babbling blue

Just some little tidbits to let you know I’m alive and still sporadically blogging.

Luciano Pavarotti died of cancer at the age of 71. He was one of the Three Tenors. This is sad news. There are now only two tenors: Placido Domingo and the other guy.

NFL Football starts this weekend. Go Pack!

I’m hot. My part of the office is not adequately air-conditioned. I had a desk fan but the cheap piece of shit stopped working a couple days ago. And do you think you can buy a fan this time of year? Well certainly not around here (the Loop). I’m fucked. Sweaty and fucked.

New iPods and an iPhone price drop. Neat, but I’m still not going to buy an iPhone. Probably not an iPod Touch either. It’s an ironic name since you can’t control it by touch like you can a classic iPod. Now I can just reach into my pocket and adjust the volume, pause or move to the next song by touch. The iPod Touch requires you to look. Perhaps it should be called the iPod Look.

The state government has still not given the CTA the money they are asking for. The fare increases and service cutbacks are 10 days away and counting. The measure has yet to pass a single house of the Legislature. And if it does, our illustrious governor has vowed to veto it. So either Governor Ratface has to get a clue or the Legislature has to pass it by enough votes to override his veto.

Updated 1:15pm: As it turns out, I did find a fan. I stopped into a Walgreen’s as I was passing by during my lunch break, and they had 6 fans! Not 6 models, mind you–6 actual fans. They now have 5 (or fewer). The new fan is bigger and noisier than the old one, but at least it moves air. We’ll see how long this one lasts. It seems I’m no longer sweaty & fucked.

Another jewel from Scott Adams’ Dilbert Blog.

I always wonder why people do research to discover the obvious. Now researchers have “discovered” that smart people have less intercourse than people of average intelligence.

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/intercourse-and-intelligence.php

One reason the dimwitted get so much action is that they tend to be more attractive than smart people. That’s not a coincidence. It’s genetics. Hot/dumb people are more likely to mate with other hot/dumb people and produce hot/dumb kids. Here’s a headline you’ll never see: “Nobel Prize winner for physics thanked his supermodel parents for all of their support.”

Seems to be about right to me…

I don’t talk about myself much on here. The main reason for this is that I’m a very private person. . . morbidly so. I don’t know why, really. I’ve just been this way as long as I can remember. I don’t really share my feelings and I don’t like people to know what I’m doing or watch what I’m doing, even when there’s nothing wrong (morally or legally) with what I’m doing. I suppose it ties in to a lack of self-confidence. I fear that I may be judged for doing something stupid or doing what I’m doing incorrectly. It’s weird and annoying to me. Sharing even this much about myself is difficult.

So I’m going to start expressing myself a bit more on here. I figure this blog is a pretty safe medium to start with, since not many people read it anyway.

It’s Monday. I so don’t feel like working today. Or doing anything else for that matter. Actually, sleeping sounds nice. I’d like to go back to bed. All the yawning I’m doing (and it’s after noon) seems to support that desire.

I’d write more, but I don’t feel like blogging either.

When we last saw our hero, Josh, he was in a hotel in Carmel, CA. We pick up his story there. . .

We awoke to a nice sunny morning on July 6th. We quickly got ready, crowded into the car and–after plugging our destination into Patty–headed out on the road again. After a short time on the road, we stopped at a gas station in Marina, CA to get gas and check on the tires. The tire pressure light had gone on earlier and our previous attempt to top off the tires didn’t turn it off. While we were there, we asked the cashier for a place to grab brunch, and she directed us to Denny’s. Not gourmet, but it did the trick. After brunch we hit the highway again for a scenic but foggy ride up Highway 1. We arrived in San Francisco in the middle of the afternoon and Patty guided us to our hotel (W San Francisco) without incident.

After getting settled in to the hotel, we decided to walk around and do some shopping (and get a happy hour cocktail at Azul). I purchased a new shirt and some shoes (on sale!) at Banana Republic. I had to escape the little sales associate who really wanted me to get a Banana Republic card that day. I tried to explain that the 15% off sounded swell, but I wanted to wait until I was spending more money to really take advantage of it. He didn’t seem to appreciate my point. Oh well.

