and experience true city life for a few hours. Out here in the suburbs, its quite easy to insulate yourself from all that; and especially a person like myself, who rarely leaves the house in the evening, its always a bit shocking to go to public places and find large amounts of...people! Everywhere. Oh, and I didn't bring my camera. Maybe next time.

Hopefully (though I still need to make the reservations...!), in about 3 weeks I'll be seeing Camper Van Beethoven one, and possibly two nights in a row in Santa Cruz. And I'll also be staying by myself, pretty much for the first time ever. Damn, I lead an insulated and tragic existance, heh. Oh well...

An infamous anniversery

Also, just briefly, I wanted to comment on the fact that 16 years ago today was the day of the Loma Prieta Earthquake, which shook the Bay Area with a magnitude 7.1 quake. Definitely one of, if not the scariest events I've ever lived through. I was only 9 at the time, and certainly had been through quakes before, but none that severe. It seemed like the shaking would go on forever, even though it lasted a scant 15 seconds. I know another similar event is probable for this area in the near future, but here's to hoping that all of us here are well prepared.

After the weekend

I had a pretty tiring, but somewhat fun weekend. Saturday, I went with my family to the theme park "Great America". This is a park down by San Jose that has been there for years and years, under several different ownership groups, but right now owned by Paramount Studios. It's not a place I would normally go, partly because of the great expense, but my stepdad came home with 6 free passes for admission, so why the hell not. I didn't go on too many rides; they just aren't my thing much anymore. I think I did a total of 2 rides actually. I watched my niece while my older brother went on several other rides though. Overall it was a fun diversion, but those places, with the amount of people and noise, are pretty tiring for me. I had a real surprisingly good lunch there though, which is always a bonus for me. Most of the time, the food at those theme parks consist of overly expensive, barely edible crap. Imagine my surprise when I had a crab-cake sandwhich on a sourdough roll that was definitely better than edible. Yes, I'm the kind of person who, if I have a good meal, I'm reasonably pleased. The food doesn't always have to be exquisite, and sometimes I prefer quanitity over quality, but to put it frankly, I do eat a lot, and it does ruin my day a bit when I have a lousy meal.

Saturday night I was incredibly bored though. I suppose that's no one's fault but my own, after all, as an english professor told me, "if you're bored, it's because you're a boring person". But quite often, and more lately than not, I wonder why I choose to sit at home every night and basically do nothing when I could be doing *something*. Now, weeknights are a different story, after all I do have to get up early these days and tend to my brother, then tend to whatever my mom wants to do during the day. But on Saturday, I could have done a dozen different things. But it's never really been in my nature to say, go to a bar and socialize. I did at least have a conversation with a friend about this online (where I spend the majority of my time and the majority of my socialization). But what would I do if I went to a bar? Probably not drink too much because I would have to drive home, probably not talk to many people because I'm fairly shy. Sit in a dark, crowded, noisy room with no one to talk to? Feh. I could have gone to the record store though, heh.

Sunday wasn't too bad. I had to work, but it was only a few hours. It was a rather somber event, a memorial service, and in those cases I make it a special point to be as friendly and helpful as possible. I even had a brief conversation with one of the guests who used to live in the area years ago, and was reminiscing about what this area was like 50 years ago. I find that pretty interesting.

This morning my mom and I took my little brother to the dentist, which is always an ordeal. However, it went reasonably well, and she did some shopping at a few department stores, then I treated her to a late breakfast.

I'm still trying to get the plans together on a short trip next month to Santa Cruz to see the band "Camper Van Beethoven". I thought it would be fun to go with a friend online who lives down there to a show, but we are still working out the details. Even if I don't go with him, I'll still most certainly go. Also, my parents might go away this weekend, and since I don't have to work this weekend, I may just go to San Francisco for the day or something. Actually I don't know what I'll do. I won't just be sitting at home the whole time though, being bored. That much is assured.

Some memories...

The theme of this post will be prefaced with a photograph. Its an older photograph, taken in actual paper form, about 4 years old to be exact. If you don't know what this is, its the Casino on Catalina Island, taken I believe in late March, 2001. This was the last time I was there. I long to go back.

