Here We Go

We're moving. Just a few things to take care of before we go, like purge a whole house full of crap going back to when my grandmother still lived here, paint the entire house inside and out, clean up the yard, put in a heating/AC system, and maybe some light vacuuming.

I know it's going to be an ordeal, but I'm looking forward to the adventure we're about to begin. Maybe we'll live in a house where we're not just 10 feet away from our neighbors and in the summer with all the windows in the neighborhood open, won't hear everything going on all around us.

And maybe Ninja will feel at home amongst the moose - he's about the same size and would probably enjoy standing around in a pond for several hours. This morning he chewed something off of his paw/claw and moments later was hopping around the room, like he was trying to run away from whatever he found on his foot.

A few seconds later, he was foaming at the mouth and drooling. I pried open his gullet but didn't see anything. Then I looked at where he'd been on the floor. He must have stepped on a red pepper flake - we'd had pizza and a few of those suckers drifted onto the floor, what with all the fans going yesterday. Poor kid. If only we had some milk in the house...

Anyway, I digress, sort-of on purpose. It's going to be an interesting summer but also overwhelming at times. It's easier to think about the cat eating hot pepper flakes than think about all the packing we're about to do.

Wednesday Can Suck It

Eff you, piece-of-shit Wednesday and your crap ass antics. No one likes Wednesday - you're totally useless - just one more stupid day between the days that matter - Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Wednesday is a joke, and with stupid spelling to boot.

I figured you weren't going to be a great day, with David up at 3:30Am to head up to Vancouver. I was awake at 4AM wondering if I should get up or try to get back to sleep.

Opting for the latter, I laid awake pondering the potential changes to come, finally falling asleep about an hour later.

Up at 7 to feed the cats, I felt like crap, but at least I had some time to get caught up on things before heading up to Sonoma for a shoot.

I got in the car and began to pull away and realized something was very wrong. How I didn't see it when I walked out to the car is a mystery, but there was my right front tire, flat as pancake.

That would explain the low pressure it had a couple of days ago... Great. Now I'd definitely be late for my appointment and worse, would have to drive on that stupid donut until I could get to the tire shop.

Back into the house to change my clothes and get the latex gloves - maybe I could get it changed and make it up to Sonoma only a half hour late, which could work out OK since my client was running late.

Got the stupid thing changed, and once on the car, that donut really doesn't look at all safe to drive on. I decided Sonoma could wait. I drove, slowly, straight to the tire shop.

Thankfully they were able to fix it so I didn't have to pay for four new tires - and it only took them 90 minutes to do it. I was almost totally asleep in the shop when they finally came in to tell me it was ready.

Then at 3:30 I got to drive from Union City all the way to the Haight to take some pictures of a garden I didn't get yesterday because, between you and me, I didn't think it was worth the memory. I was wrong.

And now tomorrow I get to get up at the ass crack of dawn and shoot the job I had to cancel today, then race all the way back down to Milpenis for another job already booked. But, better to start early than finish late, right?

Crapatoa. Is it summer vacation yet?

Debating the Deranged

This weekend I went to a dinner party and while chewing a delicious bite of food, the person next to me asked me what I thought about gay marriage.

I told him I thought it was wonderful and long overdue. To that he said, "So you'd be OK with someone wanting to marry his dog?"

That wasn't the first time I'd heard that crock of shit. I'll never understand the ridiculous attempt to correlate two human beings wanting to marry one another with someone wanting to marry a pet. I politely said as much and to that he asked what I thought about polygamists. I said To each his own - it's none of my business.

There isn't anything new I can add to the argument supporting same-sex marriage. I want a free country where I'm free to live my life and other people are free to live theirs, though we seem to get farther and farther away from that ideal every day.

Same-sex marriage has absolutely no impact on my or anyone else's life except the two people who want to get married, so why does anyone else give half a shit whether they get married or not?

If your religion tells you it's wrong, that's your problem, end of story. But what I love about that is, Catholic priests have been molesting, raping and abusing kids for YEARS and they'll protect the perpetrators while being openly against same-sex marriage. Biggest crock of shit, EVER.

I'll never understand the opposition to something so fair and the almost total lack of evolved thinking. It's going to happen - it's simply a matter of time.

And I always have to wonder about those who are so publicly against it. I'm convinced they have stacks of gay porn strewn about 'in their closets' and under their beds. They're OK with taking it up the ass in private while the wife's out of town, but let a same-sex couple be a legal family? No way! Harder, Bob! More lube!