Anyway, after shopping we hopped in a cab and headed up to the Castro (the gayest area in a gay city) to meet some friends (binx and huckie) for dinner. After checking out their place (looking good, guys!) we went to dinner at Nirvana. The food was good and I got to order a drink called “Tie Me to the Bedpost” from a cute waiter. Tee hee!

After dinner we hit the bars (hard). We started off at a place I can’t remember the name of, after which Huckie left us . Then we went to Moby Dick’s where my butt was grabbed by the Gorton’s fisherman. Finally we joined another local friend, evb, and went to The Cafe (aka Roscoe’s West) where we continued to drink and watch boys dance in their underwear. Some of them were even cute. Justin and Binx left and Chris, evb and I closed the bar and grabbed a slice of pizza before sloshing ourselves into a cab back for the hotel.

The next morning we went to brunch at Chevy’s (not so hot) and then were lazy for awhile. Chris and I saw “Live Free or Die Hard” while Justin shopped for Japanese soft porn (and did who knows what else). Mini movie review: It was good, if far-fetched and Mac guy was cute. For dinner we headed back up the Castro and wandered around a bit, eventually settling on Blue which I voted for purely based on its name. I had the chicken pot pie, and it was excellent. We then had a quick drink at The Bar on Castro and then met up with Binx and Huckie to go to a party some friends of theirs were having.

The party was full of people, many of whom were easy on the eyes. We stayed and socialized for awhile, and then headed out. . . but not before I got fondled and paddled and did a little paddling of my own (pants on. . . sorry to disappoint). Good times! For the record, I have no piercings anywhere.

The next morning we had a little time to kill, so we brunched at Mel’s Drive In then walked around downtown a bit. Finally, we packed up and got back into the car, bound for SFO. Our flight left on time and was pretty uneventful. There was a cute guy behind me/next to Justin, but he seemed to sleep most of the flight. We got home fairly late and waded through a puddle of water caused by our malfunctioning air conditioner. My cat meowed at me a lot, and then it was bed time for Joshie. I did not want to go to work on Monday, but I did and lived to tell about it.

I’m ready for my next vacation now.

Well, I am home from my vacation/road trip. It was fun and relaxing. I pretty much survived intact except for a sunburned nose and a sore back from lifting my heavy suitcase so many times.

I don’t really have any pictures from this trip. My digital camera was broke (actually, it suffered from a documented design flaw) and is currently out for repairs. If I had been a little more proactive in sending the thing in, I probably could have had it back in time. Oh well. I got a couple cell phone pictures, including the Hollywood sign.

This trip started with a flight to LA, a night in the W Hotel Westwood and a nice dinner at a new West Hollywood hot spot called One (suggested by someone at the hotel). The weather there was warm and sunny, and we enjoyed some time out in the W pool before dinner. We were all pretty tired, so after dinner we called it a night rather than going out on the town.

The next day (July 4th) we set out in our trusty Mustang convertible (after a breakfast at IHOP) for the metropolis of San Simeon, CA. We drove up the Pacific Coach Highway (Hwy 1) most of the way. It was scenic, and we only got a little lost. We had a navigation system–which we named Patty–but she wasn’t of much help here because (1) we took the scenic route, and she wanted us to go the fast way and (2) for some reason she got messed up and wanted to route us to San Simeon via LA, even when we were halfway between the two. Anyway, it was a bit of an adventure and we got a nice self-guided tour of the perimeter of Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc. Chris wanted to pop in for a visit at the prison, I think, but we did not have time for that.

We arrived in San Simeon a bit later than we expected, due to traffic coming out of LA and Malibu and getting a teensy bit lost. When we got there it was cold and foggy, so we bundled up and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant near our hotel. The service was terrible but the food was pretty good. There wasn’t anything to do around there, so we sat at one of the bonfires they had going on for July 4th and then retired to our room for the night.

