Welcome to the Big Blue Bus -- now get off.

More like the Big Blue Rip-Off.

Being the concerned citizen I am, I took Santa Monica's transit system to the 3rd Street Promenade rather than taking my car. Little did I know that the last bus of the night leaves the area at 10:30 p.m. and doesn't go all the way back to Westwood. So I ended up walking a mile home. Three girls on the bus were equally surprised and yelled "I don't like you!" as the driver kicked us all off.

Anyway, it occurred to me on the walk home that there ought to be some formula for calculating the relative costs of mass transit (for the consumer) and private vehicles. I mean, my car payment, insurance and registration are fixed costs that call for maximizing vehicle usage. The question is, what are the additive costs of parking, gasoline, maintenance and hit on resale value? It's an easier case in place such as San Francisco, where parking is expensive and exasperating. And of course, as the MasterCard commercials would say, you can't put a price on not having to fit your schedule and itinerary around a bus route or mixing it up with the borderline-demented who find their way onto public transportation. I guess this is why I didn't major in math.

When technology goes bad

My roommate bought an electronic hampster today that shadow-boxes and sings the Rocky theme in a high voice. It wasn't a gift -- he bought it for himself.

Another fascinating story in IBD...

Instant Message Firms Wooing Businesses

It's my first real tech story for IBD. I'll be doing about one a week from here on out.

Back to work

The weekend was pretty fun. Andrea and I got to see a lot of our old work friends at a Haloween party and spent some time with Sarah and Geoff and their very cool new place in San Francisco.

It sounds like Andrea didn't get the job she interviewed for here. I think she was at an inherent disadvantage not living here, but to her credit, she was one of four finalists for the position. And it wasn't clear if they just couldn't afford her. The chain, like many Southern Calif. second-tier chains, is notoriously cheap.

Arrrgh!

It looks like Blogger Pro, the service I pay good money to, is eating my entries AGAIN. Anyway, I just wrote a rambling piece on my weekend. Update: the original post is above.

I want this.

.

D-Link wireless Ethernet bridge

I guess I don't really *need* it, but this really would have come in handy in San Jose when I had to string 30 feet of Ethernet cable across my apartment to hook my ReplayTV into the router. It basically makes anything with an Ethernet port able to connect to your wireless network.

Update...

Wow, it's been more than a week since my last update. I'm flying up to San Jose tomorrow to see Andrea and attend the big Halloween party on Saturday. Weekends seem so short when I travel. Last weekend was pretty fun, too. I hung out at Disneyland with Chad and Susan, and they came up to L.A. the next day to see "Punch Drunk Love" with me in Santa Monica. An odd, wonderful little movie.

Andrea finds out tomorrow whether she'll get a job offer from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune chain. I hope she gets the offer, but I'm not sure whether they'll pay her enough to make the move worthwhile.

My first real tech story should appear in Investor's Business Daily sometime in the next couple of days. It's about instant messaging in the workplace and whatnot.

Awwww, yeah....

Act Of War Hit Close To Home For Tech Firm

I guess I'll have to try them.

Actual quote from one of my roommates:

"Have you tried Fuji apples? They're the thinking man's apple."

Alternative Chains Close Papers In LA, Cleveland

Bummer, I really liked New Times. I guess I'll have to read the Phoenix edition online.

Another weekend, another move

I spent the weekend helping Andrea move into her new place. Did I mention that I hate hate HATE moving? And this weekend I get to help Chad and Susan move into their own place.

I really need to buy a house, just so I don't have to move anymore.

Coyote vs Acme

It's about time someone filed this lawsuit.

News flash!

Be sure to pick up a copy of Thursday's Investor's Business Daily. I hear there's a really cool story on page A7.

Plan B

Well it turns out Andrea has to work this weekend, so I don't get to see her. Unfortunately, they also have working the night shift more often, which can't be healthy. She sounds very tired when she calls and had an intense headache when she called this afternoon.

In other news, the Business Journal call us deperately asking for a tape of the video presentation we did last year. We're going to offer to create another copy, but charge them market rate for our time, which isn't cheap. Ah yeah....

