In other news...

I finally have internet back at home! I can finally browse porn again!

October 28, 2002 | 10:29 PM | Link | 0 comments

Happier than a donkey on ecstacy.

After a seven-month hiatus, I am finally back in gymnastics!

You see, when I lost my coach due to the gym managers' unprofessional actions, I was quite upset. I still remember him taking me to the side of the gym talking me down from my anger—he's always been a very level-headed, well-gathered individual. I didn't want to quit gymnastics. Rather I decided to find another gym. One not run by morons. One where the owners cared about the state of their equipment and the safety of their students. Sadly, none of those exist within a half-hour from my house.

I arrived at the gym and immediately noticed something different. I didn't recognize the people behind the counter and sitting at the computer. Could it be? No. It couldn't... could it?

"Hi there. I have a couple questions," I stated inquisitively. "First, do you still carry adult classes. Second, is this place under new management?"

"Yes, we do. And yes, we do have new management," she kindly replied.

"Pardon me for smiling so big."

I gazed around me. New equipment. A safety net on the trampoline. A measure of cleanliness and security in the air. It was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears of joy as I signed up for my first class.

I was meant to get back into gymnastics, and the old managers were meant to get away from it. Thank you Jeebus!

October 28, 2002 | 7:31 PM | Link | 0 comments

Who you callin' inebriated?!

I'm at my computer watching The Simpson's second season DVD, drinking a chambord martini. I hold the empty glass up in front of my eyes and discover that I prefer watching Homer distorted by the refraction of my martini glass. Then it hits me... I've had enough to drink.

-

October 26, 2002 | 10:23 PM | Link | 0 comments

Flattering.

I like this song because it goes with my outfit.

October 25, 2002 | 1:43 PM | Link | 0 comments

Sweetness

Maybe I was too quick to judge. You see, the olympics (especially gymnastics) are very dear to me. My earliest memory is of seeing the guy run by with the torch when I was four. When the Australian-manufactured floor and ill-adjusted vault tampered the scores in the 2000 games, I was pretty upset. I mean, Svetlana Khorkina always deserves gold!

I held a grudge for quite a while. A grudge so heavy, that the only thing capable of turning me around was food. Dessert food, to be exact.

My first experience with the great Aussie sweets was the delicate shatterings of the Violet Crumble. Its brittle honeycomb center, and it's lovely violet-flavored milk chocolate cover will remedy any level of stress.

My second experience came via the Domestic Goddess herself, Nigella Lawson. Her recipe for pavlova gave my life a new meaning. Pavlova is a meringue base, covered in rich whipped cream, and topped with fruit or berries. Any friend I have made one for can attest to the orgasmic powers of this dessert. I urge: If you are going to make a pavlova, do so from scratch. Using store-bought whipped cream would just ruin its delicacy.

The final confection to lift my spirits to salutatory grace for Australia is Tim Tams. A Tim Tam is two crunchy chocolate biscuits filled with chocolate cream and dipped in rich chocolate. The best way to enjoy them is to have what is called a "Tim Tam Explosion." Bite off two opposite diagonal corners of the cookie. Place your mouth over one opening, and submerse the other in a cup of hot coffee. Suck as if through a straw. As soon as you feel the liquid rush to your tongue, pop the entire cookie in your mouth and devour. You will understand me when I say this might just be the best thing on earth.

What have I learned from all this? Judge not a country by its olympic mishaps, or its condensed yeast extract, but by the quality of its desserts. Long live Australia!

October 24, 2002 | 2:05 PM | Link | 0 comments

Truley, you must be joking.

Stories like these make me sometimes wish I'd get a job in a porno store.

October 22, 2002 | 1:37 PM | Link | 0 comments

Creative block.

Since I was so busy with my self-review yesterday, I had no time to work on other pressing projects. Today, I have all the time in the world, or at least as much as a day will allow me.

First on the list is an animated gif to advertise our company on job-search sites. It's not going so well. I just can't seem to make anything I think will be good. Do you know why? 'Cause I am morally opposed to animated advertisements on web pages (and most animations, at that). Not just because they're typically corny or ugly, but because they distract the reader from the page's text. People design them poorly on purpose, since they are in a competition to distract the reader more than all the other ads on a page. I never click on them. Do you? Internet advertising has shown no real results over its years of use. Chances are, most people won't even glance at our little animated tile. They will just notice another obtrusion in their peripheral vision.

