so i was supposed to go get dinner with gundam tonight but he is sick. that is no good. feel better soon, gundawg!

i would like to take a moment to counterpounce deebeebutt.

i’m heading into times square later this evening to go see akira with spencer and MrTails and such and whatnot. it should be really cool; i haven’t seen that movie in a long time and i’ve never seen it in the theatre. this theatre’s a really good one, too.

i have these pringles that claim to be ranch-rageous. i disputed this claim to rstevens but he has chosen to back up the ranch-rageousness. well, we’ll just see about that, robotpants.

i started work today on the design i’m working on for hot soup and i’m really enjoying it; i’m working on redesigning caoine, also. the new g4 is so fucking speedy that it’s positively a joy to work on. yay oscar!

i watched fear and loathing in las vegas this morning. such a good movie. my mother didn’t like it, of course - she watched part of it while i was visiting and kept complaining about how it wasn’t anything like the real early seventies and she lived through it so she should know, etc etc. whatever. johnny depp does an incredible hunter s thompson; i was sort of skeptical before i saw it the first time since that not really his typical role but he pulls it off really well. the one i’ve been watching is actually gundam’s copy. i wonder when he is planning on taking it back, hee.

i was talking to some people today about jolt and somehow the conversation turned to the effects of caffeine on your system; turns out it lowers fertility and increases sex drive, which sort of explains a lot. the lethal dosage is around ten grams. that’s quite a bit, and it’s even higher if you regularly consume as much of it as i do. a 20 ounce bottle of jolt contains about 120 mgs of caffeine, for example. a can of mountain dew has only 55.5. anyway. rar.

i just watched american buffalo again. movie version of a david mamet play i did a set design for at nyu last year. it’s always interesting to see someone else’s interpretation of something i’ve designed and see how they’re similar and different. i think i’m on a mamet kick again, i’m probably going to dig out some of his stuff and read it tonight. i really like how he does dialogue.

my heater’s been acting up. it’s steam heat, and it’s always been sort of erratic but lately my radiators are making these sort of alarming clanging noises and occasionally spewing rusty water onto my floor. i find it disturbing. also it’s quite loud, the sound kept creeping into my dreams last night and woke me up a couple of times. it’s mostly subsided for the moment but i don’t know if it will stay so.

tomorrow i’m going to go see that new digital version of akira in times square with spencer and mrtails and whomever else, so that should be entertaining. right now i’m entirely too sober, however. hopefully this will change soon.

so i’m back from visiting my parents. it was sort of stressful, but then familial visitations usually are. my mother appears to have come home from her trip with some sort of tahitian parasite, so she wasn’t terribly active. there was a lot of reading. a lot of movie watching. some visiting of my grandparents. thrilling, yes.

so i have my new g4! it’s sexy as hell. gundam messaged me on friday morning to let me know it had shown up at his office, which is where i had it delivered as i can’t really have stuff shipped here. their mac guy was drooling over it. so i took the train over to the office and gundam and sam helped me get the monitor box and the g4 box into a cab, though the monitor box was fucking huge and we barely fit it in the trunk. it was even more of a bitch getting the damn thing up my stairs to my apartment. it’s all set up though and gorgeous and delish and i am in the process of getting mac os x running on it. its name is oscar, after wilde and the grouch.

i’m going to be starting a new project with hot soup and safety monkey soon which i’m really looking forward to; it’s looking to be right up there with the penny arcade redesign in terms of being wicked fun to work on. a new illustration soup showed me today made me realize all over again how much i like his art. it’s good stuff.

a book recommendation: david foster wallace’s brief interviews with hideous men. i bought this to read on the train, since i loved dfw’s novel infinite jest. hideous men is a collection of his short work and it’s as much a joy to read as infinite jest was. there’s something really appealing about dfw’s prose; there’s a sense that he knows exactly what he’s doing that i like very much. plus also his vocabulary is fucking delicious.

oof. i am full of garlic bread at the moment. i think i will go read some more.

i am in boston. back tuesday.

db_ is tasty, although he seems to be in denial about this. someone back me up here.

so i’m going to boston this weekend, i guess. i’m leaving saturday and coming back tuesday. i’m less thrilled than i was a few days ago but i suppose it could be good. change of scene, etc etc. i may or may not have time to meet up with der jons while i am there, but there are noises about him visiting me again here soon which would be positively scrumptious.

i am off to go read in bed i think. it is mighty chilly here today and my bed is the warmest place in my apartment. ta.

i headed into the city last night for belgian fries at this place on 4th st and 6th ave with spencer and gundam, but gundam never showed because he is a lerf and also because he hates me. I KID! but the fries were yummy, gundam, it’s too bad you got eaten by queens.

i bonded with thegreg tonight. we watched frasier and ate gelato. well actually no, we didn’t eat gelato. but it’s the thought that counts. also we weren’t actually watching frasier on the same tv, it was more like we both happened to be watching it at the same time while being in #penny-arcade [on irc.penny-arcade.com! go there now!] at the same time. but still, bonding! not bondage. get your mind out of the gutter.

i have been talking muchly with rstevens of dieselsweeties; we are both quite excited [in every sense of the word] by the rapidly approaching release of mac os x. this saturday, in fact! installfest at emma’s! although i am still waiting for my new g4. in any case, succumb to my jedi mind trick!