I'm driving to Orange County tomorrow to visit Chad. We're not quite sure what the plan is, but I may end up getting my yearly Disneyland pass this month instead of next month as planned. That means I'll have to delay getting this way cool MP3 player.

One more thing...

I almost forgot: Andrea's coming this weekend! Her Brazilian friend is moving to Orange County, so she's catching a ride.

An LA moment

As I was walking through Westwood tonight to grab some basil from the grocery story and look at the cool new MuVo MP3 player at Circuit City, I passed a red-carpet Hollywood premier event for the new movie "Four Feathers." Tonight's newscast said Britney Spears showed up, but alas, I missed her.

Life in the fast lane.

Ah, it's so nice to have broadband again. Verizon may change my mostly negative view of DSL. They use a technology in which the modem connects directly into the service as if it were a persistent network -- no dial-in, passwords, PPoE, etc. Just plug and play. And it seems much faster than my San Jose service, too.

Speaking of San Jose, I visited Andrea this weekend. We went to San Francisco and took the ferry to a cute little town called Tiberon, where we ate lunch. We also had a fun dinner with our friends Sarah and Geoff. We did a make-your-own pizza and traded our creations amongst each other. At any rate, it was nice to catch up. And in the highlight of the evening, Andrea made one of the best chocolate mousses I've ever had. If I had known she was capable of this, believe me, I would have dated her much sooner.

Stop the presses

One of the section editors said that he's sending me a couple of story assignments, so I should have some bylined work to show soon.

With this being my first weekend alone and completely moved in, I’m finally getting a chance to do a more personal blog entry. My DSL still isn’t on, but at I do have an installation date (Sept. 12), so updates should reach their usual frequency soon. [Update: they turned on my DSL today.]

Anyway, things are going pretty well here. I’m really enjoying my living situation in West L.A.. Geographically speaking, my home is close to Westwood Village, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Beverly Hills and Hollywood. More significant, I’ve always wanted to live somewhere that has everything within walking distance, and Westwood Village comes pretty close to that ideal. All of my favorite fast-food and casual-dining chains are in the area, along with a large grocery store, two electronics retailers and my favorite no-cost weekend haunt, Borders Books (that’s where I’m writing from now) and at least five movie theaters. The grocery store is a little pricey -- it has a captive audience of dorm-bound UCLA students -- but Safeway-owned Vons just started online delivery, which is a little cheaper, not counting delivery. If I have to pay a premium, I might as well have it delivered. The area does lack a Fry’s Electronics, however, and the nearest one is a 45-minute drive. Once you’ve adapted to Fry’s, Best Buy seems a little too much like Sears’ electronics department. Speaking of Fry’s, the one here is themed like a 1950s alien drive-in B movie, complete with a flying saucer crashed into the front of the building, huge mothership on the inside and army jeeps melted in half, presumably by some sort of death ray. Very cool.

My new job is OK. The people there are smart, funny and nice. The work is a little less challenging than I had hoped, but my immediate boss has given the nod for other editors to assign me some real stories. So here’s hoping to get my first national print byline soon…

I haven’t purchased my annual pass for Disneyland yet, and since I’ll be out of town two out of the next three weekends, I may wait until October. I hear they re-make the haunted mansion into a “Nightmare Before Christmas” theme for Halloween. Chad and Susan got theirs the first day they were both out here. It actually makes more sense when you live in Orange County, though a co-worker says that getting the pass is mandatory for all Southern California residents.

Andrea’s situation is still up in the air. She isn’t being used anywhere near her full potential, and based on the experiences of co-workers, there’s little chance of her getting a full time position there anytime soon. But even that could be a good thing; it gives her an incentive to move down here. The job situation doesn’t look good in either location for graphic designers, and I’m not familiar enough with the industry to give her any useful advice. UCLA offers a graphic design certification program, and that could provide good job contacts.

As Andrea would say, aye aye aye!

Orange alert! Orange alert!

Terrorist risk level raised to ‘high’