Enough ranting. I had better get cracking on this, or I may miss my deadline. And one thing's for sure... it had better be pretty damn irritating, or I'm not doing my job!

October 22, 2002 | 10:52 AM | Link | 0 comments

It will be well worth the effort.

Ever since my supervisor told me that they want to promote me, I have been keeping myself very busy with new projects to improve our workplace. In doing so, I completely forgot to do my self-review. It is due today. I do not want to do it. I have to do it.

Every year it's the same thing. The review asks a bunch of generic questions and you have to respond using as many corporate buzzwords as you can fit into five pages. I feel like my brain is going to go numb. They should just give me this test instead. At least with that test I know my results would be well off the charts.

October 21, 2002 | 2:06 PM | Link | 0 comments

Devolution.

When words fail you, grunt.

October 19, 2002 | 11:57 AM | Link | 0 comments

Will I ever learn?

Raise of hands for those who have run out of gas while driving. Now a raise of hands for those who have done it twice. Now a raise of hands for those who have done it six times.

I just may be the only person with my hand still up. You see, I was on my way to the gas station when my engine shuts off. I meant to get gas yesterday, but forgot. Luckily, my brother was nearby to rescue me. I got in his car, and he asked rhetorically "Have you run out of gas before?" He gathered so much from the fact that I was holding a gas can at my feet. I have learned to always keep one in my car for moments like these. He took me to the gas station, then back to my car. Luckily I hadn't gotten ticketed for being on a red curb.

Afterwards, I took my brother to lunch as a thanks-for-saving-me treat. Let me tell you, the rich aroma of gasoline melds so perfectly with the tangy flavor of fish tacos.

October 18, 2002 | 1:24 PM | Link | 0 comments

For the benefit of all mankind.

"Yeah, that's the ticket. These new systems will not only boost productivity by 467%, but they will also house the homeless, feed the hungry, assasinate Mariah Carey, and generate an environmentally-sound biodegradeable fuel."

If I'm going to be Senior Graphic Designer, I'd better start taking the bull by the horns and coming up with new ways to better our office environment. I mean, I've got to show them how much I care, right? Right. So I've spent the day researching hardware and software upgrades. I'm going for top-of-the-line computers, the latest versions of all our software, new scanners, and lots of RAM.

I created an Excel spreadsheet that lists the items and quantities we need, benefits and compatibility issues, and individual and total prices (less tax :-). It totalled out to a wonderfully exciting five-digit number. It's actually not so bad, considering that this will cover five of us for the next three to four years. That's where the magic word comes in—amortize. We get to amortize the cost of all the upgrades since we will be using them for a long time to come. This means that from a financial standpoint they will see it as "It only costs us 1/4 of the total cost of upgrades out of this year's budget." It also helps that the average cost of just one of our brochures is over twice as much as all the upgrades.

At first I was tempted to insert my hairy arm into the proposal. That way, when they ask to cut back a bit (or a lot) I can say, "Sure thing boss," and cut out all the stuff I didn't want anyway. I think I have a pretty good case, so I decided not to. If they don't like it, I will just have to stand my place and make it go through. After all, that's one of the reasons they want to promote me.

October 17, 2002 | 4:38 PM | Link | 0 comments

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.

Over the last several days I had made several failed attempts at purchasing tickets to the Electroclash Festival in Los Angeles. Every time my transaction was near complete (or even barely started) ticketmaster would find some way to fuck it up.

My first attempt seemed to be going fine. I searched ticketmaster for my show, entered how many tickets I wanted, and proceeded to set up a user account on ticketmaster.com. I chose a password, gave them my credit card number and address, and clicked submit. I was then greeted by a lovely Internal Server Error screen. I scream, as I have become accustomed to over the years of disservice ticketmaster has provided, and left my house to buy tickets at Tower Records.

Tower Records proved to be a bust since ticketmaster closes at 8:30—even though the system is computerized. "I'll try tomorrow," I tell myself.

My next attempt ended abruptly with ticketmaster's website failing to properly log me in. I screamed, closed my browser, and went to bed.

My last online attempt did not get very far either. I successfully logged in to ticketmaster.com, told it how many tickets I wanted, clicked submit, and was taken to a screen again asking me to create a ticketmaster.com account—which I had already done. I screamed and closed my browser, knowing that my experience would not get any better.

Today I went back to Tower Records. Waited in like for ticketmaster for about ten minutes as one customer took forever to decide on seats. Bought three tickets with an $8 service charge each, and left feeling dirtier than Christina Aguilera on a Santa Monica street corner.