it was gorgeous here today, if maybe a little too bright and a little too windy. i was feeling sort of cooped up so i popped some painkillers for the foot and headed out. i took the train to sheepshead bay, which is sort of an interesting neighborhood actually. it’s not far from me at all but i haven’t really explored it at all except for the time jim and i attempted to go to the staples near there and got horribly lost and cold and such. but it’s visually pretty interesting; it reminds me of a jet grind radio level or something, with really narrow crowded streets and the subway tracks above.

i wandered around and found somewhere to have lunch, and spent an hour or so in this little restaurant munching and rereading neuromancer. then i took the train back to brighton beach and walked down by the water for a bit. it was nice to get out.

i’m actually looking forward to going to boston within the next few days; i haven’t bought my tickets yet but it will probably be sometime mid-to-late week. it’ll be good to see my dad and everything, and also jons, who is the cutest ever. plus i sort of miss the boston/cambridge area, and since there’s no specific time i have to be back i can actually spend some time there for once.

i’m supposed to meet up with spencer and gundam tomorrow evening after they get off work for belgian fries at this place in the village, but i think before that i might head over to chinatown and see if i can’t find that thai red bull. also i just really like that neighborhood and i haven’t been there since spencer and i went over the summer.

and now i think i might go to bed even though it’s sort of early.

i appear to have broken my toe again. i fell down the stairs. heh, i feel like such a goof. this is the same one i broke years ago playing soccer. it’s not a big deal but it does hurt and it means i’m not up for dancing tonight. probably a good thing anyway, because not going out means i’ll save money and have a chance of being productive tomorrow.

this whole unemployment thing is very strange. the days sort of blend together. i haven’t had that happen since the summer vacation after my senior year in high school, which would have been summer of 1999. that was the last real vacation i had, actually, if you don’t include spring break at nyu the following year. i worked all through last summer, and i never did take more than two of my vacation days, which i used to give myself a four day weekend over christmas.

things i don’t miss: my fucking cunt of a boss; the vice president. quite probably the most vile human being i’ve ever met in my life. both stupid and malicious, which is bad enough, except that she’s also in a position of relative authority. the only person above her in the company is the ceo, who is just as bad but who at least is never at the office. i also don’t miss getting up at six, but that really wasn’t so bad. i don’t miss not having time to work on my own sites, and i don’t miss never getting enough sleep. i feel perfectly healthy for the first time in months - i don’t even think i realized while i was working how run down i was getting. i don’t miss meetings. i don’t miss being treated like a fucking mcdonald’s worker despite being the senior designer on staff.

that said, i’ve had my vacation and i’ve definitely got the itch to start working again. i like having somewhere to go every day, something to accomplish. i like being challenged. i like geting paid. for now i’m doing personal projects, which is all well and good, but it’s not the same at all.

i’ve been missing my father a lot lately. i think he and i got a little closer while my mother was away, and i haven’t seen him at all since christmas. we’re both terrible about calling, although i’m probably worse than he is. my dad is one of the few people for whom i have an unqualified admiration, and i’m feeling rather keenly the lack of contact we’ve had since i moved out. he’s an amazing man, and i probably don’t tell him that nearly enough.

my dad’s one of the few people with whom i don’t have that feeling of needing to seem tough, although that doesn’t strike me as quite the word. more like i’m not comfortable showing vulnerabiltiy around very many people, but with him i don’t mind. i mean, he’s my dad. he’s always supported me in everything i’ve chosen to do, even when he didn’t really agree with it. he doesn’t understand what i do for a living, having never used a computer in his life, but he understands that i love what i do and that’s enough for him. and that’s not a quality i take for granted.

anyway. i’m all mushy now. i’m going to go take a shower.

stayed up till four last night playing jet grind radio, heh. i am silly. but it’s so fun!

i called my mother earlier. she’s back from tahiti and wants me to go visit, which i suppose i will do sometime next week. i don’t really want to go to massachusetts right now but i guess i’ll deal. plus i’ll have a chance to see jons again, which will be great. he’s absolutely adorable and i miss him muchly. he has these incredible eyes, you know.

i avoided grocery shopping again today. i was feeling lazy. i suppose i’ll go tomorrow; there’s really nothing to cook with and i’m sick of ordering out. the grocery store in this neighborhood is sort of skeezy though. i miss the one in my old ‘hood - but then i miss that area in general. brooklyn doesn’t really compete with union square.

i think i’ll go to bed.

i played a lot of jet grind radio today. that game rox my sox. the soundtrack is fantastic, the visuals stunning. and there’s just something about getting beaten to death by a bunch of cartoon cops, you know? anyway, if you have a dreamcast [and why the hell wouldn't you], i highly recommend you check it out. i’m going to go play some more in a few, actually.

i cleaned out some two thousand messages from my inbox today, so don’t be terribly surprised if you got a reply to mail you sent me a month or two ago. i’m awful at returning email, it’s true. i’m going to try to be better about it, though, i promise. i’ve got my inbox down to thirteen messages which is, i have to say, a vast improvement.

i spoke to rstevens of dieselsweeties for a while today, and i have to say he’s damn snazzy. also crazysexycool. plus his strip is one of my absolute favorites; i mean, it has robots, it has pr0n, it has ravers. what more could a girl ask for?

i would just like to say, hot_soup, that those aren’t penguin mints.