Month: August 2003

August 8, 2003 /

It’s the Talk To a Terrifyingly Quick Standup Comic in California on the Phone Game!

  • Premise: You have been contacted by email and phone, so as to double the super top secretness of a responsibility with which you have been entrusted. After such secretness is secured, your contact will call you back later and you’ll end up talking for like an hour.
  • Imagine the conversation as a cooperative race, in which the object is not to reach a finish line, but rather to match pace with the other conversant.
  • For the purposes of this scenario, you have an old bicycle, the one from when you lived in Georgetown. It has pink flowers on it, and one squeaky training wheel that likes to make you turn right.
  • Meanwhile, Sumana has a street-illegal Ferrari.
  • Sumana is a kindly driver, and will cruise along comfortably halfway up the gear train, in eighth. You will attempt to pedal along at speeds matching her train (er, car) of thought; if you were on a real bicycle and not a metaphorical one, this would cause your tires to sublimate.
  • Now–and this is important–try to make it look easy.
  • Seriously, I did get to talk to one of my role bloggers on the cellular telephone last night. Layla cut us off a couple of times (I think she was cranky, and maybe jealous), but it was still pretty great, and my face hurt from smiling afterwards.
  • I think I’m going to have to make a California road trip next summer after all, and hit San Francisco and LA and of course San Diego. Sumana recommended Amtrak, which could totally be a week’s worth of party. Stephen, Maria, you guys still up for Comic Con?
  • Oh, right, the topic and such.

Thanks for playing the Talk To a Terrifyingly Quick Standup Comic in California on the Phone Game!

August 7, 2003 /

Maria:

I’m going to make a New Year’s resolution. Now that I have fewer months to break it in.

Brendan:

What are you going to resolve?

Maria:

To not argue as much with people.

Brendan:

Oh, I doubt you’ll be able to do that.

Maria:

No, I think I will. OH CRAP!

August 5, 2003 /

Overheard in an office nearby:

“Yeah, and then I’ll dial into the application over the web.”

Difficult, but not impossible, I guess.

While on hold with the cable company for half an hour last night:

“Hit a home run with Insight’s Double and Triple Play deals!”

Okay, now that’s impossible.

August 5, 2003 /

Okay, one more nitpick. From Jon:

“… a Danville Cracker Barrel restaurant has been unwittingly selling postcards of Louisville’s skyline, emblazoned with ‘Lexington.'”

Danville: Home to Centre College. Host of a 2004 Presidential Debate. Thanks, Danville. Danville.

August 4, 2003 /

No presentation this morning–the CEO had appendicitis this weekend! (And I got a hernia!) He’s fine, though, so it’s just rescheduled for a week later.

I bought a TV yesterday, although I ended up choosing brand reliability over a flat screen and got a Phillips. We still don’t have cable at home, but I do have an XBox and a brand-new high-definition AV pack, and now–no offense, TARC–me and S-Video are best friends.

Speaking of TARC, the same bus I’d been taking from the old apartment actually comes right by the new apartment, which is convenient to the point of suspicion. I have to get up earlier, but I also get to nap on the bus now. Coming soon: sleepy Brendan misses his stop and ends up hitching back from Indiana.

August 2, 2003 /

We spent all of yesterday moving the entire world from Richmond and my old apartment into the new apartment with Maria. My forearms are killing me, and our living room is choked with stuff, but my room actually looks fairly good and my bookshelf is full.

I literally did move everything I own this time; I no longer have any possessions in Richmond, and only a few boxes in storage. There was a big ordeal with getting a moving truck (notice: when U-Haul says “your reservation is confirmed,” what they actually mean is “eat a fuck, shitbrains”), but Ian’s roommate’s family had one that was bigger than what they needed and they were kind enough to help.

So it all worked out eventually, but the process took so long that it was 2030 hrs by the time Mom could head back home. Needless to say, it was also a little late for me to go home and pick up the half-day of work I’d wanted. That’s why I’m in the office alone on a Saturday, putting together my presentation for the CEO ‘n’ company on Monday morning. The fact that I’m in the office is in turn the only reason I can post this, since we have no interweb at home for the moment.

Why isn’t there some source of free crappy broadcast interweb, like there is with TV? Ad-supported. Big networks. Come on, it would be so convenient for people who just moved in.

Also, why not make cell phone rings work like my cell phone’s alarm? It starts off by vibrating, then gradually makes its beeping louder and louder until you wake up. It obviously isn’t hard to do, and that would give you a little notice so you could go for the phone before it just jumped in at the same annoying volume immediately. I hate cell phones. I love my cell phone.

Probably no more activity until Monday at the soonest (although of course I make all my posts from work now anyway).