For those that don't know, Catalina Island is one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California, and its lone town of 3000 year round residents, Avalon, has been a resort destination of the region for well over a century (in fact I have photographs of the city from the turn of the century, and it looked just as busy then as it does today). Sure it has all the trappings of a resort town, tacky overpriced stores, restaurants, bars, at times lots of people. But hey, its special to me. You see, just about every year, or every other from age whenever until about 18, I used to go to Catalina. I have a grandma that co-owns a house over there, a rather exclusive privledge. Of course there were lots of favorite things to do there; go to the beach, go to the arcade, walk down the main street or out to the casino (which actually isn't a casino in the known gambling establishment stance, but rather a beautiful structure built in the art-deco era with a massive ballroom on the top floor, a movie theater, and a museum). Watch the boats bring tourists in was also a fun thing to do--I used to love to photograph and chronicle all the different types of boats that would come in. It was also of course right on the sea, and anytime I'm near the sea, I'm simply in heaven.

I long to go back though. Since 1998, I've only been one time, in 2001, and that was just for the day. But when? Honestly I could go now, I do have the money, though the house is unavailable. I made a pledge to an uncle that I would go next year though, and I intend fully to live up to that pledge, come hell or high water. I do at least maintain a connection with this place, as I have a subscription to their weekly newspaper. This weeks edition (actually one from two weeks ago) was especially nice, as they were celebrating their coming jazz festival with photos and reproductions of posters from their heyday in the late 20s and 30s. That must have been a hell of a time to be around.

In other news, I'm still here, still alive, and not doing much thats different really.

The Futility of Life

Fuck I'm horrible at titles. Wait, I shouldn't start out a post with a self-depricating comment. Uhh, scratch that.

I just wanted to make the comment on why Catch-22 just may be the most brilliant book ever written. Why? Because it firmly illustrates the greatest threat to modern life: bureaucracy. Unlike other novels which offer a dystopic view of the world, or a potential view of the world (and honestly, these include some of my favorite novels, 1984, Farenhiet 451, Brave New World...somehow this stuff usually gets lumped in with "science fiction" though...okay enough of an aside) Catch-22 offers a view of the world that not only believable, but just about as real as you can get without resorting to writing an actual factual account of events.

Lets face it, what do we as noble, proud Americans value the most? Yes, the pursuit of happiness. We would kill our own family for happiness (and some people do, though they usually don't find it). Yes, instant gratification and joy are the orders of the day, and woe unto thee if you try and prevent it.

The Bureaucrats of the world, however, find their happiness in making the world as miserable as possible for others. Usually, these people are fairly intelligent too, which makes their crimes against humanity even more tragic. While they could be using their intelligence to create new and better ways of living through science and technology, instead they use them to weave a tangled web of dispair and confusion for those of use who would wish to otherwise live a pleasant life full of intellectual, creative, and emotional pursuits. Heller realised this, and was able to get the word out to the masses of this insidious evil that permeates the very fabric of civilization. Unfortunately, most people only take the book at face value, in spite of the fact that it spawned a phrase of every-day usage, of course a "catch-22". Of course I'm experiencing one myself. I can't get the job I want, because I don't have enough experience. I don't have experience because I can't find a job in the field I want. A vicious circle. Bureaucrats thrive on these vicious circles. It gives them life, gives them a challenge, and gives them a reason for being.

Unfortunately, bureaucracy is here to stay. Ever since the dawn of civilization, it has existed. At the same time we invented written language, we used it for accounting purposes, and its been downhill ever since.

The moral of the story: why must there be a moral? Read what I wrote and figure it out...

Short Post

Just a bit tired today...worked last night, though not terribly hard, the kids gym setup always rips my back up. I had a decent enough weekend surprisingly enough, even though Saturday I worked all day (just about sunup to sundown...), it wasn't terribly hard, and I actually ended up dicking around on my laptop for most of the time. Sunday I got to watch my favorite mindless sports activities, football and auto racing. Horray!

Information you didn't need to know: I need to buy new underwear. Maybe tomarrow. I've got the money. Speaking of which, someone informed me the other day that I could use a debit card as long as it has a credit card logo on it, to make online purchases. Oddly enough, as this may have seemed patently obvious to most, it never occured to me. To do a test run, I ordered a CD online. The purchase went through, and I'm waiting for the disc to arrive shortly. This may open up a dangerous pandora's box, as I still have quite a lot of money left over from graduation, and some of it may have to be spent.

Its a pretty nice day here in California. October is always a really nice month, because its warm enough during the day to be comfortable, but beginning to get quite cool at night, which is always nice. Also I love that low, dark sunlight that happens this time of year.

Okay, bye for now...