The next morning (that of July 5th, for those playing along at home) we got up nice and early for breakfast at the hotel and then headed up to Hearst Castle. Briefly, Hearst Castle was built by publisher William Randolph Hearst in the 1920s-1940s. The main house is some 73,000 square feet and there are three large guest houses on the property as well. The castle was never really finished, since Hearst died before it could be completed and work stopped. The property now belongs to the state of California and is a state park. Hearst Castle is home to a priceless collection of art, since Hearst bought pieces from all over the world (though mostly from Europe, from what I saw) and the house is extremely ornate. The tour was fun and our tour guide was a sassy black woman originally from Chicago. The place is so big there are four separate tours (plus one at night) each about an hour and half long. It’s definitely worth seeing.

From there we weaved and winded our way further north up to Carmel, near Monterrey, CA. We stayed at a very nice resort (and golf club) called the Quail Lodge. Our room was huge and very nice and we had our own patio. We had lunch at the club house, then relaxed in the pool and hot tub. While I was reading on the patio a trio of friendly neighborhood ducks stopped in for a visit, and we socialized with them for a bit and gave them a little snack. Dinner that night was at a nice Italian place (Tutto Mondo) in Carmel. Then we watched “Caddyshack” on the large flat screen TV in our room. We thought it was appropriate, given both the time (”Caddyshack takes place on and around July 4th) and our surroundings.

(To be continued…)

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve blogged again. Bad Josh! Eh, who cares?

Anyway, I’m still alive and still blogging, when I get around to it. Summer is coming, so don’t expect me to spend too much time slaving away at the keyboard to update all 2-3 of you on the mundane details of my unexciting life! But then again, the presidential campaigns are under way, so I may need to get back into more political blogging. Time will tell.

As far as my life now, I’m still working and in class (stupid quarter system!). I had a neat experience recently that I plan to blog about soon, complete with (camera phone-quality) pictures. But not today.

The CTA went to it’s three-track system last month. To compensate for that, they added more buses to certain routes. That included the route I ride most often, 22-Clark. For a few weeks commuting was almost enjoyable. There were more buses which meant shorter waits and I was frequently able to get a seat. I stayed on the bus instead of switching to the train like I used to. For awhile, things were pretty good. (But only during rush hour. . . off hour commutes were still pretty pathetic.) I predicted early on that it wouldn’t last. The bean counters would see that the buses were no longer running at 110% of capacity and way behind schedule. They would realize they could save money by cutting back on the extra buses, resulting in service levels on those lines more like what they were before the 3-track cutover (service levels I would classify as POOR, by the way). And it seems that finally happened. Starting last week, I’ve had to wait longer for buses, both in the morning and evening and those buses have been much more full than they were. *Sigh* I miss the old days (well the recent old days) when I could get a seat on the bus and read my book.

This scaling back in service happened not long after a new person was put in charge of the CTA. I know people are (skeptically) hoping he will clean things up over there, but if what I’ve seen is a sign of things to come under his leadership, I’m not very optimistic.

Happy Friday the 13th!

So far (knock on wood. . . or I would if there was any in my office) I have been quite lucky. My quadmates at work are all off today, leaving me the quad to myself. Plus my boss is also out. I was able to get ready for work on time this morning (always a challenge). Then after a very short wait I caught a 36 bus, with empty seats! I usually end up taking the 22 bus, since there are more of them. But they drop me off almost 2 1/2 blocks father from work than the 36. Things are looking up!

Now I’m just waiting for something to go drastically wrong…

By the way, fear of the number 13 is called triskaidekaphobia.

I’ve finally been able to coax my kitty, Dusty, out of the closet. Now she’s demanding a Subaru and a mullet haircut. Anyway, here is the first picture of her I managed to take. It’s from a cell phone, so it’s blurry. But isn’t she a pretty kitty?

I’ll try to take a picture with a real camera soon.

I now have a cat. Her name is Dusty, but she seems to think it’s “Baby”. She’s pretty, but very shy. Once I’m able to get a picture of her I’ll post one on here.

Dusty is around 3 years old (I keep forgetting to ask her exact age) so she is a slightly used cat. But that’s OK.