Holy shit, my boss's cel phone just rang and it plays Cheeseburger in Paradise.

My boss bought my lunch today for no apparent reason.


I found two boxes of 120 film for my Holga for $5 each.
They retail for $21 a box!

our building shares a yard with a bicycle repair shop.
when i was locking my bike up today, a little old man in a wheelchair rolled himself into the yard, raised himself slowly out of the chair, actively ignored an offer of help, pumped up the tyres of his wheelchair, sat down, and wheeled himself away.

Two of the highlights from my day:

Waking up and realizing that I had a dream about Matthew Barney,
replete with obscure symbolism, vaseline, bees, death metal,
guys in kilts, guys in masonic aprons, and Barney himself. It
was weird. It sounded fantastic and had excellent production
values, but alas, no opportunity for sex with Bjork.

Leaving my apartment to find that my doormat was gone. On further
investigation, it was revealed ALL the doormats in my building were gone.
Except for the super's...hmmm.

The procession of songs (in order) on the radio during the drive home from work, though various oldies and classic rock stations, with no real breaks during the changing of the dial, with no more than a couple seconds missing from each song:

Paul McCartney-"Jet"
Looking Glass-"Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)"
Eddie Floyd-"Knock on Wood"
Gladys Knight and the Pips-"Midnight Train to Georgia"
XTC-"Senses Working Overtime"
Otis Redding-"Sitting on the Dock of the Bay"
Stevie Wonder-""Yesterme Yesteryou Yesterday"

I don't see it ever getting better than that.

(Background: The company, 'A', that I work for was not too long ago purchased by another company, 'B'. Company 'B' has only guaranteed our IT jobs until January 2007. They may or may not decide to actually keep us on permanently, but the decision has yet to be made. A select few people have on an individual basis already been offered permanent positions with company 'B'.)

One particularly smug prick of a VP of whatever recently got the nod and was hired full-time to company 'B' to be VP of some other thing. He sent an elaborate self-congratulatory e-mail out to EVERYONE, saying how he'd gotten the new position, and he couldn't wait to tackle the new opportunities there, went into lengthy and vivid detail about what his new duties & responsibilites will be, and by the end of the e-mail you could see that he'd already updated his e-mail 'signature' with the 'B' company logo and his new title, etc.

So I'm thinking "What an asshole. Consider your fucking audience, you douchebag - we're all here in limbo, and you're bragging up your new job and rubbing it in the face of everyone?" (Like I said, this e-mail wasn't just to his peers, or to managers/directors only, or just to people under his pyramid to say goodbye, etc. - this went to everybody on down to "associate programmers", etc.)

A sudden flash of inspiration comes over me: I hit the "REPLY-ALL WITH HISTORY" feature and shoot back with my one word reply: "unsubscribe"

I'm alternating now between "he's too ignorant to get it" vs. "maybe that was a nice li'l zinger"

I'm in Edinburgh for the weekend to see my parents. Last night my girlfriend and I went out to meet some friends in a pub in one of the posher parts of town. It was a crappy pub and had the worst live music ever - total amateur hour covers of The Verve, U2, Stones, Beatles and Primal Scream played on acoustic guitar and tambourine, played through a giant PA at an oppressively loud volume that made conversation nigh impossible. At one point the TV was showing a trailer for a boxing match on Sky. The shots of a man being repeatedly punched hard in the face complemented the music perfectly.

Shortly after this, we witnessed a fist fight between two girls over a game of pool. One girl, who was inadvisably wearing white hotpants, had been on the table all night and refused to let anyone else play, and another girl had been waiting for over an hour. Discussions got rather heated, and the table-hogger started hair-pulling and trying to punch the other girl in the stomach. The victim's boyfriend bravely jumped in between the two girls and received a punch or two for his troubles, while the aggressor's boyfriend, a lanky dickhead wearing a number of sweatbands and a U2 tour t-shirt, stood by and watched without doing anything. He had previously been talking to the band - presumably about their interpretation of 'Where The Streets Have No Name'.

Anyway, hotpants and dickhead were swiftly chucked out of the pub, and the other girl and her boyfriend got the use of the pool table for the rest of the night, and also a couple of quid that the previous couple had left on the table as part of their monopolisation strategy.

I just read these two letters in the Yorkshire Evening Post and I really don't know what to make of them.

Scooter rider's foolishness

People with disabled scooters often drive on the road because the footpath flagstones are too high to get the wheels up.
But this lady driving a disabled scooter had an umbrella fully open to keep her dry. She looked just like Mary Poppins with one hand holding up her umbrella and the other hand on the steering bar.
I don't know what she would have done if she had had to stop quickly. She would stand no chance.
I hope she reads this and twigs just how foolishly she has acted.

NORMAN RICHARDSON, Swarcliffe, Leeds

It is with sadness that I write to you today enclosing the last letter my brother-in-law Norman wrote about his points of view before he was taken ill.
Sadly he passed away on Monday June 19 in St James's Hospital. He had written this letter the week before and I knew he would like it to be sent.
Over the past few years he has had quite a lot printed and his wife has saved all the clippings from the newspapers.
I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read and print his points of view over the years.
He always felt very proud to have them printed. Thanks again.

MRS SUSAN BLACKMAN (sister-in-law)

I walked from my apartment in Camden to an art shop in Soho, brought some prepped canvas and paints and walked home.

In the way I listened to Unsung, the Best of Helmet, on the way back I listened to Brasilian singer Cibelle and brought some Guaraná Antarctica at the Brasilian cafe down the street from my apartment.

Now I'm going to start setting up a painting.

Bliss.

someone is soundchecking not far from here, for a concert tonight, i presume. the music band will play "love grows where my rosemary goes" or whatever it's called, because they've been playing that song constantly for an hour and a half.
i shall go into the next room and turn up the stereo. that'll learn them.