Y'know, it's strange that a company so eager to pull money from any orifice it can fit its rotten fist in ($1.75 to print tickets on your own home printer) will make it so difficult to give them any.

October 15, 2002 | 2:52 PM | Link | 0 comments

Go to hell, DSL.

So, the DSL line at my house is down again. Of course SBC won't admit it's their problem. They also won't let us out of our contract.

"Is there anything we can do to make this better for you?"
"Yes, there is. Since you have failed to provide us the service we are paying for, you can let us out of the contract."
"I find your banter quite humorous, but seriously, is there anything we can do?

Pleasure there are things like this out there to cheer me up.

October 14, 2002 | 11:27 AM | Link | 0 comments

I'm weak, I tell you!

I spent the day at beautiful South Coast Plaza with my Dad and Stepmom. She was looking for a ballgown to wear to the ceremony in Stockholm where her father is to be given the Nobel Prize—big stuff. I separated from them for a bit with every intention to stick to my budget... until the good poeple at Prada told me that a new store in the mall carries the Gaultier Jean's line. At that point all bets were off.

I trekked on over to the other end of the mall in search of a store called Air de Paris (cheesy, I know). They had quite a large selection of Gaultier Jean's, all for about 50% off! I tried on many things and ended up with only one pair of pants and one shirt. I got them on major sale, but still spent a lot. Basically, I looked my budget in the eye and said "Go to Hell! I love you."

I guess I'll be buying one less item in New York. *sigh*

I met back up with my Dad and Stepmom to focus on their shopping, figuring it would help keep me from buying more. It did. I learned something my friend Lester has known for quite a while now. Watching people spend exorbitant amounts of money on clothes can be almost as exiting as buying for yourself. She ended up with a beautifully simple, elegant Giorgio Armani gown—and I got to hold it :-)

October 12, 2002 | 7:47 PM | Link | 0 comments

Fuzzy Peaches

Peaches is a raunchy electro-porn punk goddess, ungroomed in the most fashionable sense.

October 11, 2002 | 11:08 PM | Link | 0 comments

What's your secret?

I started out the morning wearing a cock strap, but now I'm wearing a bracelet... If my colleagues only knew.

October 11, 2002 | 10:39 AM | Link | 0 comments

Again? Yes Ma'am!

I'm re-laying out the aforementioned brochure again due to sudden changes in the way we present our products. Basically I have to build a brand new template for everyone to use. After I finish creating the template, I will use it myself to create this same brochure from scratch—again. Does this upset me? No. You see, I was just given som rather good news.

My supervisor told me she wants to promote me to Senior Designer, skipping the sophmoric Designer II title altogether. Turns out I've done a bang-up job this past year. It's a good thing somebody thought I was doing good, because it came as a complete surprise to me. I tend to have a bit of a complex when it comes to self-assessment.

At this point I shouldn't get overly-excited. It isn't 100% certain it will happen, but it's pretty likely since our Marketing Communications maganer is behind it too.

Yay!

October 10, 2002 | 3:11 PM | Link | 0 comments

Hardly working? Several hundred products,

Hardly working?

Several hundred products, comparative data, four different layouts designed just to get it all to fit into eight pages and still look good. To many companies, this would be a catalog. To me, it's just another brochure highlighting only 2% of our products.

I think I have another burn-out coming up quite soon.

October 10, 2002 | 10:56 AM | Link | 0 comments

Why?

I think I hit the snooze button seven times this morning. The last time was just for two extra minutes of sleep. Pathetic.

October 10, 2002 | 8:08 AM | Link | 0 comments

The constrains of time, money.

I'm attempting to abide by a possibly impossible budget so I'll have wads of cash to spend in New York City come April. The internet does not help. I surf around and am constantly bombarded by myriad precious extravagances. If it isn't eBay, it's Amazon, or Gaultier. I want to be good. I keep telling myself "You will enjoy spending in New York much more."

Maybe just being in New York is enough of a treat. Maybe life in San Diego is what really needs some sprucing up...

No, I'm afraid shopping for miscellanea will not make San Diego any more exciting.

October 9, 2002 | 6:36 PM | Link | 0 comments

Trauma (for a gay guy).

Never confuse .net with .com. A .net may be about music, while its .com counterpart is about shaved pussies.

October 9, 2002 | 2:38 PM | Link | 0 comments