At any rate, someday maybe we can marry our pets, too. I've met many dogs who are finer people than most people.

Take Off, Hosehead

The universe is a strange, tricky lady. In the span of one week's time we went from David returning from 4 months overseas to him being laid off and now we're contemplating a move to Vancouver. Right now I'm just happy I can find my pants and put them on.

We're excited about the idea of relocating to the Great White North. Vancouver is a beautiful city - the clean, polite version of San Francisco with slightly better retail prices. Used to be a much bigger "discount," but that' OK - they make up for it with better manners.

We're not Bay Area haters by any means, but here's a list of things I wouldn't miss:

• The Eastbay Freeway
  
• Waiting in line for everything
• Gang-infested areas of Oakland
  
• Frank Sommerville
• The Nasty Nimitz
  
• Crapplebees et al
  
• Our shitty bitch neighbor
• Sourdough bread
• Hartzheim Dodge
• The South Bay
• Sacramento/the Central Valley
• Penngrove
• 580/101 construction nightmare
• Toyota Zone commercials
• The Raiders
• Crazy Neighbor Bob (who still hasn't left, even though the house has sold - INsane)
• Melpenis
• Bart
• Sirens
• Road rage
• Cherry bombs on 7/4

And here's what I would absolutely miss:

• My wonderful, terrific friends
• This incredible house
  
• Peet's Coffee
• New theaters right down the street
• Trader Joe's
• Encinal Market
• The SF skyline
• Louis' @ Ocean Beach
• North Beach Pizza
• Day trips to Sonoma
• Mill Valley's town square
• Highway 1
• Capitola
• Dave Morey & 10@10
• Dottie's True Blue Cafe

I'm sure there's more I would miss, but it seems manageable. It's a quick flight up & back.

George Lucas Sucks ASS

It shouldn't come as a big surprise, from the man who brought us the asinine Jar Jar Binks, that George would start a game company then put a bunch of no-talent ass clowns in charge of it.

After four months abroad working to successfully get a project back on track, a project that was derailed by ongoing miscommunication by the exec producers, David was laid off today. Along with about 99 other people. See Kotaku.com for more info.

He just returned last Friday and today they told him Thanks so much, Fuck Off. Though strangely, his boss called this morning to tell him that there would be a round of layoffs but claimed not to know if he would be included.

Not even an hour later someone from HR called to tell him that he was, in fact, laid off. And just two weeks after he received a glowing review with high praise for all his great work in the UK.

Later on we learned that one of David's teammates, an annoying, undermining piece of shit I'll call James, because that's his name, quit the company a week ago.

Jimmy-boy is a good buddy of the VP who reportedly put together the list of those to be laid off, so it would seem that the POS heard the news of what was coming and left before the clear cutting began.

Jimmy is also a good buddy of David's boss, the one who called this morning claiming not to know anything. Maybe he was trying to appear unaware of what was about to happen, when he was probably very aware and just such a self-serving piece-of-shit weasel he thought he could somehow appear innocent in the matter.

If it's always going to come down to who's willing to blow the most people to get ahead, why bother working to produce a quality product?

Why stand up for doing the right thing or have any integrity at all when all that really matters is how many knee pads you can wear out in the least amount of time? David's boss must have bone bruises on his knee caps by now.

You know what you end up with when you run a company like this? Just more no-talent ass clowns who only care about their own no-talent asses, who couldn't care less about doing the right thing by the project or the company.

Obviously I'm angry, but more so disappointed. We were both so excited when this opportunity came along, and David loved the work he was doing, despite the annoying hiccups along the way.

LucasArts used to have some cache in the industry, a place someone would be proud to put on their resume. Now they're just like any other ass-fucking corporation that couldn't care less about the people they hire to make them successful.

Fuck you, George, and your lame ass executives. I'm glad I booked a job instead of going to see your new movie and we're sure as shit not going to go see it now.

Update 6/11: Rumor has it a deal is in the works between LucasFarts and EA. Another game was just canceled, sending the developer into its own tailspin after staffing up to meet the redonkulous deadlines Lucas demanded.

Spielberg recently partnered with EA to ship something (I don't even know what it was it was so wildly successful) and he probably told Georgie to stop wasting money on his on IPs and just hand it all off to EA.

Those remaining report that it's just a matter of time before everyone is gone and Lucas is nothing more than a licensing company that works on one or two projects as a boutique shop. David's feeling like it was probably a good thing to get out when he did.