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Hi.
This is my old weblog archive and is no longer actively updated. Please visit this link for my current blog.
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Michael's Diary -- 2001-2003 Archive
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1.26.2002
Sorry there have been no updates the last few days. Been very busy, and what a blessed relief!
Yesterday I took possession of the Geekmobile. I am in love with this incredibly spacious, zippy little vehicle. My new boss, the company's owner, whom I shall refer to as the Chief Inspector, came to town to train me on the amazing systems involved. As I said to him, the elegant simplicity of the system has restored my faith in the Internet. Years ago when the 'net was first "happening" in the public consciousness, I had an altruistic notion that this, finally, would be the breakthrough in human communication that we've been waiting for. Everyone could talk to anyone anywhere, distances between people would disappear, etc. While this vision occasionally seems to come true, more often, people seem to use the Internet to talk a bunch of crap. Any asshole with an opinion feels somehow validated by being able to proclaim it to the masses -- all too often under a veil of anonymity. Anyway, my first impressions of the new job are -- it rocks. The processes rock, the services rock. (And I will rock.) The Internet makes it all possible in several top-secret but incredibly cool ways. Basically, I can handle the entire job off my company-issued cellular phone.
I will necessarily be somewhat circumspect discussing work issues in this forum. I can't discuss clients, of course, and it would be inapproprite to describe in any way the inner workings of the Geek Squad -- that's the Chief Inspector's job when and if he sees fit. I will probably speak in terms of good and bad days and be a little vague. This is of necessity and if you have a problem with it please visit the guestbook or email me.
I will say this. The Chief Inspector has more energy than thirty nuclear bombs and seems to have a hard-wired, high-speed connection to the world of ideas. I'll enjoy working for this man.
So, the Beetle has been acquired and is awesome. Slight glitches with the custom paint job and logo applications which will be remedied Monday morning as soon as the body shop opens up.
A dinner out last night with friends at a not-very-good Mexican restaurant where the specialty seems to be incredibly bad service and smoking, smoldering fajitas. Toward the end of our meal the waiter came running past our table with a fajita platter positively bellowing smoke, which we inhaled and all began coughing violently. My glasses were coated with a mico-mist of grease. It was absurd and the food was nondescript at best. Oh well, it's the wonderful Brauhuas tonight. And then the diet & exercise program I have planned for Monday.
6:40 PM
1.24.2002
My first day on the new job. Details to follow. VW to follow too, tomorrow.
7:19 AM
1.22.2002
Yesterday was one of those "gnawing little headache" kind of days. Sunday night, I just wasn't able to sleep. We were pretty much lumps all day on Sunday with nothing really to report -- we just sort of hung out. I watched a Kurosawa flick (Drunken Angel). I just love watching Kurosawa pictures. Sometimes I doubt myself and wonder if what I enjoy is the exotic otherworldiness of Kurosawa's postwar or post-feudal Japan. This was a criticism levelled against many who lionized Rashomon, the film which first placed Kurosawa on the international stage (and a new DVD of which is being released in a new print by the excellent Criterion Collection this spring). Although it was shown at a film festival in 1950 -- Venice, I think, but I'm not sure -- to great acclaim, many dismissed the acclaim it received, ascribing it to a fascination with the exotic. Surprisingly, many of those who took this tack were Kurosawa's own countrymen, who found it hard to imagine that foreigners could really understand what was happening in the movie.
But proceeding from that line of thought, as I questioned my enjoyment I found that it is the universality and raw humanity of Kurosawa's work which I admire and which I enjoy and which spoke to those festival-goers in 1950. That raw humanity is so often channelled by those great regulars of Kurosawa's, Takashi Shimura and of course, Toshiro Mifune. (Drunken Angel was Mifune's first major screen role). They're wonderful actors and Kurosawa, who so often directed his own scripts, knew what he was going for quite exactly. And his visual choices are like picture-puzzles at times -- they seem to be quite mundane until you look at them almost out of the corner of your eye, and then what he's trying to achieve with a particular composition strikes you. High and Low, a favorite of mine, has this characteristic in abundance.
Later, I couldn't sleep so I surfed the web for hours, finally forcing myself to get into bed at 3 a.m. . . . and then I spent the next 90 minutes tossing and turning. G's alarm clock goes off around 5:15 so I kind of woke up then and stayed kind of awake and groggy until she split for work, then I slept for a couple of more hours. Finally got up, late, with a headache, feeling groggy. I didn't want to nap though -- let me rephrase that -- I DID want to nap because I felt so shitty, but I decided not to because I would be assured of being able to get to sleep early tonight. I have been on the "bad sleep cycle" -- the stay up late at night, sleep too late in the morning cycle that's hard to break, and needs to be broken. So yesterday was kind of a blessing and I slept early and heartily and feel fine today.
Despite feeling crappy, I got a lot done yesterday. Ordered and purchased all my standard-issue Geek Squad shirts, black slacks and white socks. Found out that my new boss and the VW will be arriving on Thursday. Got access to the company website and spent some time reviewing policies and procedures. Very cool, top-secret stuff. Filled out all that tedious HR paperwork that's always required on a new job.
Today, laundry, a trip to the hardware store and fish market, and some more work reading, and then more laundry. I can't wait to not be a housewife anymore.
11:03 AM
1.20.2002
No posting yesterday. Sorry. I was gonna do it late night, but I was tired and in a grouchy mood.
Friday night G and I enjoyed the beautiful Jean Cocteau film Beauty and the Beast at the Cultural Center. There is a giant stained-glass rotunda there that alone is worth a visit. Somehow we missed the Tiffany dome, a structure which may be familiar to those of you who have seen The Untouchables (the Cultural Center stood in for the hallway outside the courtroom where Ness confronts Frank Nitti). Maybe next visit.
Afterwards a quite nice meal at Bistrot Margot, a nice, busy little approximation of a French bistro. Good food, reasonably priced, and some excellent red wine to match.
Yesterday up at 9:30 or so, and a little housecleaning before heading off to a really nice brewpub/pizza place called Piece. They claim to make "New Haven Style" pizza, as if that was a stylistic school of pizza creation like Chicago and New York. In my investigations of this on my last visit to New Haven, I found that this was not so. Two different pizza places yielded two strikingly different pizza slices -- neither of which was quite like the pizza served at Piece. However, in some interviews the owner of Piece has specified one particular New Haven pizzeria (Sally's) as his inspiration. Anyway, it's good stuff, not as good as New York Pizza, the best in town for my money. And, they brew some very good ale.
We watched the Bears embarass themselves out of the season. McNabb's game plan: run around in the pocket like a crazy man because the huge loads on the Bears' D can't move fast enough to getcha. Seems to have worked.
Then home, early, feeling kind of grouchy, to not do too much except lie around. Watched my first episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. Thought it was only so-so. Scott Bakula didn't entirely convince as captain -- he seems to have on facial expression only -- and they slavishly follow the tired formula of latter-day Star Trek series too much (main storyline intercut with silly/funny human-interest subplot, like clockwork). I'm sure hard core Trekkies (oops, sorry, "Trekkers") enjoy it. But ugh, what a horrible theme song, written by Jennifer Warnes, I think. So bad it's scary -- one of those aching power-ballad glory tunes sung by some faux-macho schmoe studio guy. Really out of place for a Trek series.
Today, slept in, way in. Had some eggs & bacon and while G studies I'm off to a friend's to hang out.
2:52 PM
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